Talk:Dana Schutz

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Untitled

This page reads like an advertisement for Dana Schutz, it is not in an encylopedic style, and it will need to be entirely rewritten. For now I'm going to make it a stub with just the barest information about her, as I know nothing about her. Anyone with more information can feel free to add more. --Xyzzyplugh 00:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I tidied it up. Aroundthewayboy 20:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

i just took out the following because i thought it didn't sound encyclopedic:

Working within strict self-imposed codes of representation, Dana Schutz’s practice is born of a highly complex notion of ‘the artist’ as author, inventor, magician, scientist and even divine power. Through painting Schutz creates and rules over a fantasy world of obscure invention and functionless objects, populated by a cast of characters that are bizarre, grotesque and delightful.

Schutz’s paintings boast fables of exotic culture and ritual and offer dark suggestions of foreign existence that are sophisticated and barbarian in equal measure. Albinos, mutants and a tribe of people who eat themselves are recorded with comedic, anthropological devotion. Curious landscapes and still-lifes serve as documentary evidence of her clans’ strange ways and savage ceremonies.

Infused with a primal urgency, Schutz’s wildly expressive style and garish palette endow her aberrant illusions with a tangible physicality. Schutz authenticates her constructions through a well-versed art history ranging from Paul Gauguin to Philip Guston.

Aroundthewayboy 04:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's very hard to write about an artist's work without it starting to sound like criticism (art criticism -- positive or negative). And yet, some description of their work and perhaps how art writers/thinkers place their work is important. Not easy to find that balance. NSpector 16:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Mention of gallery in lead

I've removed the mention of the gallery that represents her from the lead. We don't use external links, and I'm not sure that we need to mention that in the lead in any case (it is mentioned elsewhere in the article). So, is mentioning the gallery which represents an artist worthy of being ion the lead, or is it promotional? Meters (talk) 18:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The reference to Dana Schutz's current gallery representation in the lead is purely information, not promotional. It is useful having it in the lead because many institutions like museums or universities draw information for bios or introductions from this page. Gallery representation is basic information for artists. It is also useful to mention the galleries at the beginning because they are a good source for images of artwork that cannot be posted on wikipedia due to copyright issues. Here are a few artists' wikipedia pages that list gallery representation in the lead: Mamma_Andersson Neo_Rauch Ryan_Johnson_(artist) Terry_Winters K8_Hardy Ghada_Amer Marcel_Dzama Radiatorlady (talk) 21:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC), 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the arguments so far:

• There are also many living artists whose articles' don't list the gallery in the lead, but I won't bother listing any. The issue is whether it is appropriate to list galleries in the lead, and it is irrelevant whether there are other articles that do, or do not. What is relevant is if there has been a previous discussion and consensus on this question. I'm happy to go along with any reasonable previous consensus, whatever the decision. If anyone knows of a previous decision please point us to it.
• We don't decide what goes in the lead based on what museums or universities (or anyone else) would like to have the lead include. Perhaps they should actually bother to read the article before copying the content of the lead. I would find it a bit surprising that any reputable museum or university would do this sort of indiscriminant Web scraping.
• I agree that the information on the gallery is useful, and so I removed it only from the lead, not from the article. Is it critical enough to warrant being in the lead? I don't think so. It certainly does not need to be there to allow people to find the gallery's images of copyrighted works. When I first looked at this article the two galleries currently representing Schutz were both listed in the external links section, her bio on one of the gallery's pages was used as a ref four times, and there were no less than six external URLs to the galleries embedded in the article. So yes, I think it is promotional to include mention of the galleries that sell the artist's work in the lead. Meters (talk) 01:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Exhibitions v. Solo Exhibitions categories

Might one be sublimated into the other? Lots of redundant info--A21sauce (talk) 22:53, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

shades of the latest controversy, and a probable correction

It seems tendentious to list the percentage of white people living in Livonia, Michigan—its only relevance is likely to be to the controversy over who has the right to make representations of African American trauma. I think it should be removed. If similar instances in the biographies of others can be shown to exist, I for one would be happy to be pointed at them for comparison.

Second, I believe that Coco Fusco is no longer at Parsons but is at the University of Florida.

