The Inconsistent Abstraction, again.
Life is too complicated, politics too problematic and corrupted, morality doesn't have an objective base, scientific systems are ephemeral and perishable, so called truths had proven to be wrong. Any theory, system of thought or rational construction is always flawed because times makes everything obsolete. Things change and the mind cannot catch up with them.
The old centuries opposition between eternal truths, everything stays always the same; and the reasoning that we can never bathe twice in the same river needs to be solved aesthetically.
I'm looking for something eternal, beyond human and universal limitations. I have no choice but to pursue an eternal truth in aesthetics and through aesthetic mediums. I'm tired and fed up with everything and I should go ahead and enter the realm of beauty and reductionist aesthetics.
I know myself enough to know that I cannot keep being consistent like a modern times factory assembly worker, repeating the same part time after time until the day I die or retire, that my thoughts and my actions change day after day. Psychiatry would find the right place where to put my soul, but I don't believe in psychiatry and on the categories of mental illnesses. What is considered mental illness in some cultures are considered a blessing and an advantage in others (more on this subject please read http://renemarin.blogspot.com/2011/02/shaman.html
What matters to me is that I stay focused on aesthetic problems and forgo other distractions such as politics, or the news, or what is going on in the world. I must concentrate in aesthetic things only. I hope I can achieve that goal. I know I'm inconsistent. Consistency is a category that belongs into the production paradigm and that is still practiced in aesthetics for commercial purposes (the always the same, instantly recognizable Botero is one example). Nevertheless, in order to achieve good aesthetic results you have to follow the process from beginning to end, thus you have to be consistent.
The most radical gesture for me now is either to practice a kind of radical formal abstraction or to execute a figuration where the elements of the painting will cancel each other out producing no meaning at all; thus becoming an abstract painting in the overall, conceptual sense.
Perhaps the moral duty of a visual artist today (if artists are allowed to have moral duties) is to give joy to the world. This world is in so much need of joy. We have forgotten the capacity for happiness, freedom and beauty and perhaps we need to show that those things are still possible. We can show that they are still possible, at least in an aesthetic way and employing aesthetic means.
But beauty seems to be such a dull moral statement on the purpose of art in the world of today. And what about the disastrous consequences that a pursuing of beauty has had on political systems and individual practices, such as social engineering, fascism and communism, fashion and anorexia.
If the purpose of a formal arrangements of elements was to produce beauty then we would have to create configurations of an orderly, well balanced, contemplative, peaceful kind. But those formal configurations would not be representative of the world of today and the social relations of alienation, dismemberment, fragmentation and disconnection among the parts of the individual and the social bodies; in itself and among themselves.
In order to represent this social configurations we have to strive to achieve its equivalent in formal terms. And that is not going to be beautiful. Unless we take the eagle point of view that everything in the world is perfect and beautiful despite illness, war, decay, destruction and death.
To see things as beautiful will be to accept everything, even genocide, as part of the beauty of the world. Then you would have to become an Andrew Breivik of some sort in aesthetic terms. A mass murderer of art and aesthetics. How would you do that without being a Dadaist? Perhaps the opposite way, by being anti-Dada?
There are not shortcomings to your destiny and sooner or later you will have to face the truth. Better face it sooner than later because life is short.
I also don't want to make an Abstraction that looks like is a Masturbation.
Note: I wrote before about the need to do abstract painting in
posted by Renelio @ 9/13/2012 06:25:00 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
What you write I am mostly in agreement with. After working figuratively for quite some time-though not as long as you have, I keep coming back to something that is much more abstracted, much more permeable to the senses though perhaps-more room for contemplation though not maybe not fitting into contemporary art as I am witnessing it today. What do we do?
Valentina
ps can I visit you at your studio? valentinaloseva@gmail.com
Valentina: Of course I will love to have you visit my studio. Regarding your question "what do we do" that is a complicated one and I relate its answer to two different categories. The first one: doing versus reflection. If you only do, all sorts of things will come out, some good, some bad, but at least you are doing. If you chose apply the "doing" method then you would have to develop what Ernest Hemingway called "a shit detector" and put it to use to eliminate all the shit that you produce and keep only the good stuff. On the other hand, reflection can lead to great results but can also lead to stagnation, depression and the sense that is better not to do anything at all since everything in painting had been tried and done before. But reflection is still a necessary tool in order to make your work evolve and develop overtime. The second paradigm I'm talking about has to do only with doing: Would I work in many directions or would I work in only one direction? If you work in many directions then your work can appear to be fragmented, incomplete and even incoherent, but this is not because of the multi=directional work in itself but because life is too short and you cannot exhaust all the possibilities that open up in front of you from trying different paths at the same time. If you decide to work in only one direction then your work would fit in the modern categories of consistency, predictability, mechanization, serialization, repetition, uniformity and control. You have to discover what paradigm you fit in according to who you are. That's why the only possible answer to your question "what do we do" is: stay true to yourself no matter what and there are no shortcomings. I regret that is not an answer that can solve anything; but your question is also of the same kind. I suppose we have to be ourselves first if we want to do something relevant and everlasting.
I think the question "what do we do" acquires more relevance when applied not to art in itself but to the peripheral practices that surround the work of art, such as branding, marketing, promoting, publicizing. People are less interested in art than in the phenomenon that makes art a social practice: the blockbuster show; the prestigious gallery; the model collection, the proper art magazine, biennial, art fair and auction house. It is the social-economic phenomenon what really matters today, not the work of art. Art in itself is the preserve of a few sensitive minds around the world with or without the power to acquire it but always with the necessity of living with it.
The first time i read this article , was interesting , but it has been adulterated by now . Is based on personal matter at the minute .
The same as that studio , thought it was a nice , clean place, where art is sold, but it seems to me that is more a sort of a meeting place . Valentina with that Russian name , sometimes Cecile . Be careful Aids thats no have face.
Some people can make a living writting , the level of technical english is almost perfect, but they seem to fail in interprEtation , i fully understand that translation and interpretation are more complicated since they are related with personal knowlegde and also gender .
The question;"What do we do" is refers to togetherness, bringing and inviting the second party to be involve in the emotional situation.
The question thats not mean.
1- Help me to make a decision , OHH ,let me your brains .
2 -Do u love me ?, well if u do , i will too.
Sorry none of that
This story didnt start like this . hunny
Access was totally dinied at first, the situation, was in total state of confusion and turbulence, clearly showing failure.
Hello , i dont need any encouragement of anyone to take decisions or to act .
I know some people think ,why if someone is going to do something ,has to wait for tomorrow if is going to be done .
Have i ask anyboby to think about me or have me in any part of the brain.?
I pressume ,that the Masturbation mention above means unimaginable needs to be taken to the imaginable .You always mention sex , the last thing im worried about here is that .
We have serious actitud problemas ,which need to be break down ,is not even about self- streem or courage or none of those stupit concepts we have learn up here . Im a women regarless of HOW strong i may be , i win when im humble anD submissive .
YOU really like winding me up
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