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The internet seems to love a top 10 list,
so today I'm going to talk about 10 things that
inspired us to make this show and are the reason
why The Art Assignment exists.
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OK, we all know that ideas seed other ideas, seed other ideas.
All creative endeavors owe a debt
to the like-minded projects that came before.
And I've been thinking about the huge range of influences
that led to the show and how the new things that you make help
feed other new ideas in a virtuous circle.
First up, planking.
When meme culture began taking over the internet,
I couldn't help but see parallels
between things people were doing for an internet laugh
and projects by reputable contemporary artists.
Like when I saw planking, I thought about photo projects
like Lilly McElroy's "I Throw Myself at Men,"
where she goes into public places like bars
and photographs herself literally throwing herself
at men.
And when I saw "Old Me, Now Me," I
couldn't help but think of Cindy Sherman's exploration
of herself in other roles and identities.
And when I saw animated gifs embracing the possibilities
of looping video and pop culture appropriation,
I couldn't help but think of early video art of artists
like Jack Goldstein who looped the MGM lion
roar into this piece.
And Dara Birnbaum, who mashed up clips
of Wonder Woman spinning into a mesmerizing and purely
enjoyable video work.
What memes showed us was that people
were willing to play freely with the glut of available media,
copyright infringement or not, and humiliate themselves
in the name of shared enterprise.
And if you can do that, you can make art.
That's where we saw our in. "Learning to Love You More"
was this absolutely amazing online collaborative project
that Harrell Fletcher and Miranda
July started in 2002 before the internet was
anywhere near what it is today.
They issued assignments like, take a picture of your parents
kissing, make a protest sign and protest, photograph a scar
and write about it.
And they invited people to respond and submit
documentation that was posted on the website.
I know, I know our show is a complete ripoff of "Learning
to Love You More."
But in my mind, The Art Assignment
is an homage to that project and one
that takes into account how much has changed
in the internet world since their project concluded
in 2009.
You guys share what you make on your social media
platform of choice and hashtag it with #theartassignment
so that you're sharing what you're making not just with us
or even The Art Assignment community, but with people
you know.
We want this to be part of your life
and not something that lives in its own separate art realm.
And Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher are truly brilliant
and have loads of great ideas for assignments.
But I wanted to see how their idea could continue
and what a wider variety of artists
would give us as assignments.
There are so many ways of making art,
and I wanted to see what would spring from the minds of not
just me or a few other people, but a limitless number
of artists.
In March of 2006, internet denizen and programmer Ze Frank
launched his year-long daily video project,
"The Show with Ze Frank."
That spawned a community called Sports Racers.
I enjoy the videos and was fascinated
by how Ze used online video to build a community
and so were many other people, including
my husband John who co-founded the vlogbrothers channel
in 2007.
The nerdfighter community which grew out of those videos
has been a huge inspiration to me,
especially when it comes to building things together
in virtual spaces.
In 2011, John and Hank sent out a census
to the nerdfighter community.
Tens of thousands of nerdfighters wrote in.
When asked what kind of shows they'd
like to see more of online, the number one answer
was videos about art.
And to be honest, I couldn't believe it at first.
The view count for existing videos about art was abysmal.
But it made us start thinking about how we might approach
the subject differently and about the potential
for a genuine community to develop around it.
So in 1970, John Baldessari came up
with a list of optional class assignments for his students
at CalArts in a class he called Post-Studio Art.
It was a really flexible class with no real formats,
no assignments, and no grades, but he gave his students
a handout of optional assignments just in case anyone
needed the structure.
There were more there 100 ideas, including disguise an object
to look like another object.
Make up a list of distractions that often occur to you.
Recreate on videotape.
Describe the visual verbally and the verbal visually.
And he suggested writing out, I will not
make any more boring art 1,000 times,
which he executed and turned into his own artwork in 1971.
Baldessari is well known for being an amazing teacher
and it's because he let the students take the lead.