This article seems to me to not quite maintain a neutral POV but could be easily rebalanced. Actio (talk) 03:09, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it's fine. Why even list Livonia, if we can't characterize it? I've travelled quite a bit around the US and had no idea what kind of suburb that is. It's like characterizing someone's parents. Wiki writers sometimes do that: It's not entirely necessary but it does add to one's understanding of the subject--A21sauce (talk) 01:37, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

It is more than just tendentious - it is OR editorializing. While tendentiousness can be a matter of discussion about the appropriateness of inclusion, original research (in this case using US Census Bureau data for pov editorializing) is not allowable on Wikipedia under any circumstances. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:34, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Livonia, Michigan's own article cites the 2010 Census here. Why are you not bothering with that cite? Or excluding the use of that and the prior census in the article of every town or city that uses it? And link "OR editorializing" so you're not just throwing your own expertise around to cover for your own POV.--173.56.236.146 (talk) 00:13, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

This article is not about Livonia, Mitchigan, it is about Dana Schultz. To argue for inclusion, you first will need to present a RS source that is making assertions about Dana Schultz's ethnicity or outlook or what she should or should not be painting based on the ethnicity of her home town. I am not required to teach you how to edit Wikipedia or explain what original research or synthesis or editorializing means. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:05, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

My, my overly scoldy, revealing your own POV. A21sauce (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

If you are too ignorant to understand what original research or synthesis or editorializing means, my advice to you is that you do not edit until that ignorance is dispelled. All you are doing here is wasting everyone's time trying to insert unsupported material. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi A21sauce—concerning this edit, why are you adding that material? Do we need to know that "According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Livonia is 92% white"? Why do you want the reader to know that? Bus stop (talk) 01:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't the one who originally added it. If you go back in the history you can see that an anonymous IP added it, with a more bitter tone, and the Tiptoethrutheminefield deleted it.A21sauce (talk) 01:35, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

A21sauce—why is that information called for in this article? Bus stop (talk) 03:50, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Why not? It illustrates the cultural background that informs Schutz's position on "Open Casket," despite working in New Haven and living in Brooklyn. A21sauce (talk) 00:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Why are you failing to understand that this is your OR? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I would ask the same of yourself.--A21sauce (talk) 04:04, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

since you seem incapable of learning what OR is, either drop this or start a RfC and get many more people to tell you the same thing. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:35, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Lead is Recentist and Not NPOV

I made what I thought was a neutral edit of the lead, moving a sentence about the recent Biennial controversy from the lead to the first sentence of the controversy's already existing subsection. An editor then reverted my edit without engaging in the reasoning I already explained in the edit summary, so I decided that rather than get into an edit war I would put on NPOV and Recentism tags, to see if other editors agree with me that this BLP's lead as currently written is not neutral.

The lead is now overly focused on a recent controversy (which I think would more neutrally belong in a subsection). Focusing on this controversy slants the encyclopedic coverage of this living person, implying it's the most well known thing about her (whereas within the art world she was very, very famous before). It kind of feels like an attempt to use Wikipedia to attack Schutz. I do think the controversy deserves its own section (though I also think there is maybe disproportionate space given to it, since for some reason it's her longest section). I just think that putting the controversy in the lead implies that it's one of the main things about Schutz that makes her notable. That is not the case, since she was very, very famous/notable before the controversy. What do other editors think?

Please do not remove the tag until at least a few other editors (other than the ones engaged in an edit war) weigh in. I would be happy to defer to the consensus of neutral editors. Thanks! Aroundthewayboy (talk) 00:22, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Aroundthewayboy—the Open Casket controversy is fairly well-known. I don't see why it wouldn't warrant placement in the lede. Bus stop (talk) 03:32, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I agree that the controversy is fairly well known, but the issue is: is this the main reason Schutz is notable? Shouldn't the lead of an encyclopedia entry establish the subject's notability?

Especially as it's written, by focusing on a pretty obscure artist named Hannah Black calling for Schutz's paintings to be DESTROYED, it seems like a highly inflammatory, negative sentence to include in the lead. Hence it is not demonstrating the neutral point of view that Wikipedia articles are meant to embody. A neutral point of view would be a lead that factually describes her and why she is notable (and since she was very notable for more than a decade before this controversy, that notability has nothing to do with the controversy).

