88: Artist Seth Price on Finding Freedom in Bad Ideas, Balancing Commerce and Creation in Business

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I get to interview artist Seth Price. My partner Michael and I first discovered him. Michael is an MFA Masters of Fine Arts student at sva, the School of Visual Arts, and one of his first essay assignments was to read an essay called Dispersion by Seth Price. So I love vicariously getting master's degrees and getting to read everything I can for friends. And especially with Michael, I knew nothing about the art world, despite the fact that my dad has been a painter since he was 5 years old. So for the first time, despite all my dad's trying to take me to museums and take me to his studio with him, I decided, all right, that's it. Between my dad and my boyfriend, it's time. I've got to learn what's going on here. And thus started an epic journey into learning about Seth and his work. Quick brief bio on Seth. He's an American multidisciplinary artist who works in a wide range of media. His current exhibition, Social Synthetic, is now on view at the Brandhurst Museum in Munich. After traveling from the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and coincidentally, when Michael and I were in Amsterdam, I went. I was giving a keynote@booking.com we went to the Stedelijk and our minds were blown. We're on the second floor, this whole Seth Price multidisciplinary exhibit. And in the last room, the top floor, is a movie playing. And Michael and I sat in this theater, mesmerized not just by the visuals, but by the ideas, by the thinking behind it. And our jaws hit the floor. We just said, we have to find out more about this guy. So we start Googling Seth, we start looking for what has he written? Where can we find this video? Where can we find this? Thinking that he's so captured the heart of what it means to be an artist, what it means to try and make a living from art, what's going on in the state of the art world and beyond. And so language disclaimer. If you have kiddos around, this will have explicit language simply by the nature of one of the titles of Seth books. So now's the time to hit mute or pause if you need to have any small children leave the room. Needless to say, we found his book, Fuck Seth Price. And it was $35 on Amazon. We remember thinking, okay, that's a little pricey, but have to have it. Probably would have paid $100 for this book. Got it. And our lives have never been the same since. So how's that for an intro? Welcome, Seth.

Thank you, Jenny. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Your book, Fuck Seth Price is one of our most gifted and recommended books. And I sent it to my dad, who I mentioned as a painter and he gave you a review on Amazon. My dad, it actually changed. He's working on some essays called Distill the Zeit about art and architecture and evolution and science. So anyway, my dad said the title is as Good as Literature Gets. And then he wrote, this is the finest, funniest, most incisive book dealing with art and culture that I have read in the past 40 years. A sort of book of common prayer for all artists entering New York City. Don't get off the bus, plane, train without it.

So thank you, Seth Price. Thanks.

Thanks for. Wow. I feel like I need to read the Amazon reviews. There's probably some reviews that aren't that charitable on there too.

Well, that's what's so funny about the title of the book. Fuck Seth Price. It's like you almost have already cut out the critics or at least addressed the critics. Can you actually tell me how you decided to title it that?

I can't. I can't remember the whole process of thinking, but I know that it felt like it was not a title for a piece of literature. It felt like an art title. And the book was thinking about literature and writing in the non art world and writing fiction, what fiction was doing today. And then that title.

Is something you wouldn't see at the Strand on the fiction. Maybe you would, but it's certainly not mainstream literature.

And it felt like taking a risk. It's kind of a stupid title. Also, I wasn't comfortable with it, so I had to kind of let it marinate for a week or two and then canvassed. My friends and some said, you have to do that.

When else can you call something by that title and have the same meaning? You can call a drawing by that title, but who even is paying attention to some random drawing? And another friend said, don't do that. That's the worst idea. But I can't remember when it tipped over into deciding to do it.

It's interesting what you said, that it's more along the lines of the title of an art book or by an artist to have it be. What do you mean by that?

It feels like a move of some kind. It feels kind of like snarky and. And nasty and stupid at the same time as, you know, this kind of like.

Kind of like getting one up on the haters. And.

There'S something that could be read as not serious about it. And these are all things that art plays with maybe a little bit more than literature in the realm of titles anyway.

That's a great point because a lot of people listening may have been in the position I was in of really not knowing much about especially contemporary art, and that titles are an art of themselves, it seems, with contemporary pieces. Because we all know the familiar trope that, well, I could have done that, you know, of people looking at contemporary art. But sometimes then the title, the description adds meaning to the piece.

