C.B. Murphy  .:. Art

What show did I see of Philip Guston’s work? It’s the prerogative of the amateur to neither care nor remember, however, I do remember not being particularly excited about his work. I saw it in Chicago and for some reason I thought he was a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where some of my friends still teach). Even if I got all my facts wrong (and who knows, he could have been a visiting artist there) he was solidly IN MY MIND in the school of Chicago Imagism which I still revere. This school includes Roger Brown, Jim Nutt and H. C. Westermann. Given that kind of company, artists unabashedly “pro-image”, Guston’s work seemed uninteresting. Sure I could see there were social critical themes underneath (why else all the Klansmen?) but they weren’t painted in a way that shouted at you (like Diego Rivera shouts “Marxism Good!”) nor were they interesting to me as images. I didn’t even like his signature “flesh rose” or whatever it was. So, I dismissed him. Wrong!

The year was 1979. The place, Chicago. The environment, well, let’s say it was highly influenced by Laurie Anderson, the fall of the Shah, Three Mile Island, Jimmy Carter attacked by a swamp rabbit, the Unabomber, the dominance of disco music, the Soviets invade Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis, and the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” coming in at number five song for the year. Go figure (it all out).C. B. Murphy at the time was in his “industrial metal salesman by day, mad cartoonist at night” phase. He started his cartoon series in the Chicago Reader, beginning with the breakthrough “Zombie Toll Booth Collector” and the prophetic “The Difference Between a Punk and a Dork.”

Where were we? Ah, yes. Artist’s books (aka artists’ books, artists books, and artist books) is a sub-genre of the art world, related to but significantly different from graphic novels (ie. expensive comic books, no offense intended). Artist’s books were viewed by some (including C.B.) as an interesting way to get “the work” (aka The Work if you’re in the Black Mountain lineage) “out there.” Out There was as vague concept as concept then as now, though at base it still means out of one’s studio, atelier, and/or basement (excluding xmas gifts). Obviously the whole online “see me in my studio” YouTube thing complicates matters further, but I digress.

Mr. C.B. Murphy started his Zoographico Press in 1979 with the first volume, the prophetic “January is Alien Registration Month.” I say prophetic because in 1979 very few people were wondering whether we should build a fence across Texas. It just wasn’t that big a deal, hence it was funnier. Zoographico Press put out three titles. After “January” we put out “Nuclear Pup” followed by the prophetic “The Second Mongolian Invasion.” Nuclear Pup (remember this was pre-Adult Swim cartoons on Cartoon Network!) was a irradiated harlequin great dane, anthropomorphized, though presented in “one panel” images as opposed to a straight narrative more common in graphic novels. “January” was selected for inclusion in Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art’s permanent artist’s books collection.

The target audience was a bit vague, one who saw it as children was frightened by its apocalyptic nature, others merely used it as a coloring book. And you know who you are, Kelly!The third book in the trilogy, “The Second Mongolian Invasion” was a kind of meditation on the intersection of science fiction, chakra metaphysics, tattoos, not to forget Wormo-vision, and communicating with the spirit world via ectoplasmic emission. For more information on the cultural milieu see Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Fast forward. My nephews (whose identities I will protect, but you know who you are!) informed me that two of the three titles were available as used books on Amazon. I modestly assumed they’d be in the incomprehensible $.01 category (I assume they make money on the shipping allowance) but I was pleased to see that there was one copy of January for sale at the collector price of $150.

I’m in the process of getting the third book, Mongolian, listed. Soon to be available to serious collectors!

Visionary Art Values

As an artist I find that my interest in “outsider art” is complicated. On the one hand, I am like any other appreciator of the diverse artists who fall in the categories (outsider, visionary, et al) and on the other hand, I am able to use my appreciation to inspire me in certain values. Those values “arise” (if you will) from Outsider Art.
They are: (1) pursue your vision despite what is fashionable and/or going on in the art world; (2) be prepared to sustain yourself in your art without acclaim from the world; (3) listen to the various “voices” that arise, follow them, even when “the world” might be calling you nuts, non-commercial or merely underemployed.