To me, reading it after not looking at this entry for a couple years, highlighting this very impassioned statement about how her paintings should be destroyed seemed like a really imbalanced, strong, negative point of view for the entire article. This kind of biased viewpoint is especially important to avoid for BLPs. It also seemed overly focused on the controversy due to the recentness of the controversy, hence the recentism tag. I don't think it's, like, a consensus in the artworld that Dana Schutz's paintings should be literally rounded up and destroyed! So why is it in the lead of her Wikipedia entry?

Are Madonna's latest controversies described in the lead of her Wikipedia entry? No, because those controversies, despite being fairly or even very well known, are not the most important thing about her whole career that someone reading an encyclopedia article would want to know in the lead.

Like I wrote above, I do think the controversy was well known enough to warrant a section of the entry. The question is about whether it should be in the LEAD. I really hope a couple other seasoned editors who haven't already been editing this article are able to weigh in! Aroundthewayboy (talk) 18:07, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

A good parallel to Dana Schutz and Open Casket might be Andres Serrano and Piss Christ. I'm not saying the analogy is perfect but I think it is better than the Madonna (entertainer) analogy. We find mention of "Piss Christ" in the lede of "Andres Serrano". If there is one word that you are using that I would take exception to, it is the word "negative". You refer to the "negative sentence" in the lede. And you refer to an "imbalanced, strong, negative point of view". I think visual artists, more so than musicians, often push the envelope of what the public will find acceptable. Visual artists also tend to be less well known than popular musicians. A reader coming to an article on a visual artist is less likely to be familiar with the visual artist than they would be with a popular musician. A key controversy such as with Andres Serrano or with Dana Schutz is serving the purpose of quickly acclimatizing the reader to the the nature of the artist under consideration. This can be misleading and the wording should not unfairly pigeonhole the artist or stereotype their entire body of work. Perhaps you are right that the wording in the lede relating to "Open Casket" should be trimmed back. But I don't think it is entirely "negative". It may be "provocative", yes, but not necessarily "negative". Indeed she is a white person engaging in the creative depiction of an incident that is very sensitive to black people for understandable reasons. In a sense the incident transcends both the painting and the artist. The link itself to Open Casket within the lede is important. And of course the lede has to say something about the painting. The lede presently says Her painting Open Casket, when shown in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, drew protests "urging that the painting be not only removed from the show but also destroyed". I think that is fairly minimal wording if mention of this is to remain in the lede. It is not necessarily a bad thing if an artist's work provokes controversy. It could mean that they are addressing difficult subjects. Bus stop (talk) 18:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I completely disagree, and I think it is clearly negative to start the whole entry with a reference to people calling for her paintings to be "destroyed." How is "destroyed" not a negative word? To be clear, I am personally sympathetic to the critiques of the painting. However, I do not think such critiques belong in the lead of an encyclopedia article, because my first loyalty is to the factual neutrality of Wikipedia. One offensive-to-many painting is not why Schutz is one of the most famous artists of her generation. I don't really think the controversy belongs in the lead, at all, it only belongs in its own section.

As for Serrano, he was not a major artist prior to Piss Christ, whereas Schutz had been an art star for like 15 years before that Biennial. So that comparison is not compelling. Even so, all it says in Serrano's lead is a mention in passing of Piss Christ, with the word controversial. No quotes from the extremely harsh things many, many people said and wrote at the time in mainstream publications (and Piss Christ was MUCH more controversial in mainstream media coverage than Schutz's painting, which let's face it was more of an artworld insider kind of controversy). Actually, by the logic of your comparison, Schutz's lead should have AT MOST as much mention of that painting as Serrano's does of Piss Christ. It should not have a long quote about destroying her paintings. It should have at most a brief mention that she made a controversial painting.

You and I will have to agree to disagree, but I really look forward to other editors weighing in! Aroundthewayboy (talk) 20:26, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I mentioned an analogy to Andres Serrano but I said "I'm not saying the analogy is perfect". I don't think it matters. We need not compare this article to Serrano. I don't think placement in the lede is an WP:NPOV or WP:BLP violation.

I've initiated a conversation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts#Dana Schutz, Open Casket. Bus stop (talk) 23:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, you will be absolutely shocked to hear that I do think placement in the lead is an WP:NPOV or WP:BLP violation, for the reasons I stated above. Thanks for starting a conversation in that other project. I'll try to briefly summarize my argument there. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 00:48, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Note:Since nobody is replying to the conversation on the other project's discussion page, maybe we should relocate it here where it would be easier to find for other editors?