Yeah, yeah, it does. And, you know, why would somebody do that? And then you maybe want to figure out exactly what's going on in the move of doing something that's maybe not a good idea. And that's something that I feel with art making is trying to explore the things that make me uncomfortable and that feel like bad ideas. And sometimes they simply are bad ideas and you end up leaving them alone. But sometimes the thing that makes you think it's a bad idea is the live part of it that has some charge to it, that keeps it ultimately interesting and turns into, you know, a year later. You're like, God, I'm so glad I did that. That was a good idea, right?

Well, that's what I find interesting, that hearing you say you were uncomfortable at first. And I'm using this title as a proxy for, as you said, like, all of the directions we could go in art, creativity and writing where you were uncomfortable. How do you suss out what you just described when it's uncomfortable in a good way? And even now, maybe looking back on the title of this book, do you feel that you went with uncomfort in a Good way and now it's a good idea in hindsight, or do you feel differently?

I'm glad I did it. There were a lot of other titles that were knocking around.

But it's kind of. It's a title that sticks with you. And I think that the friend was right who had said, when else are you going to do it? I think if I had kind of picked up that idea and turned it over and then put it down again, I probably never would have gone back to it. So I'm glad at that point in my life, it suggested itself and I went for it. And, yeah, now I wouldn't say I'm proud of it is the wrong word, but I'm glad I kind of went for it, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I often feel that way. Like, the topics that I talk or speak or write about that I'm the most uncomfortable with, they are the juiciest. Those are usually the ones pointing to something that's going to have an impact on people one way or another, or an inner truth that I somehow need to get out. It's such a great commentary about even the world of art critics. Because you're in the art world, even though this is written as a novel in the third person. I think if someone is used to having people review their work, whether as an artist or a writer, it just kind of makes that community smile and laugh a little bit. Like, oh, he just went and did it. And it kind of takes the sting out of anything anyone could say. Because the title already says it.

Yeah. And there's a lot of kind of negation and negativity in the book and kind of thinking about that and how that works with art. I mean, the idea that you might want to do something that's a bad idea or that makes you uncomfortable, that's already kind of inverting a normal process. Like when I was teaching at the School of Visual Arts a long time ago, and it was an intro video class, and I was not much older than the students.

Maybe like eight, 10 years older. But they were freshmen in college who had just showed up in Manhattan and in the art world. And I came up with an assignment.

I had a hard time thinking of assignments, but the assignment that worked the best in the end was telling them to make a bad video.

Because somehow these were kids, really, who had no idea, had never heard of Andy Warhol in a lot of cases, and hadn't been to Chelsea to see the galleries. They were just getting their feet on the ground. And I guess, I mean, to Say they didn't have a lot of. A lot of them didn't have much confidence. And telling them to make a bad video somehow like opened the floodgates because they started doing. Once you remove the idea of taste or some standard of quality, I mean, you say you're removing that, but in fact you're just putting in another standard. You're giving them freedom to shape something that. That takes away all the barriers. And they were coming back with these incredible videos.

I love it. I love the assignment. And it makes me think about the Marcel Duchamp perspective of there's retinal art which looks good to your eyeballs, and then there's art which might be making a statement. Like you said, the idea is not for art to necessarily be pleasing to those. Or what you mentioned about taste and visuals. But actually there's so much freedom if we free ourselves from those constraints. Like you asked your students to do.

Yeah. And that there's a different. That there are different ways of being pleasing or finding something pleasing. Right. It's the idea of pleasing being something beautiful. First of all, it sounds simple, but it's not because it's hard to even say what beautiful is. You know, any. You could say any good artwork is beautiful.

I'm curious why you decided to write in the third person.

Yeah. It was like assigning somebody to do a bad video. Because once you're writing about a made up character, you can say all kinds of stuff and things that I think about come out, but they mix with things that I'm just speculating about. That's what justifies calling it a novel. In a lot of ways. It's not a novel, but it allowed me to be free. I think I was just looking for a style that would allow me to write. And I kind of think with a lot of my work maybe this is the same for other people. But I find that when you find the voice or the style, then things can just roll.

And that's all you really want. Even if you don't understand where it's going. Finding a style that makes expression even possible.

Oh, that's so true. For me. It's really hard to get in the flow that you just described. It's hard for me to get to a place where I enjoy writing and the ideas are coming. So I love what you're saying about give yourself the freedom to figure out a style that just allows that in the first place. Even if you don't know where it's going.

Yeah. And it may be nonsensical. And I don't know, in the end, the book. The book is nonsensical. If you take it as a plot, it's like a failed piece of fiction. But trying to do that kind of allowed me to do other things which did work. I think.

