What would you give to hear what people thought of you, candidly, without them knowing you were listening? Your own private blind focus group.
While at a house party a few weeks back, Sharkboy, three other guests and I, were discussing a painting hanging prominently in the living room of our hosts. As I turned to look at the canvas, I noticed that the artist, James Huctwith, was sitting behind us, his eyes darting from his work, to us, to his shoes. The others in our group either didn’t know he was there or just didn’t know who he was. The painting we were all speculating on was a rich, dark red image of a profile of a man lying on his back. Viewed from mid-stomach up, the man is shirtless, hairy chested, goateed face towards the heavens, and had a puff of smoke or breath coming from his mouth.
“I think it’s his last breath,” says one guest, eerily.
“He’s hot.” Pause. “Sexy hot, not warm,” says another.
‘He’s smoking,” suggests Sharkboy, churning up the homoerotic.
“It’s quite well done,” I say, to stoke this barrel of monkeys to provide James with some comment or criticism on it’s execution. Call it a focus group giveaway for his eavesdropping.
“It is,” they conclude. Nothing more. Damn.
I poke again: “I think he’s lying on some velvet in a meat locker waiting for the butcher to come suck his dick,” I say. I look at James. James is smiling at an unseen guest across the room. Sharkboy comments on how smoking is hot but disgusting and the conversation turns. There you go James, I tried.
Flashback to 2003. I am standing in line at Timothy’s Coffee Shop waiting to purchase a tea. In front of me, Dennis O’Connor, head of Church St B.I.A. and owner of O’Connor Gallery is chatting with Kristen, the owner of Timothys.
“What do you think of the art?” Kristen says waving at the canvases of comic book pop art.
Dennis makes a face that resembles someone removing a hangnail from his freshly stubbed toe while sucking on a lemon while listening to Britney Spears give birth to her first sprog.
It was my artwork up at the time. Kristen was trying to illicit a comment candidly the same way I was doing for James. And I appreciated it. I know that you can’t please everyone when you put pixel to monitor, paint to canvas, pen to paper and the negative comment was accepted with a grain of salt. I was thankful for the unfettered input and was actually pleased with Dennis’ reaction.
Flashforward to last night. I am again hanging art at Timothys (I’ll post images later) and I’ve asked an older gentleman to vacate his seat for a few seconds so I could hang my robot-on-top-of-a-car-highway-surfing painting. With my back to this guy I hear him mutter ‘disgusting’ or ‘ridiculous’ not sure which. It certainly wasn’t a mumble of art appreciation.
And like before, I was glad of the honesty. I would rather have someone honestly tell me what they thought of my art or work than to coo coo me into a false sense of security.
I bet that a couple artists who read this blog (Darryl, Evil Panda) have had similar situations where they were privileged to hear comments of their work without the commenter knowing they were listening�
15 thoughts on “Blind Testing”
Pingback: Dead Robot » James, Hutch… Hush… Humtch… James the Artist
daryl, I think my last post might be thought of as sarcastic or mean. I meant it endearingly. You one smart cookie.
Most people don’t allow themselves to go as deep as you suggest when they’re confronted with art. Most people are knee-jerks and blurt out “I know what I like and I dont/do like that!” and then turn away or close their mind down.
I know I’m generalizing here but I believe that humans are judgemental machines with little hind brains that govern their initial reactions.
I do like your final statement. It’s my fuckin’ art so fuck off.
Someone should put your brain in a jar, daryl, so the future can benefit from your big brain.
there is this thing when looking at art to say how bad it is or how wonderful it is, but so often those kind of reactions boil down to a matter of taste. perhaps maybe a more important question to ask than do you like it or not, is to ask why the work is important.
try to look at the ideas behind the work, or find out what the person was/is trying to get at. it’s easy to pass off stuff we “don’t like,” but much more of a challenge to discover how or why it can be interesting or important, or to try and figure out why the artist made the decisions they did.
from where i stand the like vs. dislike argument is just a shortcut. it’s a simplification of what is much more complicated. at the same time that it’s practical it seems to foster judgemental attitudes. starting at the like/dislike thing assumes the work was made for us, but really it’s not meant for us to approve or disapprove of.
