Art Business Magazine http://www.culturenet.ca/artbusiness

 

Confessions of the impolitic.

 

by Tony Merino.

Mr. Merino works as a ceramic artist and freelance critic. He has published in journals in North America, Australia, and Europe. Mr. Merino is a cynic with a wry sense of humour. His writing is distinguished by an irreverence from which no doctrine is safe, and no taboo off limits. Mr. Merino holds an MFA from the U. of North Texas and BA from Augustana College Rock Island, Illinois.
The detente between the Art world and the American business community is founded on a single myth: that the two communities are distinct. This assumption gives comfort to both sides. The art community likes to look at corporate workers as mechanical zombies, the cast characters in Day of the Living Office-worker, people who have prostituted their individuality for the banality of a high quality of living and wage security. This makes artists feel better because they tend to be poorer and less secure than most business workers. The business community likes to see artists as lazy, corrupt and most likely, gay. This provides the business community with moral superiority. This helps make up for the fact that, within the homogeneous, sterile, and white bread world of corporate America, the assumed freedom of the artist can be appealing. The difference between the two communities is in style not substance.
 
There is an old joke, two people in a room and you have conversation; three people in a room you have politics. Both the Art and Business communities are essentially political. Politics is universal. Both communities are governed by the same social mores and political agendas. It has been my masochistic tendency to violate several of the mores in both communities. During the last few months I have been engaged in a protracted fight with my current employer, and one of the ironies of this fight is that the same issues which have hindered my exposure as an artist and writer are at play in the corporate world. My two greatest vices have been my cynicism and my perceived arrogance.
 
I am a highly cynical and pessimistic person. This is a case of the apple not falling far from the tree. My father is the most pessimistic man I have ever met. To him it is not a matter of whether the glass is half full or half empty because whatever is left is evaporating as we speak. This cynicism has not served me well in either community.
 
Both communities are governed by a reflexive optimism in which it is expected that the members of the community blindly support whatever the reform de jour is. Most of my examples of this behaviour occurred during my term at the Baltimore Clayworks. One day the director had come up what she thought was a brilliant way to make money, an art bus. Each year Baltimore has a weekend in the early summer in which there are a lot of craft fairs and exhibits occurring. The director's idea was to rent a school bus, then charge people $20. a head to be driven around to sites all over the city. So, she was asking people to pay more than it would cost to go by car, and to get on a bus which is second only to a mule and is the worse kind of transport known to mankind. This for the privilege of being driven to public access ceramic sales and following a set schedule. I spent most of my time during this presentation thinking "what is she thinking?" One lesson I should have learned then was anytime a manager, supervisor, or director of anything starts a sentence with "Don't you think...." it is not a question.
 
In the corporate world, my cynicism is much more pervasive. This was most obviously a problem during my term at IBM. Not to say anything about IBM, but I was just doing call routing, and it was hard for me to get up the jingoistic fervour that is expected in the company, where employees often refer to themselves as IBMers. My attitude then, now, and always is Show up, do my job (and do it well), and go home. This kind of thinking, this blind rejection of the community, is considered far beyond the pale.
 
Now the second political flaw is my perceived arrogance. Again this is a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, maternally. My mother has mellowed with age. She used to think that there were only two kinds of people who disagreed with her: the uniformed or stupid, and the evil. Now she has made a slight allowance for a third group of people: those who know she is right but are just too obstinate to admit it.
 
This is best summed up by an observation made by a close friend of mine. We first met in graduate school. He was a new student. In conversation, I told him that those in authority over me tend to have a problem with me. He seemed surprised, stating that I seemed too laid back to be a problem. Well about three months later, I was retelling the story and my friend Doug was standing by my side, he started laughing. When I asked why, he said it was obvious, it was my in your face "I'm Tony Merino attitude." Which is very much the case.