Well, it's funny if the fiction, plot line, aspect of it, quote, failed. And I'll just say in quotes, because that itself is very funny and thought provoking. The original thinking that it unveiled from you along the way is priceless. But if I had to describe it, I would say it's a treatise on art and thinking and the career of an artist, on originality, on production, on art as business. And can that even work? Can those two things go together? I mean, really wide range of subjects, but I can see how they all tie together. I want to read an excerpt that everyone can hook into about American culture. And it also so beautifully speaks to your writing. American culture, he mused, rested on a kind of fundamental folklore which had something to do with infinite mutability and the interchangeability of all things. This manifested in some obvious ways that supported the ideological framework of a free market democracy. For example, that a virgin territory could be hewn and shaped into a mighty nation through work and discipline, that the citizens of that nation were equal, none better than any other, and that a poor man here might transform himself into a wealthy man. It was apparent also in less obvious ways, for instance, in a comic strip about a man who became a spider, which itself became a TV show and thence a movie from which someone made a play and a musical, plus lunchboxes, dolls and video games. Or the fact that Joe Schmo could become a pop star and then an actor and then an entrepreneur with a line of clothes, perfume, or. Or furniture. But surely art was different. Question mark. I love how you speak to American culture, and this is a theme throughout the book, about American culture, of work and discipline and production and making things happen. And even this idea of a comic strip about a man who became a spider, which becomes a play and then ultimately lunchboxes. And yet for artists it can feel very conflicting of do you become part of that machine even when it starts working for you and you're getting shows and galleries, or do you step outside of it somehow? I would love for you to speak to any aspect of that that's interesting to you.

Well, there's an idea that you would pursue art or become an artist or make art, do art, but the career of an artist is a career and it's a business. It's a machine. And those things can be alienating when you've.

All along been thinking that. It's also about autonomy and freedom and self expression and.

Some sort of internal quest.

And putting those things together. I mean, that's a problem for anybody who's trying to be a creative person and make a living the society. And I think that's one of the big things that the book was about, is trying to understand.

How to be those two things. Kind of a person that has an internal. You're seeking something internally, but at the same time you're moving externally through this world that is kind of chewing up what you're doing and then digesting it and showing it back to you. And that's. That's something that you use to then as a compass to plot your next moves. And it's this back and forth and how to manage that. It's really confusing.

You describe very poignantly this part in the book, and again, I know it's a novel, so it may or may not reflect your career exactly. But in the beginning, early in an artist's career, there's a striving for getting attention and recognition and press and getting into galleries and getting shows and getting awards and being in a museum. And all of these things help validate the artist and help create a career so that you don't have to wait tables and you can create the art. And yet after all of that, it doesn't ultimately serve the art that all of that feels empty in a sense, because. And then at that point you can have all of those things and the only remaining journey is the one on the inside, really for the artist. And that none of those things can really bring any lasting source of happiness.

Yeah, I think that those things are amazing. You know, the recognition and money, I mean, that basically sets up a machine that allows you to make art. And if you're lucky enough to get to that point, I think what happens maybe for a lot of people is what you're talking about, where you realize, now I'm here, I can make art. I'm. I'm lucky enough to be able to.

Have that opportunity. But the question of where to go with the art is not solved by any of these factors. These are enabling factors that allow you to have the time and space to work on that question. So it's like a trap door just opens up again. And I think you can see there's a great fear that an artist will make it to a certain level where they're being enabled by all these other. These factors. And this Kind of machine that's set up, and then they sometimes freeze. Because.

What do you do with all this freedom, really? It doesn't solve the problem of making good art.

Have you experienced that?

That fear?

Yeah. Or just reaching that point where you have the freedom now? What?

Yeah. No, absolutely. I think that was part of the thinking that went into the book, was realizing that I had been lucky enough to get to the point where everything was moving. You know, I quit my day job in 2005, and I think, I guess it was in 2012, I was part of this international art exhibition called Documenta. That's one of the big exhibitions in the art world. It's either all or partly funded by the German government. It happens every five years for, I don't know, 30 million euros or something. And it draws people from all over the world. And I was in this and came back from that, and I think I felt like, okay, right, I can do lots of things, but that. But now, what is this? What I. Where do I want to go with this? And those questions made me think about writing the book.

And now, what would you say is your relationship to freedom? Like, freedom is a big theme. You describe how artists generally fall into four main motivations. Freedom, craft, money. And then the scene, the social scene. That was so brilliant.

That was, like, definitely a simplification. But it felt like, yeah, every. You know, every book needs a list.

People love those.

Oh, yeah, that's true. And I write and read mostly nonfiction, so it's perfect. Like, speaks to my nonfiction Y list.

