Earlier this month one of the Walker Art
Center's websites, mnartists.org, asked MAN editor Tyler Green to answer 10 questions
submitted by site users:
My answers are up now. (And unlike MAN, mnartists.org is a message board so you can publicly respond.) The broadest question was: What is the single non-art-world factor that is the greatest influence on art made today? Tyler writes:
Degeneration, particularly of societies, cultures, and political
systems. Regardless of whether I'm in New York, LA or in between, I see
artists making art about things falling apart. Look at last year's top
news stories: Iraq, Katrina, the London bombing, the Indian Ocean
tsunami, the BTK serial killer, the continuing struggles of the Bush
presidency, even the death of Terri Schiavo. They’re all about
degeneration. Some art examples: We see it in the work of Jason Middlebrook's works-on-paper of societies 'advancing' to a point of environmental collapse, or in Ed Burtynsky's photos of what we are doing to the planet. Hans Haacke
and Raymond Pettibon looked at the American political system, in their
recent solo shows at Paula Cooper and Regen Projects respectively.
Artists such as Enrique Metinides go back into their old work to
present violent images, installing them recently to remind us how
fascinated Americans are with destruction. (Metinides recently
exhibited at Blum & Poe.) I'm surprised that no contemporary art curator has seized on this
and created a big group show about it. It could be a great example of
an artist-driven show that mixes contemporary art with contemporary
life. (Good example of a successful realization of that kind of show:
Paul Schimmel's Ecstasy, recently at MOCA.)
