...the day-to-day process of an obsessive "Maker".....
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
NEW BOOK!
I am excited to announce that my book, Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice, will soon be released by Intellect Press of London, in late February/early March 2024. I started thinking about this book 20 years ago, and cannot wait to hold it in my hands! Here are some comments from my early readers:
“The art world is full of static. In the art market, there's the buzz of money and the fear of failure. In social media, there's the continuous jostling for scraps of praise. In art criticism, there's the fear of a bad review. In academia, there's the pressure of learning, the guilt of not producing, the competition for jobs. In the gallery scene, there's the expectation that your work will be consistent and on schedule. It's disempowering and distracting, and the result is thousands of artists who produce what they think the world wants. This book is like a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It will let you concentrate on what you desire, who you are, what art does for you, what you need to make. So go back to your studio, shut down your social media, and clear out your library. This is the only book you need.” --James Elkins, author and E.C. Chadbourne Professor in the Department of Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
“ ‘Art from Your Core’ provides a poignant reminder to artists that living and expressing their truth through art is fundamentally important, and ever more so in a world where authenticity and the value of lived experience are under constant assault. Kretz draws upon decades of expertise in teaching and making art to offer this invaluable resource that supports the artist-creatively, psychologically, and professionally. This is a must-read for artists and art students at any stage in their career.” --Micol Hebron, Artist, Activist, and Professor, Los Angeles
“Like the layers of an onion, Kate Kretz peels back the levels of art and art making through an invasive and comprehensive dissection. Not unlike a scientist searching for the core of discovery, she unwraps and peels back those layers of thoughts, considerations, opportunities and conundrums that artists face making art from the core. Part guide, part philosophical musing, and part “how to” she makes real and understandable the complex and complicated world of the contemporary artist.” --Joseph Seipel, Dean Emeritus, School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University
"Kate Kretz is your erudite, generous guide to “cultivating the core” of every creative soul. Art From Your Core is filled with amazing insights and exercises—useful for beginners and experts alike, no matter the medium—that will encourage you to look differently at the world, into yourself, and find your voice as an artist. With wisdom gleaned from thinkers and makers ranging from Seneca to Sontag to El Anatsui, this book is a precious toolbox to help you uncover the unique, genuinely felt art that only you were meant to make." --Maria Elena Buszek, PH.D., Author, Professor of Art History, President's Teaching Scholar, University of Colorado Denver
Pre-orders are helpful! Please help me spread the word.
I've never been one who is able to sit around and shut up when an injustice has been perpetrated. Here is the article I wrote about being banned from Facebook. When Trump trolls or a corporation try to make your work disappear, use it to show more people the work.
Facebook Bans Artist Who Destroys MAGA Hats For Her Work
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
MD artist Kate Kretz rips MAGA hats apart and refashions the pieces into traditional symbols of hate, such as KKK hoods and nazi armbands. The works are meant to both call out wearers who claim the hats to be innocuous, and to sound the alarm that history is repeating itself. One piece features a MAGA hat disassembled thread by thread, resulting in a large pile of unraveled strands with only the shredded "Make America Great Again" text and the flag patch (turned upside down as a symbol of distress) remaining intact. The work is displayed in a baseball hat collector's mirrored display box, with an engraved brass plate reading "The Disease That Thought It Was The Cure." All of the images from the ongoing series received an overwhelmingly positive response with hundreds of comments when originally posted to Facebook. One of the pieces sold to a prominent collector within days.
In the early days of May, several of Kretz's images from the series were removed from Facebook. When she protested their removal, and later re-posted them with prominent text explaining that they were artworks, even more were censored. On the morning of Thursday, May 9th, she found that her account had been disabled. She again explained through the Facebook response form that she was an art professor and professional artist, making work with MAGA hats, calling them out as symbols of aggression and intolerance. As of Monday morning, she has not yet had her Facebook page (a vital tool for connecting people to her creative work) reinstated.
At this time, it is not clear whether one (or several) of the MAGA supporters who objected to her work reported it, or whether the images were censored by Facebook's new anti-hate speech implementation (with image recognition software?) gone awry. Facebook has not responded since her page was removed. Kretz, a several-time MD Council for the Arts grantee whose work has been widely exhibited and reviewed, finds it disconcerting that Facebook lets random censors decide if her work is art and whether it will reach her audience. As Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes recently stated in a May 9th NPR interview, "Mark Zuckerberg is unaccountable. He's unaccountable to his shareholders. He's unaccountable to his users, and he's unaccountable to government."
