Help! I Hate My...Ennui

Every week, The Art Journal’s resident art world Agony Aunt Charlotte Jansen answers your questions about access, gatekeeping and sticky social problems.

Have a burning question for her? Get in touch anonymously here.

I’ve been an active part of the artworld for quite some time, but lately I’ve reached an impasse, and I can’t seem to move on from it. I’ve started to wonder whether I’m suffering from burnout. I used to enjoy everything about art and all that comes with it: dinners, openings, talks. Now I’m tired and unenthused by most of what I see; panels and discussions seem to circumvent real talk, and everything feels repetitive and heavy-going. I still love art – I think. I just feel exhausted by everything around it. I feel guilty when I take time off – which is also not financially viable – but how do I get my mojo back?

I think your exhaustion is telling you something important. After years of being an active, social, and curious participant in this strange contemporary art world, you’ve reached a point of being overstimulated and overwhelmed. You’ve surfeited with the fine dining and free booze, and you’ve had enough of it all – not necessarily the art, but all the endless, relentless circus of stuff around it.

There’s certainly a particular kind of fatigue that results from working in an industry that constantly demands attention and presence. The next show, fair, artist, panel talk, conversation – everything is happening at a breakneck pace. For a little while, it all used to wind down over the summer. But that doesn’t feel like the case anymore either; emails keep creeping in about events taking place in October. It’s hard to catch a break. Even leisure time feels like an obligation to develop professionally. I think that’s partly the fault of social media, which makes everyone’s free time feel like it needs to be productive and subsequently posted about.

The best thing you could do is take some time completely away – even for a week or two – but as you say, that isn’t financially viable for you. I’m not even sure how realistic it is, as, no matter where you go in the world, there’s always Wi-Fi, and you’ll inevitably get sucked back in. But it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as taking a full sabbatical or going off-grid, moving to the countryside and becoming a potter. Taking a little distance in a smaller way might help the situation. Pull back your energy – as the kids say.

You don’t have to go to everything; that’s important. If you’re exhausted and fed up, you’ll be exhausted and fed up wherever you go. You can say no to things. It’s unlikely an opening on a Tuesday night at a commercial gallery is going to galvanise your mojo. Skip some dinners, ignore a few emails. Give yourself permission to decline invitations without an excuse or reason – is that discussion about the ‘ecology of practice’ really going to blow your mind anyway? When you’ve been knocking around long enough, things do start to feel stale and repetitive – I think most discussions in art turn out to be about the exact same things, depending on what the order of the day is.

There’s another crucial thing you can do. Separate your love of art from your love of the art world. They’re not the same thing. You say to yourself that you still love art, or you think you do. The circulation of familiar tropes and themes, the institutional language it’s all wrapped up in, the artist plucked from apparent obscurity, the panels – it can all get glib and boring. So don’t engage with it. Encounter things by accident and according to your interest. Perhaps your relationship with art needs to be private, personal and unaccounted for, at least for a while.

I love to go and explore things on my own as much as I can, with my headphones on loud. Go to see exhibitions without having a meeting afterwards, read a book without trying to glean something, just let it wash over you. Just wander into spaces that aren’t recommended or haven’t been talked about and written about. Revisit something you used to love. Seek things out without any obvious ‘value’. I think it’s a lot to ask of art to give you something – it’s about what you bring to it. It’s your curiosity you need to get back. What are you curious about?

There’s also a possibility you genuinely need rest. I hesitate to advise about how to get that. As my GP once said to me: ‘I would suggest rest, but you have three young children.’ Burnout is much more than a bad week or feeling a bit tired. It’s prolonged and chronic, your inner reserves having been stretched too far for too long. Mood, sleep, relationships and day-to-day functioning are all persistently affected by it. It might be worth seeking professional help on that front, rather than viewing it as simply a career problem to solve alone.

A final thought, friend: maybe you’ve also outgrown some part of this art world you participate in, and it’s time to move on? I don’t mean leave it entirely, but shift your position within it. You might no longer be the person you’ve been – maybe you want to make something, not discuss it, or you want to teach, collect, organise rather than look. You’re allowed to change; you’re allowed to evolve.