THE LACK OF IMPORTANCE IN BEING EARNEST

Now that I work out three days a week with a personal trainer I’ve become partial to wearing tight, black, sleeveless tops.

My closet is full of them.

The fact that one of my early paintings hangs reproachfully just outside my closet door is just one more reminder of the sad reality that my looks have always been more valuable to me than my work.

How can that be? 

I ask myself that question every day as I apply my eyeliner and spray my hair with some organic Scandinavian moose that promises both fuller body and greater bounce.

Before my total capitulation (which followed directly on the skidding heels of my complete resignation) to the realities of career building, I used to paint with passion and with the kind of earnest anxiety that seemed suitable to my calling.

Sure I met with dealers and curators, but back then I thought the work would speak for itself and I never gave my appearance a second thought.

Now, I never go to an opening without making sure I look anything less than fabulous!

Now, everyone wants to be my friend. For the past three years I’ve been cranking out these stupid little watercolors and have had shows everywhere from Berlin, to Paris, New York and of course L.A.

And with this Harps of Heaven arts magazine,everyone from former roommates to erstwhile professors are coming out of the woodwork hoping to get a write-up.

It’s sad, it’s craven and at times I’m simply ashamed but at my level of success at this point I just can’t afford to walk away.

ALLITERATING ASS

Despite your best efforts you have yet to succeed in effacing your talents.

So observed my ex-boyfriend and current adversary Currado Malaspina. Talking to him was always a bleak harvest of demeaning innuendo and outright insult. Constantly sowing the seeds of disharmony,  Malaspina’s heart is a barren landscape of treachery and corruption.

In better times I overlooked these toxic qualities, averring more toward his talent and his wit. But as time passed this became increasingly more difficult as his wit waned and is charm churned into a sour stew of madness and malice.

I suffocated under his disapproving scowl. He hated my work, hated my ideas, had no respect for my intellect and even less for my character. He was constantly jealous, rabidly possessive and considered me more as a trophy than as a human being.

He mocked me, chided me and teased me with a virtuosic cruelty that gave him such a perverse pleasure that I vowed never to cry in front of him.

His patronizing compliments drove me crazy. “Dahlia, you are so beautiful'” he would say but it was clear that what he really meant was “you are a vain, frivolous female obsessed with the surface of your skin and the slimness of your butt.”

He used to write these strange, complicated sonnets – love poems, he claimed – but their oddity  and artfulness was only meant as an attack on my provincialism and monolingual impatience.

He would take me to the opera only to watch me fidget out of the crushing boredom of watching fat people sing about dragons in German.

Why I stayed with him as long as I did remains a mystery. He was awkward in bed – almost like a child – and his breath was as sour as herring with borscht.

He called me his Muse like I was some freakin’ Camille Claudel, but the truth is he did his worst work while under my watch.

Palimpseste III, no.7, Currado Malaspina 2001

He still calls me from time to time and I agree to see him out of pity.

It may be that I still love him in some perverse, motherly way.

And it never hurts when you’re visiting Paris to say you are the ex of his excellency, Currado Malaspina!

PAPER LIONESS

The other day I left my apartment in a hurry and suddenly realized  I had forgotten something.

I was on my way to a meeting with two independent curators who were planning an exhibition with the putative theme of “language, signs and self-reflexive memes.” (In other words, one of those broad, open ended things that could include anything and anyone).

I have been wading for years on the upper tier of mid-level renown in the Los Angeles art world and have been struggling relentlessly to break through to the serious and rarified other side. I go to at least two or three openings a week, I constantly host studio visits, meet with collectors, shmooze with critics and have established countless strategic alliances with my peers. In other words I dwell within the network and work diligently to expand that network as widely as possible.

And yet I remain stalled.

If the art world is shaped like a diamond I am somewhere on the very top of the middle – higher than most but very very far from the narrow, sparsely populated top.

So there I was, weaving through traffic on my way to yet another brown-nosing meeting when it suddenly hit me like a belly-full of bad sushi.

After years and years of  burnishing this brand I call Dahlia Danton, searching for just the right kind of definable artistic identity, the nascent self with which I was endowed at birth had become so remote and indeed so irrelevant to my ambition that it seemed at that very moment downright inaccessible.

