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design and the trump card

May 7, 2013
art (question mark), design, jewelry (or jewellery), RANTS, semantics
3 Comments

Now the mandate is to “design something for when I feel lonely,” he added. “For when I feel empty. For when I’m turned down by my love. For when I’m scared because I’m going to die. For when I lose a kid. Design now is fulfilling important things that for a long time were more expected from art, but that art today is failing to deliver because it’s so immersed in itself.

I know this is a bit past due, but this NYTimes article —->  After the Boom, a Better Kind of Art, about “design art” or “art furniture” seen at Design Miami is really worth the read. Design can get away with anything. It’s more shameless than fashion, a lot of the time. And we should be jealous! Read the article, look at the numbers ( and when I say numbers I mean $$$), and you just TRY and tell me why a super-slickly designed “art” CHAIR made of PLASTIC or something, reels in the big bucks and no one fucking QUESTIONS if it’s worth the price tag or not, when objects made of similar cheap and immediate materials, even if it came from a similar conceptual departure and took a comparable amount of time to make yet is simply just smaller (yes of course a price gap is caused by size differences/material consumption, sure, but I mean my god, plastic is plastic, resin is resin, and that shit ain’t that expensive… and god knows that WE know that when material ain’t an arm and a leg, we make up for it with skill) would NEVER be “worth” that kind of money. WHY? Ok, in rare cases, sure but it isn’t the same, indicated by the fact that “art jewelry” is still pretty much off the highbrow art AND design radar, generally speaking.  To sell jewelry with those kind of price tags, the shit’s still gotta be made of gold, sadly, or have a bunch of fucking diamonds in it. ARE OUR IDEAS TOTALLY WORTHLESS??? But furniture gets an easier ride because of its approachability, its universality  its perception of being needed as it’s functional. It’s easier to justify perhaps, to wrap your head around. And please don’t think i’m speaking negatively; my we’re-fooling-everyone life partner, Misha sent me this article, and he is quite the art furniture or art design (whatever you want to call it <— that just happens to also be a direct quote from the article. Can we say, same problems??? God damn vocabulary always gotta mess everything up) extraordinaire . He just has a slightly easier struggle. And will probably make a hell of a lot more money than the rest of us lowly art jewelry people.

Here are some other quotes from the article, surely to make your brain say, BUT WAIT, HAVEN’T WE, THE CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY ARTISTS, BEEN DOING THIS ALREADY? WHERE IS OUR GREAT MARKET?? :

“…has long worked with designers to produce objects that have the conceptual depth and rarity of fine art”

“Design art has so much growth potential where I’m fortunate to be a spearhead of this new movement… Meanwhile, in the arts It’s so difficult to find something that stands out and proposes something new anymore.”

SO. Do you think we, contemporary jewelry, art jewelry, WHATEVER, is more closely aligned with art, or design? Are we actually a sub-category of design based on the definitions presented by this article? I mean we happen to have already been making art jewelry for awhile, maybe that’s why no one published an article about it in the NYTimes or anywhere in the public sphere, for that matter, because it started a long time ago. I happen to think we’ve already been filling the great divide between art and design, just a little more quietly I suppose. So i’ll ask again, where’s our great market? Hell, the economy stinks right? At least contemporary jewelry is cheaper to collect. And you get to fucking wear it. EYES OPEN, WORLD.

I will mention that Caroline van Hoek (described as a design gallery mind you) did attend at Design Miami with a list of amazing artists that went something like this: Giampaolo Babetto, Gijs Bakker, Ralph Bakker, Alexander Blank, Helen Britton, Beatrice Brovia, Klaus Burgel, Nicolas Cheng, Willemijn De Greef, David Huycke, Beate Klockmann, Daniel Kruger, Fritz Maierhofer, Barbara Paganin, Seth Papac, Renzo Pasquale, Ruudt Peters, Robert Smit, StudyOPortable, Lisa Walker and Annamaria Zanella. Thanks Caroline! 

I wonder how she did this year.

Now back to that first quote at the top of the post. Maybe that guy should start thinking about making jewelry. We already do all that too.

Misha_Kahn_Pig_Bench

But then again, so does Misha.                                       Click on the image above for a link to his website.

design ≥ art ≥ jewelry ????

