A collector has photographed my palettes (plaster picnic plates) and even made a little catalog showing a few dozen of his photos. He insists that my mark-making on the palettes, where I swirl together paint mixtures, echoes the marks and even compositions of my paintings. I think there is an evident kinship but I think it's a result of his cropping the photos to fit the look of the paintings. Anyway, his photos are nice. Normally, I throw out my palettes every few days but now, after they've been fetish-ized by the collector, I do it with renewed vigor! Artists must be like callous dictators in their ruthless destruction of any romantic affections for their craft. Since my palettes are round plates, they are like so many bloodied heads tossed into the bucket --decapitated, sacrificial, necessary. We must never forget that art is monstrous, however seductive it may appear. It's that most fundamental of paradoxes: dread in the presence of solace. wc
________________________________ From: Saul Ostrow <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; William Conger <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 1:47:36 AM Subject: Re: Marks Every work of art partakes of multiple recursive an generative discourses - what the aesthetic object/ material artifact is, is different than what it might be about and this differs from the texts that are genrated in the process of trying to comprehend both the is and the about and the relationship between the two On 6/29/09 1:54 AM, "William Conger" <[email protected]> wrote: I don't think the artists would need to be unworthy since there are social and cultural reasons why an artist is worthy that may over-ride the marks. The marks themselves don't have much if anything to do with art quality. I do think one can id the marks of a given school of art, like impressionism or AE or the 21C favoring of thinner and more graphic marks. I don't think we can really compare word marks with paint marks anyway.. wc ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 11:27:32 PM Subject: Re: Marks In a message dated 6/29/09 12:11:11 AM, [email protected] writes: > I actually did recognize a few of Miller's mark details but that's > because I'm > familiar with the same museum he went to. Monet, Harnett, Cezanne, a lot > of > 20 mid century, a few 21C, and 19C, plus 17C marks. > But isn't it true that you could recognize scores of unworthy "artists" who were obviously of their century because they adopted various characteristics of their age? I have believed that if you could show me a play (with the playwright's name blacked out) I could place it within a twenty-year "period". ************** It's raining cats and dogs -- Come to PawNation, a place where pets rule! (http://www.pawnation.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000008) --
