#their two cents in but I don’t be seeing black artists/creators being shared on here foreal

[tariah23]

It’s crazy that it takes drama for black artists to even trend on this white ass social media site.

[correspondencearchive]

4. Yujin Lee & Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai (part 1)

Yujin Lee and Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai discuss Paul Chan’s article, “What Art Is and Where It Belongs,” artistic production and its relationship to capital, making art for (or not for) a Western art audience, their interest in collaborative/process oriented projects, and whether or not one can be free as an artist from the intersecting systems of global capitalism and white supremacy that make up the art world. Read part 2 of their conversation here.

Yujin Lee (YL): Hi, Prima! First of all, thank you so much for accepting my invitation! I see that you received my email with the link to Paul Chan’s article, “What Art Is and Where It Belongs.” I suppose I will start with this obvious question. What is art to you and where do you think it belongs?

Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai (PJ): Hi Yujin, thank you for sharing the Paul Chan text. It was indeed an interesting read! To your question as to “what is art to me and where I think it belongs���, my job as an art handler has deeply affected how I view art. I can no longer see art as a product of a singular mind but rather, an object that exists in relation to multiple networks. Paul Chan is generous in giving art the definition of a “more than” an object by the way that it expresses what an object desires to be. I would argue that art is only “more than” an object because it’s value is not intrinsic to its material properties and use-value but the cultural value assigned to it by a number of actors. When I was in undergrad I came across this book called, Worlds of Art (Les Mondes de l’Art) by Howard S. Becker. Anyway, he was one of the first authors to place art and artistic production in a chain of labour production from administrative works of post-production and marketing to intellectual works from universities and curatorial work. That vision of art is more true to me in my daily life than the art that is heralded for its poignant inquiry into humankind’s psyche and advancement of what we call “civilization”. So the simple answer to your question may be that art belongs to capital and serves those who can afford its production and consumption. But at the same time, while I serve as a clog in this system, I also want to make an art that can exist outside of the system and truly be moments of disconcert with the real. My current show is up at a gallery that used to be a storefront in a shopping plaza in Chinatown, Los Angeles. The interface with a non-art audience is inevitable. The projections attracted attention and the occasional passer-bys waiting to pick up their food would stop and talk to me. But the conversations remained fairly surface. None of them have yet made an appointment to intentionally see the work. Not to mention the heightened tensions caused by art’s complicity in gentrification. So, even in a public-facing space, art can only rely on its existing structures and those who already have access to them.

Since you work a lot with the public and collaborations, I wonder how the experience has been for you and whether you believe art can belong outside of the art world itself?

Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, Chloropsis Aurifrons Pridii, 2021, performance and multi-media installation, 2 video projectors, 2 overhead projectors, transparencies, colour filter, printed black and white images on photocopy paper, books

YL: I completely agree with everything you said about the complex networks that build up a work of art (and the artist’s career). Come to think of it, when has art ever been outside of that system? One example comes to mind that relates to how Paul Chan began and ended his article. Chan begins with a very “kitsch” painting that he purchased for thirty dollars in the streets of New York and an unexpected challenge in finding the right place to hang it in his home. And he ends the article with, “For art to become art now, it must feel perfectly at home, nowhere.” This beginning and ending reminds me of the Korean shaman paintings (portraits of the indigenous gods). Even though the tradition goes far back in history, not many of these paintings remain. They were either burned or buried because people believed that the painting is a physical dwelling (or a seat) for a particular god served by a particular shaman. In most cases, the artist is also unknown and unimportant. Moreover, up until the late 80s, art collectors refused to collect shaman paintings as they are not merely powerful paintings (as an art object) but empowered paintings (as sites of divine presence). Despite it all, if it somehow falls into a collector or enters the museum, it is believed to become what Marx called the commodity fetish, losing its power, thus losing its value. In this case, the art object, artist, and collector all have no place! This may be why shaman paintings have not been considered “art” for so long by its creators, users, and admirers. So for me, it’s not a matter of whether art can or cannot belong outside the “art world,” but that “it must feel perfectly at home, nowhere,” or that it must feel perfectly at home, everywhere. I test this theory by experimenting with process-oriented, collaborative, performance and relational art.