I JUST DON’T EVEN KNOW TODAY

Review of the Opulent Project at Gallery Loupe

January 10, 2013
galleries/exhibitions, jewelry (or jewellery), REVIEWS
1 Comment

A Wrap Up:  The Opulent Project

By Misha Kahn

Apologies for the time lapse on this review; in movie like form, Kellie and I ran into each other at JFK, and I got bumped and rerouted to go with her to New Orleans for Christmas – so the distraction was mutual, and now fully rested, we’re ready to blog! 

wallpaperimage2

As always, there’s something wonderful and challenging about viewing work from younger artists. Usually the challenge is that you start striking connections between your own work and your peers with whom you have a charged relationship, unsure if the direction is valid or progressive.  In this case, Meg Drinkwater and Erin Gardner’s reverence to antiquated ornament is one I can relate to and struggle with myself.  In contemporizing their chosen forms they bring in some exciting new ideas about how jewelry fits into American society.  The work steers clear of gaudy – and even finds a way to present ornament as non-ornament in a sense (hint: paint the wall to match your own ornament to achieve this affect at home!)

The wallpapered wall in a print of a patterned cube in perspective – a familiar pattern of Italian marble floors and a reoccurring visual reference of the likes of Babetto and other Padovan goldsmiths – begs the question of whether the wall itself was as singular piece, or simply a clever way to display the scattered and camouflaged pieces. This optical challenge played into one of my favorite types of unconventional display in the field; I like to call this “find the jewelry,” where the viewer is forced to approach and interact more closely with objects through some sort of slight trickery.  With jewelry’s small scale, it can be hard to draw people in close enough to really examine a singular piece individually.  With that said, Drinkwater and Gardner’s installation was a fairly effective ploy to get the viewer to look more closely at each jewel. Like chameleons, earrings were powder coated and painted with the same geometric pattern of the wallpaper.

The choice of this almost Escher-esque parquet as a two-dimensional formal reference was strong, as the work feels young and a bit op-arty even though it’s a much older pattern, allowing it to be paired more logically with the silhouettes of the jewelry.

During the show opening, Erin swooped in to show me how the necklaces and earrings can share parts, with pendants from one necklace able to de-attach and clip onto the companion earrings.  Another necklace had a brooch pin on the back with a detachable chain.

This transformation was both engaging and humorously aware of the current economic recession (not sure that contemporary jewelry and the economy are so entangled, but at least it’s paying attention). Somehow this sentiment of frugality also leads into the thought that to own one necklace or ring from the wall was to own part of something larger.  No one wearer could solely own the entirety of this work – one has to willingly accept that your piece relates to others, as all the pieces share parts of the larger pattern.  At least to my naïve eyes, I think American culture is becoming slightly more okay with a transforming sense of the individual. The new individual understands their uniqueness through a lens of being part of a larger group – which is how the jewelry on this wall related to each other.

The plastic laser cut earrings also on exhibition exist in an interesting place in the context of the high priced world of art jewelry; a work you can take home for around $30 shares a roof with other objects that might be worth more than any of the cars I’ve ever owned.  THIS ALWAYS WORKS, and here’s why:  a true bred American is only capable of thinking about whether they like something through imagining owning it – and when one can actually own something, it makes the imagination of owning the other, more expensive works, more vivid.  Of course in the design world, this is more expected, with Droog offering easily produced objects for 20 bucks alongside their more in depth conceptual work, or Murikami opening a Louis Vuitton store inside LACMA alongside his “artwork.”

I think the component which can make this relationship stronger, is when the two feel like they have a sibling relationship – where one feels related but slightly less developed.  And in this case, and even though the ties between ornament and silhouette where there, I wasn’t really able to figure out how the two types of pieces went together.  Visually, the plastic earrings (hung on a white wall) presented vivid colors against a blank, while alternatively, the contrast between the visual delicacy of the camouflage work drew the eye in to the other, and what seemed like the less exciting wall overall… I’m still pondering if the two relate in a really logical way or really if they have to.

I will also briefly mention that although the delicate lines were well executed, the modern silhouettes of classical jewelry ain’t the most revolutionary of ideas (see Islay Taylor, Constanze Schreiber, etc).

