This could not be truer. I think about this all the time.

This plus the general loss of real

personality, humility, and integrity in most people. “What one ends up dialoguing with is
success and recognition” is exactly what my today peers consider artistic achievement and
success. For me, everything is always about the work, and living life deeply with all my heart
and soul in order to do the work.
“From the 60′s to the early 80′s there was still standards for excellence that were upheld by a
very selective and demanding audience of connoisseurs. Since the scene was intergenerational
there was a longer time before people were expected to make their “own” work.This meant that
one could see what was possible in terms of artistic development by seeing work that was more
refined, more complex, that held dimension.This situation that was brought about with the focus
on emerging artists has coincidentally effected not only the quality of work one sees but also the
economics of art, meaning before artists were able to make some money from their work, as
they earned their turn on a greater professional basis because there was an audience partially
made up of younger artists who paid to see the work of more developed artists. With the ever
growing onslaught of emerging arts, this crucial audience is gone because this emerging class of
artists is busy making their own work so they rarely go to see other,older artists unless those
artists receive the kind of publicity these new workers in art hope to have. Fran Lebowitz has
spoken rather eloquently on this disappeared audience of connoisseurs who demanded
excellence. One of the things that is misunderstood in the current climate of the erasure of
history is that one of the things that happened because of the AIDS crisis of the 80’s is that when
those generations of people died wholesale, it left a vacuum that was then necessarily filled by
younger, less developed artists and the whole culture fell several notches from what it had been.
All it took was the professionalization of the arts with it’s inherent careerism to bring the whole
thing down to a rather mediocre level compared with what had existed before. I have continued
on an almost daily basis to put myself in worlds far removed from art, allowing me to develop
my point of view and my memory, both of which continually feed my art practice. The ambition
I encountered in the 60′s and 70′s was perhaps as desperate as today’s; desperation being one of
the basic elements of ambition but this earlier drive for ambition held other desires that included
the desire for ability and the desire for excellence, both which seem to be largely missing now,
leaving mostly a combination of fame seeking and careerism. What do I mean by that
statement? I mean that the rush to get acceptance and recognition sits at a twisted place in
today’s hierarchy of values in the Art World. What no one will tell you is that ‘recognition’ is a
two edged sword. You can use ‘hype’ to bring you into a higher arena but another truth is that
one is judged very harshly in that arena…Talent is just one part of what one needs to succeed
artistically. The muse is jealous of us splitting our attention with mundane things like ego
gratification and approval and will withhold artistic growth.The artistic journey is the hero’s
journey, and often contains many trials and setbacks. One needs the strength that comes from
our inner dialogue with the muses of creation.If ones life between 18 and 35 is only grounded in
the desire for achievement and recognition without any concept of development or rigorous
inquiry, the possibility for continued development as an artist is severely compromised. The first
generations of “academic artists” hit NY in the late 70′s to late 1980’s. I can tell you that very,
very few of those artists were still making work in the late 1990’s and even among the
successful ones,only a small handful are still making art today. Why? Because it is very hard to
sustain any kind of real personal dialogue with art, if you come out of school and start making
your own work right away. There is no period of failure. No striving to develop the true inner
dialogue on which art is based. What one ends up dialoguing with is success and recognition.
The all important period of developing your own vocabulary which is best done in the shadows
is truncated, starved.Instead what one sees are people copying what seems to work for other
artists and this is a betrayal to ones own budding vision, which cannot be rushed to fulfill some
ego based need for recognition. There are many of examples of people who got that recognition
early, shows, tours and grants from age 26 on who are empty and artistically exhausted by age
39, just at the moment that ones own vocabulary starts to naturally coalesce. In my early 40’s
my personal vision was just starting to assert itself in an integrated way.”

-Penny Arcade