There are too many events for me to keep track of. My Facebook events page, my calendar, my mailboxes are overwrought. I have stacks of printed calendars on my desk that remain unopened from various arts institutions. Such choice, such variety is wonderful on the surface! Why, just this weekend, I have to hit up the LA><ART opening of two solo exhibitions by Kelly Barrie and Terry Chatkupt; Edgar Arceneaux’s opening and dinner at Suzanne Vielmetter (both Saturday at 6pm); and the Fallen Fruit Let Them Eat LACMA event on Sunday. And I will miss three cool-looking events at LACE (especially the interesting Museum of Public Fiction panel) and a friend’s sketch comedy show. And these are just the events in which I feel a real investment, those I am truly interested in and want to attend for my own edification. And these are only the ones I know about.
But with this overabundance of endless panels, participatory artworks, workshops, presentations and performances comes a heavy pressure on limited time, with the reciprocal need to feel a part of the various temporary communities produced by such events.
I know I am not alone in this contemporaneous moment, as colleagues and friends have complained of the same slightly distressing pull on their time. Some are masterful at balancing children, relationships, jobs, friends and art world events – but surely there are others like me who feel constantly overwhelmed. In many ways, we can chalk this up to the increasing ease of information distribution - and thus perhaps overdistribution? I was recently clued into the block of html code that allows one to invite all of one’s friends on Facebook to an event without discriminately selecting each invitee.
Perhaps because of this knowledge, I get the feeling that I am sometimes invited to events not because I am necessarily expected or even desired at the event itself - if I were to go to [cite potentially uncomfortable art event], I would feel out of place. Rather, these forms of distribution are yet another way in which to increase one’s cultural capital – to show that one is active on the scene, out there, working and gathering and networking and advancing one’s creative agenda.
There is nothing necessarily bad about this at all, but I do find myself overwhelmed at times by the reciprocal expectation - ostensibly to enjoy, but also to attend, to be seen at, to expand my own network, to enter new communities, to advance my own creative agenda at such events. This circulatory system of venues, people, organizers, producers, audiences, and artists is an excellent vehicle through which to increase presence and thus capital – and the expansion of synapses within such a system speaks to a dynamic art world and is indicative of current modes of operation.
These events share the “situational characteristics of contemporaneity” defined by Terry Smith as “prioritizing the moment over time, direct experience of multiplicitous complexity over the singular simplicity of distanced reflection.” As Claire Dougherty explains in her introduction to the anthology Situation, “these properties are displayed by a complex network of artworks, projects, events, interventions, happenings, small gestures and spectacular intrusions over time.” There is great slippage between artistic and political concerns that demand engagement, participation, conversation, and pedagogical situations as modes of working, and the importance of the social event to fundraising, marketing, and self-promotion.
Yet, I find myself wondering as I consider the increasing demands on my time - does the frequency and overdistribution of such events present dangers of dilution and a resulting lack of “distanced reflection”? Is there a destabilizing effect on the fragile produced communities of small experimental spaces and oft-marginalized cultural producers? Or, because of the rapid expansion and increasing professionalization of the art world, heightened in Los Angeles because of the presence of half a dozen world-class MFA programs in the immediate vicinity, is there a never-ending capacity to absorb such events? An ever-flowing stream of new art students and new work and new experimental spaces, a constant refreshment of the circulatory system of this event-driven cultural production?
I worry that scholarly reflection and distance will become impossible (or at least, difficult) with such oversaturation, and that too many critical projects simply die away without hardly a peep. I also worry that this lack of distance and criticality inevitably leads to a constant reinvention of the wheel – regurgitated events and concerns that are continually cycled through instead of built up and studied and critiqued. These worries are probably somewhat unfounded, and the proliferation of artists also means a proliferation of engaged critics and writers and publications through which to address such projects. The more the merrier, but the deeper the better. For myself, I must become okay with my own discrimination, and define how I want to function tactically in this swirl of constant production.
I know exactly how you feel, in terms of being overwhelmed by the quantity of events to go to. As an artist I have determined that my main time investment will not be to go to as many of these events and happenings as possible because then I would rarely have time to work, and rarely have any time to see the world and allow it to shape my work. If I hadn’t determined this I would likely be concerned with the endless production of artistic gesture without basing it on topics I believe in and have experience with outside of the realm of art. To me, it’s integral to develop work with a primary audience that is not necessarily a part of the art scene, and to do this I have to live outside of the art scene as much as possible. Time to think for myself is really important as well. I will go through times where I some amounts of theory and a lot of other people’s ideas, but then I go through times where I must ignore the onslaught of information coming in, allow myself time to think for myself, to get away, and refresh. Also, I’ve determined that as an artist I cannot mindlessly make work and put it out there just because I’ve been given an opportunity to make something. These activities I have found to be nothing more than an act of career advancement, but it feels hollow when I’ve tried it.
But I am an artist, not a writer/critic so I understand that your role is different (hopefully I didn’t just box you in!). Maybe you would benefit from focusing on very specific kinds of work, such as artists who use food or artists that work in one specific neighborhood. Then you can read about everything else if it’s relevant. Maybe this is too simplified?
I’m thinking I’ve just reiterated what you already said, but you bring up a point I’ve also been thinking about. My answer to this in my own life has been simply to slow down and concentrate on the things I care most about (in terms of life and my projects).