Perhaps my favorite piece, which I think did exist between the two semi-disparate projects, was a pair of earrings made of dipped clear plastic. These magical earrings reexamined the idea of the historical silhouette and added a dash of industrial design fin model, slightly asymmetrical and drippy.  Basically each of these elements are a semi-surefire way to make any object visually appealing; this sounds like knock against the Opulent Project, but really it isn’t; it’s good and simple decision making. All together, the effect adds up to an enticing ice-palace treat; perhaps even a humorous nod to the camouflage wall as well, as a see-through earring might just reflect the color of the wearers ear and become a bit surreal.

If you also look forward to seeing what the Opulent Project will come up with in the future, follow them here: http://theopulentproject.blogspot.com

To view photos from the exhibition opening, please visit Gallery Loupe’s Facebook page —> here

Misha Kahn,  RISD BFA Furniture ’11 and Fulbright Fellow, Israel 2011-12, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

To see a previous review written by Misha, please click ——> here

Misha Says Angrily

November 12, 2012
art (period), design, RANTS
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Hello readers! I am pleased to announce a new reoccurring post, Misha Says Angrily, that will feature a short and sweet rant about the designer’s place in the world, or something of the like. Take what you will and maybe think about where we, the art jewelry world, may or may not fit in.

Nov. 11 2012

The hardest part of being a designer is being expected to know a comprehensive amount about art history, design history and craft history – and all these other lazy bitches just learn their own little sphere and carry on ignoring the fact that their entire man made surroundings are dictated by design – while maintaining that their sphere has some sort of intellectual or soulful (respectively) high-ground. I think that to be a designer means to accept this and take on the task of comprehensively regarding all three histories and current states while creating an object that has the additionally difficult task of being somehow usable – in the face of the complete lack of appreciation it will inevitably receive.

–Misha Kahn

The Birthday Boys – A Review

November 1, 2012
galleries/exhibitions, jewelry (or jewellery), REVIEWS, semantics
3 Comments

The following is a delightful review of Gallery Loupe’s recent show, The Birthday Boys by ≥’s first guest writer (!), Misha Kahn. Please see the previous post for photos. 

Kellie was visiting me in NYC, over at my house trying to convince me to get on approximately 15 trains to go look at tiny things in Montclair, New Jersey.  It was one of those Saturday afternoons that puts you into a sleepy daze, the kind that doesn’t make you want to trek out into the boonies for really anything one ain’t able to afford.  But after a bit of convincing I came along –  I’m not entirely unfamiliar with contemporary jewelry, but my understanding of it is largely through an easy comparison to my own playing field – furniture.  It’s a similar set of problems, mostly peoples’ curiously rigid logic that design or craft or art should all get processed in different parts of the brain.  Sure, aesthetics can translate but at the end of the day that little pin-back or those four legs force it into some other part of cerebral processing.  And, rather hypocritically, I process most of these types of “craft” media in terms of whether or not I want to own it, wear it, or put it in my house.  Unlike most people though my fantasy shopping isn’t limited by comfort or practicality or really any pragmatic concerns that the mainstream would use to evaluate “design” objects.  

Let me tell you, I wanted everything at this show.  Now, let me tell you why:

The Birthday Boys’ work was divided diagonally down the gallery, between a line of optically perplexing mirrored structures with delicate metal feelers on one side and little nuggets of perfection on the other, part memphis part maquette part tiny silly color texture pattern blocked objet d’brooch.

Peter Skubic’s mirrored mini chosms where like tiny little fun houses for your lapel.   The way they reflected your face, fragmenting it and introducing your neighbors faces and body parts, re- configuring them felt reminiscent of a Hockney joiner or cubist painting.  This way of seeing makes so much sense, because we never really see anything without processing it, introducing our own knowledge and memories of what surrounds us.  These brooches function as glasses for seeing how we see –  allowing us to see the room unpeiced, before our brain assembles these parts.  The delicate feelers reaching out had the effect of an antanea, making sure the wearer didn’t bump into anything too close, but it’s easily altered forms become a memory of the space that the object has encountered, recording each of its run ins with its new, altered shapes.  The pieces become a collection of memories, those recorded, and those of the moment, deconstructed and put on view.  This to me seemed a more than valid justification for making a slew of objects that for all intensive purposes where quite similar.  Because they were about this alteration of space, and this shattered view they worked more strongly in this extensive line up.

