Letter to a Young Artist, 2006 First published in: Peter Nesbett, Sarah Andress (eds.), Letters to a Young Artist, New York, Darte Publishing, 2006, pp. 89-90.
I am both an insider and an outsider, and there is nothing more dangerous. An interview by Ines Doujak, 2008 First published in Sarah Kolb (ed.), Jo Baer, Vienna, Secession, 2008, pp. 25-28.
Dear Young Artist:
Sincerely, (signature blocked out – mass production could prove damaging) Jo Baer Amsterdam
Let’s start with a significant story you told me the other day about this Belgian, a professor of philosophy, who was looking at your pictures, complaining: Jo, what have you done to us? She could not forgive me for leaving the minimal work to work with images. She said: “Oh, we so loved your work, we could stand in front of it and not have to think about anything!” Why would you bother to make such a change? And why is it perceived as a disruption in your professional career, when you label it as a coherent development and transition? People seem to have problems with the difference between abstraction and images. But they seem to forget that even artists like Pollock would go from one to another. Abstract art was always there, you know, really always. But artists do what they want to do: sometimes images are important, and sometimes symbols or abstraction are important. And you don’t have to be a devotee or a purist. I grew up with Picasso and the other Cubists, and wouldn’t dream of touching a portrait or picture of anything. I still feel that way in the sense that I am not an illustrator. I haven’t been telling stories with pictures; I have been making paintings that have images or parts of images, transparencies, all kinds of things of this sort, that are more like essays. You put them together and they are visual texts, as all good paintings are, abstract or otherwise. A critic from Amsterdam kept going on about: “How could you stop abstract work and go on to figuration?” (I won’t use the word ‘figuration’, if I can help it) I answered something like: “Listen, it doesn’t matter! I could work with triangles and circles, or pigs, bears, or birds… it’s all the same thing to me, except for what I wish to convey.” Do you get strong reactions from the public? Actually, yes. I have one friend, a woman, an old hippie, who was one of the first people I knew here. She saw one of these paintings, it was called The Old Lie and it had a picture of the Vietnamese girl on fire, running… And she came up to me and said: “If you were still married, your husband would not let you do this!” And, “I had no idea, you were so depressed.” I could never speak to her again. “If your husband…!? If you were still married…!? Your husband would not allow you to do this!?” Can you believe it? And this is a woman from the ’60s! ... who grew up with feminism, and women’s liberation… Yes! So, apparently, there is something in my work that reaches people. Even if it’s offending. That’s why I know the work is good. It
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Radical Figuration — 1975-2010
Art world participation could spoil your “integrity” and “freedom of thought”? You talk tosh. Only you – on your own – can do that. Furthermore, anyone employing the word “tainted” in regard to the art world should either grow up or else content themselves with amateur productions. If you intend to make work that you want others to enjoy or appreciate, the [commercial] art world will be part and parcel of your universe: the best art must always be grounded in its contemporary reality, both in its production and in its distribution. Ivory towers are only for the very young, the menopausal of both sexes, or the dissatisfied or disgruntled. The best art seldom resides there. Lots of gallery opportunities exist for young artists because their work is cheap and thus easy to invest in. If a good gallery is interested in you early on, the only real reason to shy away from showing is the risk that early successes might box you into continuing a praxis that works (i.e., sells), which could then be parlayed into teaching positions, etc., restricting further developments of your work (if you let it). But there’s nothing wrong with any of this: it’s a pattern common to the greater part of the artists’ world. On the other hand, time to explore yourself won’t get you much farther than what you like and dislike. The best art is not based on self, but rather on what’s important to imagine – and how best to cogently articulate this. Then again, if you genuinely want “time to develop a true sense of self,” I would suggest you take time off from the art world to travel and work abroad to learn how other people think, or perhaps consider gaining a university education (or both). The art world’s not going away. You can always get back to it. Although my own university schooling preceded my art, I have always valued its imparted sophistications, which were critical later in sizing up and deciding my work’s trajectories. Knowing a lot about your world, and how things really work over the long run, is a hell of a lot more useful than keeping up with the galleries. I wish you good luck illuminating your future career’s “sublime and invisible mountain” (a Rilke quote perhaps?).