The Brooklyn Rail

1. Is there a sensibility to abstract artwork at this moment? If so, how would you characterize it?

For me, that is impossible to address in general terms in regards to any of the disciplines, each and every artist that you follow closely has their own approach to what is labeled abstraction, and yet there are always influences and overlaps with the past and present. 

2. Is there an avant-garde? If so, what is its nature?

I think that the term feels laden with the past and new terms need to be utilized to discuss ideas that confront the status quo. Are there persons making groundbreaking work—yes, I think so, but my measure may not be the measure of other artists or historians. Newer technologies can render forms that we know, less familiar. For example in the discipline of photography, technologies have been shifting since the discovery of light being fixed, and is really an integral part of its history. I think there is often a confusion of the machines and what they output. New technologies do not always result in work of note. What is groundbreaking for me is work with longevity or an arc. Works that can be reinserted into different time frames can be radical in their ability to awe and disrupt. Subtle works can can shock and shift the conversation and there is not enough discussion around how to have new conversations about old topics.

3. Has the sensibility towards abstraction become academic? If so, what are its characteristics?

I think that "sensibilities" seem to be more of a market question, and yes the market impacts art education and who galleries and institutions choose to exhibit. Artists have always mined from each other, their faculty, and what they see being promoted, and audiences promote some and ignore others.

4. Has the condition of abstract art changed? Has the acceleration of communication and the increased attention of social media made the pioneering abstract artists of yesterday into today's academy? Has this affected the artist? Does the growth of art schools affect the abstract artists of the moment?

Important to note that all of my answers are based on photography and its pedagogy, that often stay siloed, and the academy has rarely taught or embraced abstraction in photography. I think the idea of abstraction transcends the formal and often attributed components and histories—some math systems could be considered within abstract thinking, abstraction per se does not have to be an object, it can be a process or a system. The art historian and curator Matthew Witkovsky addresses this in his essay “Another history: On Photography and Abstraction.” I quote from his passage on my work: 

To see what such an alternative view might look like, consider the work of Liz Deschenes, who since the early 1990s has engaged precisely photography’s ongoing (rather than epochal) obsolescence—its inherently plural, mutable aspect. More specifically, the artist concentrates on forms of abstraction suppressed in conventional imaging systems: unwanted moiré patterns, disappearing “green screens” used in television or cinema superimposition, the color key employed to mark topographic altitude levels.

5. Is there the same division between abstraction and representation as formerly? How has this relationship changed?

As you may surmise from my work, I am not so interested in categories or binaries. I think there are artists who do break them down. I watched Theaster Gates deliver three lectures in three days, and he separated figuration and abstraction divided by a line, I think his work embraces both—from the ceramics to the installations, and the retreats he hosts.