june/july 2008,artconcerns.com

Mistakes are Actions

Aron Johnston, Fulbright Research Grantee, 2007-08 believes in the brilliance than the actual intention of the painting. He tells Rollie Mukherjee about his recent solo show titled “signs unseen” held at Chitra Kala Parishath, April 2008. The conversation sheds light on his early works and the sojourn in India. Excerpts:

Rollie Mukherjee: After seeing your entire oeuvre of works one can observe that from abstraction you have moved to the “pop” approach and again you are heading towards an abstraction but with a difference. Now you tend to focus more on “language” as any other pop artist with greater emphasis on semiotics. Your abstraction seems more to be well planned / calculative (the definition pop artist gave for their works) and imitative of popular images and text.

Aron Johnston: What was common among the abstract expressionist (particularly if you compare De Kooning and with Pollock) was the activation of the body and immediacy of thought with their body into canvas. However, if you talk about my work it is often not about my body. May be it is because of its size that it might have some relation with body or viewers body, but surely its not about my body or my immediate thought either. Whereas De Kooning was doing reactions in his paintings, one stroke led to the next stroke and so on. I kind of set up a situation where strokes create a next action and I am kind of separate from that. Well it’s (for me) a matter of defining or developing a system that creates an action that I feel comfortable in making. Therefore, if there was an artist or a group of artists that I can connect to at least with the systematic physical aspect of art, it would be Jasper Johns or Robert Indiana. For example Robert Indiana created a number system in his work so all his paintings had to do with numbers or numerology.

Therefore, we can say that the system activated his joy of painting. With Jasper Johns, it is with his series of letters. He did not have to think about what he had to paint so he says here is the subject now all that is activated is action or activation in the painting which happens in my paintings also. I found something systematic. So now, I don’t need to think about the subject and now I am part of the system and I am merely the vehicle of its production and that’s where I get my creative joy. That does not necessarily explain why I like to destroy the images.

I don’t know how to categorize myself. I don’t really think myself as an abstract painter and even though I look at abstract artists, they are not the people I put myself with or align with. I think of artists like Kosuth or Baldessari are my real influences and my real favourite is Magritte. Because the way Magritte plays with language, I like him. But if you look, my paintings they have nothing to do with the physicality or representations of Magritte. I am influenced more by Magritte than Pollock (even if they do look like abstractionists).
The work, titled “slick burger,” is my first work where I started intentionally exploring the idea of language. There is the text “slick burger” and the image of a train. It looks like a piece of signage. But it’s all invented. This work came out of an argument I had with an art critic. He said “if your work was “slick” you can sell it in New York or Paris gallery or you could never make it as an artist.” I think my art is more like a cheese burger. It is very hard to handle. When you eat it you enjoy it but it gets all over your hands, face and shirt, its messy and so I came up with the idea of “slick burger” because it’s a phrase which doesn’t really make sense. I used the text with an image which doesn’t really make any sense with the text because that was something I believed and I liked. Art for me is like a slow moving train. It is some thing you can sit and watch.

This is where I started to break away from this kind of linear thinking and stopped putting very distinct meanings to my work. The developing goal was to create an absence of meaning with things that seem meaningful.

RM: You had done a street installation in Bangalore and told that you desire to continue more such public displays like any other sign boards. Also you said you believe “art” is non transient and timeless. So what role do you want your art to play, because knowing popular art like sign boards have a transient quality and ends with fulfillment of its purpose?

AJ: If we think about what Kant said about the idea of disinterestedness, an artist puts all of his interest into painting so that the viewer can come and sit in front of a painting and get relaxed by separating from their own interest. From the artist devotion to interest, from this state disinterestedness develops. I liked that theory.

I like things full of too much information, my passion for colours and my interactions to text as form. So then, I create away. They fuse together so the timeless part you are talking about is not stuck to any one viewer. I hope that theoretically, someone can come up to a work and they can try to explore it. They can’t bring too much of their own interest to it. So the only option to it is that they have to relax and be disinterested but that doesn’t mean they don’t like it but it means that they can’t put too much of themselves in that. Therefore, they relax before it that may be the “aura” of it like the Sistine chapel. It is loaded with so much information and the subject matter is so powerful that all you can do is feel, becoming to it. A person does not have to believe in some thing to understand the AWE. You can create so much information that it creates no information that is when it is bigger than… what ever. That is when it touches the void.

