Courtney Reid Press

___I know nothing of art. Surprisingly, I only recently came upon this wisdom... July is Contemporary Art Month. In celebration of this occasion I endeavored to cover this amazing, often misunderstood and almost always mislabeled form of self expression.

___ Armed with an art education consisting of a university art class, frequent visits to First Friday events, museums and galleries, and the knowledge that can be absorbed watching films like "Pollock", "Basquiat", and "Surviving Picasso" I set forth confidently on this mission.

___Initially, this piece was going to be a proper article featuring discussions of substantial and important pieces of contemporary art and its movements as well as insight from members of the art community . All very typical of what would be expected in a piece like this. However, my first interview with Paula Owen, Director of the Southwest School of Art opened my eyes to not only my lack of sophistication on the subject of contemporary art but also nervous and worried. Could I write this piece?

___Realizing that many, many people in the city have as much formal and informal training in the arts as I do. I decided not to write this story. What could be gained from one novice teaching another? Instead, the menageries of art experts, gallery owners and artists that I interviewed for the piece respond to a few basic questions. Each answer given provides insight into the take on the free spirited, whirling, furious world of contemporary art thus teaching us (the beginners) a multitude of primary lessons on the subject.

_____________________________________________________________

The Professors:

Paula Owen, Director of the Southwest School of Art and Craft

___Paula Owen's career in the arts includes fifteen years in institutional leadership positions. She has served on numerous boards and panels and has written for the publications "New Art Examiner", Art Papers", "Metalsmith", and "American Ceramics". Owen penned "Objects and Meaning: Readings that Challenge the Norm", which will be released in December.

____________________________________________

Ana Montoya, Owner of AnArte Gallery

___Style, beauty and eclecticism are important to Ana Montoya, owner of AnArte Gallery. The gallery, which takes its name from combining Ana's first name and the Spanish word for art - arte, is one of the first female minority owned galleries in the country. Her mission: to exhibit the work of both emerging artists and artists in mid - career and expose San Antonians to the work and ideas of living artists.

_____________________________________________________________

George Neubert, Director of the San Antonio Museum of Art

___George W. Neubert has served as director of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Associate Director of Art for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Project Director for the Project Sculpture/Public Sites program at the Golden Gate National Park, and Chief Curator of Art at the Oakland Museum. This administrator is also an artist and sculptor. He has exhibited his work in the United States and internationally in Japan and Budapest. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Artist Grant in 1980.

_____________________________________________

Linda Pace, Founder and Director of ArtPace

___ As founder of the internationally renowned ArtPace, Linda Pace could very well be considered saint to local artists. Each year her foundation for contemporary art provides two - month residencies to twelve artists. Three artists participate in each residence - one from outside the United States, one from inside the United States and one San Antonian.

_____________________________________________________________

Courtney Reid, Artist and Creator of Art Dacha

___Art Dacha (pronounced Dah - cha) is a tremendous space located behind the Blue Star Arts Complex where painters Courtney Reid and George Yepes create. Born and raise in Hollywood, Reid found herself in San Antonio for the "Chicano Visions" opening and decided to make it her home. At 34, the former stylist for "Playboy" has made her living from her art and will soon help other artists do the same as she devises a field trip for artists to display their works in Los Angeles.

____________________________________________

Bill FitzGibbons, Director of Blue Star Art Space

___This former adjunct faculty member a Trinity University is enjoying a rather illustrious career. The artist has ben commissioned to participate in the creation of public art in five countries. As a solo artist, FitzGibbons has had sixteen exhibitions in the course of fifteen years.

_____________________________________________________________

Lesson 1: What is Contemporary Art?

___This beginners guide cannot begin without an understanding of what this art form is. But as the experts believe, a definition of contemporary art is not something that can be summed up for easy consumption. there were several responses to this question ranging from the academic response such as one that Paula Owen provided to the personal like that provided by Ana Montoya.

