Wallis banned from Art Assoc. for opinion
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
By Matthew Irwin
Jackson Hole, Wyo. – The Art Association hosted a boundary-pushing exhibition last February that included drawings Aaron Wallis had made of his penis and that featured him in a panel discussion on art and censorship.
Today, that same nonprofit art organization banned Wallis from its studios and classes in response to his July 21 column in JH Weekly criticizing art fairs, Wallis said this morning.
“All the good reviews I gave them in the past and the free publicity doesn’t mean anything to them, he said. “[The board] wants consequences for what I said.”
Wallis is a freelance teacher and volunteer at Teton Artlab, which leases its studio on the third floor of the Center for the Arts from the Art Assoc. The two nonprofits also co-sponsor several art classes, including four listing Wallis as instructor.
The Art Assoc. removed Wallis’s classes from its schedule and Web site, today, and its executive director, Jennifer Crawford, requested that Wallis be banned from the leased space altogether, according to Artlab director Travis Walker.
Walker complied with the request to cancel Wallis’s courses – including a printmaking class scheduled to start next week – but he refused to ban him from the studio. He hopes this “punishment” is only temporary.
“I understand that they want to punish him for what he said about their biggest fundraiser, but don’t think blackballing him from the studios is right thing to do,” Walker said. “I think we need more discussion.”
Walker also stressed that he does not agree Wallis’s opinion on art fairs.“[Jennifer Crawford] and I agreed that [his opinion] is ridiculous, but that’s [his column] every week. It’s entertaining, but I can’t endorse it in any way.”
Crawford did not return a phone call for comment this morning.
In his July 21 High Art column, titled “
Art’s fair in love and war,” Wallis wrote that the Miller Park art fair should be called a “craft fair” because the work, in his opinion, is merely decorative, and does not challenge social conventions.
“If you're looking for art that comments on society or attempts at originality, you won’t find it at art fairs,” Wallis wrote. “Everything is safe and appeals to median taste because selling art is really the only reason to do an art fair.”
He also wrote that on the two occasions that he held an art fair booth, he felt like a “dirty whore.”
Local artists retaliated last weekend at the Teton Village art fair with signs that read, “
Aaron Wallis is a Schmuck.”
Board members and offended artists didn’t think that a letter-to-the-editor or a longer opinion featured in JH Weekly would suffice, Wallis said. They wanted “consequences” for his opinion, he said.
Art fair organizers told JH Weekly staff that they defer all comments to Crawford, saying that Wallis didn’t “merit the attention” of a formal rebuttal.
On further reflection, Wallis said that he stands by his opinion, but thinks that he could have expressed it more gently. He also wants to be clear that when he said that he felt like a dirty whore, he didn’t mean that other artists should feel the same.
“The column was a bit reactionary, but I stand by my opinion. Art should engage politics, the war and the military industry complex. The cult of celebrity, homosexuality, sex. Religion is really fertile,” Wallis said. “You’re not gonna find art that has challenging ideas at an art fair, and I’m being punished for that opinion. I probably should have mentioned that were some good artists, technically proficient artists, at the fair. I have friends like John Frechette who had work there.”
Wallis also said that he supports the Art Assoc. and its mission, which he demonstrated by volunteering at the Art Fair, working the beer tent and helping to breakdown the tents on the final day, he said.
Because Wallis has this relationship with the Art Assoc., the board feels that he should be punished for criticizing its art fair, Walker said. “Most of the equipment [in Artlab] does belong to them,” he said. “They think it’s a biting hand that feeds them kind of thing.” JHW
Photo of the Teton Village Art Fair by Shannon McCormickPERMALINK:
Wallis banned from Art Assoc. for opinion | Planet JH News Article: General News
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