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 Letters to the Editor Reactions to Newcity stories
Letters are listed in reverse chronological order. Email editor@newcity.com to submit your
letters for publication. 2/5/05
Who earned the name "Art of the T-shirt" by producing "Art of the
T-shirt" exhibits in public libraries for over 10 years? What
homegrown, non-profit run by local artists located at the Chicago
American Indian Center promoted art on T-shirts in Chicago since 1989? This agency showcased artists works on T-shirts regularly in public
libraries five years before the innovator in mentioned in Ms. Herman's
article on T-shirt art, Mr. Kawasaki, thought of his T-shirt idea in
Japan. This arts group featured Chicago artists and their T-shirt
designs on cable TV for the last eight years. They, too, are online and
international. Who? The Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center! In the last five years we built a website and an international art
contest online. We focused on training Chicago artists to print their
designs on T-shirts with a free "Screen Print Workshop for Artists."
This workshop is twelve-years old. Remember the granddaddy. The original "Art of the T-shirt" needs your
support. Look at art-teez.org--our
website--which has a noble mission that the others can't match. We are
building a mountain of visual evidence in support of diversity online
through our ART-ACT contest! We've built Chicago's T-shirt art scene.
Check us out! C. Drew
1/28/2005
Speaking for myself, I had a great five years in Chicago and have
many good friends whom I miss dearly. The fact of the matter is that I
wanted a deeper analytical environment; I wanted to be pushed. My
moving
to Los Angeles had less to do with not receiving support from
Chicago's
art scene and more to do with its often misused or lacking criticality.
The case in point is that I am at Art Center College of
Design
meeting
on a weekly basis with Bruce Hainley, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Richard
Hawkins, Mike Kelley, Sylvere Lotringer, Laurence Rickels, M.A.
Greenstein, Liz Larner, Tim Martin, Terry Myers, Patti Podesta, Diana
Thater, Mayo Thompson, Chris Williams, John Welchman, Jim Shaw, Rosetta
Brooks, Jan Tumlir, Ann Goldstein, Benjamin Weissman and
Jane
McFadden.
The list goes on and though I feel foolish to namedrop in such a way,
this gives emphasis to why I departed Chicago. It is reasonable for me
to say that I did not have that kind of access to discourse in Chicago
and although the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Illinois,
Chicago are great programs with amazing faculty I wanted a larger group
to pull from.
Getting down to it, I have increasingly come to judge Michael
Workman and his affiliates as un-ambitious. It is no secret that he and
I have not seen eye to eye. I have criticized him at length
for
continuing to ask for Chicago
artist donations to support his publication and have said no to his
request that I make a poster for his "Art Boat" event. Just a month
before "Interior Burnout" I had a fierce email argument with him
about
my "Hiker" video, which I had donated to him for use on the Bridge
Anniversary DVD. The Bridge Anniversary DVD was to be given away for
free with the Anniversary issue, which it was, but then wound up being
sold to retail distributor "Microcinema International." The
distributor
named me as a Microcinema artist and placed a still from my work on
their site with a link to Bridge magazine. What they did not do was
have
any other information such as bio, videography or contractual
distributor of my work like the Video Data Bank or Netherlands Media
Art
Institute. A lengthy argument took place and Workman in an email said
that he had discussed this matter with his lawyer as if to sturdy his
position if not threaten proceedings. I don't have a lawyer; never
have,
though I may need one if I keep disagreeing with Workman. A fellow
artist/critic Sarah Conaway received a similar threat when she openly
in
print condemned Bridge's "Workmanship" at following up on detail and
spelling.
The recent output from Workman in his column "Eye Exam" is yet
another misinterpretation. For someone who I believe has a PhD (though
I
cannot find evidence of it on-line), he is considerably lacking insight
as to what is actually going on. He, like Rosenfeld
narrows
my
work
down
to the most basic insult instead of contemplating the likelihood that
its construction is a sign of transience, which I feel is an accurate
representation of making art in current society. The skull-fucking
scene
is going to be just that--a skull-fucking scene, if you do not take the
work in its entirety. Possibly though, if seen in the
right
light
it
could be that the skull-fucking scene indicates where we are as
artists;
being afraid of yet obsessed with what went before and neurotically
pursuing our own symptoms. Yes of course the skull-fucking scene is
about fucking ourselves...how hard was that! This in-between stage is
what he doesn't seem to get; things right now are not as simple as
making fortunes and if they were I would certainly not have taken on as
much debt as I have to get an education and continue
working
as
an
artist. I am upset that Workman can't seem to get beyond the
business
of
art and actually look at art in a constructive or explorative manner.
Please join me even though I have left Chicago at rejecting him from
being Chicago's spokesperson. Sincerely,
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