2019, deconstructed MAGA hats, cotton, thread, 28 x 9 x 12", edition of 3. Manuel de Santaren collection, two remaining.
"Hate Hat II, Dismantled: The Disease That Thought It Was The Cure"
2019, unravelled MAGA hat (ripped apart thread by thread), baseball cap display case (mirrors, plexiglass, wood), engraved brass plate, 8 x 9 x 8.5” (working photo).
Only The Terrorized Own The Right To Name Symbols Of Terror
2019, armband made of deconstructed MAGA hats, cotton, thread, 5 1/4 x 6 x 6” (working photo)
"Hate Hat", 2019, deconstructed MAGA hats, thread, cotton. 28 x 9 x 12", edition of 3, two remaining. I am very excited to announce that the first of these three hats will be going to the Manuel Santaren collection. I ripped apart 40 MAGA hats to make these hoods. I will also be releasing two additional new pieces made with destroyed MAGA hats in the next week or two.
"Gang Bang", 2019, four 11 x 14" photo prints on aluminum.
Trump called a "national emergency" last week because he wanted money to build his border wall (after promising that Mexico would pay for it). He also admitted that it wasn't really a national emergency. My drawing, “Futile Fantasy: A Glimmer of Self-Awareness, And The Subsequent Remorse” (2017, Prismacolor pencil on black Rives BFK paper) was made into a meme, and featured on Freethinkers United For Change's Facebook page, where it was shared 2200 times. They credited the meme-maker, but not me, so I politely asked them to add my name to the post. I think a few of my friends did, too. Instead, they took the post down. It was subsequently shared on Occupy Democrats' page, where it was shared over 13,000 times. The irony is that the drawing was originally featured in Hyperallergic's "Drawing In a Time Of Fear & Lies" series (along with an essay I wrote), entitled, "Sociopaths Don't Cry".
New Artist Talk Posted on Vimeo & two Group Exhibitions Still Up!
My solo exhbition, "#brute", is heading back home from Coastal Carolina University, and the artist talk was just posted on Vimeo. "The Eros Effect", a political exhibition at Bridge Red Studios in Miami, features some amazing work, including three of my Lie Hole Drawings, lascivious colored pencil drawings of Trump's mouth, captured mid-lie. I also have quite a few new pieces in the TNT text exhibition at WAS gallery in Bethesda, MD. This show also features political work, but all the pieces have some kind of text incorporated into the work. Many of the TNT artists will be doing a reading of texts that are important to them, followed by a discussion, on Thursday, Dec 13th, at 7 pm.
This week, the #bullyculture series will be
shown at Coastal Carolina University (near Myrtle Beach) in the Bryan
Gallery, at 133 Chanticleer Dr W, Conway, SC. I will be giving a lecture
at 2 p.m. on Thursday October 25th, and there will be a reception from
4:30 - 6:30 pm. The exhibition is entitled "#brute", and will be up
through Nov 28th.
My newest hair embroidery, made with the grey hair of those who have experienced profound loss, will be featured in this exhibition of 26 finalists for the Raphael Founder's Prize, opening next week in Pittsburgh.
Had to take a break from my hair embroidery deadline to write a bit about Americans lacking the empathy gene for Hyperallergic's Drawing In A Time Of Fear and Lies.
"Common Denominator" Solo exhibition at York College of PA
January 24th through March 24th, 2018. York College Galleries are located in the Wolf Building at 441
Country Club Rd. in York, PA, just a bit north of Baltimore. I will be
giving an artist lecture on Thursday, March 8th, at 7 p.m. (click on any image to enlarge)
York College has produced a lovely perfect-bound 64 page catalog. You can leaf through the virtual catalog here. Stay tuned for a video walk through, produced by Diemo, that will be posted on Vimeo.
The research for this monumental
series began in 2011, the studio work began in 2013, and it is still ongoing. I saw/felt these forces building for years, and
have been feverishly working to address them in the studio: the work is beginning to feel
hauntingly prescient since the U.S. election of 2016 and the 2017
"#metoo" campaign.
The impetus for this body of work was a search for the
common denominator of all the injustices that keep me awake at night.
For years now, ubiquitous news of war, extinction of species, climate
change, the growing imbalance of wealth and power, violence against
women, gun massacres on U.S. soil, and abuse of law enforcement power seems to be permeating and
overwheming the consciousness of everyone I know. I felt certain that
there was a common denominator to all of these crimes: against children,
women, “minorities”, the poor, animals, and the earth. Seven years of
research into these seemingly disparate transgressions has resulted in a
deep investigation of entitlement and the need to dominate: I call the series "#bullyculture".
