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Art and its Others (with Boris Groys)
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Tag Archives: value
Perennially New
An article of 1989 by Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, called “The Current State of Nonrepresentation,” proves that certain ideas might seem fresh, but are hardly new: “…the task of nonrepresentation [is], typically, one which involves seeing a thing which is, for once, … Continue reading
Energy Shortage?
Jeff Rubin, in a book discussed in the previous post, actually does make a good case for a zero growth or steady state economy. Not that it’s desirable, but that rising energy costs will make it inevitable. And that may … Continue reading
The Price of Greatness
Readers of this blog will know that I am a great admirer of the work of Frank Stella. It seems I’m in a minority. I was talking to a friend who calls him the Leroy Neiman of contemporary art, and … Continue reading
Stella’s Prints
I’ve been enjoying Stella’s prints, and discovering one series after another. Usually each new one is a challenge. I have the catalogue raisonné of the prints up to 1982, and look at it with pleasure every day. And the prints … Continue reading
Learning down
This blog has occasionally commented on current affairs, particularly as to the role of technology in the economy. I think this is relevant to art, not least because the most overused word today (or one of them) is creativity. What … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, knowledge, labor, science, self-reflection, society, value
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The Machine
Another quote from the memoirs of Tapies strikes a chord. He talks about his first show in New York: “The shock I felt in that world was fabulous. Despite all I could have known or imagined about the American people … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Antoni Tapies, society, subjectivity, value
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Unknown
Recently I published a little squib on the British web site Abstract Critical, and Peter Stott, who has contributed to this blog, offered the following comment: “The one thing that can be said about abstract art is that it is … Continue reading
Posted in Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, backstory, knowledge, meaning, value
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Improvisation
Recently came across a 1991 interview with Stella. His comments on pieces made with poured metal confirm everything I said in an earlier post: “For the most part yes: they are improvised…They are worked over but the process of working … Continue reading
Preparation
Following Kitaj I’ve been dipping into Hasidism. Parallels between mysticism and art are too easy, and without much practical use, but insights can always help—if one is ready for them. Here is a hopeful observation from Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk: … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, feeling, Frank Stella, labor, RBKitaj, society, time, value
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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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Time Religious and Artistic
R.B.Kitaj has provoked me to look into a book by A.J.Heschel which happens to be on my library shelf. It’s about the sabbath as a day apart from the noise and strife. That’s how I’ve always thought about my studio—a … Continue reading
Posted in Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, literature, meaning, RBKitaj, space, time, value
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Integration
My children go to Waldorf school, and recently I attended a workshop on eurythmy. I’ve heard about it of course, but never paid any attention. Surprise—it really is quite marvelous. It made me vividly aware of how many of my … Continue reading
A Dream
During a day of doubt my faith in abstraction was restored by this Matisse: The forms don’t line up as I like them to do, but they are beautifully piled on top of each other, interlaced and jostling for space. … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, literature, Matisse, meaning, titles, value
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Conceptual Antagonist
The following remarks by Clement Greenberg, from 1971, give the most astute definition of conceptualism, or at least of the kind of conceptualism worth paying attention to: “…art, put to the strictest test of experience, proves to mean not skillful … Continue reading
Secret meaning
Another theme of Kitaj’s Jewish commentarism is the esoteric. Behind the flat surface lies a depth of meaning—but meaning is not the right word. It’s easy to see how this can work in figurative art, but in abstraction less so. … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, backstory, form, Jeff Tutt, labor, literature, meaning, value
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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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First and Only
Human history is so short that it is full of things that have happened for the first and only time, yet for the last couple of hundred years at least in the West, and for much longer in China, the … Continue reading
Questionable or Not
On the British web site abstract critical there is more debate about Frank Stella. I’m on his side but most aren’t. Much of the criticism seems to be based on a perception that the work does not hold together formally—the … Continue reading
Unremarkable
I have a catalog from the Albright-Knox called American Painting of the Seventies. As it happens few of the included are what we would call 70s artists, they are mostly good artists who happened to be alive and working during … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, Frank Stella, painted reliefs, time, value
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No Progress Made
I thought I’d better amplify something I said in the preceding post, about art as an agent of enlightenment—the latter meaning freedom from myth. When art definitively became a secular religion, just before the turn of the twentieth century, it … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Conceptualism and Painting, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, backstory, Boris Groys, demons, meaning, society, value
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Lack of Time
If time is so short, why does it feel so empty? Because time has to be shaped. What we call work. Content, or feeling in art, is a fugitive effect of the shape.
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Conceptualism and Painting
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Boris Groys, emptiness, feeling, space, subjectivity, time, value
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Originality
Originality, as it happens, is the highest value in the art of our time. Many artists don’t like that—sadly nothing can be done about it. Even Sherrie Levine is original in her critique of the concept, as Howard Singerman, her … 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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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
Artists and Scientists
Like many, I read the popular books written by scientists because I genuinely want to learn about the world. Lee Smolin, Leonard Susskind, Brian Greene are some of the physicists I’ve followed, a few of whom I’ve met. In the … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, knowledge, Linsley, meaning, science, value
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Picasso’s Tricks
I’m always struck by the fact that the most skilled artists, Picasso and Cézanne for two examples, go out of their way to plan pictures that they could carry off straight out, without much preparation. Whereas the average artist has … Continue reading
Modernist Method
An example of modernist practice in its purest form might be the paintings of Paul Klee. He starts with a formal idea, a method, a sense of how relationships should play out, and the work is generated from that. Whether … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, American Modernism, Conceptualism and Painting, Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Camille Pissarro, Cézanne, cubism, Dada, Frank Stella, labor, montage, Pablo Picasso, painted reliefs, Paul Klee, society, value
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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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