RM: You said that you want to make art out of mistake. How did you arrive at this idea of making art? You generally use mediums which are generally considered antithetical to each other.

AJ: Mistakes are sometimes more brilliant than the actual intention of the painting. Painting exists in many parts. The first part is the idea or concept. Then there is part of the painting that exists in the act of making. When you are making a painting, you don’t think of anything. The act of painting becomes the Art and the third part, and there are many more parts thereafter, is when you can analyze what you have done and start finding out mistakes and in my paintings right at the end these mistakes make the work happen I was trying to control it. I spend weeks with the painting and never saw it and then the minute the paint starts to dry and I start to come out of my activation only then does it started to reveal itself as something else. Therefore, my idea coming into the painting wasn’t what I got when I finished it. Which was perfect, that is exactly what I want. I want my idea or concept to be motivated not just as a definition but by action, mistakes are actions that I can take if they work fix if they don’t. I am the coach and the team; the field is the artwork not the opponent.

The work titled “lessons in knot tying” is about the confusion of being tied up in observation or meaning. When you put this order of ABC together with the other images, its (the artworks) intention is to be confused, you actually need to follow a process. Normally to become less confused you need to follow an order I am trying to reverse that. So, this is the painting. In my work, there is chaos but there is an order to create that chaos. In that piece, I have used so much wax that it’s poring over the sides. It is almost like encaustic. I put wax, then draw with crayon, and keep doing this. I draw, heat and then seal it. I use the hot gun to melt the wax, do the drawing, and repeat. This is a very hard to achieve. If I want the drawing to melt faster or slower, I need to adjust the distance of the heat gun. I need to do this process very fast to keep up with the setting time. I am trying to control the material but I am always out of control. The process inspires mistakes. No body can understand this part, I am not sure whether to do it myself, but hopefully they can feel it.

The train in slick burger was printed on a big piece of paper (48 inches) it was printed with non-archival ink and so the ink will fade. So now, the image hardly exists any more. To me this is part of my work. It is breaking down. Its intricate, its part of its beauty, its ability to fall apart. I really like the idea that my artwork is in a state of entropy when the meaning becomes so obliterated / obscure the concept only grows stronger with decay.
I wrote my manifesto on a piece of corrugated cardboard. I wrote on top of the row then on bottom. I wrote on three different sides of the corrugated ridges. I did it so many times so that it became like a black space. It was called “manifesto of every nothing” to mean that it had everything which means it has nothing. So the idea was that the more information I put in, the more likely I am to gain disinterest. Therefore, what I was constantly doing was that each time adding more and more to achieve less and less, touching the void. It is more like a maximalist than minimalist is.

RM: The other day you talked a lot about geo-centrism, anomalism and Diasporas. Do you deal with such socio political and cultural conflict in your work?

AJ: I always like the idea but intentionally talking about geo-centric thoughts or political ideas, those are in me already. So, the work is going to capture some of that but I don’t want my work to be about that so it is this conflict that I create. That is created between me fighting the intension to say something and my intension to create just the visual. I allow the conflict to exist in the painting. Sometimes it’s more apparent sometimes it is less apparent. When it is less apparent I feel more successful when it is more apparent, it is too easy to read. I want the viewer to feel it not know it. I guess not knowing the absolute meaning in my work creates a feeling or conceptual connection similar to such ideas. Geo centric and diasporatic thoughts are ultimately about not knowing to varied extremes.

RM: Do you suffer in defining your work as a high artist dealing with popular from the so called pressures created by galleries and institutional spaces which constantly compel one for definitiveness/ category?