Like I wrote on the other discussion, I don't think we can assume that readers will be coming into the article only because of the controversy -- her Wikipedia entry as written now is, if anything, extending the half life of the controversy by putting this in the lede (and Wikipedia extending attention to a controversy is not NPOV).

I think that putting the controversy not just in the lede, but dominating 1/3 of the lede with a long, inflammatory quote about how her paintings should be "destroyed," is definitely giving way too much prominence to this non-central incident in her career.

What would you think about this phrasing as the (complete) lede, so that it's more like the Serrano entry?

"Dana Schutz (born 1976) is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for her humorous, gestural paintings that take on specific subjects or narrative situations as a point of departure. She is also notable for her controversial 2017 Whitney Biennial painting Open Casket."

I actually still think that is not as neutral as it should be, and that it extends the half life of the controversy, because by including the 2017 controversy in the lede it implies that it's one of the two most important things to know about Schutz. But I think a rewrite like that would be an improvement, at least. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 14:39, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Why shouldn't we say that one of this artist's paintings "drew protests 'urging that the painting be not only removed from the show but also destroyed'"? Reliable sources say that the demand was that the painting be destroyed. Inclusion of that information makes a reader wonder what would provoke such sentiments. Bus stop (talk) 16:14, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Because it's an extremely negative quote from an obscure source. As I wrote in a number of variations above. I think you and I should take a pause on engaging each other, because we have fully expressed ourselves and are not changing each others' minds. I don't think we're really hearing each other at this point. At this point it's becoming a petty edit war, which I for one am not interested in. I look forward to hearing from other editors, hopefully to build a consensus (which I would be happy to "lose," as long as it's fairly determined!). Aroundthewayboy (talk) 18:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Would the New York Times be an "obscure source"? "The painter, coming off one of the biggest art world controversies, says she now imagines her audience when she is painting...There were calls for the painting’s removal, and some demanded its destruction...The long-term effect of the controversy, she said, is that she has internalized the viewpoints of the protesters even when making new work."[1] Bus stop (talk) 19:33, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Hahaha no, not the NYT. The source of the quote, who is some obscure artist. If there was some random obscure person in a NY Times article about a protest of Andy Warhol paintings, who was quoted saying that she wants to burn all of Andy Warhol's paintings, would that quote belong in the lede of the Andy Warhol entry?

Omg, here I am engaging with you again. How did that happen? I wish I knew how to quit you! Aroundthewayboy (talk) 19:41, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

lede

Aroundthewayboy—you say "this intro was EXTENSIVELY debated, so please don't unilaterally change it after we worked so hard to come to a consensus". What is that a reference to? Please provide diffs or specific quotes. Bus stop (talk) 14:36, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Hm looking it over, you're right that the consensus on this lede was only between the two of us. It was the Hannah Black article where a wider consensus was reached. But in this article you and I hashed it out extensively and came up with a compromise that was tolerable for both of us for months. Why rock the boat now? Let's not use Wikipedia as a battleground. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 15:15, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Please articulate your objection to this sentence: "Her painting of the corpse of Emmett Till, titled Open Casket, drew protests when shown in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and there were demands that it be removed from the show." Bus stop (talk) 15:31, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

See section DIRECTLY above this, as well as the continued long and pointless debate in the linked separate discussion that you started. Do you really want to turn Wikipedia into a battleground? That is not the purpose of Wikipedia. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 15:38, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

If a surplus of three independent editors could agree that your proposed change to the lede is better than what is currently there, I would bow to the consensus. Alternately, vice versa if three more agree than disagree with me, we don't change the lede. How about let's not change the article until we hear from other unbiased editors, so we can avoid an edit war? Aroundthewayboy (talk) 15:49, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Aroundthewayboy—please articulate a reason for reverting my edit. I understand that you object to my edit. I am asking you what your objection is. I am trying to add to the lede "there were demands that it be removed from the show". To my way of thinking this should not be a big deal. Sources are in abundance supporting that specific assertion or related assertions.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Bus stop (talk) 16:18, 24 October 2019 (UTC)