Lesson 35 - No Plexiglas, No Electricity, No Humour; or Love is Colder Than Death
So many young artists I meet don't seem to have understood that they're going to spend their whole lives as artists. They're in a hurry because they feel that if they're not a success right out of the gate they're going to be a lifelong failure. I encourage you to think in a much longer arc, to take it easy and do it for the long haul - not to have a preconceived idea of what success is in relation to a durational framework. Some artists are successful early on, others later. Sometimes students also have misconceptions about what success is, mistaking the social aspects associated with success for actually making a successful artwork. To have a gallery, to have a big studio and to make money isn't necessarily to make good art. Don't confuse those two things.
I encourage you to think more historically and consider what your contribution to art could be, not about what your art practice can bring you in terms of material things.
I don't like to stand behind the camera or in front of the camera; I like to stand beside the camera. I figured out pretty early on - or I came up with the idea - that the camera is actually not the only agent involved in the production of meaning. There are also chemical designers, optical designers and industrial designers. There are economic and social issues. So I try to move around the photographic programme and occupy different positions at different times. Even though I didn't' get assignments in art school, I do treat myself like a commercial photographer: I give myself assignments. I become a product photographer, or I become a photojournalist, and I pick a subject as though it were a journalistic assignment.
amor fati next human
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