It's great. It just breaks things down for you.

Well, how about for you? If those four things were in a pie chart, what's the distribution?

I think in that passage, the book is pretty accurate. The narrator calls it as, you know, freedom. This is what's most important to me. And I think that was that. I was basically speaking in that passage. Yeah, that's. The artists I like are the ones where you see freedom. It might be radically different from one artist to the next. It could be a free gesture and line and painting, but it could also be a freedom in how you manage over the course of a lifespan. And, you know, the individual works aren't as important to me. It's more about how a person has lived their life, I guess the making of the art for me is totally distinct from.

Enjoyment. And.

Like, I mean, I wouldn't want to live with any of my own art. For example.

Michael, my partner, says that too. Like, we should get your art in here. Yeah, I don't want to see it when I'm done, I'm done.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, I think it's something I have to do.

And I enjoy doing it. But then the actual works of art, sometimes I'm happy with them and I wouldn't mind looking at them, but it's almost completely disconnected from the other part.

I love what you said about the artists you admire are the ones who exhibit freedom somehow, whether it's freedom of their line in the work, freedom of what they pursue, or freedom of how they've set up their life. And in the book you say ultimate freedom would mean having just enough money, not to have to think about money and not to have to work all the time. And that's certainly, that's how I feel as far as like, I have no desire to have full time employees in my business. I've been running my business seven years. Just don't want it. Like, I just want the freedom, even if it means, oh, I might make less money. And then I want to read this other passage where you say artists rightly prize the uncommon ability to burrow deeply into one medium or practice over the course of a career. Rarer and more challenging still was the ability to shed the mantle of a well functioning methodology and gird oneself for unknown new directions. But why stop there? The truly important freedom, he believed, and the most rarely achieved, was the ability, the readiness of will, to jettison an entire artistic career precisely when it was going well. This was the nuclear option.

And you did something somewhat like this when you went on your mission to remove as much of yourself as you could from the Internet, which I happen to think I was so stupid. You tried to take a year long hiatus and this is a quote, you said, the dumb goal of getting all my profiles and interviews and photos removed from the Internet. That because artists are conditioned to seek visibility not only for their work, but for their Persona. So it seems like in a way you were like pulling the nuclear option there.

I didn't not. No, not really. There are artists who have done that, who have really turned their back on the art world and art. Making.

Her into that zone, really, I think I just needed to pull back in a lot of ways to be able to write that book.

And yeah, to flirt with the idea of like renunciation.

I thought that was interesting at the time to be able to pull back from the. That are running really well and really smoothly because it is a business. And if you are successful as you're necessarily, I think, involved in a kind of machine network of people and really good people and people who are helping you, people who are buying and selling your work and talking about it and writing about it, other artists. And this is all good stuff. It's just that when you become part of a machine, I guess it's.

For me, I felt like it was good to pull back and think about how I was functioning in that machine and be able to also drop out of it a little bit. On the other hand, that's.

It's not quite true because I continued to be an artist. I made this book. The book became part of what I do as an artist. And here I am back again, making artwork and showing, and we're talking about it on this podcast. So it'd be disingenuous to say I was really dropping out of the art world or something, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I guess I meant more dropping out of the Internet to some extent, or just the machine of maintaining a Persona, as you said.

Yeah.

It was like, a relief to see that you did that, because the Persona and the social media thing can be so exhausting just to feel the pressure of that.

Totally. I think it was just my way of trying to, like, understand that. And I think I've been trying to navigate the Persona and social media for years now, I guess. I think I started out with a Facebook account pretty early, and then I think I killed the account in 2009 or 10 or something. And then I kind of, like, came back to Instagram and then left. And now I kind of lurk on Twitter and just use it as a newsfeed. But I guess I was trying to wrestle with that because I think. When did I start doing that? Like, 2013 or something? I think Instagram was really just flexing its muscles in the art world and in general becoming this huge force, and it felt like I needed to. I don't know why I did that. I mean, it's impossible to remove yourself from the Internet for most people. And I guess I did it to try to.

To prove something to myself. And then in the end, you know, some people remove things, but it's kind of futile. I think I just needed to do it to process something at the time.

Did it shift anything or inform how you balance that today of putting yourself out there versus just doing your. Doing your work?

