Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Feb 15, 2011, 12:07 pm
I am not going to have time to tell you everything I think about how great the Lynda Benglis retrospective at the New Museum is--not for awhile. But I can tell you this. I enjoyed the Lynda Benglis retrospective so much that, for the first time in my career of going to the New Museum, I didn't even ... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Feb 7, 2011, 8:25 am
Finally got to the MoMA yesterday. The contemporary show they have up is a club-footed art historical case for collecting detritus from Paul Chan's Waiting For Godot*, and On Line was predictable. But I loved the photography and performance show and loved the Rock, Paper, Scissors part of the Ab Ex... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Dec 30, 2010, 1:58 pm
I've been reading about Henry Darger, and getting over the holiday.
Henry Darger is what he is from, and this is a beautiful and painful project. I'm glad it's not my project.
When I was a child, one of my parents was kind of cold and empty, and lived to hurt and ruin the other. The other parent... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Dec 23, 2010, 10:38 am
A Paul Thek installation detail that is so not currently on view at the Whitney
I have this new role as Art Ambassador. Yesterday wandered Paul Thek: Diver at the Whitney defending the museum-ey elevation of quick sketches on sheets of newspaper and sketchbooks and garbagey pink and blue paintings ... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Dec 18, 2010, 9:51 am
My job is evolving into something that more resembles a career. I am grateful for this, and I've been explaining my background to other people lately, distilling the two years of blind fumbling this blog represents into a comfortable elevator pitch about why I am not an artist anymore. And you know,... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 29, 2010, 8:30 am
I like looking at art as a consumer instead of as a maker. As a maker, I looked at more art faster, sorting rapidly into Useful and Not Useful at twenty paces. Yesterday Joel and I did the Whitney, the two of us looking at art together for the first time since we both decided to do other things than... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 20, 2010, 9:29 am
So, in aikido I've been focusing a lot of energy on being thrown well. I've been trying hard to listen to what is actually happening and respond to that instead of checking out and either throwing myself or leaving myself behind. Particularly because I am newish, working from this point of view invo... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 18, 2010, 8:35 am
I think that the first sign of real success as a blogger is having to deal, in the real world, with people that you really don't want reading your blog coming to you and saying that they have read your blog. This has been happening to me more and more lately, in part because I am just doing more thi... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 16, 2010, 8:18 am
In aikido, there's the person who throws and the person who is thrown. I've been working on being thrown better. It's called ukemi . It's mostly about listening to what the person who is throwing you is actually doing, and responding to that in a way that keeps you safe. You don't want to bail or th... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 7, 2010, 11:40 am
I saw Jackass 3D last night and laughed so hard that my stomach muscles hurt this morning!
Jackass has been art appreciation curriculum for me for a long time. When attempting to explain contemporary art to non-artists, I usually start with (a better version of) this clip of Dave England shitting i... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 6, 2010, 3:43 pm
Most of my adult artistic life I've been thinking a lot in terms of increasing my self awareness, limiting pain, being happier, figuring out how to live. My graduate school career was so fruity. I learned how to meditate, got lost in aikido, stared into the ocean, swam with dolphins, fell very deepl... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Nov 6, 2010, 1:41 pm
So yesterday I went back to Chelsea for the first time in a long while, and this snapped a lot of things into focus. We started at the Roxy Paine show at James Cohan, and this is going to sound so obnoxious but it was soothing to see that I am not leaving a void in the conversation by stopping produ... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Sep 21, 2010, 5:07 pm
For what it's worth, I have it. I got it when I truly gave up.
"Famous Artist" is not a goal. Not for me, anyway. It's a way to lie to myself about my own aimlessness and insecurity. A way to keep myself from doing anything that allowed me to feel pretty okay about it. Nothing could happen until I... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Sep 19, 2010, 9:41 am
I thought art was a path toward finding it. And it is, in the same way Interstate 10 feels like it's all about Texas.
Art is fundamentally about lies and illusions, and when art is great the lies and illusions reference very special truths that you can't see any other way except through a lie. The... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Sep 18, 2010, 9:10 am
This is where I train, a class with a visiting shihan who pretty much the same size and shape as me. I've been thinking about Osawa Sensei a lot lately as I come to terms with the fact that I am not 5'11" and 195 lbs.
This is demonstration footage. If you're going to watch one video, this one is fa... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Sep 17, 2010, 3:17 pm
A lot of this writing I've been doing about why I am not an artist anymore is about my pride, and tastes a little bit like sour grapes:
I am not an artist anymore because it's a stupid position of victimization to put yourself in. The value proposition sucks! Visual art is in such a mannerist phase... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
May 31, 2010, 12:56 pm
I haven't not been making art as much as I've been figuring out a better value proposition.
This might best be explained via Urban Farm Syndicate, the project that's taking most of my time right now. UFS offers land owners an Onsite Farming Maintenance Service for free, twelve months out of the ye... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Apr 17, 2010, 12:21 pm
I am not watching Speed whenever I get a chance because it's great cinema. It's not. It's a stupid movie that's deeply confirming of everything you've already heard about gender and sex. It's a story about Insides and Outsides. There are inside spaces: a bus, a subway car and an elevator. These are ... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Apr 14, 2010, 8:07 am
I've gotten lost before.
The last time I got lost it was an acute situation. I was in graduate school and was told by someone on my committee that my artmaking practice relied upon a specific crutch, and that I could actually walk just fine, so they were taking the crutch away. I responded by shut... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Apr 12, 2010, 10:07 am
I consider myself a strong person, and on balance this has been a positive force in my life. I have propelled myself into a ton of weird new experiences, trusted my abilities, learned a lot of skills and made some big, cool things. But right now my life has organized itself into one enormous lesson ... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Apr 7, 2010, 9:31 am
I just spent an hour and a half writing what I usually write about and it felt like total bullshit. What can I say? This is a building year--what I usually think has been rendered irrelevant. What does seem to be relevant is all this new stuff that has no specific relationship to what I usually iden... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Apr 5, 2010, 11:42 am
One of the things I've been doing for most of my life is trying to create the perfect conditions to do work. I've spent a lot of energy on protecting myself from assholes, jobs that take too much of my time or energy, workplace politics, friendships that don't give, tasks that distract me from my ar... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Apr 3, 2010, 9:39 am
Today Seth Godin put his finger on exactly the reason art stopped feeding me, and why I quit making it.
Art made me angry, and I finally figured out that I am not an angry person, that this bitterness I felt was circumstantial and self-imposed. I was angry because art is a gatekeeper game. You don... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Mar 30, 2010, 8:42 am
One of my favorite aikido teachers also gives me the willies, for reasons that are worth exploring. She teaches great stuff that nobody else quite says in a way I understand, I like her style, and she is more willing to correct me than any other teacher. For this I am grateful and I learn a lot from... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Mar 29, 2010, 10:12 am
Richard Serra thinks of rigging as an extension of his own hand, and this understanding helped me when I became a rigger responsible for lifting her own work. Using a crane is not that different from driving a car or sweeping a floor--technological extensions of our own selves that we buy into compl... Comment - Like
Deborah F. posted an article on
Deborah Fisher
-
Mar 27, 2010, 11:28 am
So last year I went ahead and told my art career to fuck off. I decided that it wasn't worth doing anymore, that it made me angry and poor and felt masochistic. Even though I approached the problem from a position of exhaustion, retiring from art has worked out well so far. I feel lighter than I... Comment - Like
Recent Discussions