Owen : Contemporary art is technically anything created by living artists. We would provably not use it to describe traditional landscape, most weavings or blown glass. when you use the world contemporary you have to modify it with other words like abstract, unusual or traditional. It is impossible and not even desirable to create a blanket label because there are so many perspectives among artists and intentions and viewers. Labels are dangerous.

Montoya: I think contemporary art is a liberation of oneself as an artist to be able to convey a new idea to canvas or to video or to a computer screen. Everything before was really quite traditional and now we have art that all of a sudden has distorted figures, and wild brush works and so forth nonrepresentational art. However, contemporary art could still be figurative.

FitzGibbons: Contemporary art means that artists are doing something that has never been done before, something that is exploring new ideas or new issues. Every time period has seen new ad advances in art, so contemporary art refers to that art that is been made now and that is exploring new areas versus traditional imagery that is being made now.

Lesson 2: What is the difference between contemporary and modern art?

___Many beginners have no idea what the difference between this two art forms. both terms seem to conjure images of nonrepresentational or abstract art, and since the words modern and contemporary, in basic usage, are synonymous, it becomes difficult to find the distinction.

Owen: It is a period in art history. It is also a style and an ideology about art, design and furniture.

Neubert: Modern art is artistic expression of the time and place of when it was produced. In the historical and museum point of view that is 1890 to the present.

FizGibbons: Modern art has become a certain segment in time just like impressionism or cubism. Modern art is generally from the late 19th century through the early sixties and after pop art. Some of the sixties type of art went into a post modernism. Many modernist such as Picasso and the abstract impressionists were exploring specific ideology, where post modernism is a more eclectic melting pot of ideas.

Montoya: Modern was before contemporary. Contemporary art began in the forties after World War II. That's when society was trying to find their role and that's when artists began executing this type of art. Artists were highly influenced by European artists that had fled to New York City to escape the war. One of the pioneers was, of course, Peggy Guggenheim who founded Art of this Century Gallery.

Lesson 3: How can beginners identify contemporary art when we go to museums and galleries? What are we looking for?

___Now that we have a better grasp of what contemporary and modern art is, we have to test our abilities to identify it. if we choose not to, the meanings that we have gained just become part of our terminology and don't serve any applied purpose. Are there certain characteristics that can mark a piece as contemporary?

FitzGibbons: When you look at a painting, sculpture, video or performance, you have to try and look at the issues the artist was dealing with. Contemporary art may be unfamiliar to the viewer so it is a challenge for them to accept it as a high level of art. That challenge causes the viewer to reject the art or think about it and what the artist is trying to sat.
You can still reject it after you have studied it and thought about it and then decided that you don't like it but often when you start studying the work you begin to gain an appreciation for it. It's like with anything, the more you study it the more you appreciate it.

Owen: There is no domination movement in contemporary art; it's about pluralism.

Pace: There's no way to necessarily identify it. I guess contemporary art really isn't the traditional type of painting but there is no real way to confine it.

Montoya: I would say liberated. As the years go by, we as individuals change,and the artist become a lot more feel it, you have to go into it and you start feeling it in your spirit and inner passion. You start feeding it into your soul and spirit.

Lesson 4: How can we tell if the artwork is any good?

___In this age of nonrepresentational art it is very difficult to tell what is what. As Montoya discussed earlier, in this type of contemporary art, we do not se an immediate subject or context, and for some beginners it's the quality of the context or the quality of the reproduction (think fruit bowls or portraits) that makes it good. When this is not immediate apparent, we can get confused and are left with questions. For instance, what makes painting consisting of multi colored paint splatters artistically good? Also, how do we determine if a work of art is good? Is it purely visual?

Pace: Art is a complicated field. It is no less complicated than studying a piece and what pieces they are picking.
To the totally uninitiated, just start going to museums, just start going to shows like at ArtPace and Blue Star. The more you see the more you know. then you get to a point where you can decide for your self what you like and what you don't.

Reid: I think you have to feel it first. If you don't feel- it is not good. If you have to think about it then it is no good. Art is a visual process; if you have to intellectualize it to make sense of it, then it is a failure. If I don't have a visceral response to something then I look for something else, I move on, it's missed its mark. If it only has a technical facility and doesn't have any soul, it's worthless. Art is life. It is a recreation of life. If it doesn't breath on it's own then it's flat. It is a waste of space.

