Many times when I read “the Art world” I do not feel that I am member of what is referenced when those three words are written together. Part of my sentiment is where I live, part is where I am in my career- “emerging” at 52 and not yet practicing full time. So when I saw that the artist who turned a banana into a global phenomenon published an essay in Art Basel about attention, I think there’s a good chance I encountered it a little differently than his intended audience.
I certainly felt like an outsider looking in, with Cattelan starting in right at the top to direct our thoughts to those words- to galleries and fairs and collectors specifically (none of whom your writer is connected to). Then this creative with whom I’m not very familiar other than the afore-mentioned phenomena or generally feel my practice is connected to suggested that:
“Today, images are infinite and almost free. We are surrounded by more photographs, films, artworks, advertisements, and generated images than we could ever absorb. What we lack is not something to look at but the time required to look at it. And yet, much of the art system continues to behave as if its main task is to place yet more images in front of us…”
I would add “or, for that matter, words” to this sentiment. Interestingly, as far as I can tell, the title of the essay has been self-fulfilling for this very well known Artist. There are examples of incendiary hot takes that go viral- Josh Klien’s essay in October from February of this year, which dared to challenge the hegemony of NYC, and over which gallons of ink were spilled, comes to mind. In the former case though, it appears that the Art world has not really given Catellan’s essay any attention. I did intentionally save the essay before circling back, too, checking occasionally to see if there were stern rebuttals or gleeful concurrence from said world; crickets…
I am well aware that casting anything out into the Internet can be like throwing a leaf in a stream, because there’s too much content including content of the types Cattelan mentions. It’s no wonder it takes data centers full of AI algorithms (and, eventually, digital twins of each of us) to solve the riddle of how to make us look for just a second longer. I wish I could just feel played by this set up though, just like I wish that an artist who has cleverly turned the attention economy into the means if not always the subject of his practice would be more irksome. But I said what I said. Even as I resent the deluge, I try to sort through just like so many others. The resentment drives me to read on…
Cattelan goes on to develop the implications in the quote from the second paragraph above, arriving at a point similar to the one Innes Belina makes in the essay from her Substack which I linked above. Obviously, in the former case, consider the source. While his essay was roundly ignored, the show it preceded was not and, well, perhaps should have been. Look- people can write things that land but then miss with other aspects of their life, or work. And vice versa- one can serve a worthwhile purpose through their actions and treat others with vitriol, causing collateral (relationship) damage that doesn’t align with the values they espouse. Many of us know examples of both of these characters. Thanks for noticing the contradiction there for those who saw where I was pointing your attention.
While I won’t lead you on that Cattelan offers any solution through such a morass, (spoiler alert) the thesis he develops is that where we give our attention in the context he and Innes describe is what matters, so, further, that’s where artists should be (giving their attention).
Not too long after this essay came out, I found myself reading (yet another) Adam Simon essay over at Two Coats on painter Lindsay Walt. Simon can’t help himself and spends time painting a story about the state of meta-narrative, although in fairness he does so to set up his punchline. While he does point at the parts of Walt’s paintings which merit attention, I think he would say his thesis is more about the open-ended possibility of the moment Artists are in, standing at the end of a clearly marked road, at least if we consider the lack of narrative both authors bemoan a “path” in this metaphor. One could think of Simon’s evocation of the possibility “of engaging with what a given painting does and how, for example, it… creates its own interior world ” as an admonition that we should, to borrow from Shell Silverstein, who also addressed an ending of paths, that we “walk with a walk that is measured and slow.” Where Cattelan points at the challenge and the direction of the solution, I think Simon gets more specific.
The observation that we are all swimming in a see of choices for where to direct our minds’ focus is not new, and a topic much broader than the art world. Researcher Gloria Mark’s The Future of Attention has become a favorite ‘stack of mine on this topic (her most recent essay addresses the relationship of our poor attention to the political). Neither is the idea that where an artist directs their attention a relevant and interesting source of content new- this John Yau interview with Dan Walsh from 2010 comes to mind, as does Louise Neri of Gagosian’s 2020 interview “Rhythm and Vision” with the world’s best living painter Stanley Whitney. I’ve referenced one of his remarks during the interview regarding where his attention is directed- specifically, to “the painting” such that he would follow them out a window- many times.
Where we put our attention matters.
Be kind to yourselves people.
…
Full disclosure- the opening sentence* of most versions of my artist statement is always that I am drawn to abstraction for its ability to foreground contemplation. Not the same as attention, for sure- the latter is the cognitive process of selectively focusing whereas the former is long and careful thought or a calm, focused observation of something. Hopefully you can picture a Venn diagram with attention as the outer circle, if not consider that attention is to contemplation as TV is to reading nonfiction. What they have in common is intentionality and directing of focus. *As usual, this clarification is brought to you by my desire to caveat and clarify biases in my views and in the case of this essay’s topic, the reason for my choices.
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