Bullying
permeates America's society and institutions. Our country threatens any
who would oppose U.S. interests. Our children grow up indoctrinated into
capitalism, with fewer and fewer restraints on the corporations who control
workers and consumers, while destroying the planet we all need to
sustain us. Parents across the country pay lip service to fighting
playground bullies, while simultaneously tuned in to the uber-aggressive
"Housewives of...."reality show, or the football game, where huge
swaths of players are forgiven rapes, violence against animals, or
against their own wives and children, as long as they WIN. We teach our
kids to intimidate on the soccer field, preparing them for lives in the
corporate sphere. In parts of this dystopia, open-carry advocates don
weapons in public, excited by the power of wielding the latent potential
to mow down dozens of people in under a minute.
I
am most interested in creating work that mixes up the language and
imagery from disparate parts of our culture to point out the common
denominators of entitlement and the objectification of “Other” that
leads to aggressions and injustices in our culture.How
does a trophy-hunting picture compare to a snuff film? How is the
mounting of a hunting trophy different than the trophies collected by
serial killers to relive “the thrill of the kill”? Why are playground
bullies reviled, while corporate lawyer bullies are “just doing their
job”? When teaching children to envy/emulate “Winners” and disassociate
with “Losers”, how does this manifest itself in adulthood? What is the
difference between feeling entitled to ravage our living earth through
fracking vs. raping a person? How is sports culture related to rape
culture? Why do we insist on speaking about racism, misogyny, violence against animals, and corporate / political bullying as separate issues, when perpetrators' offenses so often overlap? Bullies prey on those they deem "Other": aren't the REAL aberrations, the real "Others", those who perpetrate injustice and violence? Despite their "divide and conquer" tactics, shouldn't we all be united against bullies of every kind?
I am interested in looking at the overlaps of entitlement
and domination in our society, and in calling out the aggressors, the
intimidators, and the often overlooked larger, systemic forces that
encourage and reinforce this poison in our culture."
I have never
had a clearer vision or stronger conviction for a body of work. I have
done extensive research and gestated the concepts and formal aspects of
the work for so long that I am certain some of what I am doing is
completely unprecedented (such as using Bell Hooks' concept of the
"Oppositional Gaze" to call out and visually focus on rapists, as opposed to
depicting rape as an heroic act (as men have done), or focusing on the
victim, (as many female artists before me have done.)
The exhibit pictured is currently on view at York College in
York, PA, from 1/24/18 - 3/24/18 (with catalog), and much of it will also be exhibited at Coastal Carolina
University (with some new work) in the Fall of 2018.
Individual Works at York College:
Trophy / Trophy / Trophy
2015, ink on paper, 13 x 24"
The Deadly Other
2018, photo print on aluminum, four 11 x 14" panels
Rape Stand For A Dog Fighter 2015, ink and photograph on paper, 18 x 24"
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This is a
breeding stand, designed for use on female dogs, Also referred to as a “rape
stand”, it is an apparatus that dog fighters use “to hold unreceptive or
inexperienced bitches still for breeding purposes.” This piece depicts Michael
Vick, sports hero and convicted dog fighter, alongside a proportional diagram
for a custom-made “Vick-size” breeding stand.
Entitled 2018, photo print on aluminum, three 11 x 14" panels
Cognitive Dissonance: “Buttercup”2015, embroidery on velvet, 16 x 12” oval In psychology,
“cognitive dissonance” is the mental stress experienced by an individual
holding two contradictory beliefs or values at the same time…. Such as loving
animals in one context, but also eating them, after they live horrific lives
and deaths just to fill our dinner plates
Cognitive Dissonance: “Buttons” 2015, embroidery on velvet, 16 x 12” oval
Love Object For A Future Trophy Hunter2015, embroidery & beading on found plush animal, sheet, pillowcase, pillow, 22 x 25 x 15”
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This piece is
about the liminal state between children’s identification with, and need to
protect, animals, and later feeling entitled to eat, wear, or even hunt them
for the thrill. On a larger scale, this piece embodies my confusion about the
transition that humans make in many areas of our lives on the path from empathy
to objectification.
