What about literature?  In 2006, a Harvard sophomore by the name of Kaavya Viswanathan, wrote How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. A chick-lit hit, the book landed its author a movie deal.  And then the unthinkable happened:  Kaavya Viswanathan was accused of plagiarizing several books, notably Megan McCafferty’s Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, and The Princess Diaries.  Kaavya Viswanathan’s defense: she had “internalized” some of the content from these books.

What about J.K. Rowling and Eva Ibbotson’s The Secret of Platform 13?  Eva Ibbotson’s reaction?  Eva Ibbotson simply stated that writers always borrow from each other which may explain why she never sued J.K.Rowling.

That’s the thing – we all do borrow from each other.  Great athletes borrow moves from other great athletes, great philosophers borrow (and build) from other great philosophers… what makes an already established idea a “new idea” is interpretation.

John LeKay's "Spiritus Calidus", Crystal Skull, 1993

John LeKay claims that Damien Hirst got his idea for “For the Love of God” from his “Spiritus Calidus” series which were, themselves, inspired by Mayan skulls.  The two artists were friends between 1992-94.  They also exhibited together in a 1994 show in New York.

Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God", 2007

A short while later, Polish artist Peter Fuss offers his own “Made in China” version (his made by “cheap Polish labor”).  The Fuss version costs  £1,000 (compared to the Hirst piece for £50 million) and is made of glass polished and cut to look like diamonds.  Plus, there’s a tooth missing .  Oh, and the skull isn’t cast in platinum the way the Hirst skull is.

Peter Fuss' "For The Love of God", plastic and glass, 2007

Computer graphics artist Robert Dixon accuses Hirst of appropriating his “True Daisy”.  The artist claims that Damien Hirst’s Valium is a copy of his “True Daisy” (published in 1991 in the and Penguin Dictionary of  Curious and Interesting Geometry).  Dixon writes to Hirst’s representatives who (reportedly) write back to Dixion.  Not realizing who Dixon is they allegedly state that Hirst got the idea from an image in saw in the 1991 Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry.

Hirst's Valium, 2000, (on top) and Robert Dixon's True Daisy, 1984.

Irony of Ironies:  Damien Hirst sues sixteen year old artist Cartain (his moniker) for using his skull in a series of collages which begs the question: Doesn’t Kodak want to get in on this?

cartain

Jude Norris' Red Spirit Buffalo 2009 - from the Ekwa Series (Courtesy of the Artist)

Art should speak for itself and good art does.  So the question is this?  How much more does art say if you know a little bit about the artist?  For artists like Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol, their persona became part of the art.  The same thing could be said about contemporary artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin who have consciously cultivated and incorporated their personalities into the marketing of their art.

Understanding art by analyzing the artist becomes even more relevant when the artist is affiliated with a group or country that has certain historical, cultural, philosophical or political traditions.  A painting of the bible with a placard placed next to it that reads “Joe Doe, of white supremacist descent” will immediately illicit a different response from the same painting whose accompanying placard reads “Joe Doe, of African-American descent”.   Chances are, however, that two artists coming from such disparate points of departure would never treat a subject in the same way.  Art is never objective, not in its creation nor in its interpretation.

This is certainly true of the art of Jude Norris.  Of Cree, Anishinabe, Russian, Scottish, Gypsy, Métis descent, Norris culturally identifies with her Indigenous ancestry, a connection which she describes as stemming from her “inward, psychic” need to reconnect with her First Nations roots.  In her personal essay, The Story of the Ekwa (pronounced eh-gwah) Buffalo, Norris writes:  “Obviously, cultural relationships also come into play, as the antlers, being used as they are by the Indigenous artists, cannot help but bring up traditional connection between First Nations people and the animals they [the antlers] belong to.”

For Norris, artist and art are inseparable.  As such, Norris’ Ekwa buffalo are imbued with personal relevance and history – they are as much a visual diary that speak of her individual search and passage back to her roots as they are a majestic animal that connects to the Aboriginal people as a whole.  In Norris’ words:

“Shortly after all this buffalo re-connection, contact, and creation happened, I also re-connected with my own Plains Cree Nation and Territory. We are, of coarse, intrinsically and anciently connected with the buffalo. I see this period and these events as in part the Buffalo Nation calling me home. Before this, I had once gone to see an Elder in Toronto, to ask about why I felt such intense emotion towards these animals, and everything that had happened to them – as if it were real to me. He explained to me that  all things that happen exist always, outside of time as we know it, and this is why I could feel these things as if they were now, even though they happened in the past.”