I wish there was an identifiable market for “outsider-inspired” artists that was not an attempt to use our various short stays in mental institutions (if we are so “lucky”) to justify our inclusion in the “real” Outsider world. As such, I want to be respectful of collectors and gallery owners who are strict interpreters what it means to promote Outsiders.

I think it’s a shame that “narrative art” or “neo-folk” or “pop surrealism” can’t coalesce into a real “school.” I see efforts to do this, for example the Low Brow artists promoted by magazines like Juxtapoz and their associated galleries. I am inspired by a certain strain of their artists, but I often balk at the “in your face” embrace of street punk attitudes that insist tattooing, and painting cars, and tagging buildings is the same (if not better, i.e. more morally pure) than old fashioned painting. Their skateboarder politics profane and juvenile, is also a turn-off to me, and I would assume to many serious collectors.

Will these street-inspired artists collect one another? I doubt it. I have no problem that many of them are illustrators. I feel the pain of the illustrator, many of them technically skilled, many of them as inspired as any fine artist to create art. Despite Warhol, their willingness and ability to make money selling their images to businesses, makes them outlaws from the serious art world. Many of them can afford to take on Juxtapozian attitudes because they already have a business.

I think there are other elements to this story, other questions to investigate. How has the fine art world discouraged collecting my more “average” people, by making superstars and obfuscating aesthetics in intelligible post-post-modern theorizing that leaves so many people wishing for the next comprehensible show (whether Impressionist or Frida Kahlo). Maybe “average people” never were collectors and it’s all a fantasy. The difference is that today many people can afford art but due to the difficulty of entering the fray, opt for posters, or “decorator art” or reproductions of masters done in China for amazingly cheap prices. I fantasize that a rebirth of narrative painting could help change things. But then, I’d like to see us colonize Mars too.

What is Outsider Art and why the controversy?

The following definitions are excerpted from Raw Vision, a leading journal in the field:

Art Brut

Raw art, ‘raw’ in that it has not been through the ‘cooking’ process: the art world of art schools, galleries, museums. Originally art by psychotic individuals who existed almost completely outside culture and society. Strictly speaking it refers only to the Collection de l’Art Brut.

Neuve Invention

Used to describe artists who, although marginal, have some interaction with mainstream culture. They may be doing art part-time for instance. The expression was coined by Dubuffet too; strictly speaking it refers only to a special part of the Collection de l’Art Brut.

Folk art

Folk art originally suggested crafts and decorative skills associated with peasant communities in Europe - though presumably it could equally apply to any indigenous culture. It has broadened to include any product of practical craftsmanship and decorative skill - everything from chain-saw animals to hub-cap buildings. A key distinction between folk and outsider art is that folk art typically embodies traditional forms and social values, where outsider art stands in some marginal relationship to society’s mainstream.

Marginal Art/Art Singulier

Essentially the same as Neue Invention; refers to artists on the margins of the art world.

Visionary art (Intuitive Art)

Raw Vision Magazine’s preferred general terms for Outsider Art. It describes them as deliberate umbrella terms. However Visionary Art unlike other definitions here can often refer to the subject matter of the works, which includes images of a spiritual or religious nature. Intuitive art is probably the most general term available. The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is dedicated to the collection and display of such artwork.

Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences.
Both trained and self-taught (or outsider) artists have, and continue to create visionary works. Many visionary artists are actively engaged in spiritual practices, and some have drawn inspiration from psychedelic drug experiences. Walter Schurian, professor at the University of Munster, is quick to point out the difficulties in describing visionary art as if it were a discrete genre, since “it is difficult to know where to start and where to stop. Recognized trends have all had their fantastic component, so demarcation is apt to be fuzzy.”
Despite this ambiguity, there does seem to be emerging some definition to what constitutes the contemporary visionary art ’scene’ and which artists can be considered especially influential. Contemporary visionary artists count Hieronymous Bosch, William Blake, Morris Graves (of the Pacific Northwest School of Visionary Art), Emil Bisttram, and Gustave Moreau amongst their antecedents. Symbolism, Surrealism and Psychedelic art are also direct precursors to contemporary visionary art. The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, which includes Ernst Fuchs and Arik Brauer, is also to be considered an important technical and philosophical catalyst in its strong influence upon the contemporary visionary culture.