Tools of Intimidation: For Little Hands & Little Minds
2018,
cotton, thread, dollhouse handcuffs, dollhouse gun, miniature copy of
Trump corporation cease and desist letter to the NY Times
"...For The Taking" 2018, photo print on aluminum, two 12 x 12" panels
VIP (Very Important Penis) 2018, Gold over bronze, gold chain, gold charm, 4.5 x 2.5 x 8"
-->
This work about
sexual entitlement was inspired by the lengthy list of powerful men in sports
and politics who have been convicted of rape. An evolving online component tags
the piece with the names of these prominent men, so the image comes up when you
google their names.
One For The Team
One For The Team", 2016, pyrography (wood burning) on tree slices, dimensions variable (2" rounds to 12" rounds)
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This piece
alludes to the confluences between sports culture and rape culture. We cheer on
and prize the aggression of our sports heroes, but many fans seem surprised to
learn that same aggression is turned on women, children, or animals at home. The
story of the small-town football hero rapist, protected by a community that
turns on the victim, has become a tired cliché. The images are burned by hand
onto slices of wood, a traditionally male craft, to reference decorative
objects normally found in a rural bar, man cave, or living room. I am not
trying to depict a specific rape scene, but rather a portrait of rape culture,
encompassing a calling out of the perpetrator and accomplices, active or
passive participants of both genders, “team loyalty”, indoctrination into
“manhood”, the new additional humiliation of social media, and a fascination
with the spectacle of brutality that goes back to gladiator days. My refusal to
show the victim allows for openness regarding their gender, reminding us that
it is not only females who get raped, and that the act itself is one of
dominance, violence and degradation that is encouraged by our culture in a
myriad of ways.
Readymade: Brass, with Lock 2014, brass lock, chain, cast High Density Polyethylene, 13 x 6 x 3"
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The 100th
anniversary of the Readymade was the impetus for this piece, an appropriated,
mass-produced object designed to hang from the trailer hitch of large pickup
trucks. It was made to be viewed from a distance, so the scale is unusual when
hanging on the wall, and the paranoid implications of the lock are hilarious.
Huddle
2018, pyrography (wood burning) on tree slices, three panels from 4-8"
Good / Evil Monster Battle
2013, embroidery on fabric from men's pants, 13 x 17" (done in collaboration with G.K.)
Lie Hole series, I - XII 2017, 10 x 8", Prismacolor Pencil on black Rives BFK paper
"This mouth has bullied and cheated its way through the world.
This mouth has claimed self-invention, but was born gnawing a silver spoon.
This mouth blusters and brags.
This mouth promises to pay the builders of its empire; then refuses, counter-sues, and laughs.
This mouth can’t suppress its instinctive, arrogant sneer.
This mouth incites hatred and violence, spreading intolerant aggression like a cancer.
This mouth expresses glee at its own retaliatory cruelty.
This mouth will say and do anything to win.
This mouth is oblivious to its own stupefying ignorance.
This mouth, wet with slime, has forced open countless unwilling lips.
This mouth degrades the women he can’t manage to get his tiny, swollen hands on.
This mouth has a predatory predilection for young girls (daughter included).
This mouth reeks from decades of undigested beef lining its bloated gut.
This mouth over gesticulates, engorged with the delusion of its own importance.
This mouth is obsessed with satisfying its own insatiable appetites.
This mouth is one that good people shield their children from.
This mouth debases and shames our country.
This mouth vomits lies, devoid of reason or consequence.
This mouth embodies every dark archetype in our collective nightmares."
(Text created for Hyperallergic's "Drawing In A Time of Fear and Lies" series)
"The Appetites of Oligarchs"
2018, oil, acrylic & gold leaf on canvas, 72 x 50.25 x 6" (top of canvas hangs away from the wall, to hover over the viewer)This work was
begun four years ago, long before the “#metoo” movement. The initial
inspiration was the Strauss-Kahn rape case at the Sofitel hotel in NYC, where a
powerful world figure was accused of raping a housekeeper. While the impetus
for its creation was sexual entitlement, it evolved into a piece with layers
that also address corporate and political power. The figure is standing on the
world’s most expensive carpet ever sold at auction, with the night bombing of
Baghdad in the background. In terms of art history, this point of view, calling
out the perpetrator, is unprecedented in the depiction of rape imagery.