After years and years of chameleon-like behavior, tactically shape-shifting my character in order to suit whatever professional situation I happened to find myself, I had reached such a pathetically mediocre level of stature and accomplishment and had forgotten completely who I was and why I decided to become an artist!

Childless and incapable of a sustained romantic relationship, I had become this empty, mercenary shell consummately adept at social circumnavigation but completely clueless in the art of introspection.

The good news is, I have another show coming up (I better get to work) and I hope you all find the time to check it out.

And by the way, who the heck designs these awful exhibition announcements??!!

Toward An Even Newer Laocoön

Ever since the first faint whispers of womanhood began to purr within my evolving body, my relationship to imagery permanently changed. It was as if I were seeing not only with my eyes but with my chest and with my hips and with my thighs. It’s hard to explain but the visceral pleasure I took in the world of things became so powerful as to become unbearable.

As a girl I would find myself trembling at the sight of a blossoming peony, gasping for breath while staring at a full summer moon and dripping with the chilly dew of girl-sweat whenever my mom would put on a fancy dress and bangle herself with her sparkling jewelry.

Obviously, with this constant state of sibilation, a normal working life would be impossible. Imagine a corporate middle-manager toiling away in a windowless cubicle admiring the sight of a beveled brown manila envelope. I can only imagine my rapture as a silky 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of office white slowly curled its way out of a fax machine.

No, for me the writing was on the wall. The only way to deal with this heightened sympathy for aesthetics was to become a visual artist. It was the only place where I believed such a degree of sensitivity would not only be permitted but encouraged.

Unfortunately I attended art school at the peak of post-modernist critical theory. While we mocked Daniel Bell’s dire warnings of the collapse of a shared moral order I never really learned too much about three-point perspective.  Jean-François Lyotard’s quarrels with Habermas were much more present in our curricula than Albers’ color interactions or Gombrich’s art and illusion. We were told that painting was dead but they neglected to tell us what it died of.

And so I was left to scavenge the subtle world of discernment with only my curiosity and my intuition. I guarded my passions and kept them secret from my professors hoping to keep my grades and evaluations high enough to get into a good graduate school.

Now, as a professional of reasonable stature I’m free to express myself in any way I like. Though I am grateful for the rigorous dialectical process in which I was educated I am equally grateful that I had the presence of mind to push back.

I’m back to where I started from – that little girl awestruck by butterflies, rainbows and snowflakes. And though I don’t seem to feel things as intensely as I used to, there are still moments of complete abandon when I remember with my entire being what it means to live in the world of the senses.

MY CAREER HITS A WALL

The global reach of today’s art world is simply staggering in its scope. When I was a little girl in Huxley, Indiana the only culture available to us was the annual performance of the Nutcracker by the amateur dance troupe from neighboring Carpesville. Nowadays, even among the amber waves of grain, Language poets and documentary filmmakers are appointed to government posts and art advisory commissions.

Significant opportunities for visual artists, once the exclusive purview of Manhattan, not only has spread to the far-flung reaches of the outer boroughs but now extends across the entire globe. A performance artist from Baku is just as likely to get exposure as a painter from Paris or a sculptor form Sao Paolo.

Blue chip Art Fairs take place in locations as diverse as Istanbul, Macao and Montevideo and there is never a shortage of curators, collectors or an interested, eager and informed public.

We may indeed be living in a Golden Age.

Micah Carpentier (courtesy of Martí Images)

As the great Cuban artist Micah Carpentier wrote a generation ago,  “when commerce and culture collide all barriers are breached and all unreasonable hazards are foiled.”

I have friends who have held teaching jobs in Myanmar, had fellowships in Beijing and staged public installations in Bahrain and Qatar. I know artists who have had extensive gallery exhibitions in Indonesia, museum surveys in Moscow and who have participated in high-profile conferences in Africa with colleagues from Kenya, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Name the country and I know someone who either worked or who had their work shown there. Though from time to time people inadvertently get tainted by some local controversy like censorship, torture, female sexual mutilation, governmental surveillance, targeted killings, coercive theocratic extremism, draconian interdiction of homosexuality, slavery, honor killing or child prostitution, these never prove to be more than minor impediments.

As we were all taught in art school: You’ve got to get the work out there!

