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Tag Archives: nature
Stones #2
…the earth…kept deepening beneath the spades, reckoning only with the diggers’ strength and endurance. Sometimes Voshchev would bend down and pick up a pebble, or other dust that had adhered together, and tuck it away inside his trousers for storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, emptiness, labor, meaning, nature, the inhuman, time, value
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Improvisation 2
Stella quotes driver Mario Andretti in words that apply well to improvisation in the arts: “If everything’s in control you’re not going fast enough.” Piling on the possibilities is a good technique for an artist who tends to reflect. Feeling … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, Frank Stella, labor, Linsley, nature, value
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Abstraction is so over
Bruce Hainley is a critic I have a lot of time for. Oddly, many of my friends don’t understand why. I get where he is coming from, and it’s the right place. If I was in a down mood his … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Ethics of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, backstory, meaning, nature, sex, society, subjectivity, value
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Approximating Nature
Despite my not so high opinion of the memoirs of Tapies, I continue to find interesting bits. This is his description of an early experimental phase of his work: “I was searching for images without knowing whether they were amorphous … Continue reading
Willful Matisse
Kitaj quotes Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk: “Dare to use your own will!” There was no painter more willful than Matisse, a strange characterization of the artist of harmonious serenity, but accurate. The Bathers in Chicago, Decorative Figure On An Ornamental … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, emptiness, feeling, Matisse, nature, subjectivity, will
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Alexis Harding
One of my favorite contemporaries is Alexis Harding, an old friend. I think he uses gravity in a very good way, with a lot of intervention on the way down. He pours a grid of commercial enamel over artist’s oils, … Continue reading
Posted in Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Alberto Burri, Alexis Harding, feeling, grids, labor, Lucio Fontana, nature, sex, subjectivity
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Pulses
Been reading Emerson. He confirms something mentioned more than once on this blog: “Nature hates calculators; her methods are saltatory and impulsive. Man lives by pulses; our organic movements are such; and the chemical and ethereal agents are undulatory and … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Emerson, feeling, Jackson Pollock, meaning, nature, series, sex, time, value
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Frozen time
AJ Heschel again: “To the spiritual eye space is frozen time, and all things are petrified events.” A petrified event sounds like an artwork, but also like anything else made by human hands. Art can also aspire to be more … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, feeling, form, nature, RBKitaj, subjectivity, time
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A Finite Existence
As counterpoint to the concept of the Anthropocene, or rather to the way it is currently being used by artists and soft intellectuals, it is useful to consider John Leslie’s thoughts about human extinction. He has given a lot of … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, knowledge, nature, society, the inhuman, time, value
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Sublime Delusion
Scientists have recently proposed that the current geological era should be called the Anthropocene because of the enormous impact of human activity on the biosphere. This seems to be a reasonable idea, but when the art world gets hold of … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Ethics of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, nature, society, the inhuman, totality
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Layers of Time
The Long Now Foundation, which aims to encourage longer term thinking, publishes an image of time in parallel layers, very similar to something I laid out in an earlier post. Artists and art lovers know that art can stop the … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, nature, society, time
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Infinity of Images
Reading Groys can also be encouraging. In my case it confirms the avant-gardist qualifications of my work—surprising to me as much as anyone. One of the strongest pieces in his book Art Power is the opener, “The Logic of Equal … Continue reading
Achievement in time
Reading Boris Groys can be both enlightening and painful, not least because what he says rings so true. For example, the following words are a good description of my work: “To be an artist has now ceased to be an … Continue reading
Abstraction as Child of History
Any working definition of abstraction that I am likely to come up with will be a description of my own paintings—that can hardly be avoided. Recent intense looking at Frank Stella has provoked some ideas, but his work is not … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Italian Art, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, emergence, Frank Stella, illusion, knowledge, Linsley, nature, the inhuman, value
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After Poussin
