art & communication

as an example of modern art issues in relation to communication, i give what i came across just now: the experimental art foundation.

The Experimental Art Foundation was established in 1974 as an initiative by Adelaide artists and theorists to encourage new approaches to the visual arts, promoting the idea of art as 'radical and only incidentally aesthetic'.

The EAF's current MISSION STATEMENT is:

To assist, promote and develop, through production, exhibition, distribution and the encouragement of debate, art and art practices that are analytical, critical and experimental, which challenge established thinking and expand cultural languages and discussion.

The EAF's current OBJECTIVES are

To actively assist, develop and promote new and investigative art practices; To promote discussion, understanding and appreciation of contemporary arts issues and to provide a forum for critical debate; To encourage and support the production and the exchange of ideas by South Australian, Australian and International artists through production, exhibition and dissemination; To respond to artists and arts community initiatives; To develop new and informed audiences through advocacy, education and information strategies; To support emerging artists; To foster strategic partnerships; To maintain a high profile city location; To practise access and equity principles; To maintain sound financial and organisational management

behold above one of the reasons that i consider myself to be a very old-fashioned artist. i don't think of art as radical and only incidentally aesthetic, i don't see art's primacy/duty/charge to lie in societal communication of `new' ideas. new newer newest: the world of advertising and fashion is encroaching on the world of art, if one can even tell a fundamental difference at all.

to me a lot of modern visual art becomes entertainment / performance / advertisement / fashion. however, who am i to say that this is an unwanted development? i can only state how art `works' for me: strongly when quiet. when universal themes (humanity, nature, (non)beauty, patterns, life, death) are explored in a profound way, which can be as varied as light itself.

still, i think the experimental art foundation is a good thing. and probably a lot of things coming about from its endeavors i will consider quite interesting and worthwile. it's just not really my way of communicating, like i said i feel more traditionalist by simply painting, drawing, sculpture.

shelter from the storm, 2008

suddenly i turned around and she was standing there / with silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair/ she walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns/ come in she said i'll give you...shelter from the storm from bob dylan: shelter from the storm

searching for visual depth

in my humble opinion:

looking for visual depth, developing layers of visual communication, is a different endeavour than creating fashion. although i'm sure fashion designers would disagree. to me the contemporary world of fashion exemplifies everything which i find so difficult to palate in the art world (and beyond).

fashion. as well as money-intensive extensive advertising. it seems we care about little else. in dutch they say: if only your hair looks good. (then all is well, is implied). keeping up and creating superficial appearances, preferably based on age-old clichés especially about gender, sex, age, influence, affluence, happiness.

women fall for the bmw swat, 2005

what then could art be? so often i see art which is little more than the above sentence. and this art is then proclaimed by art gurus to be profound. well, i apologise for sounding like a character out of the emperor's new clothes, but most often i don't see it!

for me art should not divulge everything immediately. let it simmer on the boilerplate of your sub- or unconsciousness. let it change the way you see, feel. not by some vague philosophical `concept' but by the visual imagery itself. these things take time.

hm. there i go sounding all grumpy again...sorry folks. but then again: how often do you hear someone complain about the superficiality of fashion, art, advertisements,...? not to mention the societal costs involved.

advertisements especially: it is comparable to the tropical rainforest. since everybody is advertising, everybody must advertise more and more, else one does not catch any sunlight. this means that we as a society are spending (energy, effort, creativity,...) increasingly on advertising, instead of on better ideas/products/care/cooperation.

and this same blablabla phenomenon pollutes the art world, i think. artists & art must be pimped up more and more and more, to justify the fashion-like overattention and overpayment.

it seems we all need fairy tales to give our life meaning. for this no price is too high. please do not rupture our soap bubbles of self- or other importance, be it in the context of religion, way of life, music, art, whatever. if you do so, then we will close ranks on you, decry you, ignore you, whatever is most effective.

not to say that i would truly know better. but i feel the balance is missing. fine, repeat all the old clichés with a modern icing. they are not clichés for nothing, and some icings can be interesting. but why not also give generous room to non-clichés? or why not bark ferociously at many of these clichés which are not helping us any further since primitive mankind became, well, non-primitive enough to in principle look further than first instincts.

is art meant to be affirmative to: we are monkeys with a thin icing of civilization, and even thinner icing of spirituality. or can art also explore a deepening of civilization, spirituality? does anyone care, anyway? does this matter? etc.

(oh, i know, there is no doubt some clever art-historical term for this question perspective, and the perspective itself is no doubt considered outdated. superseded by postmodernism or postpostmodernism, or part of it and therefore ... well i'm no art critic.)