I too have had my share of international exposure and it’s a great feeling to cross borders and communicate in the universal language of art.

By far, the best experience I’ve ever had was showing my work at the Bet-Bablot Municipal Museum in Tel Aviv. The catalog was published in Hebrew so I have no idea what they wrote about me. (My friend Zev assures me that it is wonderfully hyperbolic yet well within the respectable Israeli norm for scholarship and art criticism).

It was really wonderful but when I got back to L.A. my dealer told me that some of his old faded British rockstar clients called to tell him that when they get back from touring in North Korea they would start an international boycott of my work.

YES WORRIES

I never seem to learn my lesson.

For years I’ve granted interviews and have allowed myself to be the subject of print media profiles, online exposés, TV tell-alls and radio documentaries and nine times out of ten I am misrepresented and depicted as a fool.

And damn it, I got nailed to the beams once again, this time Down Under.

Raw Prawn Monthly, the Adelaide-based periodical known more for its typos than for its perspicacity ran an extensive feature on me and it’s the worst piece of yellow journalistic tripe that I’ve seen in years.

I got hoodwinked by this charming intern who couldn’t have been more than 20. He was so cute and flattering on the phone and I’m a sucker for that adorable Aussie accent.

Then he handed me over to his editor and after a two hour Skype session (in which I’m sure I handled myself with perfect dignity) he had more than enough twine to hang me by my ankles and beat me like a piñata.

They say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity and I suppose, especially these days, that it’s both true and a little bit sad.

I just got offered a show in Sydney and even the Kiwis want a crack at me now. Next thing you know I’ll be posing for the penguins on the South Pole

LOSING MY APPETITE TO LIE

One of the most irritating collateral impacts of fame is the constant cannonade of invitations to lecture on my work. I’m not a natural extrovert – after taking the Wade-Ghillet psychometric personality questionnaire I learned that I was an intuitive/feeling-perceptive/rational/solitary brooder – and I welcome these opportunities to speak publicly with a dread bordering on panic.

But when I was recently summoned by my alma mater to participate in their annual  Women in the Arts forum I couldn’t possibly refuse.

It’s very important to me to benefit from my prestige not only for personal gain but also to act as a powerful role-model for young women just starting out.

So there I was a few weeks ago, wearing a very officious steel-gray suit and a bright pink top flipping through a slide show of some of my most recent work.

The students were wonderfully receptive and I was praying the whole time that they wouldn’t notice the droplets of sweat – in my imagination they were the size of hailstones – dripping down my temples and wreaking small havoc on my mascara.

There’s something fiercely humbling about seeing one’s work projected larger-than-life on a bright screen in a darkened room. Gone are the press releases, the inflated resumés, the prestigious provenances and the high-flown critical hyperbole. Absent the clean gallery walls, the felicitously chosen well-dressed art opening A-list accessories, the din of loud conversation and the glare of halogen spotlights the works have to stand on their own. All the special pleading on my part with my bloated arsenal of adjectives culled from countless back issues of out-of-print art magazines can’t cushion against the innocent question as to motivations and intents.

These young artists are full of idealism. They are certain that Art has the power to redeem. They have yet to be tainted by the harsh reality that they are destined to become toys and ornaments in the hands of the cultural elites.  They don’t yet know that success only means becoming a minor spectacle in the carnival of overcrowded art fairs, biennales and seasonal auctions. Without any commercial renumeration their best hope lies in the increasingly elusive tenure track position and some decent health insurance.

Of course, I can’t tell them any of this. I maintain the company line that what we do matters. The fleeting sequins of celebrity that attend to the rare few are always held up as the likely outcome of their efforts. They see me as the perfect embodiment of their dreams and I don’t have the heart to tell them that they’d be better off marrying an accountant.

And so click to the next slide and continue reciting from a script that never grows old and never rings true.

“This next piece is from the Tongue That Never Cloyed series which deals with reactionary gender patterning and the inherited hierarchies of post-industrial commodity-driven economics of scale.”

AWKWARD IN THE ALPS

What is it about Europe? Specifically, what’s going on with the Swiss? They’re great with chocolate and watches – no question.

Clean streets, yes, snow uh huh, but taste?

I don’t think so.

