FLUXLIST: [professionalism formal]
[professionalism formal] solvable mass noun gift-wrap floppy disk outlast rosewood reactor pacemaker pastel utterly rung k irritatingly stolid soulfulness brine puppet federally two-timer leavings unverified skimpy jewelry dialectic leniently cerebra overhung volubility tunic behead marvel inelegant fluster fateful cascade grayish brewer perfunctory difference inductive idyll heal strapless obtainable trajectory tourism surly random gone admixture horoscope dressage crayfish role tempting prowess banister westerner tractor enlistment frail toiletry restrain biopsy bush crockery
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
"You know you're an art student when..." you turn up for college after a particularly heavy party only to discover the college was closed three years ago
FLUXLIST: Professionalism
AK Professionalism is an anathema. Wearing the trappings of an artist is an anathema. Fluxus Art Amusement is 100% amusement exactly half of the time. The most interesting history of Fluxus is the history which starts with Maciunas and Flynt and ends with mail art, which is an avocation. The most unfortunate part of participating in Fluxlist is that professional artists are allowed to participate also. Words of wisdom today? This list is rife with professionals and art students. I am nearly ready to quit. RA
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
My, my, my, my, my, my, oh my, but I quite agree. I am an x-art student and can say with some authority, art students are useless (with some exceptions-Devon). I was a lousy student (mostly due to my excessive alcohol and chemical intake that made actually attending classes quite a bother). My production at that time, however, was good (mostly due to excessive alcohol and chemical intake). I was a semi-professional fool for a few years. That's as close to a professional anything I've ever been and that, more than anything else, gave me training that I could actually use in my "art". I still can't juggle for shit, though I can bore you stupid with tales of ritual clowning from several foreign lands and lines of historical interest pertaining to the role of clowns through the march of time. Sleepy yet? Don't quit this list RA. Create chaos from within. It's fun and easy to do. Break the ice at parties, fool your friends, amuse your dog God, I'm so bored. Kiss-Kiss, Badgergirl -- From: Reed Altemus [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FLUXLIST [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FLUXLIST: Professionalism Date: Wed, Aug 23, 2000, 2:10 AM AK Professionalism is an anathema. Wearing the trappings of an artist is an anathema. Fluxus Art Amusement is 100% amusement exactly half of the time. The most interesting history of Fluxus is the history which starts with Maciunas and Flynt and ends with mail art, which is an avocation. The most unfortunate part of participating in Fluxlist is that professional artists are allowed to participate also. Words of wisdom today? This list is rife with professionals and art students. I am nearly ready to quit. RA
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
Badgergirl Yes, I guess I flamed a bit there. I probably won't leave the list since I've been on it for three years and to hear validating input from you was just OK. The combination of Ken leaving the list due to harrassment from Eric Anderson and his coterie and the various academic/professional viewpoints being put forward was too much. I have been thinking so much in those very terms lately, how we close off our minds to the simplest pleasures which, while they might be considered audacious or outrageous are really very healthy. The art school, "good" doobie, mentality where you work hard for a censorious system and make painful sacrifices and call it spiritual is just stupidity. Just imagine what a radical gesture it would be to throw that all away and live a 24 7 life festival. Robert Filliou's ideas changed my life... Just blah, blah, blahing away... RA Don't quit this list RA. Create chaos from within. It's fun and easy to do. Break the ice at parties, fool your friends, amuse your dog God, I'm so bored. Kiss-Kiss, Badgergirl -- From: Reed Altemus [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FLUXLIST [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FLUXLIST: Professionalism Date: Wed, Aug 23, 2000, 2:10 AM AK Professionalism is an anathema. Wearing the trappings of an artist is an anathema. Fluxus Art Amusement is 100% amusement exactly half of the time. The most interesting history of Fluxus is the history which starts with Maciunas and Flynt and ends with mail art, which is an avocation. The most unfortunate part of participating in Fluxlist is that professional artists are allowed to participate also. Words of wisdom today? This list is rife with professionals and art students. I am nearly ready to quit. RA
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