In Plains Cree, Ekwa means ‘let’s go’ or ‘right now’, a befitting title for a series of  individual buffalo in movement.  It is as if each of her buffalo has been freeze-framed while in motion.  Executed in digital print, the deceptive simplicity of Norris’ buffalo bear a strange, almost surreal connection to cave art.  The fact that they have been digitally rendered catapults them into the twenty-first century without negating their primordial energy.  There is something deeply spiritual about Norris’ buffalo that transcends the derogatory categorization “Indian art” that sometimes enters the mainstream mind when confronted with a First Nations artist’s depiction of a “nature” image such as buffalo.   Norris’ buffalo defy the confines of cultural and/or religious affiliation and enter the universal sphere of what we all aspire to be – brave, independent, communal, free, and eternal.

Jude Norris' Winter Buffalo 2009 - from the Ekwa Series (Courtesy of the Artist)

The buffalo is not new to the art of Norris.  Her 1999 Red Buffalo Skydive, a 3 minute single channel piece created by rotoscoping (drawing over) the frames of buffalo video footage, shows a moving buffalo while Norris’ voice recounts a rather odd story about a paraplegic and his post-accident skydiving adventures.

An interesting juxtaposition comes into play as you watch the piece and listen to the story – the buffalo keeps moving back and forth without going anywhere much in the same way the paraplegic in the story is attempting to find freedom of movement without much success (he attempts to skydive, but breaks his legs, he tries again without success…).  What the… was admittedly my initial reaction but then image and story suddenly unite into a parallel reality as the paraplegic finally finds a way to realize his quest for freedom and movement through a tenacity similar to the buffalo.  It is at this breaking point of revelation that a new understanding of what you are seeing and listening to comes into play – Norris’ image and story-telling connect to all of us.

The buffalo’s journey is as much the paraplegic’s journey which is as much our journey in our quest to live a meaningful, spiritual, healed life – a quest that is as old as the buffalo itself.

Jude Norris’ new website is up – www.tatakwan.com

Cave, 2000 by Gavin Turk (source: Artnet)

Inspired by Andy Warhol’s comment, “Good business is the best art”, the Tate Modern’s current exhibition, Pop Life: Art in the Material World, inspired me to look at two of Britain’s YBA’s (young British Artists).  The two artists are Gavin Turk and the oftentimes controversial Tracey Emin.  Both artists, as with most of the other artists in the group, have one thing in common:  Their artistic persona is as important, if not more important, than their art.  They are the brand, much in the same way Warhol was the brand.  Their art is the product of their branded persona – think “fifteen minutes” of fame enjoyed over and over again.

Gavin Turk [who actually spends a good deal of time thinking about his work] got his first fifteen minutes of fame when the Royal College of Art refused to give him his MA in 1991.  The reason?  His final work, entitled Cave [one of the versions seen above], consisted of a white-washed studio space.  Hung on one of the walls was a blue heritage plaque, the same kind of plaque found on heritage buildings and monuments of famous dead people.  Inscribed on the plaque were the words: Burough of Kensington/GAVIN TURK/Sculptor/Worked Here 1989-1991. The plaque and words gave a sort of ironic finality to a career that hadn’t yet begun. Gavin Turk, sculptor, was too young to be considered “heritage”, too unknown to be considered “famous”, and too alive to be considered “dead”, yet none of these “blue heritage plaque prerequisites” deterred him from commemorating himself.  As such, the plaque becomes the ultimate self-promotion – I declare myself to be, therefore I am.  Now add a little bit of hype brought about by a stuffy, narrow minded college’s refusal to grant a poor young artist his degree and voila!  Turk’s first fifteen minutes of fame which have since been followed by more fifteen minutes.

More than anything, however, Turk’s Cave put the finger on what Warhol already knew – we are a brand-obsessed society that cares more about the name than it does the art.  Artists, such as Turk, Emin, and most notably Hirst [to name some of the British ones], understand this.  It is what Turk calls the “cult of the signature”.

