Current post modern post post modern (whatever its name)

12:04 PM 8/30/2009 (date written)

I haven’t posted to my blog for quite some time. What follows is a discussion that unfolded in my mind about post modern painting as we approach 2010. For me this will be, why I don’t know, an interesting year. The following words are generalizations formulated to expose a concept and feeling, and not get into arguments of detail.

As I wrote this, I simultaneously viewed work by artists at the Gallery Nelson – Freeman/Paris, France; see footnote at end of this.
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Seems to me, much of current imagery in post modern painting requires literature in some form to make a connection to it; what the painting is about requires an explanation. Images are more, rather than less, esoteric and quite personal (internal to the artist) rather than universal as post moderns seem to desire. Yes! Imagery links to print and computer advertising; film; cartoons (print, film, digital (still and video); fashion (you name the connection). Some current post modern post post modern (whatever its name) is presented as fragments of something else; unclear references; to me final point gets lost. There seems to be some disconnect between what the artist understands and what he/she presents as a final product (art?). In this sense, an audience feels duped and embarrassed if he/she doesn’t get it. Its a Barnum special at most galleries these days!!!

Maybe a slice of daily life, real or imagined, is one and the same thing? Daily life = kaleidoscope? Yes? Daily life = banal? yes? When an artist presents banality as art, it is boring because daily life is boring. If our minds recorded up front and kept daily life experiences in a conscious center, we would not be able to function due to the confusion of massive input to our brains. To survive we must be selective of our focus every second. Some experience is rejected. Some accepted. As we focus during the day, we survive and get by.

Everyday objects, stuff (like shipping palettes —
http://www.galerienelsonfreeman.com/slide_show.php?ar=48&c=5&in_show=1) are physically taken out of context and placed into a gallery and called art = art according to Duchamp and millions of artists practicing today. There must be some element of truth to this as audience acceptance of this also legitimizes it. NO? Yes?

Critical evaluation of this art stuff as far as I can tell, now exists as an individual and personal “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. The criticism then forms along these lines wherein the critic plugs in samples to prop up the focus of the crit. There is no gray area, to me. This is a very conservative position; my way or the highway. Once the need to explain what the stuff being exhibited is and is about, the art part of the experience is over!

I reluctantly accept this. I have no answers or diagrams to offer as replacement. These are postmodern times! For me, like everyone else, I bring my own baggage to the art gallery. I bring along my learning in art history and art making. I bring along my prejudices born out of this learning. I bring to this experience my ignorance of art history and art making with special focus (sometimes) of the artist’s intentions presented by the art stuff exhibited. Hard to elaborate without using specific examples. There are way too many examples, from my view, to bring to this minimal conversation that would clarify. Most likely the conversation and comparisons would get lost in the smoke. Ah hah! I too get stuck. The absence of singular movements today make for rather confusing criticism, evaluation, and judgment. Pluralism reduces criticism to “I like it” or “I don’t like it”.

[ There needs to be a revision of art criticism. It needs to re-establish formal criteria so that ]

[Everything today has its monetary equivalent; art, life, bullets, war… Where’s the beef?]

As I look at painting 2009 by new, refreshing, young artists, I see a big influence of realism on what is being done; the figure, landscape, portraits, etc. Photography seems to be a big influence as well; especially digital photography along lines of digital collage and other forms of electronic image manipulation. [Maybe it is time for] This interest in using realism in some form in painting signals to me that artists feel a need to get back into the world of seeing and to make a record of this seeing regardless of how used; realism to nonobjective abstractions. Any time an artist uses his/her eyes and creates a translation of this seeing to an art work, again regardless of style position, there is a power transfer to the art. This is a very zen thing! This power transfer is intuitively felt by another being if it is truly there! We feel the energy even if we can’t explain what the feel may be. Nice!

Much of the new painting for me involves searching, discovery, recording. Searching, discovery, recording makes for art that can, when successful, picked up by audience radar. It may not always be clear but it certainly can be felt. We all possess a common trait; curiosity. When painting pics at this curiosity, an enriched experience unfolds.

Success you say. Success is evaluated by measuring how well the artist connects and projects the content. Oh! I have digressed! Success is measured by the duality of “I like” or “I don’t Like”. There are no standards for measurement of post modern art. It is whatever you want it to be. [Duchamp??>>!!] So! Today there is no criticism other than that expressed through personal pleasure principles. 100 different people. 100 different pleasure principles. 100 different points of reference for art criticism. Are we back to modernism here? Modernism by broad definition [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism] “…was, and remains, its rejection of tradition. Modernism’s stress on freedom of expression, experimentation, radicalism, and positivism disregards conventional expectations. In many art forms this often meant startling and alienating audiences with bizarre and unpredictable effects: the strange and disturbing combinations of motifs in Surrealism, or the use of extreme dissonance and atonality in modernist music. In literature this often involved the rejection of intelligible plots or characterization in novels, or the creation of poetry that defied clear interpretation.; self centered expression of self existence in this vast reality we play in.”. I am generalizing here, but I think you get my point. Art is still all about the individual in its making and experiencing. As a fact: We have no other point of reference to our reality other than from ourselves. We cannot under any circumstances see or feel the world from within someone else. The work seen and felt is done some from our own brain computer translations of the data inputs. Something to be said that modernism’s definitions are truisms. So post modern, post post modernism, modernism, is pretty much the same thing. The focus changes; the content changes; the images change; but the center of this activity is still us. We change too. Ain’t life grand?

http://www.galerienelsonfreeman.com/
While writing this I was looking at work of the artists represented at this gallery in Paris, France. For me European artists and galleries present a better balance of what is being done. European galleries seem to be still interested in art; like the old days of the 50s, 60s, 70s ending in the 80s in the USA. The USA gallery scene turned away from art as the 90s unfolded. IN the USA we lost our way in almost everything human; art, religion, politics (now in the 00s politics is a collection and expression of hate) and everything moved to focus on money as the pinnacle of life. Life = money = insanity. We (people) now kill each other for the hell of it. As populations explode around the world it is becoming more and more a reality for me, “No, We Can’t get along”..!!??

The line of succession that is the make up of this piece of writing.
1. http://www.crggallery.com/artists/
2. http://www.crggallery.com/artists/pia-fries/
3. http://www.galerienelsonfreeman.com/; the other galleries listed for this artist are also interesting.

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myself. how postmodern can i really get? postmodernism isn’t in my blood. i like what i see in some postmodern art. however, my roots are planted in modernism. after all, i am now approaching my 70th year and still haven’t been able to find my way in modernism. my road is still to be taken.

thanks for attention. much appreciated.

dpn
12:58 PM 8/30/2009

Just began looking at artists at http://www.gfilomenasoares.com//pt/artists. I am getting most interested in work being shone in Europe!

Here go! Round and round and round! “I like” and “I don’t like” at work!

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