"Plus, I resented having to stretch a canvas over a frame, and I never liked the smell of oils and turpentine. I had lost patience with painting... In the mid-1980s, the art world was still wallowing in German neo-expressionism—large paintings with raw, overdramatic brushwork—whereas I was drawn toward Dada’s countercultural tendencies... It was at this point that I put on my first solo exhibition, Old Shoes, Safe Sex... One solitary review in Artspeak described it as 'such a neo-Dadaist knockout... Duchamp would have enjoyed these tributes....'... Around this same time, a couple of pictures of mine were part of a group exhibition in the East Village. When the show closed, rather than take the pictures home with me, I just chucked them into a dumpster. Dumpsters are everywhere in the streets of New York City, and you could probably find a number of masterpieces in them. I must have moved about ten times during my years in New York, and artworks were the first things I threw away. I had pride in these works, of course, but once I’d finished them, my friendship with them had ended. I didn’t owe them and they didn’t owe me, and I would have been more embarrassed to see them again than I would have been to run into an old lover."
From "1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows" by Ai Weiwei.
As someone who studied painting and made a lot of paintings, I completely identify with the line "I resented having to stretch a canvas over a frame," the dread of yourself in the future in a room crammed with your own unloved pictures, and the desire to trash them all quickly, and thank God for dumpsters.
ADDED: It's interesting that he wrote "I didn’t owe them and they didn’t owe me" and not "I didn’t own them and they didn’t own me." That is, he wrote something that was translated that way. Anyway, it's about relationships, not property.
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We used to write bad music on paper before we threw it away. You can look at Beethoven's scores and see him thinking and editing his work on the fly, because the paper was too dear to discard.
Now we don't even delete the file.
It just sits there until the hard drive is crushed in some recycler.
I haven’t really read the Ai Weiwei posts thoroughly.
I always hear Ai and think: female ~
I will educate myself now
I think I saw him interviewed before- maybe on 60minutes? Interesting work.
Detachment is a key step to the so-called enlightenment. I've made about 100 paintings, most of them carefully packed away. I got tired of turpentine and mineral spirits. Started acrylics last year.
My late art teacher said it was important to draw and paint everyday and throw most of it away. Since I am a dilettante, I keep all my stuff.
My sister is very artistic- into watercolor and pen&ink. She keeps such orderly journaling- I’m a sprawling ADHD artist if I take the time. She loses herself for hours- I listen to podcasts, interviews and blogging heads… and think. Usually along w/the speakers!! Interjection and laughter my medium lol.
Maybe self discovery-
I knew there was something awesome about you 🤪. I was only ever attracted to women with very high executive function. Is your husband the organization of the family?
Blogger farmgirl said...
I’m a sprawling ADHD artist if I take the time.
I doubt that "owe" is a mistake. He didn't have any obligation to the paintings, and they had none to him. They were thus disposable.
I read the heading and assumed it was a Hunter Biden quote.
My artistic palette has been old houses. I’ve completely renovated eight of them in the last four decades. When I’m working on them they own me and I them. When I’m done … where’s my money? I want my money.
The only one I haven’t divorced is the present 1906 American Foursquare I presently enjoy life with my beautiful (true) wife in.
I don't understand the throwing away of your artwork. Is it because they didn't turn out as well as you thought? And think of it as a failure?
dread of yourself in the future in a room crammed with your own unloved pictures, and the desire to trash them all quickly, and thank God for dumpsters.
A more creative method would be donate them to a thrift shop.
The moment he stated his painting interest was keyed to current philosophical ideas, I lost respect for what he was doing. Perhaps that is also why he resented his paintings. The best art is either the product of what you yourself want to express or what will sell. Many great artists painted for themselves and made little money in their lifetimes. Others painted for the market and earned enough for an upper middle class life, Weiwei seems to resent what he was which I take as a technically sound painter with no compelling vision that felt a need to express. He seems upset that he wasn’t more than that.
"I don't understand the throwing away of your artwork. Is it because they didn't turn out as well as you thought? And think of it as a failure?"
There are some artists--painters, writers, musicians, etc.--for whom the making of a piece is the primary drive, and the finished pieces are, for them, part of their past, the physical detritus of their compulsion to create. Even if they're happy with what they have made, those pieces are done, fixed in time, place, and form, and thus, of little or no further interest to them. Some see their finished pieces as insufficient to what they were trying to achieve, and those pieces are reminders of their failures, which is what you asked in your question. For many artists, the answer is "yes."
Having too much regard for one's past work can be the death of an artist's creativity, as the attraction to reiterate what one has already made can result in the artist becoming an imitator of his or her own work.
There are some artists--painters, writers, musicians, etc.--for whom the making of a piece is the primary drive, and the finished pieces are, for them, part of their past, the physical detritus of their compulsion to create.
Thanks. That makes sense. I assume this is also why some musicians are so butt hurt when they're asked to play "The old hits" by their audience.
I can't quite follow throwing away a lot of work. Is it making painting to be like being in a theatre performance where you wouldn't want to be in the same play, enacting the same scenes day after day?
"A more creative method would be donate them to a thrift shop."
That's not "creative."
And it's not acceptable as a way to reuse/recycle because it's inviting disrespect and ridicule.
Yes, like the next lout, I enjoy laughing at other people's bad art. And it's a good reason to refrain from making art.
