JASPER gAZES
Essay: Goodness, opportunity, and mediocrity ArtFields, Lake City, SC By Chris Robinson
everal years ago Sumter, SC started an ambitious art event called Installations on Main, later renamed Accessibility. (Full disclosure, I curated Accessibility for a few years many years back). The former was the creation of an ambitious, energetic, and enthusiastic Sumter Cultural Commission. The latter paired artists with downtown businesses to bring art to daily life. There wasn’t much money, but it showed the power of art to infect and enhance the local community. Sadly, that initiative has since faded away. Bilbao, Spain famously paired with the Guggenheim Museum to do the same on a much grander scale; they had plenty of money, and were able to transform a dying industrial town, and created a thriving international tourist destination. ArtFields, the attention-getting $100,000 southeastern art competition seems to have the same aspiration for Lake City, the rural agricultural home of the deceased astronaut Ronald McNair and living businesswoman Darla Moore. You drive in, through all the spring green forest and fields, new fast food restaurants, and dying strip malls, to beautiful and nostalgic place full of small town charm, hundred-year-old brick buildings, welcoming shops, and friendly people. There are renovated warehouses, a green space, and a classic southern railroad running right through the middle of town. The competitive event received 800 entries and a panel of jurors selected 400 participants. There were ten days of free and paid events attracting 15,000 to Lake City. The selections were an eclectic mix of artwork from around the region, probably more significant for who was rejected than whom was selected, well-known Columbia Vista Studios plain air painter Stephen Chesley was left out, and many complained of not knowing. Other, mostly Coastal South Carolina area artists were selected to provide installation oriented art and related workshops. ArtFields is a million dollar enterprise, the prizes, $50K for a combination of popular and juried
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We should be proud that art is a powerful social vehicle, but careful that it doesn’t bear the weight with little real concern or consideration for quality and the discipline.
selection went to Jim Arendt of Conway. (More disclosure, Mr. Arendt received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Carolina Department of Art where I am employed.) Two other prizes of $25K each, one selected by the jurors that went to Leanna Knapp for a deteriorating ceramic wedding dress, the other by purely popular vote that went to John Cooper for a painting of an iconic photograph of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The photo was from Jurgen Stroop’s report to Heinrich Himmler and one of the best-known pictures from World War II. I was apprehensive when the competition was first advertised, worrying that the money was too big, the venue too small, coastal and Charleston centric, and the expertise too varied. As desirable as $50K may appear, like the lore of lotteries, it can either give you a step up or ruin one’s life; it may even provide more attention than an artist might deserve, though with Arendt’s practical Midwestern farm roots, young family, and blossoming career, it should serve him well. And while big money certainly spells success, smart and philanthropic desires may not easily transfer to the world of art. As much as some might trust or prefer otherwise, formal education and practical experience, even in the selection of additional expertise, can make a big difference in the flavor and success of the exhibition. The juror’s prize was housed at Becky’s Salon and the friendly staff would wave you in to tell the story of the artist whose work was housed there; a young bride whose wedding failed at the last moment and used the construction of a sculpture of her dress as a vehicle to heal. You can’t help but be caught up in the television show scenario. One wonders what happened to those artists without so nurturing and supportive of a host location to draw in patrons. The popular prize was retracted when it was determined that the artist did not wholly own the artwork, apparently in violation of the rules. Cooper’s painting was a faithful colorized painted reproduction of the iconic 1943 photographic image. The retraction raises some very interesting and complex questions: Why was the work selected and exhibited if it didn’t meet the rules, especially with such an obvious and iconic image? Who and what determines what is and constitutes wholly owned? The choices seem arbitrary and subjective as image appropriation is a popular form of contemporary art; copying or borrowing used to be and still often is a popular method for learning; most artwork is derivative in one form or another; and the courts will be working out these and related intellectual prop-
erty issues for many years—easily another story. It is also interesting to note that in a timely, congruent, and related court decision, Los Angeles street artist Thiery Guetta, also known as Mr. Brainwash, lost a copyright case regarding a painted mural of a 1977 iconic image of Sid Vicious by British photographer Dennis Morris, the judge determining that the overall effect of Guetta’s images was not transformative. I guess it is a good thing Marcel Duchamp was not an entrant as his iconic and historic ready-made objects were by definition wholly owned and patented by others. Patent and copyright law is playing out in aggressive and complex ways and will probably continue to do so, most recently in one company claiming rights to the Happy Birthday song and the Supreme Court determining that companies cannot patent and own human genes. One wonders, in the ArtFields case, who raised the question and why? But the questions may be much more fundamental than that. Kirkland Smith was awarded the previously retracted popular prize. (Even more disclosure, Ms. Smith was once a student of mine). While I like and respect her creative, insightful, and sensitive rendition of what appears in every way to be an equally iconic image of Steve Jobs, with a method, albeit an innovative variation, popularly attributed to Chuck Close, the comparison doesn’t end there. The method used by Close, Smith, and I would also argue, Arendt, is to divide descriptive areas of value into select shapes, then fill the value in with whatever—in Close’s case, the painted mechanics of photographic dots, thumbprints, and random lines; in Smith’s case, discarded objects that would otherwise make their way to a landfill. Arendt would fall into the same category using various values of faded denim in place of paint. The basic method is taught in foundations art classes and can be easily derived using Photoshop. ArtFields is a wonderful and ambitious undertaking and we can only hope that the organizers have the interest and resolve, even with a few missteps, to continue. Next year should draw more artists, more spectators, more money and community development, and one would also hope the organizers and jurors would be more readily circumspect. The place brings back memories of easier times and you want the idea of using art as a vehicle for community revitalization to work; sometime it does and sometimes it doesn’t. One can’t help but be captivated by the warm, friendly welcome, good food, quaint shops open even on Sunday with plenty of gifts for sale, and art hanging in the hair salons and barber shops.