Although within contemporary jewelry there is no surprise when an object falls outside the mainstream convention of sparkly/shiny/precious, and since the other Birthday Boy was working with such high, reflective sheen, Thomas Gentilles felt extra fresh.  Because of this, his work seemed even more reminiscent of the Memphis response to the largely chromed, sleek furniture of the early 80’s.  His use of color, mixing pattern and play between angular construction and more imaginative shape and proportion added to this connection.  However, on this scale the play between shape and pattern became far more engaging.  As much as I hate to ever call things architectural, being as unimaginative as saying “it’s nice”- these brooches had some qualities of miniatures that forced this connection.  Trying to imagine them blown up I was displeased, but at their current size, with the detailed prints of shattered eggshell they felt like pocket size maps to imaginary worlds.  It was as though he discovered some secret area where a miniature only works at that size – a rarity in the object world where scale is frequently arbitrary or as large as the market will allow.  In this brooches he created the effect of a window – functioning in such an abstract way – that one might be looking at Gentille’s world from a 10,000 foot altitude or standing so close its about to go out of focus.

Gentille’s play of scale and distance in conjunction with Skubics alteration of vision and memory made a show that left you in a blissful imaginative daze.  Wandering back into the streets of suburban New Jersey feeling adjacent to standard space and time — all conjured by something to wear that on a Lapel – that is really something.

Misha Kahn,  RISD BFA Furniture ’11 and Fulbright Fellow, Israel 2011-12, lives and works in Brooklyn (surprise!), New York. 

THE BIRTHDAY BOYS

October 16, 2012
art (period), galleries/exhibitions, jewelry (or jewellery)
2 Comments

THE BIRTHDAY BOYS – Thomas Gentille and Peter Skubic @ Gallery Loupe in Montcair, New Jersey, Oct 09 – Oct 30, 2012

the following photos are from the opening on oct. 20th

more info to come about the pieces on display ! 

both artists will be speaking at Brooklyn Metal Works on Oct. 21st. click —–> here for more info!

Conversation 1: Attacking the Castle

November 16, 2011
art (period), art (question mark), design, jewelry (or jewellery), semantics
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The following transcript is of a portion of a chat I had on October 31 at 11:30 AM with fellow Fulbrighter in Israel/artist/furniture maker extraordinaire/partner in crime/#1 teammate/best friend, Misha Kahn. This conversion also inspired the naming of this blog.

We plan to keep archiving our conversations as such, as both of our current work, research and general interests in life are forever intertwined.

Misha Kahn: so here’s what I realized

I think, the way for craft to become art, involves this abandonment of material familiarity,

Kellie Riggs: right u told me

M:  so that the work is no longer a praise of the material, but something more

and you think

that through this material familiarity

K:  i’ve been saying that forever

M:  you can get there too

K:  well yeah

M:  so I think it’s like we are attacking a castle

from different sides

K:  ok

M:  you know?

K:  it’s true

M:  you want to get let in the main door

and it’s fucking closed and guarded

K:  I mean I think you can value the material but you cannot rely on it

it is not enough

M: and I am trying to throw a rope over the back wall

K:  I like this analogy

it is good

M: I’ve been thinking of drawing a giant map

K:  write it up

M:  of the castle

and who the guards are

K:  who are they?

M:  and who lives inside

and how we can get in

there’s… a million of them

but the people whove made craft into art have all done it through the exploitation of craft

from the standpoint of art

we have to do the same

like using craft to say something, rather than thinking we can just make these “craft” objects AND say something

because its like talking with a potato in your mouth

you can be saying something interesting but nobody will ever listen

K:   hahaha

right but i think it is also about semantics

mainly about that

M:  how so?

K:  and associations and connotations of the words we use

in our practice

like furniture

and jewelry

M:  right

we have to stop using the words

K:  it’s about how you wrap the present

right?

we have to exploit a concept

or at least an idea

primarily

M:  grayson perry described craft as a little lagoon in the ocean of art

and all the conventions of craft

K:  while harnessing the function as a concept from which to build

M:  SO here’s an idea I’ve been thinking a lot about

K:  but not relying solely on the function

just like the material

M: throughout the 20th century

craft breakthroughs

(particularly jewelry)

into the idea of conceptual art where held back because the aesthetics

were seen as merely

pirating the aesthetic of modern or conceptual art

K:  right

M:  as in, it’s still just jewelry but made in the aesthetic of modern art

because it was following and not leading

SO

on the outside, yeah perhaps

but I would argue that it is leading

M:  PERCEPTION- anyways, was that was how it was

K:  today

M: I agree it wasn’t

K: I think it is totally leading today

M: but, they didn’t get it and thought it was just stealing a style

K: but semantics holds it back

M: ok ok

let me finish the idea

K: ok ok ok

M: so, I think for it to get somewhere we have to make our own closed circle. I think we have to develop our own aesthetic language and then use if for art and craft cyclically, making functional, and non functional participate in our own little swirling rotation