I watched the video documentation of the performative lecture installation that you’ve mentioned, Chloropsis Aurifrons Pridii, at The Fulcrum Press. The collage of your voice with the light and shadow of texts and images created by multiple projectors choreographed by the subtle gestures of your hands… It was a sensorial and immersive experience, even through my computer monitor. The occasional sound of the machines turning on and off took me in and out of this poetic narrative. I was also compelled by the intricately untangled individual journeys of your family members crossing three generations, and your re-interpretation of the overarching macro history that wolves together three continents. The most memorable moment was when you said, “... Both view history as driven by cycles of reincarnations. Within one body, one consciousness, are contained centuries of all earthly desires, unquenched. History thus progresses as a movement of return. For the last five years, I face the Pacific and the fear of a return.”

Having said that, I wonder why contemporary art often appears to be disparate from the rest of the world. Sometimes even alienating and elitist. Judith Butler actually defends this position quite eloquently:

“Who devises the protocols of ‘clarity’ and whose interests do they serve? What is foreclosed by the insistence on parochial standards of transparency as requisite for all communication? What does ‘transparency’ keep obscure?”

This statement may sound like art gibberish to the non-art audience and support your disappointment of the disinterest displayed by the non-art audience in Chinatown. But I wonder, what does it mean to desire the interests of the “non-art audience”?

PJ: First of all, yes to process art works! I think our two approaches to art practice staunchingly demarcate us from “the commodity fetish” that most high art/internationally-recognized art ends up becoming by the very fact that we care less about the end product and more about the creative process themselves. The process can take shape as a form of knowledge or a set of techniques that in my case, takes on a certain shade based on my personal narrative. But taken up by someone else, the combination of voice, body movements and layering of images that you noted, would express something else entirely. That is what I am interested in in achieving: rather than creating an original product, I want to redefine techniques and processes of thought. I think the relationality and collaboration in your work that I’ve seen at VER and what you continue to do at your residency in Jeju strive for a similar balance between the creation of processes and the specificity of the people you engage with.

This reflects the other side of our art practice: although it is defiant of consumerist art, it is still bound to the Western art canon. Even a working against or criticism of Western art canon asks the audience to be aware of the canon to understand our respective positions. I respond strongly to you raising the example of the Korean shaman paintings (of which I know nothing of!) as being uncollectable and therefore, not considered art. In this case, its power operates in a culture that is closer to the non-art audience. It doesn’t need to invent value for itself but its symbolic code is embedded in the culture that receives it.

That is why I am saddened by not being able to touch the “non-art audience”. I believe that I envy the power of the shaman paintings, a power that can touch anyone without necessary prior knowledge. That is what I lament in operating in the current art world that I am in. At the same time, I do deeply agree with you that the demand for clarity and the parochial is a form of holding back of thought and the need to plunge in the mystery that is sometimes too specific for the artist themselves to put words to. That is perhaps why I still value art over other forms of knowledge: art can give shape to what is previously unknown. I also don’t mean to juxtapose the shaman paintings versus the inaccessibility of high art, as if one holds more intellectual value than the other. What I simply want to highlight is the different levels of reception that each form allows for.

YL: It’s true that the non-art audience (who may not necessarily understand the painting’s aesthetic value nor its symbolic meaning) are likely to succumb to the power of shaman paintings because of its deep-rooted history that vibrates within the culture. Do you know about the Swedish artist and mystic, Hilma af Klint? I think she didn’t give two cents about the art or non-art audience. Af Klint considered her experimental paintings (the first Western abstract art known to date) too avant-garde for her contemporaries and rarely exhibited them in public in her lifetime. Meanwhile, her so-called Theosophical art, which was heavily influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism, interestingly brings us back to the Korean shaman paintings. Before creating a shaman painting, one is to take a good bath, wear clean new clothes and oftentimes chant a prayer. Af Klint did something similar. Before starting a new series of paintings, she dedicated many months of “purification” by adjusting her lifestyle, like practicing vegetarianism. It may sound like a frivolous formality, but it demonstrates a belief on how the creator’s (artist’s) personal life cannot be severed from their creation (art), even if the admirers (public) may never know or care about the creator to begin with.

I’d like to go to your comment on how art “can give shape to what is previously unknown.” Chan also states that “in art, the only ideas worth realizing are the truly untenable ones.” I seriously weighed this concept (of art giving shape to obscurity) during my exhibition in Bangkok at the end of 2019, especially through the work you mentioned earlier, Drawing Conversation 2.0, a series of collaborative live automatic drawing performances created with local Thai artists. The obscurity for me at the time was the uncomfortable reality of having a solo show at a place where I did not understand its native language, culture, nor history.

