July 2021 | By Don Gialanella
Starving for Attention
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This type of isolation has nothing to do with the pandemic. Artists are isolated from their audience.
Visual art has a broken feedback loop. Entertainers, singers, musicians, actors receive immediate reactions from their audience. They get to hear and see how their performance is resonating with the public.
![](https://creativepinellas.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/JJC_3280-1-300x200.jpg)
Visual artists very seldom hear the reactions of the viewers of their work. Sure, people tell you your work is great at an opening, it’s mostly meretricious small-talk. But for the remainder of an artwork’s life on display in a home or institution, nary a word is heard by the creator. Sometimes I feel like I’m working in an alternate reality marooned on another planet.
I had the idea to put a remote camera in my sculptures, like a trail-cam, to record the unfiltered reactions of viewers. The comments would then be edited together into a mini-documentary. This is still on my “to do” list.
Artist’s are working in a critique vacuum. Critical feedback is virtually impossible to get once you leave the hallowed halls of academia.
![](https://creativepinellas.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/synesthesia-in-situ-2-300x235.jpg)
Boynton Beach
I always wanted to hold an art salon in the tradition of Louise Bourgeois’ Sunday salons of yore. So, I organized a “salon” a few years ago at the Center for Architecture and Design in Tampa for the express purpose of encouraging artists to comment on one another’s work. It was a great success and it would have been fun to make it a regular event, but it never gathered the impetus to continue.
Getting meaningful feedback in general is difficult. Comments from friends on social media are generally positive and terse – great, amazing, you’re so talented! Other than that, what are people saying about your work? Is anyone even seeing it? Who is reading this, for example?
I’d like to conduct a little test about audience response. Please let me know you read this blog by sending “Read it” to livesteel@gmail.com. I’ll report back about how many people responded.
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You can explore Don Gialanella’s work at donsculpture.com