I know you do graphic stuff, Salv, but do you do “awtists stuff”? Any shows? Just axkin’
And I kind of see art in coffee shops much like shopping in junk stores: you have to shift through tons of crap to find the wicked cool vintage Adventure Atari cartridge.
There’s this local pub that always has some sort of new art hanging on the walls and sometimes it’s good and sometimes it sucks. I walked in just as they were finishing up hanging the latest stuff. My buddy was the cook there, he sees me looking around and asks what do I think.
“It’s looks like all it needs is broken dolls spray painted with splats of red to be truly crappy and hacky, I think I’d rather have my naked dead grandmother hanging on my wall than this stuff.”
My buddy had the “I just fucked you right over” grin that we sometimes grin at each other whenever we’ve fucked each other right over as guys sometimes do.
Yeah, the artist was standing right behind me.
” but I think the average person these days have been so far removed from the philosophical concepts of modern/post-modern art “
The best selling contemporary artist in the world is Thomas Kinkade (http://www.kinkadekorner.com/). If that doesn’t depress the hell out of you, I don’t know what will.
DR said I was hot! I think he likes me!
Daryl: I agree with your lecture day rant for the most part (especially the direct route eliciting a polite comment) but I think the average person these days have been so far removed from the philosophical concepts of modern/post-modern art that they start relating to the pieces by either commenting on the base elements of the work.
Evil Panda: Its ok. You’re hot.
Sorry, after rereading this, I sound like an idiot. Forgive me, I’m having a bad week.
yah, i’d day getting unfettered criticism is fairly rare. being critical is so often associated with be negative or judgemental, but it could be as simple as asking questions. so often art is made in such a bubble that just having a chance to talk about it is a great way to think more about motivations and intent.
when looking for criticism some people go directly for the, “so, what do you think of my work?” approach, but that’s something that seems to put people on the spot, making them scramble to say some sort of nicety.
i don’t think i buy the idea that art cristicm is inherently flawed. a more obvious example of why might be someone trying to get across a specific idea, but totally missing the point, or perhaps missing a reference to something culturally important. Case in point, I had a student use an image of abe lincoln in their work, but didn’t even know who it was. obviously an image of lincoln isn’t void of ideology.
when there is no criticism for art it’s really hard to make it any better, or work to expand ideas or look at them in different ways. plus having another set of eyes or another interpretation is useful since it builds on knowledge in a really general way. if all i work from is what i already know, or think i know, the work isn’t going to be very worldy. if someone else can point to something in my work i’ve never seen or thought about before it makes me look at in in a new way as well.
gee, could you tell you caught me on a lecture day?
Truly honest comments are good when the commenter isn’t a moron. And I’m always truly honest. Sometimes brutally so.
Furface: I asked Dom to make me a header because he was bored at work and had been illustrating 50s to 70s style monster robots all week. Consider it a link to his site. I’m working on a new one soon.
I’m haning at Tims for a month and a bit. I will be changing some stuff midway through the show to keep it fresh.
Evil: thanks I like my work too. I think I was trying to say how good truly honest comments are when the commenter doesnt know you’re around.
PS: I’m selling Ben Grimm. Ha!
Jeez, where to begin on this one…First off DR, your stuff is good. Really really good. Especially when taken as a whole, you see the story emerge. God knows, you’ve done stuff I would kill to have hanging in my house (Shogun, Thing, Jesus with a laser gun, Ninjas…).
As far as eavesdropping on criticism goes, I get it all the time, especially at work. I know I’m not the most talented designer in the universe, but I’m good enough. As long as I have that, the shit that’s said about anything I’ve done is like water off a ducks back. I’m not designing for me…I’m designing for the client. I can take criticism, as I know you can. You wouldn’t last long in the industry otherwise.
The thing about ART, as opposed to design, is the criticism is inherently flawed. When you take the raw materials on one end and produce your vision on the other, you’re sharing your own personal view of the universe with others. It’s your vision, and who are they to judge? Granted, technique comes in to some degree, but the overall creation is like a child. Some kids grow up okay, some grow up to be George W. Bush.
Doh, that should say… Shouldn’t YOUR work…….
Maybe he didn’t like your outfit and not your art. By the way, although I like the now not so new banner should YOUR work really be on the front door??? I mean you have talent so stick it out back on yourself.
How long are you hanging – at timothy’s that is?