Yeah, I think so. I think I just kind of, like, grew up a little bit and was like, who cares? Like, just do this stuff. I mean, I think I was. You know, there was a year there where I was just. Or more than a year, just Saying no to everything. I mean, shows, but also, you know, any kind of publicity or press or, you know, this interview, I wouldn't have done. And then I think I kind of came back and was like, whatever, you know, you can. You can make a big deal out of it or not. And I thought, now I'm just gonna say yes to a lot of things. It felt like I had to decide all or nothing, which is kind of childish, but, like, I kind of didn't want to, like, assess the value of one thing or another thing. And first that led me to just say, forget it. I'm not doing anything. And then it was like, let's do everything, if that makes sense.

Ideally, it's not a Persona. It's just. You get to just be yourself. But do you feel pressure to, like, maintain your Instagram account, post to it, or do you just let that go? And for you now it's more about saying yes to incoming opportunities?

I let that go. I'm not on Instagram. I felt like it would be a lot of fun. I just didn't. Partly. It was just. Just a decision about how to spend my time and energy, I guess, because I see, you know, friends and my partner, everybody's obsessed with it, and it looks great and I enjoy it. I just. And then there's. I mean, and then there's some small part of me that doesn't, like, kind of working for those companies, which is what it feels like.

What. How do you balance giving yourself kind of space and time and isolation, or like, we would call it hermit mode, where you're just totally inward. And then what's the balance of then when you put yourself back out or allow for that influx and incoming set of requests?

Yeah, that's tough. And I'm not, like, really good at managing that. That's why I was kind of, like, you know, swinging into the, like, total refusal mode and then going back into just, like, accept everything, because I clearly can't, like, navigate the middle ground. But it's working fine so far. I'm just. I don't know, just like, trying to.

Yeah, it's like kind of discovering how you relate as a kind of, like, social being or something. I don't know how to explain it, but.

It feels like some, like, doing some growing up or something.

I never feel like I'm getting this right, really. I could just stay in and read all day and just never go to coffees or have calls or have meetings. And I probably, to some extent, because I can see the way, you know, you Or Michael or my dad are able to just swing into total cave mode. And I've done that every now and then. But I probably go the middle ground to. To my detriment. Like I should say more to more than I do. To say no to more than I do. To create just. I don't know, I. It's. I think it's so important to create anything, to be able to hear yourself think and very easy and very fast to fall into just getting inputs from others.

Yeah, but some people work well with that, with just kind of ravenous kind of acceptance and engagement and processing things really quickly. And that's also kind of interesting to think about as a mode and what it would do to go into that mode. And then I think about the model of free improvised music where people get together. I mean, get together in a more or less. It's a group formation, it's social. It doesn't have to be in front of an audience. It could just be playing for themselves. But it's a group situation where you're reacting in real time to what other people are doing, but you're also off on your own thing. And that is kind of a model also, which is really compelling, I think. And people who can improvise, I mean, that's like the holy grail.

I don't play music like that, but that's something I really admire.

What do you admire about it?

Well, that it's somewhere between the hermetic kind of mode and like full social engagement. That. I mean, any playing music in any formation is somewhat like that. But when it becomes improvised music, and it's really this kind of real time conversation with rules, but rules that are meant to be broken, I mean, that gets really complicated and interesting, I think.

And this goes back to our conversation around freedom too, where there are just enough constraints or the business is functioning just well enough to create the freedom to improvise.

Yeah, well, to end. To improvise on an artwork that is working just enough that you can finish it. Right. Like, it's not, you know, you're not trying to make, like, good things necessarily, because what does that even mean? It's like you're trying to get it to just enough of a phase or structure that you can kind of move on to the next thing and then it's done its job.

Yeah. And I think that the kind of improvised music idea. And I don't even know how I would put that into practice myself. But what's interesting about it is it allows for, as you said, this kind of presence. But you can also recede. You know, if you listen to free jazz, there's always. There's space, there's density, there's people who can, you know, you can drop back and then you can come back in again. So it's a lot of rules and a lot of freedom at the same time. That's what's so fascinating about it.

Do you play any instruments?

Like none.

I mean, I, you know, I make music, but how? But I can't. Well, over the years, I mean, I don't know, we're actually about to reissue.

This. This record I made 20 years ago where I was doing bass and, you know, guitar and drums and stuff and singing.

And I've done records with. With synthesizers, with, you know, MIDI controlled gear, drum machines and keyboards and stuff, samples. So I mean, I do like to make music, but I'm really not. I can't play anything.

What's next for you?

I'm definitely in like chrysalis mode right now because of these shows in the last year, the survey show and a couple of other things that were going on.