Following from the preceding post, the overloadedness (if the reader will forgive such an awkward coinage) of Stella’s work is attractive, to me at least, but it does present problems. For one it becomes more difficult than usual to grasp … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, Cézanne, form, Frank Stella, nature, Poussin
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Definition of Abstraction
I’ve never worried my mind about a definition of abstract art, or of what I do, but occasionally have stumbled upon possibles. Just now I came up with what I believe to be a simple and accurate one. Abstraction is … Continue reading
The Contingent
Another important concept stressed by Stephen Jay Gould, one that is very much relevant to art, is contingency. He is talking about the possible pathways of evolution, but in art we could say that all works begin contingently and move … Continue reading
Chance and Possibility
According to Stephen Jay Gould, the usual mode of human enlightenment “…is…not by global creep forward, inch by subsequent inch, but rather in rushes or whooshes, usually following the removal of some impediment, or the discovery of some facilitating device, … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Conceptualism and Painting, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, evolution, knowledge, nature, science, society
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Ink-jet Paintings
In the September Artforum Wolfgang Tillmans waxes rhapsodical about ink-jet technology. He observes that many works shown as paintings today are ink-jets. There is no problem with this that I can see, in fact I was making them in 1997, … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, automatism, form, Linsley, nature, subjectivity, technology, the inhuman, time, value
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Vicissitudes of a work
This is a Jack Bush that hung for many years in the office of the director of an art college. It has picked up a few scratches, coffee stains, scuffs and nicks, pretty clearly visible in the photo. Is this … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, American Modernism, Ethics of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, Jack Bush, nature, society, the inhuman, time, value
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Kittler
Following from the previous post, another feature in the latest Artforum is a discussion of the work of Friedrich Kittler. But more compelling for me was Diedrich Diederichsen’s mention of the same thinker. According to Diederichsen, he was a scornful … Continue reading
Off the Coast 2
I was wondering what Conrad thought of Moby Dick, which he surely must have known. He had some tragic captains, but mostly focused on the ordinary problems of work and career, certainly relevant to any artist. In any case, the … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, backstory, emptiness, Linsley, literature, meaning, nature, society, space, subjectivity, the inhuman
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Bad Art
Going back to the conversation between Christopher Green and T.J.Clark that I mentioned before, one of Clark’s comments bothered me. He said that “hack” artists, bad ones, are certain that they have found the right way to render modernity. In … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, grids, Matisse, nature, Pablo Picasso, TJClark, value
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The Test
The last couple of posts have been critical of abstraction, comparing it unfavorably with figurative art. A simple measure of adequacy emerges—namely, can it be tested? Abstraction cannot be tested against nature. In art, limitations enable expression, and the “test” … Continue reading
Stella’s Ecstasy
My admiration for Frank Stella is total; he is a great and exemplary artist. In Robert Wallace’s book on the Moby Dick series, he is quoted as saying that abstraction has a special ability “to spark in a viewer’s mind … Continue reading
Conditions of Invention 2
The previous post did not mention art at all, but I trust my readers will recognize the problem that faces all attempts to institutionalize or channel creativity. Both bureaucracies and markets—which in fact are not that different from each other—need … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, American Modernism, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, innovation, labor, money, nature, society, value
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Julian Barbour
Physicist Julian Barbour was in town to give a talk and I was very disappointed to miss it. I had child minding duties while my wife was about her gainful employment. Barbour has been mentioned on this blog before. In … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Linsley, nature, Newtonian space, science, time
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Time and Technology
There is so much hyperbole coming out of Silicon Valley about innovation, disruption, changing the world and so on, that some perspective on technology and time would be useful. When our ancestors learned how to move a heavy object by … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, innovation, nature, science, society, time
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Time and the Imagination
Human beings are busy little creatures. They move relatively quickly—building, tearing down, inventing, changing, making. But even the time of human activity is slow compared to the speed of the mind. I saw a recent statistic that there are 60 … Continue reading
Non-Identical
Still tracing the boundaries of my concept of the inhuman. If we could use the word “nature” the way it was used in philosophy and science in the 19th. century for example, I would much prefer that. But today nature … Continue reading