Theory and Practice

What does it mean to work with theoretical material as a creative practitioner?

Chris Kraus "Bad Nostalgia", "Cast Away", Video Green: Los Angeles Art and Triumph of Nothingness, New York: Semiotext (e), 2004, pp.111-114 &145-150

Chris Kraus's articles examine the Los Angeles art scene through some of the many problematic terms and scenarios to critically explore and give value to art. Both articles confront the issue of conforming to standards, terms and labels in a modern art context centred around LA in 2004.They address the power that our art schools and critical theories have in promoting a pressure on not just the artist but also the audience to conform to a standard of ideal. Theories are problematic and complex issues to address when discussing a movement within the art field; "Not to be sentimental but to be nostalgic". "To have anything permissible in the art world so long as it's pedigree, substantiated, referentialized".1

Do the numerous art schools and the constant critical analysis of art actually make a better artist, or just a better bullshitter and can too many hip terms be harmful to a VISUAL ART career?

These issues are highlighted in Kraus's first article in the exploration of the terms, sentiment vs. nostalgia. The later is seen as undesirable when explaining the attributes of already practicing Russian painter Zhenya Greshman. There is a danger of certain labels becoming more desirable during higher learning and projected onto an artists practise that may cause the artist to conform to that term, thus confining the practise from a relevant progression that may have occurred. Critical analysis of art practises although necessary and relevant in this day and age can ultimately lead to clever theoretical conversations while the artefact could remain confusing and difficult to comprehend without accompanying text. This point is again humorously reiterated in the Kraus's reading Castaway when the photographs of the Fed Ex store in Flores are described as none other then genius. "My heart beats fast when I see these photos. They are what art should be; a document of amazing journeys".2 Of course, later the art critic is made privy to the fact that these were not contemporary conceptual pictorial documentations but simply receipts of successful deliveries for his local customers.
The art field overflows with terms and ideas of what makes a successful piece of art and that seemingly the right conversation can affectively led you "to have anything permissible in the art world so long as it's pedigree, substantiated, referentialized".

If Ignorance is bliss, then education is...?

I am convinced,' wrote The Austrian satirist Karl Krauss, that happenings no longer happen; instead, the cliché's operates spontaneously.' Things have become too much for the people, the means too much for the ends, the tools to much for the producers."

3Chris Kraus "Bad Nostalgia", "Cast Away", Video Green : Los Angeles Art and Triumph of Nothingness, New York: Semiotext(e), 2004, 112 & 147
2 Ibid pg 149
3 Ernst Fisher, The Necessity of Art, Chapter 5 page 221