EMC2
O'Hanian, Hunter. 2008. Aspen Peak, Winter 2008/Spring 2009: 248


What motivates the modern-day artist? Hunter O'Hanian, the president of Anderson Ranch Arts Center, turns to exponentially talented multimedia man Enrique Martínez Celaya, recipient of the 2007 Anderson Ranch National Artist Award.

Hunter O'Hanian: What drives you to be an artist?

Enrique Martínez Celaya: I am driven by my own clumsiness, my own sense of being illprepared to make judgments about the choices that matter. For me art has been the best way to find clarity when I need clarity and disruption when I need disruption.

HO: Have you ever thought about doing something else?

EMC: Many times. There is something interesting in every discipline and in most occupations. So to choose one means to give up the others, which also means giving up a life I will never know.

HO: True enough. What would you do if you weren’t an artist?

EMC: I would be an avocado farmer.

HO: Why do you focus on different forms, such as painting and poetry?

EMC: There is an echo between, say, a text and a photo, as well as a collision of meaning that makes things unstable, interesting. Also, it is probably true that although art stands in opposition to change, it depends on change to remain vital.

HO: What direction do you see artists moving in the 21st century?

EMC: Well, if the first eight years of the 21st century are any indication, I am afraid nowhere good. Luckily, we are at the decaying end of 200 years of Modernity and, sooner or later, a bed of flowers will rise from this compost.

HO: Why is there so little political content in artists’ work today?

EMC: Artists have realized politics is best done in the streets, but most likely it is because substance has a hard time gaining traction these days.

HO: What inspires younger artists today?

EMC: Ideals today are often constrained by pragmatism. This is true for the young and for the old, so it’s hard to blame young people for not thinking outside of markets and opportunism. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that courage, even foolish courage, would be a good addition to their program.

HO: So what artistically influences younger artists and the market?

EMC: The market success of some contemporary art has shrunken the horizons for many artists. In a recent survey, The Art Newspaper asked British art school students to name artists, living or dead, who had the greatest influence on their work. All the top rankings went to 20th- and 21st-century artists, with 60 percent being contemporary. The highest-ranked old master was Caravaggio, at number 22.

HO: Why should society care about artists?

EMC: Artists have made themselves almost irrelevant to the movement of ideas that give shape to the future. So in many ways the arts have earned the unimportant role they have in our society. Many people will disagree with me—they will point to the many museums being built, to the auction prices, to the decorations they proudly display, and to the good intentions. Maybe it is possible to imagine a society where art could play a key role in the aesthetic-moral education of citizens. But that art would probably be Tolstoy, not Richard Prince. Then we might be able to speak of the value of art and artists with less cynicism.