GMN Projects Presents- Performance at the DMV

If a central focus of Grown Man Naked Project is the concept of gift-giving, then equally important is the concept of using humor as a vehicle for bringing relief to everyday tensions, boredom, anxieties and irritations. The bureaucratic structures of modern and post-modern life create environments where individuality is systemically denied. Complex emotions are required to be held in check. Rules are applied with an arbitrary democracy that denied the unique situation of the individual. The line between "take a number" and "be a number" disappears. Caveney defines these environments, "venues of suppression." Caveney addresses this dehumanizing influence not with protest, but with humor.
He explains: "This Performance was at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and was about redefining the idea of "public art" and who it serves. I chose the device of humor to lighten-up the suppressed situation. In California the registration fee on autos had tripled so citizens really did not like spending their money or their Saturdays there. So I shared jokes ... handed out blow pops...did a funk action painting with James Brown tunes. My objective was to take some of the folks out of their context of being at the DMV or to perhaps put being at the DMV into more positive public position. I plan to seek out other venues of suppression for this piece."
Caveney refers in his statement to the broader mission of Grown Man Naked Project: examining the role of public art, and the "public" it serves. Through the project, Caveney explores the meanings, motivations and function of public art in post-modern society.
For a long time I spent my time in the studio making paintings, sculpting wood with a chain saw and print making. I used those practices to find a way of expressing my frustrations with the world and its contradictions. I was also trying to create a style that was uniquely mine. I wanted a style that could distinguish me from other artists, and make me famous, rich and free to leave that factory where I worked for ten years. After achieving that style, I started to pursue gallery representation. Several galleries were interested and I eventually was selling my work around Atlanta and Charlotte. I was receiving favorable reviews and actually one museum bought one of my pieces for its collection. This process of marketing was exciting, but after awhile it lacked any lasting quality. Galleries would come and go and before I knew it I was back to looking for representation. Finally, I realized that I wasn’t commutating social issues through painting or sculpting. I wasn’t making any change for my community because of the limitation of my audience. I wondered why so many fellow workers at the factory didn’t know what the heck I was doing in my art. All gallery openings for the most part catered to a certain group, certain class. I could see the evolution of my work but, where was the evolution of audience?I started to question why some people (fellow factory worker) were not aware of the art world and its glamour. I shifted the direction of my thinking about the role of audience and started collaborating with school children, fellow factory workers and the public in general. I worked in a factory for ten years and for the most part never really shared my studio practice until close to the end of working there. I eventually started showing my work to those at the factory who operated fork trucks and worked on assembly lines. I started inviting my fellow workers to openings. Collaborating with my friends at the factory allowed fresh ideas, new possibilities to come into the work. It allowed a new audience to witness my work, through their involvement.
"Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping
the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and condition our lives"
Joseph Beuys

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Tags: art, caveney, dmv, larry, performance, More…public
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