What is especially interesting about these artists is that they spend as much time “branding” themselves as they do “de-branding” their art.  Again, think of Warhol and his soup cans.  It’s like a weird circle that feeds on itself: Turk creates garbage bags and carton boxes that, were it not for the fact that they are in a museum or gallery, would look like a garbage bag or carton box; paradoxically, the garbage bags and carton boxes would still look like garbage bags and carton boxes [in spite of their museum/gallery setting] if it weren’t for the fact that Turk is the artist. In other words, the brand – Gavin Turk – is what gives the art its relevance and explains why the art is in a museum/gallery setting.

My Bed by Tracy Emin (source: Saatchi Gallery)

Foul-mouthed slut – not the brand most people would embrace, yet Tracey Emin has appropriated the “bad girl” image as her very own.  My bed, which is exactly that – Emin’s bed – would be just another bed if it weren’t for the undeniable persona of its creator.  Emin spent four days in this bed contemplating suicide.  While she contemplated, she drank, smoked, and had lots of sex – at least if you are to judge by the empty vodka bottles, the cigarette buts, and the condoms.  The way she tells it, and retells it, and then retells it again – she had one hell of an awful childhood and so she drinks too much, swears too much, and sleeps around.  It’s visual Oprah where everything is revealed, and then revealed again.

Warhol wasn’t wrong when he said “good business is the best art”.  Nor is there anything wrong with self-promotion.  After all, artists do have to sell their work, something art galleries and art dealers have been doing forever and controversy, for better or for worse, is the best ad campaign one can hope for.  Art is not objective, it is subjective.  As such, it is the physical embodiment of its creater and there is nothing wrong with that.  Where it goes wrong and where the art collector has to be careful is when the brand takes over the art.  I am great and I have something to express should never be confused with I am great simply because I tell you I am.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (source: http://tinyurl.com/ycjmxaw)

If you are not familiar with Damien Hirst’s conceptual piece, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”,  here’s the scoop:  In 1991, Charles Saatchi commissions British artist Hirst to create whatever he wants.  Hirst decides to formaldehyde a shark and then place that shark in a tank filled with formaldehyde.  A whole lot of formaldehyde later, “The Physical Impossibility…” is created.  In 2004 Saatchi sells the work for eight million dollars to Steven A. Cohen who, in turn, lends the piece to The Metropolitan Museum of art until 2010.

Fast forward to the future.  My husband John and I walk into a Montreal art gallery where we familiarize ourselves with an artist called Dominique Gaucher.   Lo and behold – one of Gaucher’s paintings depicts Hirst’s shark at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Entitled “Showpiece”, the background is dominated by Hirst’s shark while the foreground is dominated by an encroaching mass of sea water.   In effect, Gaucher’s “Showpiece” brilliantly reverses the process that went into the creation of “The Physical Impossibility…” – instead of art extracting its subject from nature, nature  reclaims its subject from art.

Showpiece. (Source: artnet.com)

Unfortunately, “Showpiece” was sold and therefore unavailable.  Solution?  Commission Gaucher to create another version.    In our 6 x 6 version, the shark and its tank (which rests on an embankment of sand) are at the forefront of the painting.  The background is dominated by the oncoming sea.

John and I each have the mock up of our painting (it’s not yet finished) on our phones.  Like giddy new parents we proudly show our friends.

Their reaction?   Are you seriously putting that in your home?  Maybe you shouldn’t make it the first thing one sees when they walk in and whatever you do, don’t put it in your dining room!  So what kind of art should enter your home anyway?  Obviously, you should love your art but, and this is a big BUT, is love honestly enough?  If you were buying one or two paintings then yes, it is enough, but what if you begin the slow and alluring road towards becoming a collector?

Art should be like a great book.  You finish it, you put it down, and yet it stays with you.  It makes you question what you hadn’t questioned before, it makes you “re-see” your surroundings.

Ponder the “what kind of art…”question if you want.  In the meantime, John and I look forward to welcoming our blood-thirsty shark!  Where will it go?  Our living room of course where it will boldly glare at our wine-sipping guests or our kids while they attempt to snuggle on the couch with a good, thought-provoking book – okay maybe I’m stretching the part about thought-provoking, but what better companion than an open-mouthed shark for the reading of the Twilight series!