Art Lies, Volume 50, Spring 2006 Page: 7
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Editor's Statement
ProcessWhat can be said about contemporary artistic practice in terms of
process when the art world is seemingly at the apex of hybridity?
Perhaps the quandary could be approached in terms of authorship
(or anti-authorship depending upon your personal predilections). It
seems to me that the cyclical de- and re-emphasis of the art object
ostensibly renders even the most monolithic Richard Serra sculp-
ture into conceptual Silly PuttyTM-dependent, of course, upon what
month you happen to pick up an art periodical.
It is commonly agreed that artistic practice veered dramatically
after World War II, largely due to individual responses to the question
of materiality vs. immateriality; this dichotomy remains, to this day,
unreconciled. I think it is also widely accepted in terms of discourse
that we must dismiss this quandary altogether and focus instead on
any given work's critical value regardless of process and medium-
on its ability to communicate and potentially inspire.
In this issue, guest editor Paula Owen, President of the
Southwest School of Art & Craft, bravely stepped up to bat-or,
rather, battle-the question of the importance of process in terms of
contemporary practice. Owen, who is herself a visual artist, presents
us with a panorama of practice, dealing with a wide array of art-
makers, from those whose work is inextricably bound to its fabrica-
tion-where fabrication is, quite literally, the content-to cases in
which there is no object to be had or the art object itself is decisively
ancillary to the experience that surrounds it. Owen makes a clear
case for the importance of hybridity in terms of process and valuing
content over form.
Owen invited Ashley Kistler, Curator of the Visual Arts Center
of Richmond, for this installment of VISUAL SPACE. For her tightly
focused piece, Collected and Composed, Kistler sought out artists
whose process foregrounds reclamation and recontextualization in a
variety of media, forming an armature upon which process becomes
a linkage between seemingly irreconcilable aesthetics. Dinah Ryan,
Assistant Professor of English at Principia College, takes on play and
game theory in terms of process in her exploration of intervention-
ism centered on The Yes Men. Owen also invited Teresa Hubbard
& Alexander Birchler to reflect of their rather complicated practice,
providing us with a behind the scenes perspective on the impetus of
film-based artwork.
In our MAIN section, Lyra Kilston riffs on objectivity and artis-
tic and moral accountability in terms of images appropriated from
mass media, curator Gilbert Vicario gives us an in-depth look at
INDELIBLE IMAGES (trafficking between life and death) and James
Bae takes on process theory in an exploration of the beguiling work of
Saul Fletcher. Denton-based Max Kazemzadeh's Persian/American
series occupies this issue's installment of MAPPINGS in an inge-
nious melange of physicality and identity in terms of place. PROJECT
SPACE, a collaborative effort by Dallas-based critic Charissa N.
Terranova and Austin-based Hanna Hillerova, gives us insighton the complexities of process in contemporary practice. Go online
to www.artlies.org to experience Wendy Wel Atwell's DIALOGUES
with Blanton Museum of Art curators Annette DiMeo Carlozzi and
Gabriel Perez-Barreiro, posted in April to coincide with the grand
opening of the new museum on the University of Texas campus in
Austin.
And finally, I'm certain you noticed this issue's cover. In early 2006,
Atlanta-based artist Fahamu Pecou tired of designing ad campaigns
for hip-hop superstars. In Fahamu Pecou is the Shit..., a suite of paint-
ings recently on view at Conduit Gallery in Dallas, Pecou constructs
elaborate fictions, placing himself as the central figure on the cover
of various visual art and culture magazines. I chose to use his work
not simply because of the sheer hilarity of his extended gesture but
because it is eloquently declarative on many levels-culturally, both in
terms of racial stereotypes and consumerism, and as a radical example
of specificity in terms of process. In our next issue, Miami-based artist
and critic Gean Moreno with be our guest editor, exploring the inter-
section/disconnection of visual art and text.
Till then,
Anjali Gupta
Editor, ARTL!ESARTL!ES Spring 2006 7
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Bryant, John & Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 50, Spring 2006, periodical, 2006; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228015/m1/9/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .