To be engaged in a sensation
My work is animated by a feeling of rapture or reverence for simple sensations of light and pattern. I have made an effort to allow these moments of engagement to occur without questioning their specific role in my process. It seems the only thing to do is indulge my curiosity while withholding my desire for tangible results. I have found the camera to be a wonderful tool for investigating and documenting my fascination with rhythm and light. Below is the result of an hour spent examining the light shining through tapestries that hang over the windows of my apartment. In this case and many others, simple materials and natural light create an experience that is mystical and puzzling.
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Reading Nietzsche
Finishing Rothko's biography prompted me to pick up a copy of Nietzsche's selected writings and re-visit some texts that I read as an undergraduate. The following line from Thus Spoke Zarathustra sparked many thoughts about artistic temperament and the role of conviction:
"I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves."
As I reflect on this passage, it seems that the precise meaning of the term "chaos" is crucial to appreciating the depth of Zarathustra's pronouncement. I am inclined to furnish a definition of "chaos" that is based on my reading of The Genealogy of Morals, a work in which Nietzsche describes the contingency and underlying cruelty of all moral codes. I conceive of "chaos", in this sense, as the recognition of contingency and the radical creative freedom implied by this realization. Although Zarathustra speaks of humanity in general, I find this to be a poignant metaphor for artistic conviction. The one who recognizes the underlying formlessness of creative energy will be free to craft images that pulse with vitality. Although my interpretation is skewed towards my interest in visual arts, Zarathustra's invocation is irresistible to the fertile mind.
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An Homage to Mark Rothko
I have always liked Rothko's work, but in the last year he has occupied center stage on my study of great paintings. I've been reading his biography and am learning much about his struggles and his vision. Having just arrived at chapter on his suicide, I thought it would be fitting to create an homage. The images below were created with very long exposures (15-25 seconds) while panning my camera around the night sky to capture different intensities and hues of light. These are not photoshopped and consist of natural nighttime light.
Rothko said repeatedly that his work was a study in "measurement". In writing about Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, he wrote of the "measure, of how much can be revealed before the reality becomes unendurable." The process of making these pictures turned out to be an exercise of measurement in a parallel sense. To create rectangles of different colors and intensities I would aim the camera such that it captured part sky and part of the dull roof. While leaving the shutter open I would estimate how much time was needed to collect enough light before flipping the camera 180 degrees to create another rectangle. This process required much repetition and reliance on instinct. In this way, these images are a microcosm (emphasis on the MICRO) of Rothko's working process.
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Another Mannerism
I was perusing the archives of the Brooklyn Rail when I came across a few lines that peaked my interest. The following is excerpted from a review of the New Museum's "Younger than Jesus" show of artists under 33.
"There’s a certain irony about young artists unquestioningly embracing conceptualism, a radically critical art form that peaked around the time they were born. Unmoored from its historical and political (read Marxist) context, it becomes the kind of received wisdom that it had itself rebelled against. Its interrogation of the conventions of its time, which had defined art as a discreet object from the hand of an individual maker, led to the strategies that the Generational artists are exploiting, but without a similar critique. Like any practice extrapolated from an existing style rather than excavated from the intersection of form and content, it essentially becomes just another mannerism. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the exhibition is that many of the works cannot be fully comprehended without the verbal dimension of the wall label (which is the source of the two parenthetical quotes above). The verbal thus completes the visual, rather than acting as a parallel or subsidiary component."
Thomas Micchelli in the May 2009 issue of The Brooklyn Rail
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Wise words from Martin Puryear
I have greatly admired the work of Martin Puryear ever since I saw retrospective of his work at SFMOMA a few years ago. I was just watching the ART 21 piece about him and heard a few lines that struck me as particularly relavent for young artists (such as myself). After beginning to talk about his piece "Ladder for Booker T. Washington", he paused and said:
" I don't want to elaborate too much because, I think it's in the work. I come from a generation in which the work itself was the information. There remains this belief that the work itself can have an identity that hopefully can speak. Whether through beauty or ugliness, or whatever quality you put in the work--that is what the work can be about. The work doesn't have to be a transparent vehicle for you to say something about life today or what you see people doing to each other, or things like that."
As I heard this passage, the phrase "transparant vehicle" stuck in my head. I have a feeling that Puryear's work will continue to inspire generations of artsits in the future because it does not contextualize itself in the theoretical or social environment of it's age. The power of his work to communicate with the viewer does not rely on any external concepts or information. Unlike Pop art, which will require an explanation to be interesting (and perhaps already does) Puryear's sculptures speak with a timeless elegance and subtlety from which young artists can learn a great deal .