Na´ve Art

Another grey area. Untrained artists who aspire to “normal” artistic status, i.e. they have a much more conscious interaction with the mainstream art world than do Outsider Artists.

Lowbrow, or lowbrow art

Describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other California subcultures. It is also often known by the name pop surrealism.
Most lowbrow artworks are paintings, but there are also toys, and sculptures.

Stuckism

Stuckism is an art movement that was founded in 1999 in Britain by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. The Stuckists formed as an alternative to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists (also known as Brit Art). The original group of thirteen artists has since expanded to over 120 groups around the world. Childish left the group in 2001.

What is the Outsider Art Controversy?Joe Coleman (controversy)

What is an “artist-appreciator” of Outsider art?

I would define myself as an artist-appreciator of Outsider Art, and though I understand the positions of people like Joe Coleman who claim, “Hey, I got kicked out of art school, I should be able to show…” I also understand the importance of keeping some kind of boundary on what most people in this community are doing: protecting, enjoying, marketing, and loving the “Outsider Artist” as he or she has been traditionally defined. [No need to go into that, let’s just say Wolfii and Darger, etc.]

As an artist-appreciator I find myself in a rather unique and somewhat confusing place. I know that Outsider Art (Haitian, Dia de los Muertos, Darger, just for starters) is a source of inspiration to me, both “literally” (i.e. I look at it and it makes me want to make art) and “spiritually” (for lack of a better word). To me the spiritual component goes something like this: like an outsider, I seek to “access” something in me that wants to come out, wants to manifest in an image. Sometimes it is a directly spiritual symbol (like the Sacred Heart from my Catholic education), sometimes a “New Age-ish” sort of symbol (like a spiral, an aura, a halo, a swirl of DNA), sometimes it’s from a language of imagery that seems to have chosen me (ants in burrows, UFOs, pyramids, Masonic symbolism, arabic calligraphy). These elements come together in a painting that I in no way pretend is “outsider” however there is a problem. I also don’t feel I belong to the world of “fine art” as manifested by our competent Walker Art Center (where my brother happens to work) or the Weisman Museum (housed in a wonderful Frank Gehry building on the Mississippi, where my sister-in-law just did the Dylan show).

I didn’t go to art school, but I don’t claim that as a credential. I am aware of modern art from Picasso to Neo Rauch. However, I often find “modern art” coming from a place that (a) I don’t like; (b) that turns me off to art; (c) that doesn’t make me want to do more art; (d) repulses me; (e) offends me by it’s “preachiness” or “shock value”; and (f) I could go on. So I don’t read anything like Artforum or Art in America for the same reasons. Instead, I read RAW magazine and Juxtapoz. Now Juxtapoz represents an interesting “movement” and there are many artists I like (say the Clayton Brothers) who would be revered under this somewhat “punky” grouping sometimes called pop surrealism. However, again, much of it (the whole “Jetson-look” thing, the S&Mish sexist thing, the sloppiness of much “street art”, the stretch to include car graphics and tattoos, etc.) So, while I enjoy their feisty approach, I “relate” to only about 20% of it. Partly it’s too “modern” for me (not “outsider” enough, I guess).

I don’t associate Outsider Art is cynicism, snide-ism, in-your-face-ism. I was going to say know-it-all-ism but many outsiders, being evangelicals, etc, are sort of know-it-alls, so that one doesn’t apply. There’s never a shortage of know-it-alls. I often wish someone within their movement would split off and group some contemporary artists as neo-symbolists (only because I like the sound of that) or something that calls forth respect of themselves as conduits for “messages” from some “other” (ie. outside) place, a place that is NOT about (at least not mainly about) their petty egos and careers, but about messages that just have to be sent (ie. recorded as art). For all I know there may be “movements” like this already in existence but since I find the “mainstream” art press distasteful and uninspiring I wouldn’t really know about them.