I don't know, I'm just messing around in the studio and I'm excited to kind of be in Free Fall, but it's not like depressing, melancholy Free Fall. It's like. It's kind of just kind of looking around and enjoying. Enjoying floating a bit. I would love to make some music. I mean, personally for me, I think music's the best art form and you know, I could just listen. Like my ideal day would just be hanging out with people listening to music.

So I'm excited about doing some of that. I'm like doing a mix right now for.

Something I'm doing in San Francisco next month. They'd asked me to bring along a mix of music, so that's a lot of fun. Yeah, Honestly, there's no direction right now. I'm kind of waiting for one. I'd love to have a direction. That's what I'd love. I'd love to get really psyched about something and go deep. So I'm just kind of waiting for that to come along, I guess.

How do you know when it comes? Because I think that's. I'm in a similar state. I'm in between books and I'm like, cool. You know, not like you said, not depressed or melancholy, but it's like wondering when the next big idea will end. And I'm curious how you know, what that is for you.

I guess it's like messing around with a lot of stuff that's. That's floating by. You're just grabbing things and kind of, like, playing with them and putting them down and then just turning around and realizing that you've been messing with the same thing for some weeks in different, different ways. That this. The studio's full of.

Printouts or images or sketches, and they're all pointing in one direction. I don't know. I guess it kind of sneaks up on me.

What's your relationship to thinking about, whoa, will people like this? Or what will the response be? Are you at a point in your career where you just truly don't care, or are you also trying to gauge what will strike a chord in the market somehow or among fellow artists? Let's say.

Yeah, I get. I mean, I definitely think about fellow artists a lot, but when it comes to making the work, I think it's less about.

Audience than it is about, like, trying to do something to a certain standard.

You know, my own standard, whatever that is. It's kind of hard, you know, it's a moving target. But.

I guess I just have some kind of faith that if I'm into it, that somebody somewhere else will be into it. And.

That'S not always true, but that's like the kind of operating principle that gets me going, you know, gets me getting into something. But I think you're right to mention artists. I mean, that's ultimately. If I had to pick somebody I'm making work for, it's for other artists.

Is there any particular type of fellow artist that you feel like your people just.

No, no.

How do you define an artist? Like what. What makes that community? What makes an artist an artist?

Well, I would say I'm making it first of all for, like, there's no definition for this, but for serious artists, and that doesn't mean professional. It just means somebody who's.

Again, no definition here, but.

The artists I respect are not always artists where I like the work. So.

I respect it when somebody's, like, serious about what they're doing. And that thing itself can be super playful and whimsical. I don't mean serious, kind of furrowed brow.

Darkness. I mean, somebody's really committed into their thing. I mean, this could be like wood carving. It could be playing music. It could be abstract painting. It doesn't really matter. Somebody who's open to wherever they're going with the kind of, like, radical play they're doing. They're writing rules when they need to and breaking them when they need to, and they just keep going with it. And could be somebody like Agnes Martin who's just hunkering down and, like, painting in the desert.

Could be somebody who's doing free music composition. It could be somebody who's playing standards in the subway. It's just. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's just, you know, when somebody's really serious about their thing. And that's kind of what I respond to, I guess.

I love that you've. You said and you've separated respecting people who are serious about their work, even in a playful way, without you having the pressure. You don't have to even like their work. You can still. Yeah, that's not what it's about in their process. I actually think that's really freeing and helpful for me to hear because I've read dozens of books now. I'm trying to understand the art world, but still, sometimes I'll show up at a contemporary art exhibit and be like, what the hell is this?

Yeah, but that's sometimes the best. When you go and you're like, what the hell is this? I mean, that's. You know, another thing that I really like is. Is precisely that is. You know, it could be somebody playing standards on the guitar again, but, like, there's something about that where you're just like, what is going on with these songs? Like, what are they doing here? Like, this is. I know that song, but for some reason I also don't know it. And that's what would keep me coming back. And again, I'm. Let's. Let's say there's something I really dislike about it, but I can't stop thinking about it. I guess I would just want to disengage taste and liking something, wanting to live with it, thinking it satisfies a certain quality. Those are all, like, less interesting to me. I mean, there's a place for that. But there's also the process of art making or just a certain kind of being in the world that is serious and playful and what else is it? It's throwing everything up in the air and letting it fall to the ground in a new shape. That's all where I'm going, what I'm.