FitsGibbons: What stops people from opening up to contemporary art are road blocks that have been taught to them in their upbringing. A lot of times we are taught not to question new things or to try not to change- if something isn't broke why change it? If people don't understand then they have a tendency to reject it instead of looking at the reasons they don't understand it. Your ego tell you that you are a smart person and if you don't understand then it must be bad.
If the person has not learned about contemporary art but has the desire to know about it then yes they can understand. You look at ancient civilizations like Mayas and the Incas you look at their architecture and you can start seeing positive and negative forms. They were dealing with the same design basics and fundamentals that we are dealing with today, now how can we explain that? Unless it is a fundamental value of human beings. It has something to do with what's inside of us.

Neubert: People should not worry about what is good or bad. One of the most important things is for people to be open-minded. They should try to free themselves from preconceived notions about what is art because they are probably limited and biased. Each one [person] has a different experience and each one has an idea of what is good and what is bad. Stand in front of a painting and forget about whether it is art or not and see how you respond to it
-emotionally and visually. When you see it visually and emotionally you begin to experience the art. You bring your own experience to the work of art. You would be surprised what you can gain from that.Then, as you become more of a connoisseur, you can begin to make judgments about things that are relevant to you. Most people let their prejudgments get in the way of the experience.
___Poets and artists are the ones in tune with their time. They are the ones with the sensitivity to understand the time and place in which they exist; we as a general public have to catch up. We can sometimes take a little more time to appreciate it. Great art is universal art. It is not about the feminist movement, not about the war in Iraq, it may reflect those subjects emotionally, but it has to be more universal so it has a lasting value for generations. The challenge of being a contemporary artist in society is to respond subjectively and personally to the time that they live but make it phenomenal and significant so it has something to say yo the future -not just bow to fads and taste. Art cannot be that kind of weather vane; it is more profound than that. People tend to be concerned with fads and taste. which has nothing to do with art. That is one of the great misundestandings of art.

Lesson 5: What can we expect to see in Contemporary Art Month? Are we going to see a theme among many of the pieces? In other words, are there any hot topics in the world of art?

Pace: Everything is always a hot topic in art ; it kind of stirs the pot. I like to say that artists are map makers. They really lead the culture. They deal with issues before the population does, so I am always fascinated to see what comes up. I go to the contemporary places like Blue Star, ArtPace, and the Southwest School of Art and Craft. Finesilver always has interesting shows, as does the satellite space for UTSA in Blue Star.

Reid: I am seeing an incredible diversity. I see instillation work, very conceptual work. and clean, slick work ranging to loose, wild, whimsical, inventive work. It runs the full gamut. I know there is a lot of talk of Chicano art because of the area we live in. Coming from LA, which really isn't a painter's town, I am very impressed by the number of painters here.

FitzGibbons: I don's see a stereotyping of a theme. I see it embracing all sorts of different directions and I think that's very healthy. San Antonio sees a lot of different cultures moving in and out so we have this wonderful, constant change of the popular culture that informs new directions and new ideas in art. So no, I don't see any themes, other than the fact that it will be multifaceted.

THE FINAL EXAM: Did I receive a static answer of what contemporary art is?

___No. What I found instead was a wide range of answers reflecting numerous points of views and the knowledge that contemporary art is more about the transfer of experience than information. Perhaps art novices already know all they need to know about the transfer of experience then information. Perhaps art novices already know all they need to know about art. In the same spirit of " All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden", the new mantra for novice art patrons should be all I really need to know about art is what I feel when I look at it. This is not to say that we should stick our heads in the sand and refuse to learn about art. We should continue to pursue the experience of art and cultivate our interests. As George Neubert Believes, we may learn more about ourselves in the process and be surprised at what we find.

