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I understand the stop-at-whatever-catches-your-eye style of visiting museums and galleries but it makes me sad to see people rush through. The real joy of art is the breakthrough that occurs after engaging with a made thing.
Some helpful questions to ask:
-What is the title of the piece and how does it relate it what I see?
-Why did I stop/hurry past?
-Why is it here? Does it belong to the space or to a theme?
-What does it allow me to do/see/think/play with?
May 19, 2024
Related Recs
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There's a thing that I notice at art museums sometimes. Someone wearing a slightly annoyed expression will be speeding through the exhibit like they are going down a long to do list. Or I'll be playing a board game with a group and there will be some guy with a strained face looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. Maybe another time we're leaving a movie and they start to complain about how it 'wasn't realistic', you get the picture.
I swear to God it makes me want to pulpify their face.
I'm not saying that you need to like every piece of art or that you should feel bad for not liking a movie, but, goddamn, at least give it a fucking second. Closing yourself off to The New, being automatically opposed to earnestness when it appears, is one of the most damaging defense mechanisms I can think of. It is, in turn, also one of the best ways to maximize your misery.
The defense mechanism that is cynicism, turns its users into parasites of the Social; they are sold the idea (a lie) that damaging and denigrating <<something>> allows one to become independent of its power structure. On the contrary, just as a leech is the most dependent on its host, cynics are those that are most dependent on the power structures in our culture.
I really want to emphasize the difference between criticism and cynicism, because I am in no way saying that we should not criticize bad or damaging art, but to successfully criticize something means to first buy in, to really allow yourself to be taken by a piece, to examine it as it comes. Buying in as a term (even one so bathed in capitalist sebum) is the right one in this case because to buy in requires one to make a sacrifice. You cannot experience art without opening yourself to the possibility that it will do damage to you. To fully allow yourself to be moved by a piece of art is to allow yourself to be cut.
But inside that cut is what it means to be human.
I think the single best way to combat cynicism is an unceasing curiosity of the world and the people in it. The normal and common of this world is absolutely fantasmatic if you take a moment to examine it; we see the world through have fluid filled orbs made of meat for fucks sake. The fact that there is anything at all, the fact that you and I exist for even a second is an absolutely unbelievable mind fuck, and to be unimpressed by any and everything doesn’t make you special or better than anyone, it just leaves you on a road to the pit of despair and leaves me really bummed out for the rest of the night.
Sep 20, 2024
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it’s hard when you’re *in it* to appreciate everything you’ve done (or really to appreciate it at all, especially if you are in critical-eye-review-revise-repeat mode) but taking a second to just *enjoy* your work will allow you to reconnect with why you’re pursuing creative work in the first place. what do you see in your projects you don’t see anywhere else? what does your previous work inspire you to pursue when you see it as an achievement in its own right instead of a stepping stone?
(also the artist way im going to shill this book until i die)
May 30, 2025
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Look, for a while I did not care about prehistoric art. It was hidden beneath the veil of primitivism. Let‘s rewire our contemporary brains and try to view the past a little differently.
When looking at prehistoric art, how do you feel? Does it make you excited to imagine a world before your time? Does it seem boring or even uninspired? Maybe you feel confused or disconnected due to the history between yourself and the work that stands before you. No matter how ancient works of art make you feel, it is crucial to learn and recognize the value and importance of these pieces and how they relate to the world around us.
Why is it so important? I mean, we are living in the future! We have 3D printers, self-driving cars, and infinite knowledge at our fingertips. Why should we be looking to the past? For starters, we can learn about ourselves by seeing what our ancestors did 10,000 years ago. Prehistoric art is a major influence on contemporary art. Ever since the discovery of cave drawings and ancient Egyptian tombs, artists have been inspired by their primordial selves.
The value of looking back is to learn about how it has inspired our own art. What we would consider art from the past, is influenced by the art of an even more distant past, and so on. We can learn about humanity and how we view the world just by looking at how we lived and created art throughout history. It is important to see where we started out so we can see where we are going in the future. Ancient art reveals historical details that we may not have been able to understand had it not been for the art created at the time.
All this to say remind yourself that people in the past were people like us, living life and making art. We aren’t so different from our historical siblings.
4d ago
Top Recs from @florinegrassenhopper
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No screen Sundays. If I want to listen to music its CDs or radio. If I want to watch a movie, no I don’t. If I want to see a friend, I will make plans with them on Friday or Saturday to meet up. As a result, I read more, write more, and sit with questions like “did Citizen Kane‘s 50 year winning streak in the Sight and Sound critics choice survey end in 2012 or 2022? When did Stephen Merritt come out? Whats the etymology of Whitsun?“
This is something that I have practiced off and on for many years but I’ve been doing it every week since December and I love the way that it just allows me one day of true freedom and rest.
Jan 22, 2025
Mar 3, 2025
My calendar this year has 52 of these week at a glance pages but I don’t think that way. So, I've been inspired by Ross Gay’s Book of Delighs to start recording the little moments and sensations that bring me joy throughout the day. An analog pi.fyi, if you will.
heres some of what I have so far:
- Waking up to the sound of my upstairs neighbor‘s footstep. It sounded nostalgic. Felt like company.
- Strawberry jam
- feeling tender for strangers: their lips, nail colors, their small wrists. Thinking of all the lives we hold gently.
- A young girl bought an LP at the bookstore just before I left. She stroked its cover with love
- Green tiles —the mint shade always makes me think of Jancie
- Charlie’s little bop and punch dancing to some German language punk
- lunch with Katherine, curry Brussels sprouts
- small talk at the photo studio. The photographer's brother was named after their dad, stole his identity, bought jet skis.
Jan 13, 2025