Art students have some hope, they're just misdirected idealists. They'll succeed when they quit being art students and just realize they were never better artists than they were when they were five and did the stuff that seemed to make sense in a weird way. Like my first fluxus artifact, age 13, a black frame with a gray corkboard behind glass, framing the word "rainbow" written in black and white. I think some kids come out of grad school for art theory and forget what art is; remembering the mumbo jumbo and continuation of certain schools and practices and the "gradual synthesis of progressive art and traditional forms." Success for an art student is determined by how early you transfer to a liberal arts college. There sure are a lot of art student amorphisms. Anyone else? "You know you're an art student when..." -e. Reed Altemus wrote: AK Professionalism is an anathema. Wearing the trappings of an artist is an anathema. Fluxus Art Amusement is 100% amusement exactly half of the time. The most interesting history of Fluxus is the history which starts with Maciunas and Flynt and ends with mail art, which is an avocation. The most unfortunate part of participating in Fluxlist is that professional artists are allowed to participate also. Words of wisdom today? This list is rife with professionals and art students. I am nearly ready to quit. RA
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
Eryk I recently recounted the first occurance of a mail art nature in my life. I was in fifth grade at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. My teacher's name was Mrs. Lively. One day after a party I launched a helium balloon from the window of a second story room with a note asking whoever found it to return the balloon to sender and gave my address at school. Three weeks later a letter with my beat up index card note enclosed arrived. A farmer from West Virginia had watched the balloon drift down into his cow pasture. Everyone marvelled that my plan had actually worked and I had made contact with someone in a far away place. Sort of a message in a bottle type approach. Sometimes mail art is like that too. RA Eryk Salvaggio wrote: Art students have some hope, they're just misdirected idealists. They'll succeed when they quit being art students and just realize they were never better artists than they were when they were five and did the stuff that seemed to make sense in a weird way. Like my first fluxus artifact, age 13, a black frame with a gray corkboard behind glass, framing the word "rainbow" written in black and white. I think some kids come out of grad school for art theory and forget what art is; remembering the mumbo jumbo and continuation of certain schools and practices and the "gradual synthesis of progressive art and traditional forms." Success for an art student is determined by how early you transfer to a liberal arts college. There sure are a lot of art student amorphisms. Anyone else? "You know you're an art student when..." -e. Reed Altemus wrote: AK Professionalism is an anathema. Wearing the trappings of an artist is an anathema. Fluxus Art Amusement is 100% amusement exactly half of the time. The most interesting history of Fluxus is the history which starts with Maciunas and Flynt and ends with mail art, which is an avocation. The most unfortunate part of participating in Fluxlist is that professional artists are allowed to participate also. Words of wisdom today? This list is rife with professionals and art students. I am nearly ready to quit. RA
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
Reed (and anyone else) Was that flaming? Nah, I don't think so. It was justifiable venting. Very healthy really, good way to avoid ulcers and other nasty aesthetic blocks. You're right though, people (Americans in particular)are taught very early on that pleasure is "bad" and that self indulgence is always a sign of weakness. All the flux artists I know of (particularly those most active in the 50s and 60s) seemed to understand this or faked it remarkably well. I believe that pleasure is at the heart of most good art (well, pleasure and vaudeville to be painstakingly accurate). I believe in total hedonism as a valid "lifesytle" (insofar as I believe in "lifestyles"). Crowley had it right you know, "Do What Thou Will Shall be the Whole of the Law." Good old Uncle Al...one of the last men to know the value of a good sideshow. Indeed, blah, blah, blah, woof, woof, woof. Clearly too much time on my hands today. Exactly under the sun Badgergirl (it was Beuys who changed my life. i get the feeling that people don't realize how funny he was.) --
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