By now in my career the prospect of having an exhibition is rather commonplace. The less I have to deal with the logistics the better. My assistants are terrific but there are certain things that even they can’t seem to control.

One of the those things are the Swiss.

Léon Belette, the lovely and talented director of the Zurich gallery Donar/Strauss has put together a very charming show of some of my new drawings. He insisted on titling the exhibition Love Songs apparently in an attempt to appeal to his sentimental countrymen right before Fête de la Chatte, the Swiss equivalent to Valentine’s day.

The show opens in a few weeks though I don’t think I can make it to the opening.

Now here’s my burning question:

Who the heck designed the announcement?!!

THE SOUND OF HARPERS HARPING ON THEIR HARPS

When I began The Harps of Heaven I never suspected that I would attract such an ardent and allegiant readership. I basically set out to edit the kind of art journal that I personally would take the time to read. As a graduate student I was fascinated by periodicals like Minotaure, Cahiers d’art, 291 and Le Festin d’Esope. I longed for a lost time when artists, in the words of Robert Lowell were  “… asked to be obsessed with writing”. Mostly I grew tired of the journalism of grievance, the transparently bitter screeds of the excluded, the cynical and the second-rate.

I remember sitting at a quiet corner table at the Aoyama Café with the art historian Orestia Shestov discussing the sorry state of visual literacy among the rising cadre of critics and curators. She spoke passionately about her research and how difficult it was to attract academic interest in her definitive biography of the American expatriate artist Faun Roberts. We both agreed that it was time to stop grousing about an alleged glass gallery ceiling and to start doing something intellectually exertive in response.

I’m thrilled that what began with a heated conversation over lactose-looted lattés in some far flung over-priced bistro has evolved into a vibrant and controversial arts journal read regularly by thousands of avid enthusiasts. I want to thank my contributing editors, essayists and proofreaders for all their hard and devoted work and I look forward to publishing many more densely packed issues in the weeks and months to come.

“Within our hands are instruments of glory.” The Harps of Heaven, Sydney Thompson Dobell

MY APPRENTICESHIP

Many people have contacted me regarding the constant stream of drawings that keep appearing on my Facebook  page and on my blog The Drawings of Dahlia Danton.

Someone wrote to ask me whether I draw them from my imagination or if I have multiple models posing for me at my whim. Funny how the first thought of so many folks is not about the work but about the models. I wonder had they been clothed would I be receiving the same sorts of queries.

Well, first of all, I’d like to pay tribute to my very first figure drawing instructor, the Los Angeles legend, David Schoffman.

Schoffman and me at my last opening at Harry Pfestl Projects LA, 2013

I’ve known David for many years and we have remained good friends to this day. Though his own work can only be described as flimsy and undercooked and his clumsy draftsmanship remains something of an embarrassment, he has always been an extremely gifted and inspiring teacher.

He taught me how to observe things closely and to work quickly and intuitively. Most of the drawings that I have been publishing lately were made in five minutes or less!

The skill of working swiftly was essential when I found myself subject to the grave misfortune of having to earn a living after I completing graduate school. Among my various vocations were bartending, waiting tables, driving a pedicab at Sea World, nanny, production assistant, florist and most notably, hostess at Belgium’s notorious cabaret, Le Crazy Horse de Bruges. (How I ended up traipsing through the Benelux countries with a guy named Guy, the philanderer of Flanders, is a another story altogether).

I made it a point that as much as I could I would try never to waste time. I always carried a sketchbook and wherever I was I would rapidly record my surroundings. I did drawings of cocktail glasses, flower arrangements, fish tanks and toddler’s toys. I sketched trees, city streets, playgrounds and parking lots. I jotted down impressions of moving cloud formations, water as it sprayed out of a hose, birds in flight and cars racing down the freeway at night.

But the one theme that remained constant no matter where I was and what I was doing was people. Delacroix recommended acquiring the skill to be able to draw a person falling from a fourth story window and completing the sketch before the figure reaches ground. I worked hard to master that skill and it came in most handily at Le Crazy Horse de Bruges.

The girls got used to me ogling them with pen in hand. Sometimes they even agreed to pose for me in groups. In the 8 months I spent there (yes, eight months!) I filled about 30 sketchbooks with over 1200 drawings.

That was fifteen years ago and I haven’t drawn since.