I Hate Art

Then why am I in art school?

It's not that I hate art, but I do get fed-up with the notion that art has to have thousands of levels of deeper meaning. Why can't art be simple in it's concept? This has always been my biggest issue with the art world; it's not good unless means something.

The piece that I am working on for installation is simple: a video projection played back on a wall. There's not a whole lot to it. The concept is simple too: restoring a wall to perfect condition. That's it. I presented this idea to my class tonight, and my teacher pretty much shot it down, just like every other idea that I've told him. I don't know what to do to make this guy happy. Every idea that I've given him, he always says the same thing, "That's interesting."

Give me some real feedback!

I get that he wants me to think about my ideas, but once I have an idea that I like, I usually like to follow through with it. I don't want to change it just because someone thinks it needs more "thinking through." If the idea is going to change, it's going to happen in the process of doing it, not during the planning stages. I don't know about other artists, but that's how I work.

I come up with an idea, begin work on it, and then finish it. If the idea changes, it's because of something that happened during the actual creation of the work, not in the planning stages. That is exactly what happened with my first idea (well, second idea, he killed my first one).

I presented this idea about using sound to illustrate the same idea common with photography; stopping a moment in time. I was going to present photographs with their "sound equivalent." He liked the idea, but he started dissecting it, getting rid of the photography aspect all together. Fine, I can deal with that. Then, he started to think that I need to bring outside sounds into the space that react with it. Ok, he's pushing it a little, but I'll see where it's going. Finally, he thought I need to find a way to relate the sound to specific pieces of the wall within the space.

Come on!

It went from a simple concept to something that I just didn't think was interesting anymore. So, I went to the space to try and come up with a new idea, and I did. It's something that I think would be really interesting and makes sense...

Not to him, he's already trying to change it around to try and make it something different. Changing the scale of the piece, placing it in different areas, etc. Grrrr!

I had told people about my idea in class earlier, and they all seemed to like it. But after he talked about it, there seemed to be a shift in opinion. Now I feel like I need to come up with yet ANOTHER idea.

This class is really pissing my off...