Click here to watch the ART 21 piece about Martin Puryear.
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The Cost of Ignoring Beauty
A friend and former Professor of mine just sent me an interesting article on the costs of ignoring beauty. Below is a particularly insightful paragraph taken from the conclusion of the piece:
"I have concentrated on architecture since it provides such a clear illustration of the social, environmental, and economic costs of ignoring beauty. But there is another cost, too, and it is one that we witness in individual lives as well as in the community. This is the aesthetic cost. People need beauty. They need the sense of being at home in their world, and being in communication with other souls. In so many areas of modern life—in pop music, in television and cinema, in language and literature—beauty is being displaced by raucous and attention-grabbing clichés. We are being torn out of ourselves by the loud and insolent gestures of people who want to seize our attention but to give nothing in return for it. Although this is not the place to argue the point it should perhaps be said that this loss of beauty, and contempt for the pursuit of it, is one step on the way to a new form of human life, in which taking replaces giving, and vague lusts replace real loves."
- Roger Scruton writing for THE AMERICAN
(click here to read the whole piece)
This final point brought some clarity to a few thoughts that have been in my head for some time. In the United States, most images that we see during day are designed to compel us towards consumption. Rather predictably, the power of these advertisements comes from depicting or insinuating sex, glamour (photoshopped), wealth and privilege. Is this not an abuse of our senses? To be surrounded by such carefully engineered images must have an effect on our perceptive faculties. As an artist, I cannot help but to speculate that this situation must compete with, if not diminish, our society's appetite for fine art (or the beauty of nature for that matter). When most images we see require little effort to digest, and advertisement must by necessity fit this criteria, are we not letting our imagination atrophy? While some artists have taken up the tools of sexy commercial imagery in their work, I do not believe this will address the poverty of our perceptual sensitivity. As advertisement penetrates ever more spheres of our lives, the appreciation of fine art will become vital for the health of our society.
I believe firmly that good art is ultimately a compassionate activity. While a work of art may take effort to process or be jarring or violent in its appearance, there is always a reciprocity of experience. A great work of art offers us the opportunity to connect with our soul and see over the walls of our narrowly constructed individual identity. In this sense, the artist serves the society by strengthening our capacity to see and feel beyond ourselves.
An artist named Corah Cohen said to me that abstract art can change the world in that it has the ability to slow us down. I could not agree more.
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Studio Note: Moderation
I was just working on a few color drawings on paper and came to a certain realization regarding my motivations in art. So, here it is:
As a person inclined towards extremes (sports, colors, landscapes, speech), I am fascinated by, and intrigued with, the calm confidence of moderation. I look upon the moderate position as one would a relic of an ancient civilization; I am intrigued and empathetic, but ultimately an outsider gazing in. This fact leeds me to pursue a mysterious blending of moderation and bizarre extravagance. I am compelled to create a composition of fantastical shapes in bold colors that are calmly and almost mundanely at peace with their place on the page. Inevitability and out right awkwardness stumble into a puzzling harmony when I am true to my spirit. Perhaps this predicament is more of an aspiration than an accomplishment, but it is nonetheless worth noting in my growth as an artist.
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Reading Plato
Recently I've been reading Allan Bloom's translation of Plato's Republic and am awestruck by the depth of the text. Here's a great passage from Bloom's preface that explains the reverence I have for this text:
"The platonic dialogues do not present a doctrine; they prepare the way for philosophizing. They are intended to perform the function of a living teacher who makes his students think... One must philosophize to understand them. There is a Platonic teaching, but it is no more to be found in any of the speeches than is the though of Shakespeare to be found in the utterances of any particular character. " (xxi)
Both in my art and in my thinking, I'm trying to keep in mind another point that Bloom makes in his preface:
"It is the concentration on beauty to the detriment of truth which constitutes the core of his [Plato] critique of poetry, just as the indifference to forms, and hence to man, constitutes the core of his criticism of pre-Socratic philosophy. The dialogue is the synthesis of these two poles and is an organic unity. Every argument must be interpreted dramatically, for every argument is incomplete in itself and only the context can supply the missing links. And every dramatic detail must be interpreted philosophically, because these details contain the images of the problems which complete the arguments. Separately these two aspects are meaningless; together they are an invitation to the philosophic quest." (xx)
While I understand that painting / visual art is not the same as a written dialogue, I want my work to employ the same breadth of intention. This is part of my mixed feeling towards the skills of design and the mechanics of visual language. I believe they are tools that one must employ in the service of greater aims, but not worthy of respect in themselves. However, as Bloom reminds me, these skills do form part of the "organic unity" between the form and content that characterizes a profound work.