K: are you talking about Salad Bar *

M: sort of

K: well, I think what you are talking about, this sort of sphere

already exists

M: gijs bakker…

K: at least it does in the jewelry world

right but he’s just one guy

for example

M: I don’t think there are so many other examples

K: right now in Amsterdam I think there is a new show that facilitates interaction with the jewelry being exhibited. it is called b-side festival

and it is taking place in various venues that can directly explore a relationship with people that come to the show

M: the dutch just get it!

K: there are a million!

omg mish

the comtemp jewelry world is huge

M: That’s not what I’m talking about though!!!

K: yes it is

my point is that we need to reframe the conventions in which the work we make is shown

so people GET IT

and to align ourselves with ”ARTISTS”

for example, Lauren Kalman

M: right, but artists have and already have made art and also jewelry

K: she makes all that fucked up body shit

it’s technically jewelry rooted, most of it is made traditionally more or less

BUT it is

conceptual

and she regards herself as a VISUAL ARTIST

this actually

is all semantics

that frame her existence and her work

M: but what I’m talking about doesn’t have to do with this at all

K: then I don’t understand I think what you’re talking about is the same

we are just thinking about it in different ways

M: it’s like making a blue painting, and then making a blue necklace, and in this instance the painting copied the necklace, but then making a red painting and a red necklace and the necklace copied the painting.  But substitute the colors for something much larger. And then keep moving forward and enveloping many more media, and ideas, but always keeping this spiral going, where the relationship between these different “semantic circles”  is very open and the way in which one borrows from the other is no longer hierarchical, but by  being done within a group of a few people, it would change a large populations perception, I think

It’s different than trying to “force” people to see the jewelry as art

which it can be

K: what do you mean?

M: it becomes what I’ve always wanted to do, but now is getting a real framework in my head

so imagine Salad Bar opens a department store

K: it’s not about forcing but it’s about facilitating

and exploiting

giving it a place to live that is apt

which I think is what you are talking about

I like the idea, but it doesn’t work exactly, this whole red painting red necklace thing, I think that is forceful

M: but jewelry can’t just wind its way and end up being accepted as high art, because craft has been so marginalized in the past 50 years

K: right but I am ditching the word craft

M: it’s not that it can’t be art

K: I really don’t use it

the work maybe has a craft-based tradition, but now it is not craft any longer

M: that’s what I mean by craft

K: in the states, yes people call it that

but in Europe they do not really, not in the same ways

we are not going to get anywhere trying to say this is how craft is art!

M: I think semantics has a ton to do with it, but it doesn’t mean everything

K: it cannot be craft, it isn’t craft

M: I know I know I know I mostly agree

K: I want to talk more about the red painting red necklace thing

this isn’t going to work necessarily

M: but there are reasons we like furniture and jewelry, it’s < art, and that is a part of what makes it conceptually interesting as well

K: right

M: we have to bring those ideas in

K: but that’s like the gay ceramic boys, Lee and Ben

they make work about ceramics or ceramics about ceramics, among other work

people make jewelry about jewelry

M: right, there is a long tradition of what they do

K: and that is fundamental

M: self-deprecating craft

K: right

but at this point

it is a given! it can’t just be all the work is about

that’s like making work that only comments on the material

M: RIGHT – BUT!