There will be probably more and more people in this category as time marches along. There are generations graduating from (and getting kicked out of) art schools who learned about Wolfii in grade school. (I have a friend who is an art educator in Wisconsin and I attended a small conference of art teachers who were learning about how to use outsider art in art programs in schools.)

So how does all this figure in to the outsider art world? The good news is that there may be more people respecting it, collecting it and coming to shows. The bad news—there will be more and more artists inspired by the outsiders who don’t have a real home in the traditional mainstream of art who may irritate the “classic outsider” community by trying to “crash the party.”

Some of them may even be good.

What do these people (and paintings) have in common?

Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie) was one of the innovators of the modern notion that as an entertainer you are allowed (and can profit by) a series of persona changes. Madonna, too, cashed in on this. Ali G (and Borat and Bruno), all creations of Sacha Baron Cohen, pushed the “hidden identity” issue further. Many people, including the officials in Khazakstan, thought Borat was real. At first they were outraged, then they saw it as a way of making money and were less so. Ali G became famous putting people on. He would “interview” famous people from John Glen, to Boutrous Boutrous Galli, to Donald Trump and, using his “Brit mixed-race, hip-hop, barely literate” style attempt to trip them out. Amazingly, one of this characters, Bruno, the fey Austrian fashion aficionado, manages to get New York fashion designers to admit they like to “round up” unfashionable people and “ship them to camps.” Borat gets people to admit they hate Jews (though Cohen is Jewish). It seems many celebs don’t know what to make of Ali G. I suspect they thought (the phenomenon has to be over now that Borat made Cohen so famous) they were showing their ‘hip’ side by being able to talk and engage a character like Ali G.
In literature, the pen name is ubiquitous. Once perhaps pen names were secret though today many writers, like John Banville who uses the name Benjamin Black on his thrillers, seem to use the pen name now as a brand extension. Banville writes pensive literature worth of Booker Prize consideration, and his alter ego Black writes (apparently) crowd-pleasing thrillers.
I haven’t seen the “pen name” used much in the art world. Perhaps it’s a phenomenon I’ve missed. There’s probably some of it around the issue of “illustrator versus artist.” So many illustrators are accomplished artists and overlap the world of “fine art.” But there is still a taboo about crossing over, now minimized by the “street movement” of Low Brow art (see Juxtapoz Magazine), but still present. The fact that Warhol was an illustrator first didn’t seem to do anything for this problem of commercialism being “non artistic” in some odd way. Warhol was also a radical for being so blatantly disrespectful of other art sacred tenets: doing it yourself (hire others!), considering yourself original (no, I’m boring!), being called pornography (Isn’t it great?), and being into “glamour” and “superstardom.”
Stephen Colbert is a faux conservative comedian. I got to thinking what would be a faux liberal? How would it be funny and to whom? Randi Rhodes and Al Franken are already comedians—how would one parody them?

Who is Carlos Bernardo Murphy?

I’ve seen Kitaj paintings before. I think before I was seriously painting I found them interesting. I even remember marking him down once on a sheet of paper along with Anselm Keifer–people to look up. What a great name, too.
As my own paintings have evolved, the only “modern” artist (besides Magritte, of course) I have allowed “into the family” has been Neo Rauch.

Yesterday I read in THE ECONOMIST that R. B. Kitaj died. At first, I was only mildly interested but nevertheless read the obit. Then it hit me. The story of the “1994 Tate Gallery disaster”–this was something! Without knowing much about it (so far), this is what I know:
(1) Kitaj is considered “illustrative” which means “bad” or “decorative” to many critics;
(2) Kitaj moved around stylistically, realism, surrealism, other forms, this also irritates critics who like people to be stylistically unique, evolving, in a word comprehensible. The idea that artists, perhaps whimsically, move around and try things goes against the image of “serious/obsessed” that critics like. Stylistic whimsy is considered “freshman in art school” sort of work, lost, sans personality, even immature;
(3) The critics finally got an opportunity rather late in Kitaj’s successful career to savage him and they did so with a vengeance at the Tate Gallery show in London in 1994. The shock was so great to Kitaj that he claimed his second wife died (heart attack?) from the impact of all the negativity;
(4) I think it was about this time that Kitaj got more serious about identifying himself as a Jew and even casting the criticism as anti-Semitic and also moved to the United States (ostensibly to punish London).