Destruction is the only way out of the predicament the painter has wandered into. And what bulky, troublesome trash it is!
I mean it is creative of the people who've acquired bad art and presented it in an interesting way, but it is not creative of the artist to unload work to a site like that.
I've blogged about these "bad art" museums. Most of the stuff is bad because people attempt to copy a photograph of a person in action or laughing.
“And it's not acceptable as a way to reuse/recycle because it's inviting disrespect and ridicule.
Yes, like the next lout, I enjoy laughing at other people's bad art. And it's a good reason to refrain from making art.
Destruction is the only way out of the predicament the painter has wandered into.”
There is a lot about art that I don’t understand. I do get that Rodin should send his old unwanted work down to the gravel quarry rather than keeping them all at home.
It’s very difficult to move paintings from one location to another. A paining on canvas is very easily damaged and people moving paintings have to know how to handle them. A very large painting needs two people to move it with care. So, if an artist(?) has many paintings and no where to exhibit them or sell them, and they have little or no market value, I can understand dumping them.
Or, maybe, donate the finished paintings to an art school where art students can paint over the work? Now the art student would not have to bother to stretch a canvas.
An artist needs a lot of space to store the many paintings he/she has created. The conditions have to be good so as not to damage the painting (low humidity, low sunlight, etc.).
Putting paintings in storage is an option, but a good storage space can be very expensive. Paintings are not like manuscripts or written music which are easier to keep.
It’s sad to throw away someone’s work but not all paintings are worthy of being saved.
Lol!!
Bad art museums?
Geezum.
Bully art…
I thought we were discussing first-rate artists, who often produce art that's not up to their own exacting standards. Sending B or B+ art made by an A or A+ artist to a thrift shop is nothing like sending 'art' by D or F ranking pseudo-artists to a thrift shop. The latter are only good for laughing at, which is not something to be proud of, but the former could still be quite good, and well worth buying at thrift-shop prices and hanging on the wall. To take an a fortiori example, something Van Gogh painted that's at the 10th or 20th percentile in quality of all his work is still in the top 5% of all artworks ever made, would still give pleasure to viewers - and would still go for millions today and be the pride and joy of a small-town art museum.
Two of my favorite things hanging on my wall were painted by high-school seniors who'd just taken the AP Art History 2-year class and were selling some of their works to pay for college. They're not great art, but they're well worth looking at, well worth the $50 each I paid for them, and I'm glad to have them on my walls. Anyone who laughed at either of them would be a tasteless fool as well as an asshole.
I do mostly have copies of work by great artists on my walls, e.g. Durer's Jerome in his study, or 'original' engravings printed in multiple copies, because I can't afford one-of-a-kind great art - only billionaires can - but it's nice to have a few interesting and attractive originals painted by nobodies. Or are they not-yet-somebodies? Perhaps the two students will be famous artists one day and I can sell their student works for millions.
In short, not up to a great artist's exacting standards is NOT the same as not worth buying, or looking at.
Artists need to look at the tax side of this. Here's what you do. YOu get a friend of a friend to buy one of your paintings for $10,000. Then you donate 6 of your paintings to a local art musuem or thrift shop and take a $60,000 deduction.
I am under the impression that oil paints on canvas burn well. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think going out in a blaze of glory is better than being left in a dumpster. Burn your unwanted art!
I was at the De Grazia Gallery in the Sun in Phoenix just yesterday. I learned there that Ettore De Grazia protested taxes by burning paintings he valued at $1.5 million in 1976.
Do people throw out all their old photos of themselves and their families because they don't look like that anymore? No, of course not. Well, maybe you'd want to if your family was traumatic and abusive, but I doubt it in normal circumstances. But that's what some of these comments about burning your work seem to suggest to me.
Once the artwork is finished you no longer have any connection to it. Seriously? Perhaps if your work has nothing to do with your soul that's true, but if your work was done with deep commitment and is a reflection of your soul then you never lose a connection to it, no matter how good or bad you judge it to be.
You don't toss out photos of loved ones because they serve as visual reminders of your past. Art is the same. Not that you have to save every photo or every single piece you've ever made. You usually don't have the space for all of that. And I'm not even suggesting that you are looking at these photos/paintings etc., on a regular basis. But every once in a while there is something nourishing about seeing some old photos or paintings that represent a part of your life and where you've been.
I've read plenty of bio's of artists who destroyed their early work (such as Francis Bacon, Jasper Johns) because what they did afterwards was so radically different. The destruction was part of their process of their liberation. But mostly artists don't need or want to do that. Cezanne's early paintings were atrocious but they are fascinating to view as a testiment to how hard he worked to develop his mature style. Picasso famously was trying to buy back his old paintings at the end of his life in some attempt to recapture his soul.
In the case of Ai Weiwei I wouldn't take his comments too seriously -- he was living for a decade in the US as an "undocumented" alien at the time, and didn't have a regular permanent place to live, so what was he going to do with that work? He'd sound like a whiney victim now if he complained about having to toss out his work. The fact is the paintings didn't sell and he had no place to keep them. True, there's no point in being attached to loss. But honestly, if his early paintings had been really great they would have been sold or kept by the gallery. They weren't great or horrible but he had no place to keep them, so he dumped them on the way home. Dumpsters in NYC being available on every block made the process easier for him.
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