Let The Art Speak For Itself
Once you put a piece of your art in the world, it is no longer yours. Whether that be a photograph, a painting, or a video, it does not matter. The second you give it to the world, the world owns it—not you. It’s equally comforting and scary to make art and to be able to display it to the masses and not have control over what people think of it.
As an artmaker, I feel it is my duty to create work that leads to asking more questions rather than providing more answers. That is the driving force of much of what I do now. Nowadays, artists feel like they need to give these grandiose explanations for what their artwork means before someone even takes a look at it. While having a sense of what your own artwork is trying to convey, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to not know exactly what your art conveys. It can mean a whole lot to you in certain contexts and a whole lot of nothing in a different one.
Post-rationalization is healthy and an idea that should be focused on more in many avenues of creation. It’s as if I tried to tell a story about exactly what is happening to me right now as I am experiencing it. It is going to be redundant, unclear, and almost too contextualized to have any other opinion. We have to stop thinking about what we are doing while we are doing it. The art will speak for itself, so let it.
As the maker, we need to have the strength to put together the ideas and the tenacity to release it in the right spaces. The “right space” can look like many things. Ask yourself, what am I trying to do? Who do I want to be involved in this piece? Who do I think will benefit from this? Who will I hurt?
Chances are, if you are making political statements with your art, someone is going to feel empowered and someone is going to feel hurt. It is not up to you who feels what. What is important is that you do what you can beforehand to make sure that you are at least allowing room for a conversation. If you are looking for a different outcome, that is valid too.
Some of the most powerful work I have ever seen in my life have been assortments of videos and images that—put together—only truly function once it’s in front of the eyes of the world. Arthur Jafa’s work, “Love is the Message, The Message is Death” and Marco Fusinato’s, “DESASTRES.” Both are collections of videos, images, and sounds that sequenced together become analogous archives of a time in life. The emotional and political response is represented in the bounds of our bodies… in our chests, our heads, our fingertips, our hearts, and in our bones. The art lies within us and is decided by us. The art is not over. The art lives with people for days, years, and even decades.
The message is never for us to steer. We can try and guide it in a specific direction, but once we learn how to let go of our personalized artistic scope, the doors for relativity, connection, and change will take shape inside of its viewers in incomprehensible ways.
As always, thank you for being here. Eli, MAXIMA
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