Charles Gaines: Undoing Perception

Burn! We’re talking Dana Schitz and the Whitey Biennial, and my friend, photographer and activist Jay Trinidad, says, “This is why I will not shed a tear when the NEA dies. It has sustained an art world like this.” Read that again. Ok. Her, her, her, her everybody One of the administrators at my kid’s school wants ideas on why the students aren’t behaving. A lot of them are not following protocols. A lot. If most of the students are not following the system, then what kind of hubris would lead someone to believe that there is something wrong with the kids? There’s something wrong with the protocols. There’s something wrong with the system. Where is the excitement for the arts? I’m sorry the “fine arts”? Where are the crowds? Where is the chatter? And before anyone damns the masses for their lack of education, their lack of effort, before anyone mumbles “hoi polloi” like they was born with a monocle on, let’s take a second to remember that we are living in the Age of Networks. The masses are out there enjoying music in languages they cannot understand, swooning over fashions from half a world away, relearning traditional crafts thought lost to the bloodline. There’s a Filipino bus driver out there grooving to Magnum Band. There’s a kid in Connecticut that always picks Nollywood over Hollywood. Shit is available and findable and sharable. Your tribe don’t have to live on the block now, not when most of us are more connected than Lamont Cranston. But most people don’t seem curious about what the artworld is up to these days, and really the artworld is not curious about most people, except maybe as abstractions and as feed. No questions are asked, desires remain unexplored. Like, I meet way too many people in the art bubble that seem proud that they don’t know a single Future song. No one has a duty to love Trap, but the pride is telling. It’s connected to why so many art spaces move into cheap neighborhoods and never stress that the neighbors never visit, or that all of their marketing money is directed past the hood, or that they don’t know any of the history of their new home. It’s connected to how little effort there is from the big institutions to be inviting and attentive to the parts of town that have to make due without a Whole Foods. Be that way, art bubble. Be that way, and whither while burning the little oxygen that remains within your walls. Outside there is plenty of misery, but there is also a constant and constantly evolving polyphonic celebration. This could be us, but you dyin’.

“Ned? Oh, Ned he’s so damn smart, he's a genius”. This is my cousin referring to my white half-brother who is in his early 30’s still had not landed a steady job, lived at home and I should add, suffered from suicidal thoughts and depression. And yet, this pronouncement didn't take me by surprise, my entire life I had heard about how many wonderful things were possible in his future, “you know he plays so many video games, maybe he’ll be a surgeon or a pilot!!”. His destiny was to follow the trajectory of a Bill Gates. I, on the other hand, was the older half-sister who never heard about the wonderful things in store for me. Unlike my brother I was given a completely different message, albeit unwittingly, by my dark skinned Latin American Immigrant father who I spent most weekends with. If I was with him I was most surely at his restaurant watching him cook and hustle his ass off. Like many immigrants he arrived fully pledged to the American Dream. He was an entrepreneur who over the decades was sometimes doing well but most times struggling. To this day I have never seen anyone work harder than my dad but at the end of his life while suffering from cancer, the American dream bitch slapped him hard. He died poor and the country that he had toiled for let him fall through the nightmarish cracks between Medicare, and disability. All his hard work and nothing to show for it. My brother and I, like most Americans, from the moment we were born have had the myth that we are living in a meritocracy thrust upon our shoulders, the idea that if you work hard enough you will be a success and conversely if you don’t work hard enough you will fail. As a child of color I had learned a lesson that my white half-brother unfortunately never did. Which is for every Bill Gates There’s a million Carlos Lopez’s. In essence, it’s all bullshit. For all of the disadvantages people of color might have in our country built on institutionalized racism, one small advantage we might have is the perspective my dad gave me. We know that being good and working hard doesn't guarantee success because we have witnessed it. We know that to work hard gives us only a hope of a chance of success and no promises. Being mixed race I had the benefit of having intimate knowledge with the white and nonwhite experience of the “meritocracy”. The difference is while I was expected to work hard to have a chance at success my brother was simply expected to just have success. It's no surprise that the pressure of this had him considering ending it all, he failed in a place where everything is set up for a white male to succeed. After all we are a country that made Trump, white mediocrity equals success, this is especially true in the art world. Contrary to what art schools would have you believe, good work doesn't equal good career. Many mediocre artists locally and nationally have consistent exhibition and sales records. They don't seem to have earned it. I lament, as most artists do, as to why I work so hard making art and striving towards greatness but the rejections keep coming. In a way all artists can relate to the frustration of working hard and having nothing to show for it because artists are a not valued in our culture. But if you are an artist of color reading this know that, like my brother and I, we are not playing the same game as white artists, the rules and results are different. Adrian Piper herself has seen the art world shun her then embrace her over the decades. She has had to support herself as a philosopher because the money she has made is so inconsistent. A philosopher! Mega Star Chris Rock spoke about having a white dentist as a neighbor. For every talented minority art star like Kerry James Marshall there are thousands of mediocre white artists making a living with careers that if I had, I’d feel like I had won the lottery. Maddeningly, many white artists still think we minority artists have some sort of advantage showing and selling work, they couldn't be more wrong. I have been producing the best work of my life and it's piling up in my studio slowly taking over my home. In my desperation to show, I like many others before me have turned toward those god awful self-help-career books and websites for artists. With titles such as “Making it in the Art World” and “How to be a Successful Artist”, the only problem is these books are written for white artists because their solutions are white. For example, they often recommend regularly visiting galleries you are interested in showing with and cultivating a relationship with the owner. This is a little hard to do from behind a glass front door that has been locked by said gallery owner during business hours because they are scared to let a black man in (this literally happened to my husband). These books show zero awareness of the necessities for people of color to modify their approaches to the White Cubes, for the most part white women don’t even get tailored advice for navigating a market rife with sexism. Intersectionality ain’t in the glossary. They purport that if you say and do the correct things you should succeed. For white artists it may hold some grain of truth but let them begin to lose a step and there is nothing to explain or forgive their failures, they may find themselves where my brother was, feeling worthless and depressed. We artists of color must not get bamboozled into believing we live in a meritocracy. We must always remember the struggles of our friends and loved ones and know that we are working hard to make great art as an end in and of itself and not as a guaranteed means to an end. Let’s not forget that though we may have idols who are successful white artists we may never have their careers and (here is the most important part) It’s not our fault!!! The system would have us believe artists of color have some kind of advantage, if only we kissed ass a little more, appealed to their exotic ideas of us, applied for that extra grant or show, gotten that extra line on my CV then you might have had a chance. Resist this because it’s not us that needs to change it’s the system itself. How many art institutions in town are run by people of color? (according to a 2016 study by the American Alliance of Museums curators, conservators, and those working in publication and registrar are over 80% non-Hispanic white). How many shows by artists of color or women artists are being seen, written about? (Just look around you) Most importantly how many of your artist of color friends are able to even halfway support themselves with their work? The gap between rich and poor, and failure and success is getting wider in this country. Now multiply that by a hundred and you have the situation that us minority artists find ourselves in. So do yourself a favor and be kinder to you, reject the dangerous career advice, make great art as an antidote to mediocre white art and put the blame for your struggling career where it belongs, the rotten art world establishment. If we don’t we will call ourselves failures in a game that was never designed for us to win, we might even understandably want to quit, or we might end up like my dad or my brother blaming ourselves and wondering where we went wrong. We must reject the brainwashing that would make us say to ourselves, “You are the only thing holding you back”, in spite of an entire system built to keep success just beyond our grasp. Instead let’s put our combined efforts into, not just making stunning art for its own sake, but supporting fellow minority artists, and also holding non-profits, museums, galleries, and people in power accountable for their biases. Demolish this squalid and unfair system, that’s all the advice I need.

