Slut 4 Context
Hi everyone! It has been a long time :) (few months?). I started writing a post a while ago about aging online, “hot girl” art, etc. but it didn’t feel right. Perhaps I’ll go back to it and rework it a little bit if y’all are interested/have thoughts. Maybe it can be more of an open discussion than an essay, IDK… moving on!
In April I put out a video titled My Candle Collection for the show “Pieces of Me” hosted by Transfer Gallery as a thoughtful response to the current, albeit now dwindling, NFT hype. The piece was intended to be a continuation of a physical piece I had made titled it just smells like literally like you're sitting on the beach drinking a margarita and you're loving your life and you're super rich and like you own a yacht for a solo show I had in March 2020 that had to shut down 2 weeks in due to the pandemic. The physical piece is a candle display, meant to look like the ones you encounter at TJ Maxx or Home Goods. Each of the candles in the display were made by me, with scents commonly used for candles (florals, bakery scents, musky scents) as well as more novelty or even gross-out scents (tuna, garlic, Febreeze, dirt). Because scent is so tied to memory, as well as aspiration - scents are considered luxury, they evoke a mood - I wanted to play with these specific moods but make some candles that perhaps smelled like the reality of the situation vs. the fantasy. For example, a candle titled “Work From Home” which was an aspirational lifestyle/goal before the pandemic, smelled like Febreeze and cat litter, evoking the scent of you stuck in your small apartment, sitting on the couch your cat peed on that you’ve desperately tried to mask the scent of. With the physical candle display, visitors were invited to come and interact with the candles, picking them up and smelling them the way I had grown so used to doing in stores before the pandemic.
After the pandemic happened, I wanted to find a way to share this piece and decided to make a video, in the style of candle collection videos on YouTube where there’s a relatively active candle community. In these videos, the YouTuber does their best to explain what each candle in their collection smells like, often using flowery language and evoking specific scenes/moods to convey the smell. I always found it interesting that someone would go out of their way to describe a smell because it cannot be shared through our screens.
With most of my videos, I post them to YouTube, which in some ways strips them of their “fine art” context but feels equally important that the platform they live on frames them, contextualizes them in other ways. They are dropped there, meant to infiltrate the sea of other vlogs, collections, hauls, etc. Some of the people interacting with my videos are usually aware of what I’m trying to do (that I’m an artist) while most have stumbled upon the work organically, maybe because they were searching for something specific that my video touched on or it was suggested to them. This has always been important to my work, subtly being able to toe the line between believable YouTuber and something being slightly off.
In some ways, I think my use of a platform like YouTube limits the way that my art has been received outside of the platform. In 2015, I gave a talk about my work at Sotheby’s in London, and during the Q&A someone asked me what the difference between me and someone like Jenna Marbles is. To me, the answer is context, but I also wonder if we need to context to enjoy the work. I remember being so frustrated by that question but also realizing that perhaps it’s okay to lean into that misunderstanding, because it’s something we’re so prone to doing online. I notice that when artists who make work that is so clearly parody, performance or so clearly distanced from the subject they are performing, it is often taken seriously, because there is a clear line between the artist and the thing they are performing/critiquing. I’m not super interested in doing this with my work because a lot of it comes from my own participation within these networks and being able examine that and my own impulses within that has always appealed to me vs. taking a very distanced approach. We are all performing, we are both real and fake... being blurry is sexy!!!
Once the artist has made their work, it is up to the viewer to willingly engage and process that work. Looking at art is not passive, it takes work. If I’m going to a show or to look at piece of art, I have to put in that work. That doesn’t always mean that I need to go and do research, read the wall text, etc. sometimes all it means is being present and thoughtful, but other times it feels important to understand the context around the piece. Although, there are instances where I’ve enjoyed a piece of art until going and reading more about it (thinking specifically of an Almodóvar film that I won’t get into right now).
I always hoped that I could make my work and let it speak for itself. I fantasized about others interpreting and processing my work, articulating my thoughts better than I ever could, writing about it and engaging with it on a critical level. I don’t really feel that way anymore. If anything I’ve learned that I have to take on the role of both the art critic and the artist in my own work if I want to be understood, and even then, It’s important to embrace the chaos of letting something you poured over out into the world and having no control over its narrative anymore.