Interested in, on the idea of what you just said, ideas floating around and having them land in a new shape. Your essay dispersion was about the Internet and the kind of. The freedom now that their ideas, once they're released into the wild, they get cut and spliced and copied and pasted and downloaded and shared every which way. And whether as a Writer, an artist, or another type of creative, sometimes it can feel. And of course there's the phrase like there's no new idea or there's nothing original. So how do you define or think about originality in a context like that where probably the second you think of something within the Internet, within the norm's reach, you can see it's been done 10 times somehow, or how do you still create what you feel is original work, even if it's, I don't know, it's borrowing from so much that came before it somehow?

Well, if you do something a second time, in other words, if you repeat something.

It'S already different. Right. So the same person doing the exact same thing, again.

It'S a different thing. I mean, there is. I don't think there is. I'm not too worried about the whole question of originality. And.

You know, the camera didn't make painting obsolete.

People aren't going to stop making stuff. I think it's kind of like a non question. I think I understand why there's this kind of.

Over the last 15 years, when digital networks make the distribution of everything.

So disruptive to industries. I understand why there's this paroxysm in society of like, what have we done and where is it going? And I totally understand why people are nervous about.

Kind of.

Their intellectual property. But as far as like questions of has everything been done before? I kind of think that's just a non question.

Because you could do the exact same thing again and it might mean something totally different to another person, but even to yourself. So I'm just not worried about it.

Any artists who haven't yet arrived, let's say at the level that you're at, it can be super discouraging. We live in New York City and.

No matter the type of art or the type of creative work, there are so many people who are happy to offer out that that's no way to earn a living and to just have that dream sort of shot down like, well, and you kind of talk about this in your novel as well, that sometimes just the idea of being an artist is a little nutty because nobody needs a piece of art. Like, it's not an economic good that people can't live without. So it just seems like for artists and writers and creatives who want to make a full time living out of it, they get there's so many discouraging messages and then there's so many people trying to do it. So do you have any parting words of advice or philosophy? Philosophy on this. Yeah, I know. It's a big one.

Yeah. On Just, like, entering the kind of like, the maelstrom, the fray, like.

Yeah.

And New York is definitely difficult, and it's way more difficult than when I got here.

Huh.

Well, if you. I don't know. I feel like you have to make art, and then you may also want to make art, but those are, like, two different things.

And.

Making art is also separate from the art world, and it's separate from a career of art. Like, those are all different things. And of course, like, ideally, they all line up like, you make art. You have to make art. You love to make art. You have a career making art, and you're within the art world. That's, like, fantastic. And also fantastically.

It'S lucky to have that kind of those things aligned like that. But I think that.

Making art is also something that. Oh, God, no. I can't even go through that sense.

Then what got you through this process? What gave you the confidence to just keep going until you hit. Started hitting these milestones that you could see? Okay, yes, I can make a career out of it.

Man. I.

Being around great people.

Meeting friends who are artists and seeing how they kind of conducted themselves, even if we did completely different things.

That was crucial.

What else? Making art for myself and my friends. I mean, with them in mind. I think that's, like, kind of how you build for how I was able to kind of build some.

To build something. Because if. I don't know, but I would think that if you're making art for.

Somebody outside of yourself, then ultimately it can. You can that probably you wind up wondering what the hell you're doing. And I don't. I don't even want to talk about, like, the language of believing in yourself, because I'm not sure what that means, but. But I do think that.

Man, Jenny, I. This is, like. This is super deep stuff. I don't. I don't know. I wish I could offer some words of advice. I always feel like a fraud. Like.

Ask me another question.

Well, I love everything you shared. You're not a fraud. It's true. I feel I can relate.

I don't want to give a lot of business advice because partly I feel that I've just. It's a combination of grace and lucky breaks. And, yes, I put work out, but so much of it is just the serendipity of the universe. And. And I think each of us have a unique path and a unique way of getting there. So it is very hard to just say, oh, Easy, Just do X, Y and Z. Otherwise all of these aspiring artists in New York would be doing that, and everyone has to find their own path. And what you described. There's a blogger. Do you know the blog? Wait, but why? By Tim Urban.

No, no.

So it's great. You love his writing and his thinking, moreover. But he talks about creating for a stadium. He picks one person and he multiplies them times 100,000. He pictures them in a stadium. Maybe it's like him and a friend. Anyway, hold on.

No, it's like. It's like clones. It's like a hundred thousand clones of the same person.

Exactly. So. So then he creates for this person, but he's imagining a stadium full of that one. Or I think, you know, you could do this with like, your top five favorite people that you're creating for, and they filled the entire stadium. So, okay, great. You have a hundred thousand people looking on, but they all have these personality characteristics. And that for him, that's. That's who he strives to create for, no one else. And I love that.

