A view into Gordon Massman’s “primal” creative universe
Massman studied literature and creative writing at the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He taught writing and literature at The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, MA, and is the published author of five poetry volumes, having composed thousands of poems over a span of forty-five years. Massman has exhibited in the United States, and his work is in the collection of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
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Our editorial point of view stems from the uncomfort of waking up to a digital culture where art and creativity have been reduced to economic utilities that, to quote Sam Altman, people can “buy on a meter”. Everything is valid – as long as it can go viral or generate revenue. The difference between slop and art, by this measure, is none. There is no truth, no beauty, no craft. The same existential and postmodern values that enabled a relativist appreciation of all art forms have turned against us, surrendering aesthetic value to the algorithm’s decree, where virality is the only true measure of worth. It is this reality to which we take a stance against, a stance shared by artist and writer Gordon Massman. Via a series of email threads, Massman, an experienced poet and self-taught artist, expands upon his practice and experiences as both a writer and an artist while explaining his views on AI. He describes AI as a means to “cheapen and simplify human emotion, stripping out its soul for the sake of clinical ‘perfection’.”
It is precisely an obsession with simulated ‘perfection’ that pollutes the creative process when using generative tools. Aesthetics, art, and visual culture is, to generative tool enthusiasts, nothing more than a problem they can optimize a solution for, a ‘perfect’ method to control time and resources. In optimizing The Image towards ‘perfection’, its meaning becomes dull. Profound, lasting art is about a total surrender of control, as the artist puts it, “one does not become a profound artist by choice. Profound art chooses its human.”
Massman’s work focuses on the primal feeling of lived experience. In Massman’s universe, impractically large canvases depict emotions such as fear of worthlessness, meaninglessness and death, as well as distressed subjects. We start this interview by diving into the artist’s experiences and the source of his creativity. In describing how writing is related to his practice, Massman quotes the first century roman satirical poet Juvenal: “When talent fails, rage writes poetry.”
Writing is not the main source of influence to his practice – it is rather deep emotional distress that fuels his creative universe: “Poetry did not influence [my interest in] painting. Torment, that upward thrust, orchestrated both. Think of Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Kahlo. Think of Plath, Berryman, Rothko. The disruption within flung the fire of both poetry and art through my fingertips. Injustice, hurt, hypersensitivity, anger, these are the sorceresses of my creativity. That combined with the mandate to survive. Stated more plainly, my formative psychological mud powers and my creativity without one form influencing another.”
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