AJ: I would like to be in a category of art where high art happens but you can’t make Art with the intention of it being High Art. Something else outside of the art defines it as high art. Low art also happens – it’s in fact the consequence of not being high art. The person who defines the highs and lows of art is not me. I can only make it and I think, yes its fun for me if my art is in a gallery but the person who gets to categories what art is, then it is not the maker but the observer, the critic, art historian, it’s the society, its time, all these factors. I have actually no control over it. So I think at one time I dabbled with the high art thing then I realize that for me to attempt to do something which is out of my control, is just silly and really a waste of time on my part. All I can do is make art. If some body recognizes it’s relevant then it gets elevated. With more people liking, it gets elevated more. I can’t control that. Folk art exists as an art form. If we take it out of its context/ situation it starts becoming high art. The part of art that I hate is this but I need to relax too.

RM: Do you think self refrentiality in your work an ego trip?

AJ: All artists are narcissist, if they say they are not they are kidding themselves even they are making artwork and it is because they at some point want to see themselves. Once you recognize (ego) then you say; now I can look back and can make it better. Now the trick is that the only way to look at (yourself in your art) is to see history what are the things in history that define you and you look at other art. Albert Einstein said creativity comes out of covering /masking your influences, so he looked at the different physicist. He was building on the ideas of others to define himself. So once he came up with this defining idea, then he only built on top of it with his own ideas. So as artist, we take part in same thing. We look at history and out of it we choose what we really like. Then you put it together like in a soup and mix; then start building on it to define yourself in your art.

“No longer is the challenge to compare my work to others. No. The idea is to develop a personal history from Art history so that others can compare my work to my work.
It is only at that point when there is a marker for true progression in my development.”
(From the presentation)

This was popular in 70’s with artists like Chuck Close in US. He was looking at other artists but then he got the point when he was doing his large pencil drawings and paintings and then started looking these paintings in comparison to his own paintings then looking back what was their in his mind, He created the identity that nobody else has, even to this day. Nobody can reach him. Only Chuck Close can reach Chuck Close. If you copy it (his method) its still just copy. So the trick is to find a why that the person viewing your work first gives reference to your work.

RM: Some of the works you did before coming to India seem to have direct influence of Jasper Johns and Rausenberg, not only in their use of materials but also the strategy of depersonalisation that is talking about your personal symbolically through objects.

AJ: In some of my works the images are all references to the size of my body like a self-portrait. In “lessons in Knot Tying”, I have shown my pants dropped, which is a vulnerable state. The painting, which is leaning out of the wall, that is a portrait done out of wax and plywood and crayon.

I have used all of my personality in a general way. The self-portrait is reference to my self yet; it can be a reference to viewer as well. It is more of a generalized self-portrait. So at the top you see ABC there are three methods of how to tie a knot and in the middle right at the point where there would be my waist or upper thigh is the text all twisted together and at the bottom are my legs. This is the point hard to think about. With my pants in that situation, I am exposed, but the only thing that you are seeing not my upper torso and my gentiles but it is my artwork. So my art work here is equated to my naked body but you don’t really make that jump right away, even though that is the kind of metaphorically imparts the material I use. It is not an easy material to handle, as is art. It should not always easy to understand and digest. So, the material becomes important.
If you recall Jasper Johns paintings “target.” He has this big target and stations at the top that can be opened to reveal castings of his body. Johns was referring to saint Sebastian. He (Johns) was the target. Johns was a homosexual man who was using this symbolism in his artwork to talk about his identity. However, when we look at his work, identity is the last thing that we think about. We think about this beautiful target, then we open the boxes then we can make connections to different aspects of the self. My work operates in the same way at times. I don’t think any artist can make an artwork, which is not about themselves. Think about it even the attempt to do so would be in its self a selfish endeavor. A person cannot get out of oneself. It would be impossible. The challenge would be to make artwork, which has nothing to do with your self. I don’t think it can be done. I think it’s impossible.

RM: What are the differences you find between Indian and American cultural signs?

AJ: You don’t see these signs in the US. All this type of advertisement disappeared from the US 40-60 years ago. I am generalizing, especially in Texas, billboards were banned in places and many regulations were created over the past years too reduce the visual clutter. It (hand painted signs) slowly disappeared. There are still some signboards but it is not all over the place but before that it happened. Back in the 70’s, you could drive in the city and the first thing you see is the signs all over the city. That started disappearing, and then on top of that sign paintings were replaced not by digital works but offset printings. As a result, companies could print these gigantic prints, which were cheaper than the paintings. So just as here, signboards are being replaced by flex. One of the benefit of doing this comparison and contrast is that as it (painted sign hoarding) is fading here now and you are getting a massive benefit or influx of this is digital pop art, the art of popular culture is changing.