So on this subject of career and trying to make it, I want to circle back to something that we were talking about, because again, I think this is one of the big conundrums for aspiring artists or those who aspire to do it full time. And you say in the novel, yes, art was a business, and this was the way common sense dictated you should run a business. But treating art this way was likely to render your product less interesting and less valuable, as it might prove to be the case with Damien Hirst. And you were saying, by the way, just to give some context, that.

You say a little earlier, it wasn't something attained by applying yourself, bringing your A game, and putting your shoulder to the wheel. It wasn't crunching numbers or taking meetings or filling orders. Yes, art was a business, and this was the way common sense dictated you should run a business. But treating art this way was likely to render your product less interesting and less valuable, as might prove to be the case with Damien Hirst. Art was more like a hothouse flower that might grow, but might not. And no one could say why sudden intuitive steps and genius lateral moves might come about only and precisely because you were bored and restless, fiddling in the studio, aimlessly wandering, cruising the shows, scanning the magazines, perusing the blogs. And all of this diddling required sufficient time and space. And lastly, this was ironic because the goal of art had always been the abolition of time and space. Like religion, art was a pursuit of immateriality and the infinite. And the aim was transcendence.

It's such a beautiful juxtaposition that you've described. And we were talking about the mode you're in, kind of waiting for your next direction. And I think it must be challenging to juggle the career aspects, the business aspects, which are almost directly antithetical to total freedom, to just let your mind wander. And as you say in this passage, ideas don't necessarily come in a linear fashion. And so I would love to hear your thoughts on that passage. And also, do you ever feel worried? Like, when is the idea gonna land? Like, I've been wandering for too long. Do you get self conscious about that?

I. Not. Not so much anymore for some. I don't know. Like I was saying earlier that I'm in this chrysalis mode and I'm kind of floating. But luckily it's not like depressive floating, because I remember for some years I would finish a big project and then I would kind of get really melancholy and feel this, like, withdrawal. And I. I'm not. I mean, maybe it's just mood and something totally exterior to my artwork, but I'm not doing that so much anymore.

Dad calls that the bliss crash.

The bliss crash?

Yeah. There's like a bliss state. And you're so excited. You've been working on this thing for so long. And then there's almost always a bliss crash just coming down off of that journey.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I guess I'm trying to. Yeah. How do you navigate that? I don't know. I mean, that passage you read, it's like there's. That's. That's a case where there's, like, things that I think about in there and then there are things where. Like calling it, like, art as the pursuit of. Of transcendence in the infinite or something. It's so corny and like, I'm not even. Don't even know if I believe that. It was just kind of, like, wrote itself. And I felt like, well, that's like, good copy for, like, a new age retreat. But, you know, I just left it in there just to see if maybe it is true. I don't know.

One question you ask in the book is, what would the art of the future look like if one could know it courtesy of a time machine? Do you have thoughts on this? Of where you see art going either for yourself or.

Larger group?

Yeah, I think about this a lot. I mean, because sometimes you get hung up looking at the work of somebody who Maybe was born 80 years ago or more. And it's. You're looking at this artwork from 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, whenever. And I suddenly sometimes think, but, my God, the questions are all different now. Like, I mean, of course there's some. I mean, there's some people who would say that's not true. That's bullshit. The questions don't change. There's. Art is about eternal questions. But. But I don't actually. I mean, I understand that there are things that you could argue are less changing from generation to generation, but I do feel like everything's different. I mean, I already feel like as an artist who. My first show was, let's see, like 13 years ago, which doesn't feel like too long. On the other hand.

It was before, like, social media really got going. And the world, the mediated world that we're in, we, meaning you and I, live in New York City. We're in the West. We're in this kind of relatively rich part of the world that's completely dependent on these technologies. I mean, that all feels different. I feel like, God, I'm an artist who really started doing things in a previous era, so I can feel things shifting.

As far as art of the future, I'm sure it's going to be.

Somewhat. It would be confusing to see it confusing and nonsensical even.

But I mean, art is also just a lot of different conversations going on at the same time. So there's going to be different strata in the future. There'll be things that look like they could have been made 100 years ago. So when you say art of the future, maybe you mean art that's kind of in some way socially or technologically cutting edge.

So wonderful. Seth, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your thoughts, for your work. I really can't think thank you enough.

And please, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Jenny.

Thank you. And if you could give listeners one, I always like to give them one little assignment when they stop listening to this podcast. What would it be?

Make something bad. No question.

Oh, man, that's such a good one. Okay, that's it. We're all going to do it. Make something.

All right, great.

So thank you again. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for your time.

Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter at jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.