I should also say I am reading Roger Kimball’s RAPE OF THE MASTERS, and it all sort of fits together. These things:
1. Art criticism in our time does not service the artist or the appreciator. It services the academics and the museums. It has attempted to make art something that requires advanced degrees to understand (”decode texts”) and the “person in the street” is now an idiot, though still pandered to occasionally by blockbuster shows (Picasso, Impressionists, even Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo) that pay the rent.
2. Art as a practical craft, enjoyable hobby, pleasurable activity (collecting and making) has been pretty much lost. Perhaps lost is not the right word (there still thousands of art centers all over the country) but completely marginalized and shunted away from “serious” art. Now, sadly the worlds are separated, probably permanently.
3. This is why the average person feels intimidated to buy original art (as opposed to poster, reproductions or even decorator art) and hang it on their walls. If they find the art for sale it’s probably by an amateur (maybe at an art fair?) and the only way to like it AND still hold their head up as a half-way educated person is to be quite aggressive about liking it, knowing full well that the serious art world will not like or approve of this piece. I think the growth of “lowbrow” art is largely fueled by this combination of frustration and anger and sheer love of images. It’s partly, too, why I think magazines like JUXTAPOZ have an aggressive “street” veneer as if they have to be tough (pretending not to have stepped foot in a college for example) and ‘outsider’ in their way.
4. I think the growth of Outsider Art, too, as a specialty has to do with this divorce of the average person’s taste from the abstruse (”globally concerned”) art of say the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). Though outsider art gallery owners, collector and appreciators can sound quite pedantic (see their excruciating efforts to define terms and castigate posers) the work they champion for the most part is accessible: narrative, quasi-narrative or surreal, often with an interesting technique. Rarely does a piece of outsider art need an explanation of why you should like it. Certainly some is revered more than another, and the “bio” of the artist matters (best when the artist is mentally disabled and from a marginalized race), but you would rarely be looking at a pile of crap/nonsense and have someone telling you why this crap/nonsense is sooooo important.
5. Kitaj got mugged by the art critic establishment, fierce as they were to “put him in his place.” How dare he try to be important and international when he was JUST a painter, figurative besides. He didn’t even have the torturous story of Francis Bacon (ah, the agonized homosexual popes imprisoned with sides of beef!) to make it all the more palatable. What would happen at the thousands of art schools if Kitaj was considered “important” — god forbid people might even start painting still lives with rabbits again. Where would we be then?– the critic worries.

http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-59.html

A great site for those interested in carnivals, Carnivale, sideshows and all of that. They create individual galleries for artists with circus-related art. Check out the page they made for me, it includes some pieces not on the www.mnartists.org site.

Ken Bloom, curator of Duluth’s Tweed Museum, has selected C.B. Murphy’s painting LECTURE ON HUMANS to be included in his digital collection for his guest curatorial assignment for this month’s access+ENGAGE publication.

“This issue of access+ENGAGE (Issue #16.2) explores the tangle of meanings that lie beneath the surface of words and shared icons. The Tweed Museum of Art’s Ken Bloom, our guest curator for this issue’s Mashup collection, has assembled some illuminating juxtapositions of artwork united by a willingness to gaze directly into the chasm that separates polite consumer fictions from the occasional horrors of real experience. ” from access+ENGAGE (Issue #16.2)

access+ENGAGE is a monthly digital publication of mnartsts.org. (Look up C B Murphy to see more of my paintings on this site).

“Jesus/Devil” painting won second place at the Fredericksburg Center For The Arts Show: Exploring Spirituality (March, 2007). The painting pictured here entitled “Lecture on Humans” was also in the show.