Futile Fantasy: A Glimmer of Self-Awareness, & The Subsequent Remorse
2017, Prismacolor pencil on black Rives BFK paper, 20 x 16"
Created for Hyperallergic's "Drawing In A Time of Fear & Lies" series with the following text:"Even now, a full year after the election, there are thousands of US
citizens who wake each morning in shocked disbelief that Donald Trump is
our president. Each day seems more absurd than the last. We keep
checking in with each other, to make sure we’re not dreaming. Maybe, we
think, the past year of watching our nation collapse in slow motion has
just been a bad movie: A madman moves into the White House and appoints
sinister minions to key posts, where they each destroyed the part of our
country that the post was designed to protect. He plays chicken with
the second craziest leader on the planet, to see who would flinch
regarding nuclear war. One of his driving goals is to take away his
citizen’s health care as he uses the highest office in the land to make
himself richer, while his campaign slogan, believe it or not, was ‘Drain
The Swamp!’ Now, we are all waiting for the moment when we can exit the
theater and walk out into the sunshine, reassured that the sick feeling
in the pit of our stomach was artificially induced, and that, in
reality, we have nothing to fear.
Our collective incredulity stems
from the fact that many Americans seem to lack direct personal
experience with sociopaths. We find it difficult to imagine the
existence of humans without morals or conscience. It is harder still to
comprehend that our fellow citizens have put one of them in power,
despite the overwhelming evidence of his affliction, there in black and
white, available for any voter willing to do even a modicum of homework.
Those of us who DID read the documentation (of small business owners he
stiffed, women he groped, hundreds of lies that he told, as well as the
lawsuits he obliterated with his ubiquitous countersuits) now seem to
be living in a permanent state of stupefied amazement.
Yes, this
IS really happening. Something dark has permeated our collective
subconscious, shaking the very foundation of a narrative we have carried
around since infancy. The archetypes and storylines of fairy tales are
designed to help young minds understand and process concepts of good and
evil: Disney movies have horrific villains, but, through struggle, good
inevitably triumphs and evil is vanquished. This narrative is the one
that allows all of us to sleep peacefully at night, the one that gives
us the optimism to have babies, and to tell those babies (as well as
ourselves) that “everything will be all right.” In 2016, this narrative
was crushed: the sadistic bully won.
“But surely…,” we think,
“someday soon, like the Grinch, this soulless leader’s heart will grow
ten sizes larger, and he will realize that he is hurting this country’s
most vulnerable citizens, the ones he was hired to protect.” It will
dawn on him that half the victims of the latest mass shooting were
innocent children, and no one there deserved to die, and that those
facts trump the influence of NRA money. He’ll suddenly see (and care)
that thousands of people will go bankrupt or perish without affordable
healthcare. He will understand that he is endangering the entire world
with his blustering, aggressive tweets. He will finally wake up and
realize that he is a public servant, not a king… right?
I am not
the only one who turns on the news each night, with the fervent hope of
(finally!) seeing our monster of a President led away from his perch of
power in handcuffs, with tears steaming down his face. We are a society
supposedly built on justice, and it’s natural to want to see the Devil
get his due. But we must accept that this scene will never play out: we
may see the perp walk, but we’ll never see the contrition. Sociopaths
don’t cry."
Gunlicker IV
2016, oil and acrylic on Gatorboard, 20 x 16"
Gunlicker III: Militia
2016, oil and acrylic on Gatorboard, 17.5 x 18"
Gunlicker I2015, oil & acrylic on Gatorboard, 20 x 16"
Gunlicker II2015, oil & acrylic on gatorboard, 16 x 20"
Testosterone
2011, gouache on black paper, glitter frame, 16 x 20"
Perpetual Platitudes For Endless Innocents (short clip of a 6 minute loop)
2018, scrolling led display, 8 x 40 x 3"
Indoctrination
2017, acrylic on found blocks
One Day In America
2018, embroidery on found cross stitch, 96 beads & sequins (one for every gun death per day in the U.S.), 28 x 16"
Portrait of A Mass Shooter
2017, 20 x 16", inkjet print of 20 superimposed mass shooter portraits on metal
Storm2015, acrylic and embroidery on black cotton velvet, 72 x 48"
"Cri de Cœur" (Heart Cry)
2018, graphite on paper, 14 x 11". After a detail of a Joseph Desiree Court painting.
Untitled (flag)
2008, 22.5 x 104", embroidery on deconstructed flag, batting. Center is padded, like a band-aid.
Kate Kretz attended The Sorbonne in Paris, earned her BFA from SUNY Binghamton, and her MFA from The University of Georgia. She was BFA Director and an Associate Professor of Art at FIU in Miami for ten years. She currently works in her studio and gives lectures and workshops at various universities.