K: it’s like one big inside craft joke!

that no one on the outside is going to get necessarily or care to understand

because they don’t value “craft”!

it is not enough

that is why reframing is going to work better

for example, there is all this writing being done in Italy about the value of jewelry as an expressive medium

and the writers are not whining about why it doesn’t fit into contemporary art culture

they just want to show others that it can be more and the way she is doing that (exploiting the conceptual underpinnings of the work of comp jewelry) is by basically renaming it

it’s being called research jewelry or i gioielli di ricerca

M: if you are making something that self associates with craft, in some way, it needs to talk about its own marginality, which is amazing, because the world is built on these structures

high art can never talk about real human struggles the way craft can

just because of these positions

like Judy Chicago!

feminist art HAD to use craft ideas because the whole medium just further expressed their frustrations

it cant just be whining about not being art – of course

K: I mean I agree with you

but I think later we can get back to making comments on craft

I think it is passé or something

I really do

it is limiting

M: I think it’s not commenting on craft, but using craft to comment ON SOMETHING ELSE

K: it’s always going to be the punch line

M: no no no no no no

K: you gotta stop using the word craft!

we make art god dammit

M: I’d rather call it “lagoon art”

K: it craft-based traditional application

ha

see??? It’s about naming!

it is sociological

M: or art with functional constraints

K: no no no it is not a constraint!

it is a CONCEPT

M: it is

K: THAT IS INHERANT TO THE OBJECT

M: hahaha

ok

K: ok ok?

M: but we need to make things that aren’t functional sometimes too

right?

K: and WORDS and NAMING and REFRAMING can show people that

of course!

M: just to validate that this a CHOICE

K: YES YES YES

K: absolutely

M: that’s what I was saying earlier about the red necklace and red painting

K: we need to pin the work up against work that is already valued as conceptual art

M: yes

K: that brings the work together with a common conceptual theme

so then it isn’t about the object but its about an idea

M: but what I didn’t realize before

K: and how the object communicates

M: THIS IS IMPORTANT

the artist HAS TO BE THE SAME PERSON

K: YES

see we are talking about the same thing

M: we can’t just do shows that show both together

That’s not new

K: nonono

M: we have to show artists doing both

K: ye s yes yesyes

M: even saying both seperates them!!! arrrrr

K: we can do BOTH

i know i know

M: it’s like Christianity thinking its monotheism

K: it’s tough! it really is

it is a problem

M: like nobody gets how god and Jesus and that other thing are all one thing

but that’s what we are setting out to do

K: yes

M: but about art and design and craft

K: nono

M: sorry to use the dirty words

K: not craft

M: i know i know

M: lagoon art

K: lagoon art

K: you know what fuck lagoon art

We can be real game players god dammit

K: we don’t need a extra special little name for us

M: FUCK YES

god dammit

no we don’t

K: no

M: we are in the ocean

K: we don’t

we are in the ocean!

M: CHOOSING

K: CHOOSING

M: to incorporate ideas of functionality

K: yes

M: TO FURTHER our art

K: exactly

I don’t even say functionality

M: now we have to prove it

K: know what I say?

M: WHAT ?

K: relationship

we build relationships

M: I like that

all of the work I’m making right now

K: it is good right?!

M: is about the idea of art and craft being in love

K: YOU ARE BUILDING RELATINSHIPS

M: and making portraits of each other

sorry

I used the dirty word again

K: ha it’s ok you can use it

K: I mean we have to … ease are way in

but always think about the write up

like the blurb

M: of course

K: that someone will read

what does it say?

the thing with the work you and I do, we don’t have to say too much

because

it’s a fucking necklace

or a fucking table

so that will always be there

naming is lame

and we want to pull things out of people

you know let them make their own connections

critical thinking about the objects

which is what is so great! about the work we make

because you do “use” it

so we have to encourage someone to think about how they would live with it

which they will always do, because like I said, at the end of the day

it’s also a fucking necklace or a fucking table

M: I think we just have to flesh out the rest of the picture by making paintings and “sculptures”

K: absolutely. we are visual artists

M: then it becomes a whole lifestyle

*Salad bar is a loose working term to describe an art movement in which we are co-founders and participants.  Salad Bar is used to describe the semantic separations within the art/craft/design world and our aim to put them all on the same plate. The metaphorical potential can reach seemingly unrelated work and/or mediums and/or ideas that are then tossed together, all in the name of one salad.  

The idea is characterized by but not limited to its willingness to co-opt non artist made events or works as art pieces retroactively.  It doesn’t seek to make them art through the changing of their context to a museum or gallery setting, but rather Salad Bar can be made anywhere, anytime, by anyone.  It is through our proclamation that a particular event or object is Salad Bar or that it becomes the art of Salad Bar, as well as our own ability as artists to make work that meets the dialectic standards of the idea.