He said, "for me it's a sign of success
as a teacher was feeling invisible.
I wanted to know that I could leave the room
and the conversation would continue."
And that's just the sort of thing you guys have proved
is possible with The Art Assignment community.
The assignments we give out are only loose
starting points for you to make your own work
and have your own conversations.
OK, this one's pretty obvious, but this show
wouldn't exist without PBS Digital Studios.
The other week I attended a gathering of PBS Digital
Studios producers and I was once again so impressed
with what they're doing.
PBS' support of free educational video is extremely impressive.
And if you haven't taken a look at the many other great YouTube
channels in the family, you really should.
"Sitting in the Room" with Mike Rugnetta from Idea Channel.
David Gerlach of "Blank on Blank."
Vanessa Hill of "BrainCraft."
And Joe Hanson of "It's Okay to be Smart," just to name a few.
I was astounded by the incredibly bright
and generous and unpretentious people
that PBS is giving us access to for free.
And I'm really proud to be part of it.
Another artist whose ideas were foundational to this series
is Yoko Ono.
Before John Lennon even entered her life,
she was a successful artist whose 1964 book
Grapefruit consisted of instructions
like, listen to the sound of the earth turning.
Stand in the evening light until you become transparent
or until you fall asleep.
Smoke everything you can including your pubic hair.
It's playful and poetic and reflects the time it was made.
But it also helped form what would be called instruction
art, or art that could be reduced to a set of rules
that anyone could execute.
Now The Art Assignment is not instruction art
because we're asking you to create your own artwork
in response to a prompt, not create
the artwork of the person giving you the assignment.
But it's still an idea that influences
this show, the artists who are creating your prompts,
and you guys as you interpret them.
The next idea that led to this series
is the maker movement that has proliferated
abundantly in recent years.
Seeing what creative and skillful things people are
hungry to create on platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr
and Reddit was further evidence to us
that people want to make things.
We like to get our hands dirty and to surround ourselves
with well made or least interestingly made things
that are fulfilling to create or that
improve our daily life through functionality or strangeness
or beauty.
The internet is full of helpful tutorials
on how to do just about anything and all
in the embarrassment-free environment of your own home.
We thought, why not seize on this desire
to create and inform that process with the ideas
and direction of some of the best artists working today?
So New York Magazine has this thing
in every issue that I know is silly,
but that I still really like.
And it's called the Approval Matrix.
In March 2012, they featured John's Crash Course videos
and we were pleased to find out that they were situated
in the brilliant low-brow quadrant of the chart
between the four poles of high-brow,
low-brow, despicable, and brilliant.
You, of course, want to be on the brilliant side of things,
but it was that high-brow, low-brow spectrum
that really got me thinking.
Art museums, art history, and contemporary art
are notorious for being high-brow, but why does
it have to be that way?
Most of the artists I know are deeply unpretentious
and actually hate the bits about the art world
that tend to alienate people.
So we wanted to strike the same brilliant, low-brow tone
of Crash Course and present well-researched material
but in a way that was welcoming and that you might actually
want to watch.
The internet is a fantastic arena
for navigating that right side of the matrix.
And it's exciting to see the potential for educational video
unfold.
And the primary idea that seeded this idea
is that artists have great ideas.
I like being a contemporary art curator
because I get to work directly with artists
and get a brief glimpse into the way they think about things
and approach problems.
When I worked at a museum, it never seemed fair to me
when I'd stand in a gallery and realize
that I was the only one who got to see that artist's workspace
or to talk to them about their ideas behind a piece,
to know how they agonized over the little details,
or to learn their dog's name.
Some art does speak for itself.
But our experience of art is almost always improved
with more information, whether it's
from a label or the artists speaking to you directly.
My favorite part of this show is that we not only
get to see the featured artist's ideas
but we also get to see your ideas.
You have great ideas and I'm looking forward
to seeing many more of them.
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