This past summer Edgar Arceneaux and I got together for an interview at his home studio in Pasadena, CA. I have been wanting to do a studio visit with him for years. As CalArts alums, students of the renowned conceptual artist Charles Gaines and Los Angeles based artists I have been following his work for quite some time. After attending a screening of his work Until, Until, Until... at USC Roski I was interested in unpacking many of the threads I have observed within his multidisciplinary practice over the years and to get a behind the scenes look at what he was currently working on and what he was thinking about in terms of future work. I caught him in the midst of preparing for the inaugural Current LA Biennial that has since passed. We were joined by Imani Ford a current graduate student at Yale, studying contemporary African- American artists in Los Angeles. She was gathering research for an upcoming project. Since our conversation Arceneaux has a newly released Art21, a new teaching appointment at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and a current solo show at the MIT List Visual Arts Center. Our conversation organically revolved around The Calarts Mafia (1) and what it means to build a network of conscious thinkers and artists, music, vulnerability, making mistakes, issues of race and class, and navigating the art world and our interdisciplinary practices. EA: The one thing that I am working on right now is the Current LA Biennial. I have one of the smaller projects. What I am doing is kind of merging together two different interests. One has to has to do with belief and religion and the other one has to do with water. Current LA is focused on water. It is the first Public Art Biennial in Los Angeles. It is taking place at public parks all over the city. Parts are centered around the LA River. Bloomberg Philanthropy is supporting it so it will be around for a while and it is international. Rirkrit Tiravanija is in it, Mel Chin and other artists. My project is called “The CENTER of the EARTH”. The idea is that beneath a drinking fountain is a complex system of beliefs that we don’t normally think about. In a modern developed nation like ours you are going to have clean drinking water no matter where you go, and when you go to a public park and access public facilities, to some degree it is sort of about the social contract, you know the public places where you will be safe, where you can use the bathrooms. Your tax dollars are paying for these facilities, but one of the things I have learned in the process of working on this show is that a lot of the drinking fountains that are broken or falling apart sometimes they are not fixing them and they will just sit there and you will try to turn on the water and there is nothing. Then they will be replaced with Pepsi, Coca Cola and bottled water giving way for private industries to take place. So I was thinking how do I talk about this idea of belief and conflict that is connected to water that is happening right now as a public property and the challenges that are happening right now in relationship to privatization.

There is an ongoing discussion regarding Blackness in contemporary art and politics: Should an African-American artist make work that reflects Blackness and is representative of the entire race, or should they embrace a personal modernism and liberate their aesthetic from the bounds of a singular identity. Jennie C. Jones’ mid-career survey at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston does not explicitly conform to one view or the other, yet, it does provides a soft and reflective insight into the culture that defines her identity and informed eleven years of her artistry. The exhibited works do not bear the burden of being representative of Black culture, nor do they need to. There is ample space in the contemporary art world for Jones’ voice within any multicultural discourse, with no explanation, on any topic, including the history of jazz. Jones’ featured works explore the physicality behind music, from production and consumption, to distribution. She focuses on the products of the African-American jazz musicians from her youth, and the tools used to experience that music. It is a much more specific area of focus than most abstract artists will dedicate an entire career to, but the result is not too monotonous. Examining a broad aesthetic grouping we will discover that champions of geometric and lyrical abstraction like Ellsworth Kelly, Norman Bluhm, and Kazimir Malevich tended to explore pure non-objective, non-representational compositions of human life, landscape, architecture, and simplification of natural forms. Seldom do we find an obsession with such a particular inanimate subject group, and even more rare is for that subject group to be the focus of an entire body of work. This specificity guarantees that Jones’ art will not be confused or generalized with the work of other contemporary artists, for better or worse she is dedicated to asserting her unique interest, and she truly believes in the direction of her work. The exhibition showcases Jones’ range, maintains its clarity of subject matter, all while highlighting her aesthetic across multiple forms and mediums including minimalist sculptures, abstract drawings, color field painting and digital micro sampling of vinyl recordings. Walk into the CAHM and the first thing you see is a long wall immediately separating you from whatever is beyond in the museum space. It’s essentially bare, but to the left there is the artist name listed above the exhibition abstract, and to the right is a massive black square with a dark red strip trailing down the left border, in the bottom right corner of the blackness is the iconic Blue Note Records logo. These solid blocks of color form the crop section from a Blue Note LP album cover. This is the one and only wall painting in the entire exhibition, and will prove to be very important as a historical document for understanding the origin of Jones’ color field paintings. Her use of solid rectangular bands, and a restricted color palette closely mirror the iconic design of 1950’s Blue Note cover art. A soft crackle rattles throughout the building, raining from speakers hidden high in the rafters, not music, but the rough scratch of a vinyl record on repeat. This audio piece is both an ode to the nostalgia and novelty of using vinyl, and an explicit introduction to the era of music that Jones’ work stands in conversation with. In a speech at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Jones talks about a time where she was struggling for content, working to justify her aesthetic and trying to figure out the meaning behind the work that she was making. Once she realized that she was spending more time curating her playlist than she was defining her content, it was clear that the music she played in her studio was the source of her content.

Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground has layers upon layers upon layers of story. As I sit down to write, I don’t think my review will even scratch the surface of everything this film is about. Collins effortlessly juggles a film with in a film, several storylines, existential crisis and discourse on the plight of the black artist.

I study the origins and preservation of Texas Freedom Colonies, places founded by ex-slaves, through memory and observed rituals. My assumption is that we have long been doulas to the truth: We possess the ability to manage our relationships to structures, nature, and space. Some see my partialities as a badge of courage and fidelity, while others see my subjectivities as mere bias. However, interrogating memory and its purpose in Black life cannot be done without rigor. This is a research methodology of care, repair, and discomforting objectivity. Getting Black Texans to remember and recognize the value of their memories value is the work of Critical Sankofa Planning. Looking back to look forward. Recollection as resistance. Consider the present challenge of deciding how Black Diasporic people will live now. How will we live in a way that affirms rather than criminalizes our bodies? How will we build wealth? How will we simply be? Critical Sankofa planning urges us to ask first, how early Black Texans, somewhere between slavery and Juneteenth, made home place. Where did these places go? Why do some remain? Are the answers in elders’ memories?

Visual artist William Cordova, an old school vinyl head, had three works featured in an exhibition entitled “ The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl .” This essay is in homage to an underappreciated masterwork. “Let me make this…very clear to all the police in the audience, and for those who will still see their roles as passive ones: the shit is on!” –Felipe Luciano (East Coast Chairman, The Young Lords) April 24, 1970, midnight concert at the Apollo Theater, Harlem This live album came into my own archive by chance but not accident. It was through direct awareness and relation to the social content of the material rather than curiosity that led me to its existence. The concert, organized by the Young Lords, captured the imagination of many young people all over the US, and influenced other music oriented fundraising events by bringing together activists and musicians who were radically revolutionizing activism around the world; The New Haven 8 Concert, Concert for Bangladesh and Concert for The People of Kampuchea, Farm Aid, the list goes on. The Young Lords, a Latino community organization based in New York City, modeled themselves after the Black Panther Party’s platform. Free survival programs, children’s breakfast, food/clothes giveaway, legal defense, and free clinics for the poor. The concert appealed to a diverse audience through an eclectic line up of music that included, R&B, Latin avant-garde, Rock, Salsa and poetry. The proceeds went into these programs. The album’s jacket design is minimal with a single Black and White photo printed across the front. The back of the jacket is equally simple without liner notes, year of manufacturer or Record Label, except to note tracks and performers. It is important to note that the actual vinyl record does not contain any printed information other than the numbers 0086813209. One is almost prompted to visualize the movements and breathing of each performer as they interact through their set. One can figure out the A side by listening to the audio intro of Denise Oliver, The Young Lords Minister of Economic Development, hosting “our first guest” the music of Joe Bataan. It’s obvious that Bataan’s set is incomplete from the quick audio cuts, still, this may be the earliest known live recordings of Joe Bataan, An Afro-Filipino, from Spanish Harlem and one of the first musicians to sign with Fania Records. Track 1 is a scorching version of What Good is a Castle; a poignant composition about the state of low income housing the decrepit high rises of El Barrio. Track 2. Ordinary Guy is an interesting sped up live version from Joe Bataan’s Riot album (Fania 1968). Ordinary Guy was originally released on Bataan’s Gypsy Woman LP (Fania 1967). Tracks 3. Obatala closes the set but then Joe Bataan returns to the stage