Contemporary Art

By Marissa Rodriguez


				"Reid: I think you have to feel it first. If you don't feel- it is not good. If you have to think about it then it is no good. Art is a visual process; if you have to intellectualize it to make sense of it, then it is a failure."
	___I know nothing of art. Surprisingly, I only recently came upon this wisdom... July is Contemporary Art Month. In celebration of this occasion I endeavored to cover this amazing, often misunderstood and almost always mislabeled form of self expression. ___ Armed with an art education consisting of a university art class, frequent visits to First Friday events, museums and galleries, and the knowledge that can be absorbed watching films like "Pollock", "Basquiat", and "Surviving Picasso" I set forth confidently on this mission. ___Initially, this piece was going to be a proper article featuring discussions of substantial and important pieces of contemporary art and its movements as well as insight from members of the art community . All very typical of what would be expected in a piece like this. However, my first interview with Paula Owen, Director of the Southwest School of Art opened my eyes to not only my lack of sophistication on the subject of contemporary art but also nervous and worried. Could I write this piece? ___Realizing that many, many people in the city have as much formal and informal training in the arts as I do. I decided not to write this story. What could be gained from one novice teaching another? Instead, the menageries of art experts, gallery owners and artists that I interviewed for the piece respond to a few basic questions. Each answer given provides insight into the take on the free spirited, whirling, furious world of contemporary art thus teaching us (the beginners) a multitude of primary lessons on the subject. _____________________________________________________________ The Professors: Paula Owen, Director of the Southwest School of Art and Craft ___Paula Owen's career in the arts includes fifteen years in institutional leadership positions. She has served on numerous boards and panels and has written for the publications "New Art Examiner", Art Papers", "Metalsmith", and "American Ceramics". Owen penned "Objects and Meaning: Readings that Challenge the Norm", which will be released in December. ____________________________________________ Ana Montoya, Owner of AnArte Gallery ___Style, beauty and eclecticism are important to Ana Montoya, owner of AnArte Gallery. The gallery, which takes its name from combining Ana's first name and the Spanish word for art - arte, is one of the first female minority owned galleries in the country. Her mission: to exhibit the work of both emerging artists and artists in mid - career and expose San Antonians to the work and ideas of living artists. _____________________________________________________________ George Neubert, Director of the San Antonio Museum of Art ___George W. Neubert has served as director of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Associate Director of Art for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Project Director for the Project Sculpture/Public Sites program at the Golden Gate National Park, and Chief Curator of Art at the Oakland Museum. This administrator is also an artist and sculptor. He has exhibited his work in the United States and internationally in Japan and Budapest. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Artist Grant in 1980. _____________________________________________ Linda Pace, Founder and Director of ArtPace ___ As founder of the internationally renowned ArtPace, Linda Pace could very well be considered saint to local artists. Each year her foundation for contemporary art provides two - month residencies to twelve artists. Three artists participate in each residence - one from outside the United States, one from inside the United States and one San Antonian. _____________________________________________________________ Courtney Reid, Artist and Creator of Art Dacha ___Art Dacha (pronounced Dah - cha) is a tremendous space located behind the Blue Star Arts Complex where painters Courtney Reid and George Yepes create. Born and raise in Hollywood, Reid found herself in San Antonio for the "Chicano Visions" opening and decided to make it her home. At 34, the former stylist for "Playboy" has made her living from her art and will soon help other artists do the same as she devises a field trip for artists to display their works in Los Angeles. ____________________________________________ Bill FitzGibbons, Director of Blue Star Art Space ___This former adjunct faculty member a Trinity University is enjoying a rather illustrious career. The artist has ben commissioned to participate in the creation of public art in five countries. As a solo artist, FitzGibbons has had sixteen exhibitions in the course of fifteen years. _____________________________________________________________ Lesson 1: What is Contemporary Art? ___This beginners guide cannot begin without an understanding of what this art form is. But as the experts believe, a definition of contemporary art is not something that can be summed up for easy consumption. there were several responses to this question ranging from the academic response such as one that Paula Owen provided to the personal like that provided by Ana