A smaller room attached to the main gallery was dedicated for this work. The walls were painted black, and the floor laid with a dark grey carpet. A square table (around 30 cm in height) was placed in the center of the room where a blank sheet of paper covered its entire surface. A large scale drawing titled, In the beginning was___, was hung along with 5 other blank sheets of papers ready to be conversed upon. Drawing materials such as graphite, charcoal, eraser, and pen (no colors) were provided. For each session, a local artist was invited to create a drawing with me in silence for 108 minutes. A timer was set on my phone. The audience could freely enter and exit the space, sit, stand, or walk around us. The first ten minutes or so felt highly performative. But as more of our marks, gestures, breaths, and bodily heat crisscrossed, I experienced a kind of a (collective) trance. And when the timer went off and broke the silence of the room, the familiar ringtone of an iPhone sounded like the Korean shaman bell, bringing everybody in the room back to the present time and space. I think maybe this was my closest attempt in creating an “empowered painting.”

Yujin Lee, Drawing Conversation 2.0, Nov. 29, 2019, collaborative live drawing performance with artist Dujdao Vadhanapakorn, 108 minutes, Gallery VER

YL: Back to Chan… He asserts that “art and life would rather belong to the world than be free in it.” That is a bleak outlook for art, don’t you think? So, my question is, can we imagine art to be free in the current world (of capitalism)? I wonder what your thoughts are on this last point, and could you expand your thoughts on “art giving shape to the unknown” in relation to how you use language/text in your work?

PJ: Two big questions! [laughter]. I think it is a good question because we’re working towards agreeing that art is more often than not, not free in capitalism but can there be instances where they are…

YL: I thought that the last part of his text was interesting because when he’s saying “art and life would rather belong to the world,” it has a negative connotation... contrasting to what follows, “rather than be free in it.” Also you would think that he meant to say, “be free from it,” suggesting an escape from the world of inequity. But he’s sort of saying even within the system, art can be free inside of it, right? I thought that was an interesting, nuanced statement, and I want to pose this question to you, since you are still in the system, the LA art scene.

PJ: Are you saying that you’re not part of a scene because you are in Jeju?

YL: [laughing hard] That’s how I felt when I moved to Jeju, but with COVID I don’t think that’s true anymore because the internet in some ways amplifies the presence of the international art scene.

PJ: I think art has always been in network and in communication across borders and that capital gives more value to the kind of art that travels or is part of the international scene. LA or New York may have a very specific local scene but these major cities give the impression that if you’re part of their local scene, you’re somewhat seen internationally. So I think that art still depends on this kind of network. But the thing that is different with COVID is that people are more proactive in participating across countries and timezones.

YL: Yeah, that’s actually what I mean. I thought I left, by relocating to an island, a countryside, but COVID definitely brought me back to the network.

Yujin Lee, Painting Conversation, 2021, collaborative drawing performance with artist Jo Ahra, paintings completed over 4 sessions (March 19th, 21st, 23rd, 28th), Next Door to the Museum Jeju Artist Residency completed painting used as a costume for an improvisational dance video (work in process)

PJ: I want to also argue that maybe even if our locations are specific, that doesn’t mean that we’re not part of a larger network that has formed us.

Whether you like it or not, your context will always be informed by the experience you had in New York.

YL: You’re right. I thought, ‘physically leaving New York= leaving the art world.’ But the reality is, like you said, my experience as an artist is based on my time in New York. So, I’m probably going to carry that with me. So back to my questions on Chan’s statement… We’re all part of this world that is not very equitable... How can we be part of it, yet “be free in it?”

PJ: I want to believe that there is some sort of freedom.  When you give away a certain part of the bargain and that bargain being monetary or investment by some sort of institution to give value to your art, to me, by abandoning that, I feel much more free. And I’m able to have full ownership of decisions around my work, which would not be the case if I was trying to respond to a certain expectation.

Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, Seven Springs, 2019, Collaboration with Chris McKelway, 2 violins, 2 overhead projectors, images printed on transparencies, colour filters

Yujin Lee is a Jeju-based visual artist working with drawings, performances, videos, and audience-participatory projects. Interested in the Buddhist concept of yuanqi (interdependency), Lee have pursued collaborative projects with artists Emi Hariyama (108 Bows, 2013), Nicole Won Hee Maloof (Same/Difference, 2015), Aracha Cholitgul (im_there_r_u_here, 2020~ongoing), and Jo Ahra (Untitled, 2021~ongoing). Since 2019, she has been running an alternative artist residency at her farmhouse, Next Door to the Museum Jeju. Lee received her MFA in printmaking from Columbia University and a BFA in painting from Cornell University.

leeyujin.com @jejuanarchist

Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai is a transdisciplinary artist, working across performance, video and installation, based in Los Angeles. Born in Thailand in 1989, they were raised in Europe before moving to the US in 2011. They received their Visual Arts Degree from the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Nantes Metropole and a License in Film Studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3. They earned BFA at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago and MFA at the California College of the Arts, in San Francisco. Featured in the 2015 Arizona Biennial at the Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona. Recipient of the SOMA Summer Award, Mexico City and the emi kuriyama spirit award.

