Something I neglected to mention in an early post, when discussing how amazing this project is for me:

how important it is that this project be more than just my joy.

Though I think that is part of the power of art and music, of anything humans dedicate themselves to doing, I also think that Disembody must try and demonstrate (act as a proof of concept of, if you will) what Fine Art is and can be.

I do believe that contemporary art is collaborative by nature. I think a lot of artists (the whole social practice movement; as well as contemporary artists like Christian Jankowski and Ryan Gander) address this. But I think a lot of this work focuses on, or tries to demonstrate how, contemporary art is a collaboration between artist and viewer. It neglects how contemporary art is a collaboration long before it reaches the viewer.
Institutional critique perhaps addresses that issue to a small degree. But it looks at it as a capitalistic corruption of Art. Rather, I’d like to suggest that artists try to see the complex ecology of the art world as a community of collaborators. The many visible egos within the art world cover the far more numerous people who actually make the art world possible. And who I’d like to draw attention to with Disembody.
As complex as Disembody may be, it is no more complex than many contemporary art works.

I want to create a spectacle that engages people inside and outside of the art world, and proclaims to them that art is a practice of many skilled people working together to create critical, but also hopeful, and often entertaining and beautiful and confounding, environments. And though it may seem a stretch, I think this is true of contemporary painting and photography and sculpture as much as it is about installation and video and performance.

Contemporary art is a shared work.

I think it’s important to try and make a work that focuses on how art is a collaborative practice between artists and the many people we often think of as merely support. I think it is important because of the power art has in our lives.
Art is powerful. It is, for many people, a lifeline, a connection, to something greater than their own lives. The youthful promise of art, as a zone of permission, where self-expression reigns supreme and a person may be whoever they really want to be, may be a naive, utopian fantasy of youth. It is also the myth, the Aura, art crafts for itself to try and retain its position and status in society.
That promise is powerful. It is why many people go into art in the first place. Because it offers a tribe with whom they identify. It offers like-minds. It is a refuge for many who feel they do not belong.

Ultimately, that mythic place does not exist.
Art is a business. It is about who you know, etc, etc.

We all know this. I have no desire to repeat the litany of ways art can disappoint.
Quite the opposite, I want to celebrate the ways in which art can (or might) fulfill the promise of inclusion.

Disembody, the exhibit is meant to be a work that demonstrates the many ways an artist works with people to try and fulfill a vision. It is about the community of people who make up each artist’s creative world: the gallerist, the assistants, the curators, the designers, the friends, to name a few.
It is about all the time and effort and people who work together to create something incredibly short-lived, like an installation.

Disembody, the film, is the document that lives on, to proselytize this idea, that contemporary art is a shared act.
I look at the work of Jean-Claude and Christo as an example of what I am talking about. They laid much of the groundwork for what I am doing here. Their work is a huge social collaboration.
I recently attended a Paul McCarthy lecture on his show, Low Life Slow Life: Part 1, at the Wattis Institute, and see that show as another example. In it he curates work by people who influenced him. It is only Part 1 because he could only get through one decade of influences.

It is easy to critique art. But it is more productive to look at what works in art, and try to celebrate and encourage and expand those areas, imho.
I am interested in an art of Utopia, of hope. In seeing if there is a way to make the artworld resemble that place of inclusion and challenge and faith, that so many people first believe it to be.
I think that art is both a cut-throat business and a tribal practice, a place of belonging, a possibility for hope in an alienated world.

I have been avoiding putting up a rationale for Disembody for awhile.
For lots of reasons.
Foremost, there isn’t a single reason. The MVM doesn’t really make political or statement art. I honestly could never point to a single meaning or statement I’m trying to make or that we want the viewer to come away with.
I may take several reasons into the creation of a piece, but often by its completion it has taken on a whole slew of new reasons.
None of which may be accessible to a casual visitor. And only a few of which may be accessible to even the most obsessed visitor.

That’s not intentional obscuritantism. It’s more a reflection of my distaste for anything that feels preachy or didactic.
The art that most attracts me, and that first drew my attention and passion, is open to interpretation. It is a doorway into multiple meanings, not a statement of intent.
I feel that is the case with most artists and creators.

Having said that, a project like Disembody, which will take place publicly in this blog and then as we build and film in the gallery, is going to raise the question “why” over and over.
And, as we experience different reasons why, we will post them here. And open them to discussion.
The work will be successful if it leads to even a handful of conversations about its nature, what it is. Not because that will change the art world or anything, but because inspiring dialogue is one of the important aspects of art.

The very first reasons for Disembody came out of Susan’s request for a proposal and Brian Conley’s critique of an earlier work.
Every piece The MVM has built has been site specific. We go into a space, imagine what we can do, assemble a crew to help us do it, and then embark on the creation of a temporary work for that space.
In this case, well, a site specific work for Los Angeles? Of course it was going to involve filmmaking. To that end we needed to found a movie studio and embark on the dream of creating a marketable, distributable film. Disembody rapidly grew out of that idea.

Brian’s involvement came out of his questions about why the scope of the 23 Entryways Into My Mind project was being created as a series of site specific works. Brian likes the grandiose and universal. And when we described 23E as a method for disseminating our identity and consciousness worldwide, he suggested that we make a youtube channel that featured the dance-move-of-the-day or somesuch. For him there was no point in making without spectacle and the intention to attract as many viewers as possible.
I still don’t agree with his opinion there entirely.
But I do think it is a valid point that if The MVM’s goal is to share a taste of my experience, to put a little bit of me into you, to spread my memories as a virus, that the broader the market for a project the greater the likelihood that it will achieve that goal.
And what greater market could I imagine for an art show in LA than creating a film that could find a home in art houses and on DVD?

The idea that Disembody reflects my views on the collaborative nature of life and art, and that it is my contribution to the discussion within the art world of what the art world is and can be, is a rationale that is only developing now. And one we may abandon completely. In many ways by creating this project publicly (to a degree only, obvs), just as you will be able to read about crew and equipment and concessions and funding arising and dissipating, you will get to read about my relationship to the project and what it means and what I want it to say constantly changing.

And with any luck, you’ll get to hear the voices of the people I’m working with sneak through and see how they influence not just its physical nature, but its conceptual nature as well.