HI Mike; Thanks for your comment. Kuspit is deeply involved with a psychoanalytic approach to art. He is trained in psychoanalysis as well as being an art historian and critic. I don't disagree with his comments. My work does rely on 'subconscious' impulse and probably does express subconscious feelings or emotions even when I don't realize that or know what those feelings and emotions might be. By surreal I think he means just that, the deep subconscious "reality" that is exemplified by the paintings -- or the shapes and colors I use. Of course those subconscious expressions are formally arranged and presented, carefully made or composed (even when I don't really know what they actually express). Yet I must have some unrecognized compulsion to formally arrange the compositions or I probably wouldn't be strongly moved to do one thing instead of another. This may mean that I really don't know what paintings are about or what they express. I don't think it matters that I know what they are expressing in terms of their subconscious impulse. What matters is how -- and if -- they resonate with viewers and even their unrecognized subconscious feelings or emotions. We all make up explanations for artworks but these explanations or narratives may camouflage -- or keep alive -- the ways artworks stir our deepest feelings and memories.
I'm aware of the current artworld disfavor of anything surreal and subconscious, especially of any interpretations that rely on the psychoanalytical outlook. I don't think that disfavor is valid although I do agree that too much mediocre art has shrouded itself in cliched surrealist forms. I do think that art is largely defined by social contexts, including artworld discourses, but those contexts can't fully account for the fact that some artworks move us deeply and others don't regardless of social approbation or importance. Kuspit is known as a iconoclast in today's art critical realm. He champions the personal, the intuitive and expressive, much in the tradition of Kandinsky and the transcendentalist notions of early modernism. This runs against the grain of much contemporary art theory which eschews the personal in favor of the more calculated social period style or life of the time. Kuspit denounces much contemporary art. I think Kuspit wants to put me, my work, in his corner, and that is praise, but in doing that he pits me against the dominating concepts surrounding the most recognized art today. I can't disagree with his general view and I realize that my work is somewhat marginalized as a result, so far. Let me know if I'm not being clear. I am not so sure I am. Why do you think I might not agree with Kuspit? wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Mike Mallory <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, February 23, 2012 4:23:05 PM Subject: Re: exhibition Congratulations on the show. These paintings seem be more curvilinier and more graceful than I recall of you work the last time I looked. I am curious about, "WILLIAM CONGER's abstractions are doubly original: formally innovative, by way of their complicated dynamics, and thus important from a modernist point of view; and psychoaesthetically innovative, for their abstract forms express the unconscious more directly than Chicago fantastic imagery, suggesting that Conger's abstractions are more purely surrealistic...and their formal brilliance makes them aesthetically persuasive...by fusing fantastic imagery and pure formalism he has found the means of being true to himself and of restoring unity of purpose to abstraction, thus rescuing it from decadence." The claims that your work is a more direct expression of the unconscious and is more purley surrealistic seem problematic. But I don't know that you even agree with Kuspit, let alone approved the text. Mike Mallory ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Conger" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 8:08 AM Subject: exhibition > I'm pleased to announce an exhibition of my new paintings: > see www.royboydgallery.com > > wc