meryl wrote: You're right though, people (Americans in particular)are taught very early on that pleasure is "bad" and that self indulgence is always a sign of weakness. All the flux artists I know of (particularly those most active in the 50s and 60s) seemed to understand this or faked it remarkably well. I There were definitely some drinkers in the crowd- Emmett Williams with his "In Vino Veritas" and Dick Higgins with a borderline alcohol problem. believe that pleasure is at the heart of most good art (well, pleasure and vaudeville to be painstakingly accurate). I believe in total hedonism as a valid "lifesytle" (insofar as I believe in "lifestyles"). Crowley had it right you know, "Do What Thou Will Shall be the Whole of the Law." Good old Uncle Al...one of the last men to know the value of a good sideshow. I used to practice total hedonism. I smoked, I ate meat, watched porno etc.It did bore me after a while though. Now I'm a bit older and I realize that there's was something missing i.e. taking care of my health! So I quit smoking which definitely would have killed me eventually considering how much I smoked. And went vegan for a diet and started excercising. I guess you reach a certain point where you say "Whoa!" I still hate excercising though. One Fluxus proposal by the mail artist Mark Bloch was to walk on a jogging paths and offer the joggers cigarettes. I thot that was very funny. There's always Max Stirner "The Ego and His Own" too. Indeed, blah, blah, blah, woof, woof, woof. Clearly too much time on my hands today. Exactly under the sun Badgergirl (it was Beuys who changed my life. i get the feeling that people don't realize how funny he was.) YEEE! Beuys definitely. I just purchased a set of his postcards and they're really terrific. I did a mock version of his Fluxus Zone West rubber stamp not too long ago. -- RA
Re: FLUXLIST: Professionalism
Actually I think Americans think of hedonism as a sign of strength: look at Our Leader, good ol' Bill-- Do What Thou Wilt--sounds great in theory, but in practise can prove to put it at its most absolutely milquetoast mildest--"a bummer, man" Back in the good old days of addiction and smoking, drinking--lived in apartment with 11 others--mental patients including bi-polar, post traumatic stress syndrome veteran, several heroin addicts, a pot dealer, a couple of alcoholics-- Now deprive a few of these boys--or they do so sometimes themselves as they miss being in their manic phases--of their meds and see just what the seeds of wisdom of Old Uncle Al will sow!--and when the money and food stamps are gone, and all that's worth a plug nickel sold off--just see how those junkies and drunks act!-- not to mention, a number of these characters were armed-- you can imagine the friends who used to come over, all "doing what thou wilt" to their hearts content it was a regular old daily parade and frolic of downright hedonism, heathenism and heroinism-- one of the most traumatic events for this merry crew was the morning we all sat down together to watch a dumpster dive spray painted TV--and beheld the Challenger explosion-- all I could think of was 17 years earlier wtaching the moon walk on a bank of battered tvs in a falling apartment in a collapsing building in Paris that Rimbaud had briefly lived in--with a small frenchanarchist cell busy making their own embryo explosions--artfully made plastiques it finally began to dawn on me i ought to start to give up all this hedonism and go in for the discipline of art onwo/ards! dbc On Wed, 23 Aug 2000, Reed Altemus wrote: meryl wrote: You're right though, people (Americans in particular)are taught very early on that pleasure is "bad" and that self indulgence is always a sign of weakness. All the flux artists I know of (particularly those most active in the 50s and 60s) seemed to understand this or faked it remarkably well. I There were definitely some drinkers in the crowd- Emmett Williams with his "In Vino Veritas" and Dick Higgins with a borderline alcohol problem. believe that pleasure is at the heart of most good art (well, pleasure and vaudeville to be painstakingly accurate). I believe in total hedonism as a valid "lifesytle" (insofar as I believe in "lifestyles"). Crowley had it right you know, "Do What Thou Will Shall be the Whole of the Law." Good old Uncle Al...one of the last men to know the value of a good sideshow. I used to practice total hedonism. I smoked, I ate meat, watched porno etc.It did bore me after a while though. Now I'm a bit older and I realize that there's was something missing i.e. taking care of my health! So I quit smoking which definitely would have killed me eventually considering how much I smoked. And went vegan for a diet and started excercising. I guess you reach a certain point where you say "Whoa!" I still hate excercising though. One Fluxus proposal by the mail artist Mark Bloch was to walk on a jogging paths and offer the joggers cigarettes. I thot that was very funny. There's always Max Stirner "The Ego and His Own" too. Indeed, blah, blah, blah, woof, woof, woof. Clearly too much time on my hands today. Exactly under the sun Badgergirl (it was Beuys who changed my life. i get the feeling that people don't realize how funny he was.) YEEE! Beuys definitely. I just purchased a set of his postcards and they're really terrific. I did a mock version of his Fluxus Zone West rubber stamp not too long ago. -- RA
