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?

st francis

st francis at night, 2008

i've been drawing st francis a number of times in the past years. my reason for this is not religious - to me spirituality (human compassion, kindness, love) needs no religion and is often confined by it. i'm specifically touched by the idea that st francis loved animals so much, that they came unto him soft of heart and without fear.

to me the science fiction idea of `gaia' - a world where all living beings are one, and also (on some level) aware of this oneness - appeals as high ideal for which we could strive on earth.

but is it so high as to be a tower of babel? this seems very likely, especially considering what people are willing to do to animals not even out of misunderstanding or malice, but simply out of economic gain. i believe that anything we do to animals is something we will also be willing to do to humans if the circumstances are just a little tight.

i'm not saying that we are automatically responsible for solving the moral problems that nature faces us with once we start looking at animals as fellow creatures(cruelty, survivalist savagery, etc.). but i think we can lift ourselves to a level where at least the heartless human exploitation of animals which are obviously a lot like us in feeling and even understanding is abandoned.

responsibility for the innate cruelty of nature...this is where i think human understanding is vastly too limited. this is where i can understand people needing a concept of things which are way over their head. too bad these concepts to me often look as if turned into a fairytale. but perhaps we all need fairytales to make our lives meaningful.

st francis, 2003

millais & van gogh - realism & more (monet also)

how looks can be deceiving. knowing millais primarily from reproductions, my expectations were enough to visit the current exhibition in the van gogh museum amsterdam. unfortunately, i found millais' paintings to be little or nothing more than photographs, sometimes attractive, agreeable, but often a bit cloying, too sweet to my taste. and i couldn't find anything lifting me to a level beyond what the eye can see at first glance. the use of paint i found very traditional and limited, no experiments, no texture/brushstrokes/layering expression...etc.

john everett millais, portrait of louise jopling


of course, in the van gogh museum there is plenty to enjoy so it wasn't a wasted trip. i am always (i never use the words always or never since they are so absolute as to contain no real meaning) inspired by van gogh. i don't need to consider every painting of his to be a masterpiece, for me to be uplifted by his clear intention of looking beyond what the eye can see at first glance to what the heart feels when the eyes are looking soulfully.

vincent van gogh, self portrait

[postscript 1 dec 2008:] somehow i added `monet' as a label to this post...and i now see from statistics that people looking for monet come to this post... so let me add a little from and about claude monet.

claude monet, the seine at argenteuil

monet here is a true impressionist, with a realism that is still very sharp, but already coming under attack from the brushwork and the colour enhancement. the painting already wants a bit to break free, to go beyond what the eyes see at first glance. later, monet throws off many previous shackles, but still retains a ever weakening link to depicting reality. abstract art is a fingertip away.

claude monet, waterloo bridge (one of many from an ever light-changing series)

more nature realism

just some more pictures in the nature realism vein by edward lear and john james audubon. their art i largely admire, perhaps since i still remember being fascinated as a 4 yr old by drawing birds. i used to draw finches, tits, sparrows, small birds anyway. then i forgot mostly about drawing until it suddenly gripped me again when i was 15.

edward lear, egyptian vulture in john gould's birds of europe

john james audubon, california vulture

maria sybilla merian

in the question what art can bring, when discussing with others i tend to discount so-called realism (which is a difficult term to me, philosophically speaking). this discounting is due more to balance -i have to come back to that term also- than to my personal appreciation.

because, frankly, there are many artists working `realistically' who in some way spark resonance in my heart.

but on the other hand i'm quite fed up somewhere with the general attitude that art depicting `reality' (whatever that may mean) in a more or less photographic fashion needs no explanation, deeper motivation, ... just because, according to our culturally determined value, transferring 3d to 2d (or other 3d) using something similar to straight-line projection requires enough skill to be art.

maria sybilla merian, cayman with false coral snake

how did i get to maria sybilla merian? well, she is one of many artists who depict nature, especially flowers and animals, in a very precise `realistic' way. see also john james audubon. i doubt that these names are known anywhere nearly as well as velazquez, say. but i'm amazed and pleased at their incredible detail, the precision, the colours.

so the question `art: what, why, for whom?' seems to have so many answers that towers of babel are inevitable. my own rather ivory tower looks out on art bringing more than `realism in the flat sense'. reality to me is more than what a disspirited camera captures in pixels. we add dreams, visions, feelings, emotions, associations to whatever our eyes tell us that they see. in fact, i believe we only see what our brain/heart allows to pass, and this heavily photoshopped by our preset value system.

and, talking about photoshop...compare the above image to the one on the website of the british museum:

maria sybilla merian, cayman with false coral snake - british museum

and tell me honestly, which version do you prefer? and what is realism in this version-issue?

jan cox - a painter's odyssee

saw the documentary jan cox - a painter's odyssey yesterday, on belgian tv.

[i forgot to mention: it was made by bert beyens and pierre de clercq (bert was kind enough to mail me an interested & interesting reaction, here you can see a short work on youtube kamera kussen with artists danny devos and anne-mie van kerckhoven) - postscript june 08]

interesting and inspiring to see, but non-findable on the web, so i add a fragment from belgian news tv below (in dutch, sorry):

clearly to me, jan cox was an artist looking for visual depth, spiritual depth. it always warms me to encounter such artists. he was also manic-depressive. this combination of artistic soulful talent with a serious mental illness is unfortunately seen in many of my favourite artists. another such artist who also took his own life is mark rothko.

in one fragment of jan cox - a painter's odyssey his wife yvonne van ginneken says: `he was suffering also from the fact that the people who could afford his paintings, didn't take the time to really look at them. whereas his work needs time. it grows on you.'

another quote (freely on my part): `suffering from depression, he yet did not want his work to be negative. he wanted to bring also hopeful perspective'


jan cox, blood rain

don't miss the current exhibition of his work in the royal museum of fine arts in antwerp (15 march-15 june 2008)