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

art about life, life about art?

what drives human beings to communication? what is communication anyway? (coming back to the tower of babel theme) what happens when i communicate something to you? who are `you' anyway, who&what am `i'?

so much about communication seems to me taken for granted, where in closer look the above questions might help us understand better why so many troubles arise out of communication.

but even if restricted to art, what drives an artist to make art? what drives others to look at it and try to `get' whatever is `in' the artwork? for me about my own work, a few things are clear.

first of all, making art is a way to communicate with myself, comparable on some level to making music. second, its communication is on a semi-conscious level and nonverbal. third, i most often strive to make the communication broader than just for me. some part of me wants to share with others, for this i try to make things visible in such a way that at some point i get the feeling: yes, an interested `listener' can hear/feel somewhat what it emanates.

so then what are these communications about? to me art is about life, but also about beauty/nonbeauty/patterns/nonpatterns (i don't know how to put it into words really sharply, this is makeshift). and strangely enough, i feel life is about art too, in the sense that to live one's life in a spiritual way to me seems like working on a painting, step by step, correcting errors & superficial patches etc., in order to arrive at more depth, luminosity, compassion.

but the dark sides of life then? are they to be ignored or what? what to depict? holocaust images or soulful serenity? or both? human folly & debauchery, human misery, some of it selfchosen...or hollywood happiness and clichés and beautiful landscapes and harmonious abstracts...or just anything looking `cool' that hasn't been done before for the sake of artistic originality?

enough questions here to merit one of my favourite gauguins:

paul gauguin, where do we come from? what are we? where are we going?