What I mean by do or die...mania is the sense for the artist that the work underway is far more important than he or she and more important than anything else. The work is demanding, compelling, and the psychic state is such that the art object becomes the active partner in its making and the artist just "takes orders" from it. Goofy, I know, but that's how I see it. I like a work that BANG, hits you before you begin looking at it seriously. A good piece of art is like a bandit, a mugger, who surprises you before you realize what's going on.
The notion of necessity that I know of comes from Kandinsky and I realize that he was affected by theosophy but we can forgive him that enthusiasm for an odd idea, popular at the turn of the 20C because, after all, whatever his muse, he made great art. I don't think art comes from theory. I think it's the other way around and in that case, theory does help to explain the context of art, if not art itself. As for the Elm Lesters gallery, I only glanced at the other artists there and felt that a few of them were pretty good: Jose Parla, Dalek-James Marshall, Futura, for instance. There are plenty of contemporary figurative artists that impress me but none of the artists in the Elm Lesters Gallery are among them, I don't think. You know, I'm not an abstract expressionist, even though it was the work that most affected me when I was an art student in the 1950s. I did do my share of AbEx work. Pop art also affected me, much more for its formal attributes than for its popular imagery subject matter and ironic content. So did minimalism and even conceptualist stuff. I do think modernism is a complex enough dragon to keep showing new fins or claws above the water. Because I've been an active, artworld-conscious artist for so long, almost every turn of art since the 50s has affected me, and for that matter, even work from the 30s and 40s. Given that most art is bad, and most of the bad stuff is terrible, and so very little is any good and almost none is really good, I'm always ready to be impressed by those rare examples of really good. None of that has much to do with how I work, or my still-developing idea. I mean I don't go running to the studio to try to copy something that just knocked me down with its aesthetic power. I have my life-long project, as it were, and it is contemporary, of today, and I hope it's not transient. But I look at everything. wc ________________________________ From: imago Asthetik <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:47:57 PM Subject: Re: Rand Chapter One: Psycho-epistemology of Art Mr Conger, Would you care to elaborate on the 'do-or-die-it's gotta-be-done mania'? Is this a version of Hvlderlin's claim that every artwork exhibits a necessity to be? Could you also say a little more please about the other artists showing at Elm Lesters Galleries. For the most part, I am less impressed with the preponderance of figurative works. And I was wondering what an Abstract Expressionist like yourself would have to say about this, as well as the return of pop art. Many thanks On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 9:27 PM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote: > I agree with Imago. However, the work is not authentic outsider work, in > my opinion, but does seem to exploit some of the traits common to outsider > art, such as the ephemeral materials. Leaving his work on the street for > anyone to take is not so uncommon anymore. It's one of the fairly well-worn > methods by which artists try to attract attention. > > For me, mosto f his stuff is ho-hum, not because of his methods, subject > matter, or even his late cubisto-Bacon manner, but because the works seem to > have no compelling energy. They are too complacent despite the tricky > designs. I mean where's the do-or-die-it's gotta-be-done mania? > > I think there are better artists in the gallery he shows at. > wc > > > > ________________________________ > From: imago Asthetik <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:52:54 PM > Subject: Re: Rand Chapter One: Psycho-epistemology of Art > > Mr Miller, > My point was not that Neates work ought to be considered great art > (actually > I find the palette and figuration to be derivative of Francis Bacon and not > as interesting), but simply that an artist to whom one would apply the > label > 'modern (if not contemporary) artist' is working within the well defined > codes of iconographic representation. Everything from the relief created by > the cardboard, to the pose of the figure, to the facial expression, would > find a home in the cottage industry of outsider art which is icon painting. > > I am by no means an expert, and perhaps someone here could say something > more intelligent than I am able to on this subject. > > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Chris Miller <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > >You may want to have a look at the work of Adam Neate > > http://www.elmslesters.co.uk/index.php?pid=13&subid=26 > > He has done some work that focuses on this. > > > > > > Thanks, I.A. > > > > > > Here's something like an icon from Alexander Dubovyk: > > > > > > > > > http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_u_KW4nuKg9k/SoqheIarsvI/AAAAAAAAKsA/bKFMayqZf9U/s16 > > 00-h/alexander.jpg > > > > If he had thrown a few saintly figures into that "Golgotha", it would > > belong > > in a church. > > > > > > But the Neate pieces, even the figures with halos, would be much better > > located in a bar somewhere between a college campus and a maximum > security > > prison. > > > > The two artists express a very different "sense of life" as Ayn Rand > would > > say. > > > > > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________ > > Just drop it. 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