Montoya. Owen : Contemporary art is technically anything created by living artists. We would provably not use it to describe traditional landscape, most weavings or blown glass. when you use the world contemporary you have to modify it with other words like abstract, unusual or traditional. It is impossible and not even desirable to create a blanket label because there are so many perspectives among artists and intentions and viewers. Labels are dangerous. Montoya: I think contemporary art is a liberation of oneself as an artist to be able to convey a new idea to canvas or to video or to a computer screen. Everything before was really quite traditional and now we have art that all of a sudden has distorted figures, and wild brush works and so forth nonrepresentational art. However, contemporary art could still be figurative. FitzGibbons: Contemporary art means that artists are doing something that has never been done before, something that is exploring new ideas or new issues. Every time period has seen new ad advances in art, so contemporary art refers to that art that is been made now and that is exploring new areas versus traditional imagery that is being made now. Lesson 2: What is the difference between contemporary and modern art? ___Many beginners have no idea what the difference between this two art forms. both terms seem to conjure images of nonrepresentational or abstract art, and since the words modern and contemporary, in basic usage, are synonymous, it becomes difficult to find the distinction. Owen: It is a period in art history. It is also a style and an ideology about art, design and furniture. Neubert: Modern art is artistic expression of the time and place of when it was produced. In the historical and museum point of view that is 1890 to the present. FizGibbons: Modern art has become a certain segment in time just like impressionism or cubism. Modern art is generally from the late 19th century through the early sixties and after pop art. Some of the sixties type of art went into a post modernism. Many modernist such as Picasso and the abstract impressionists were exploring specific ideology, where post modernism is a more eclectic melting pot of ideas. Montoya: Modern was before contemporary. Contemporary art began in the forties after World War II. That's when society was trying to find their role and that's when artists began executing this type of art. Artists were highly influenced by European artists that had fled to New York City to escape the war. One of the pioneers was, of course, Peggy Guggenheim who founded Art of this Century Gallery. Lesson 3: How can beginners identify contemporary art when we go to museums and galleries? What are we looking for? ___Now that we have a better grasp of what contemporary and modern art is, we have to test our abilities to identify it. if we choose not to, the meanings that we have gained just become part of our terminology and don't serve any applied purpose. Are there certain characteristics that can mark a piece as contemporary? FitzGibbons: When you look at a painting, sculpture, video or performance, you have to try and look at the issues the artist was dealing with. Contemporary art may be unfamiliar to the viewer so it is a challenge for them to accept it as a high level of art. That challenge causes the viewer to reject the art or think about it and what the artist is trying to sat. You can still reject it after you have studied it and thought about it and then decided that you don't like it but often when you start studying the work you begin to gain an appreciation for it. It's like with anything, the more you study it the more you appreciate it. Owen: There is no domination movement in contemporary art; it's about pluralism. Pace: There's no way to necessarily identify it. I guess contemporary art really isn't the traditional type of painting but there is no real way to confine it. Montoya: I would say liberated. As the years go by, we as individuals change,and the artist become a lot more feel it, you have to go into it and you start feeling it in your spirit and inner passion. You start feeding it into your soul and spirit. Lesson 4: How can we tell if the artwork is any good? ___In this age of nonrepresentational art it is very difficult to tell what is what. As Montoya discussed earlier, in this type of contemporary art, we do not se an immediate subject or context, and for some beginners it's the quality of the context or the quality of the reproduction (think fruit bowls or portraits) that makes it good. When this is not immediate apparent, we can get confused and are left with questions. For instance, what makes painting consisting of multi colored paint splatters artistically good? Also, how do we determine if a work of art is good? Is it purely visual? Pace: Art is a complicated field. It is no less complicated than studying a piece and what pieces they are picking. To the totally uninitiated, just start going to museums, just start going to shows like at ArtPace and Blue Star. The more you see the more you know. then you get to a point where you can decide for your self what you like and what you don't. Reid: I think you have to feel it first. If you don't feel- it is not good. If you have to think about it then it is no good. Art is a visual process; if you have to intellectualize it to make sense of