and proceeds to perform his first hit single, Gypsy Woman and finally a theater rousing Freedom from 1969’s Poor Boy (Fania). “But I was what I am, a man for the times…am talking about freedom?” – Joe Bataan (Freedom) The Rascals (formerly, Young Rascals) start up track 4. Good Lovin,’ from their self-titled Young Rascals album (1966, Atlantic) partially excludes is the bands introduction by Denise Oliver. Track 5. People Got To Be Free, evolves into an extended sing along with the audience that runs a total of 6 minutes a huge feat for a song that originally runs 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Track 6. Groovin’ (1967, Atlantic) really reveals the extent of influence that Afro & Latino music had in contemporary Rock music of the late 1960s and early 70s. Groovin’ first starts out with a conga solo from an unknown player and a bilingual version of the song by lead singer Felix Cavaliere. A version that is seldom heard live. (Groovin’/ Sueño, Atlantic 1967). Elaine Yarborough and The Truth & Soul Ensemble performed only one song or at least it was the only one included, Track 7. Leavin’ This Morning, a traditional folk song originally recorded by Odetta on Odetta and the Blues (1962, Riverside). The Truth & Soul Ensemble’s version though is far from traditional or acoustic. Elaine Yarboroughs (not to be confused with Yarbrough & Peoples) soulful voice often climaxes the blaring high brass, drums & bass background of The Ensemble. It is unfortunate that no other recordings of this group were able to be located. The following performers, track 8. The Harley Four, is interesting in that this is a Martial Arts family troupe performing without any music as background and yet included in the album. Side B opens with a long duration of static whose source, after much scrutinizing, turns out to be the microphone to the reel-to-reel recorder that the entire event was recorded with. Track 1. Speech, starts out with “a solidarity telegram from Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, it’s unclear if Denise Oliver of the Young Lords is reading the telegram. Track 2. Starts out much clearer, the album track listing states, Richard Moore (Dharuba) of the Black Panther 21 speaks. “I came to curse you out and you should take that as constructive criticism … come and see about Bobby” -Dharuba (Black Panther) Richard Moore (Dharuba Bin Wahad), and 20 other Black Panthers accused of planning to terrorize New York City landmarks were all eventually acquitted in what was to be the longest and most expensive criminal court trial in NY city history. This rare recording of a speech by Dharuba also makes the entire event more monumental in regards to the historic location, historic event and historic participants. Track 3. Felipe Speaks, “let us not support political prisoners because they are images. Let us support them because we are supporting ourselves,” a brief monologue by Felipe Luciano (The Young Lords NY Chairman). Track 4. Pedro Pietri, is an early recording of late activist and poet Pedro Pietri’s Puerto Rican Obituary poem, a powerfully insightful masterpiece of literature. One can hear a pin drop in the Apollo’s cavernous stage as Pietri’s poetry flows with rhymes. Juan, 
Miguel, 
Milagros, Olga, Manuel,
All died yesterday today and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors on to the next of kin
All died waiting for the garden of Eden to open up again under a new management
All died dreaming about America -Pedro Pietri (excerpt, Puerto Rican Obituary, Monthly review Press 1973) Track 5. The Last Poets, offers a reunion of sorts as David Nelson, Gylan Kain and Felipe Luciano the original Last Poets took center stage probably for the last time (1968-1970). Only one track is mentioned though the trio performs 3 pieces including Tell Me Brother (Kain), Black Woman (David Nelson), and Rifle/Oracion-Rifle player (Luciano). All three tracks were also recorded in The Last Poets, Right On film soundtrack (Juggernaut Records 1970). Felipe Luciano offers the audience a parting comment, “Revolution is difficult…but we will win…you mustn’t just sit there, leave and think it’s not happening…. Let me make this…very clear to all the police in the audience, and for those who will still see their roles as passive ones: the shit is on!” — William Cordova