Recent projects include: Fieldnotes for Useful Light, The Prelinger Library (San Francisco), Irrational Exhibits 11: Place-Making and Social Memory, Track 16 (LA) and The Anthropologist As Hero, in collaboration with Linda Franke, Justine Melford-Colegate and Jessica Hyatt, PAM Residencies (LA), Chloropsis Aurifrons Pridii, Fulcrum Press (LA). They curated the MAHA Pavillion for the Bangkok Biennial 2020.

www.primasakuntabhai.com @prima_jalichndrsakntbhai

[emergecomics]

Comic Creation 101

Okay, let's start off with a disclaimer.  I have yet to publish a comic, but I have done a lot (okay, a fair bit) of research and garnered all my  'knowledge' from those that have published, and can be deemed professionals. All I'm doing is trying to bring all of this information to one place for your benefit. So you have a fantastic idea for a comic that you want to share with the world.  That's great, but how do you start? There's so many things to consider, so I'm going to try and break it all down for you. Everybody's big dream is to be published by a big company, but first you have to make sure they accept submissions. The Big Two don't accept blind submissions, so you have to do the research on other names. A lot of publishers do accept creator-owned work, so if you don't have anything that's all your own idea, get one. Once you've got your idea, and written a script for the first issue, it's time to pitch it to the publisher and let them deal with all the hassles, right? All you want to do is write the darned thing. Here's your first big hurdle. Unless your name is Alan Moore, Warren Ellis or Neil Gaiman, you'll need a creative team put together before you pitch, and about eight pages done up to show them. But how hard could it be to put together a team? You'll need a penciller, inker, colourist, and a letterer. You could do this yourself, but how good are you at each step? Remember, the first thing that sells a comic is the artwork. No matter how great a storyteller you might be, if the artwork is of a lower quality, you're going to have difficulty selling it to a publisher, let alone selling it in the stands. There are plenty of places to try and get these artists, but there's one definite way of getting them. Pay. Artists definitely deserve to be paid for their work, and this is the current pay rate (according to Jim Keefe and the Graphic Artist Guild: https://www.jimkeefe.com/archives/3644) Pencil Art $100 - $400 US Ink Art - $75 - $300 US Lettering - $40 - $50 US Colouring - $100 - $150 US So if you find good artists who are willing to be paid the minimum going rate, it's going to cost you $7,245 to create your first issue (more if your currency is not equal to the US dollar). Who has that kind of cash lying around? I have yet to find a publisher willing to pay anything apart from printing and advertising costs, so it will be you fronting this. There are several ways you can go to reduce costs, the first being to go black and white instead of colour. You can also try negotiate and reduce the artists' fees but remember, these guys have bills to pay themselves, and you want to stay in their good books so they stay on your book. Publishers aren't interested in books that constantly change artists, while being quite prepared to drop the title if the first issue doesn't gain enough interest, so be careful not to be insulting in your approach, while not promising too much either. (A note to artists that might be reading this: I come from a graphic design background, so know all about the pitfalls that come with 'work for exposure'. I absolutely hate that pitch... More often than not independent writers do want to pay you well, it's just hard to come up with the money. Please keep that in mind when they approach you, and if you're trying to break in to comics yourself it might be worthwhile checking it out. Sometimes taking a 'paycut' to work on a good script does actually pay off, but it's up to you. ) You now have all the artists on board and a publisher is taking you on, it's time to look at publishing costs. Jim Zub has broken it all down very nicely for us: www.jimzub.com/the-reality-of-… The cost of an average printed comic is three dollars. 40 - 50% of that price goes to the retailers, so that takes you down to $1.60. It will cost about 80 cents an issue for a publisher (If you get more than 3,000 printed), so we're now down to $0.80. Most publishers advertise with Diamond Distributors, so take 16% off of the original price, another 50 cents. That leaves 30 cents per issue to pay for any of the publishing company's costs (advertising, postage, the editor, etc). Where's the money to actually pay the creative team, let alone any money for yourself? You've now got to raise the price of your comic to try and make a bit more money, but you may lose some sales due to that.