it, then it is a failure. If I don't have a visceral response to something then I look for something else, I move on, it's missed its mark. If it only has a technical facility and doesn't have any soul, it's worthless. Art is life. It is a recreation of life. If it doesn't breath on it's own then it's flat. It is a waste of space. FitsGibbons: What stops people from opening up to contemporary art are road blocks that have been taught to them in their upbringing. A lot of times we are taught not to question new things or to try not to change- if something isn't broke why change it? If people don't understand then they have a tendency to reject it instead of looking at the reasons they don't understand it. Your ego tell you that you are a smart person and if you don't understand then it must be bad. If the person has not learned about contemporary art but has the desire to know about it then yes they can understand. You look at ancient civilizations like Mayas and the Incas you look at their architecture and you can start seeing positive and negative forms. They were dealing with the same design basics and fundamentals that we are dealing with today, now how can we explain that? Unless it is a fundamental value of human beings. It has something to do with what's inside of us. Neubert: People should not worry about what is good or bad. One of the most important things is for people to be open-minded. They should try to free themselves from preconceived notions about what is art because they are probably limited and biased. Each one [person] has a different experience and each one has an idea of what is good and what is bad. Stand in front of a painting and forget about whether it is art or not and see how you respond to it -emotionally and visually. When you see it visually and emotionally you begin to experience the art. You bring your own experience to the work of art. You would be surprised what you can gain from that.Then, as you become more of a connoisseur, you can begin to make judgments about things that are relevant to you. Most people let their prejudgments get in the way of the experience. ___Poets and artists are the ones in tune with their time. They are the ones with the sensitivity to understand the time and place in which they exist; we as a general public have to catch up. We can sometimes take a little more time to appreciate it. Great art is universal art. It is not about the feminist movement, not about the war in Iraq, it may reflect those subjects emotionally, but it has to be more universal so it has a lasting value for generations. The challenge of being a contemporary artist in society is to respond subjectively and personally to the time that they live but make it phenomenal and significant so it has something to say yo the future -not just bow to fads and taste. Art cannot be that kind of weather vane; it is more profound than that. People tend to be concerned with fads and taste. which has nothing to do with art. That is one of the great misundestandings of art. Lesson 5: What can we expect to see in Contemporary Art Month? Are we going to see a theme among many of the pieces? In other words, are there any hot topics in the world of art? Pace: Everything is always a hot topic in art ; it kind of stirs the pot. I like to say that artists are map makers. They really lead the culture. They deal with issues before the population does, so I am always fascinated to see what comes up. I go to the contemporary places like Blue Star, ArtPace, and the Southwest School of Art and Craft. Finesilver always has interesting shows, as does the satellite space for UTSA in Blue Star. Reid: I am seeing an incredible diversity. I see instillation work, very conceptual work. and clean, slick work ranging to loose, wild, whimsical, inventive work. It runs the full gamut. I know there is a lot of talk of Chicano art because of the area we live in. Coming from LA, which really isn't a painter's town, I am very impressed by the number of painters here. FitzGibbons: I don's see a stereotyping of a theme. I see it embracing all sorts of different directions and I think that's very healthy. San Antonio sees a lot of different cultures moving in and out so we have this wonderful, constant change of the popular culture that informs new directions and new ideas in art. So no, I don't see any themes, other than the fact that it will be multifaceted. THE FINAL EXAM: Did I receive a static answer of what contemporary art is? ___No. What I found instead was a wide range of answers reflecting numerous points of views and the knowledge that contemporary art is more about the transfer of experience than information. Perhaps art novices already know all they need to know about the transfer of experience then information. Perhaps art novices already know all they need to know about art. In the same spirit of " All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden", the new mantra for novice art patrons should be all I really need to know about art is what I feel when I look at it. This is not to say that we should stick our heads in the sand and refuse to learn about art. We should continue to pursue the experience of art and cultivate our interests. As George Neubert Believes, we may learn more about ourselves in the process and be surprised at what we find. Contemporary Art By Marissa Rodriguez