So, in the 1950’s and 60’s Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, and Oldenburg pick it up on this idea of popular culture and the creative benefits there to exploit. Here is where the cultural change is happening, when it was observed, felt and exploited. They manipulated these visual images in America and pushed it (POP) to its limits. Now if we think theoretically we feel what was happening in then there should happen in India now. But the same thing is not happening here. If the template of history is true, where is pop art in India? Indian culture has strange yet unique artistic ideas. Why then does pop art not happen in India now? All of the ingredients are here. Theoretically, pop art should be taking off.

In Atul Dodiya’s work – his whole body of work I like. If you open up the shutter what is beneath that shutter is his self. What is outside is the surface of his nationality, that is to say his cultural identity is his own identity. It has all the signs of pop art but India is wonderful in that sense that some Indian artists are not afraid of utilizing a post modern sense. Working all the way back to dada and working a bit of futurism and take a bit of pop and also from their own cultural nationality and they fuse everything together. This makes something unique and distinctly Indian. In a way some artists in India have skipped over pop using only what they need from it to make artwork, that I think, exists in a realm all it own. Where I do not think artwork in US can manage such things. Because it (US Art market) has bastardized the global body and everyone (the world at market) is looking at it but it (US art market) in turn is not looking out to other global and cultural influences, other than to collect and buy. I don’t think that we in the US are leaning and utilizing global ideas to our full potential.

It is only recently that I have being able to understand traditional modern in Indian art. It took me a lot of time to understand it. I feel conflicted because I am not Indian so I would feel odd using traditional Indian modern in my own work. It is like I can put on all the clothing and try to look like an Indian, but I am not and we would all know that I am not. I just cannot mask my identity. Where as if I was an NRI living in the US the opposite is not so true. The opportunity to be seen as global is more likely because they are fortunate to live in both worlds. Their identity is broad it is more of a global mindset. I am not sure how to over come that other than, for me as an American, to try to understand the world out side my own cultural limitations.

RM: Tell us about the project you are handling under the Fulbright Grant?

AJ: I can answer this question in three parts. The program is awarded to different professionals from different fields. The specific award I received was a student Fulbright Grant. The ultimate goal of the grant is that we are coming over here to do research but at the same time we are a sort of cultural ambassador. So, I am representing an aspect of my country. I am not like my own country/state/ government; I am not like the Hollywood stereotype of what an American is. I am like a regular guy who happens to make art. That is the intension of the Fulbright, to introduce the idea that the US is heterogeneous and is not only about policies, politics and popular culture. Every individual in the world can be confused by the three P’s of their own countries.
I came to India to conduct personal research to understand the Indian culture. As a result I have come as well to dispel preconceived perceptions and myths. (Not that I ever thought this, but) No body is riding elephants here. I have yet see any one break out is spontaneous dance or song and at the street corner there is not a man playing music to a cobra. Getting to know the real India is the second part. I have come over here and allowed myself to observe and take part in things that are not cultural norms to me and to be open to new ideas with out bias.

The third part is the actual project. I altered my project after coming here. My initial idea was to study the materials and methods used by different signboard artists. I was more interested in knowing the processes and manipulation of materials by these artists. However, I abandoned the idea after coming here. The artists where all but gone. I took it as a gateway to study the people who had made signs. It helps me in seeing how India is changing. The old India versus the new India and the conflicts that the people deal with every day as a result of globalism, problems which even you and I deal with. So, globalization is something that belongs to all of us. I deal with it in a different way from how a sign artist might deal with it. That’s another aspect. The most important part of Fulbright grant is the interaction. I become part of the community I am studying and I don’t try to make my own norms or American norms, but investigate and discover new norms. That’s what I need to take it back with me. Sometimes it’s a great project and at other times it’s an experience.