(If you're lucky, the publisher might be able to sell ad space in your comic, covering their costs. But the reality is that people won't be likely to advertise in an unknown comic, so don't count on this...) What about digital sales? Surely that will boost profits? Again, Jim Zub covers this: www.jimzub.com/okay-but-what-a… If we're using the same $3 comic, 30% goes to the mobile platform, leaving you about $2.10. Then the digital distributor takes a cut, generally about 50%. Your publishing company still needs to be paid, so let's give them 25% of that, leaving you with roughly 80 cents per issue. So, we've raised the price of the printed comic to $5, leaving us with 90 cents per issue, and the digital giving us 80 cents an issue.  Jim Zub suggests that digital sales are roughly 10% of print sales, so lets try some calculations to figure out how many issues you need to sell to pay your creative team and get your own money. If you sell 5,000 printed copies you'll get a profit of $4,500, and $400 from digital sales. So $4,900. Seems pretty nice, right? But didn't we calculate that you needed $7,245 to pay your creative team? And the publishers need to take their cut of that first... Uh-oh. We're still in negative numbers... You'll need to pretty much sell 9,000 copies just to break even. Here's a list of the top selling books in October 2013 from Comichron: www.comichron.com/monthlycomic… You'll notice the top 100 list is heavily populated by DC and Marvel, who don't print anything but their own characters. Image and Dark Horse are your best chance in terms of publishers who take creator-owned work, but it's more likely that you're with someone less known, which means it's going to be hard to hit that 9,000 mark. Especially when the rest of the comics that are reaching 9,000 are mostly recognisable characters. But you're positive you can get that elusive number, and so you're going to go ahead with this. You've paid everyone their fees, knowing that the costs will be reimbursed by the profits. Here's your next problem... www.balloontales.com/tips/publ… It takes roughly a month to create your comic, which the publisher then gets advertised in Diamond's Previews catalogue. A month and a half later, the orders come in, and you can print the comic (no publisher will print it until they know it's going to be worth their while - a minimum of $2,500 wholesale). Another month and a half goes by, and it gets out on the shelves. Then you have to wait probably another month for the money to come in. So if you paid your guys in January, you don't see money until June/July. By which time you've had to get 5 more issues out, and had to pay your artists... You could go down the path of self publishing to try and save some money, but you'll have to take on the burdens of organising printing, advertising, getting in contact with the distributor, shipping to them, and you probably won't save money, seeing as most of the profit goes to the retailer. You could sell your own prints by attending comic conventions, but you can't really get a monthly series going that way. So the next way to go is to just sell digitally. If you're selling 500 issues at 80 cents profit, you'll make about $400 a month, which definitely isn't enough to pay your artists. Even if you drop the publisher and still make the same sales figures, you're only earning $525, so let's go one step further. You ditch the ditributor, create your own website and sell it yourself. That means you get $3 an issue, but we still need to sell 3,000 copies to make the money we need, and you probably won't sell as many as if you were on a mobile platform (This doesn't take every little thing into account, you can get a good break-down on sales for Jim Zub's Skull Kickers here: www.jimzub.com/creator-owned-s…. Not every book will follow this trend, so don't take this as gospel). It's all looking pretty bleak right now, huh? Well, there is one potential light at the end of the tunnel: crowdfunding. A lot of people are going down this path, and it's definitely worth trying. If you don't know what crowdfunding is, it's basically convincing people to support your idea by sponsoring you, and you give them rewards once the project is complete. This is really done best as an all or nothing approach - figure out how much money you need to get (don't forget to add in the percentage the crowdfunding site takes!) and then if you get it, awesome! Pay the artists, get it printed, and send it out to the people that need the rewards. Just don't forget to get enough printed that you can sell some later. If you don't get it, ah well, it hasn't really cost too much (apart from paying the artists for some of the artwork and possibly advertising), and you've learned how much interest people have in your idea in the first place. Maybe now it's worth approaching a publisher... So what to do? It's up to you, really. If you're doing it for love, than do it yourself, who cares if you make money. If you're trying to break in, then be prepared for it to cost, and cost big. There are definitely stories of those that have broken into the industry from an inauspicious start, but there's no formula on how to do that. There is advice from professionals on how to get out there though: hard work and network. I would love to hear from anyone that has had work published, and can shed a kinder light on the process. I'm very happy to take this down if it's wrong