March ’08 insert:
Part One of Four – see also I: No, I Insist, II: Volume Volume VOLUME and IV: The Ascetic Aesthetic
This also appears in http://panzeepress.com/20070919.pdf
A Commentary that followed the Gallery Walk Review
The larger issue that Gallery Walk, and indeed most other arts events of the 21st century, are unknowingly dealing with concerns the newfound desire to create art that is stirring in more and more people these days. Everyone, almost, seems to either be an artist or wants to be an artist or makes art as a hobby.
And I don’t give a hoot how you choose to define it – truly, answering and debating the “What is Art?” question these days reveals, in fact, why more and more people are moving in that direction. For convention’s sake, let’s say this: art comes about when a person selects some medium (paint, marble, music, poetry, whatever) and chooses to express an idea or message in some abstract fashion using that medium.
Take an ironing board, saw it in half, and place 300 long strands of black electrical tape between the two pieces. POOF! You have a piece of art. Glue a rock to a BMW and add glitter – POOF! Damn, you’re prolific!
I might wonder what, exactly, you’re trying to communicate with these pieces, but in the end, my reaction wouldn’t matter to you, the artist. You create the art you create because you want to see it exist, because it conveys an idea or message somehow – at least according to your sensibilities. Whether I “get it” or not shouldn’t matter.
In “the old days” not everyone was bent to create art – it was left to those special people who had “an artistic sensibility.” Nowadays, everyone seems to have that artistic sensibility. This comes as no surprise to me, though, for I find that artistic sensibility to merely be an appreciation for the grandeur and scale of the entire universe and your comparative insignificance in that universe. You’re nothing, but you’re not. It confounds and frustrates you, and life – in comparison to all that you are not – becomes damned difficult.
Express! Create! Do something to create more meaning in your life, more meaning for your life. Pick up a harmonica, get a tattoo, make a chair, get your [insert body part here] pierced, mold some clay, paint a picture…you’ll do something because just being who you are resigns you to your insignificance.
As our minds travel well beyond where our bodies go (internet, cellphones, e-mail) we grow our knowledge of the world around us – and the more you know of that world, the more you might see how tiny you are, and you’ll combat that and define yourself by expressing your understanding of the world using art, however you choose to define it.
It’s not left to the special people anymore, the ones that stood out from the rest of the community who seemed to have a grander sense of things. That distinction no longer exists – most everyone has a grander sense of things. Most everyone recognizes that it sucks just too have a job, make money, and go out on weekends. Is that all there is? There must be more! Look at the glory of (oh, I don’t know, whatever you want)…oh, how I wish to express that because it’s important (implying that you and your tiny life are not, but we’ll ignore that for a moment).
So everyone wants to make their mark, everyone wants to express their artistic sensibility, their understanding of how the world is working and how they’re frustrated by all the fear and selfishness that pervades our society.
But if everyone is making art, how do you tell the good ones from the bad ones? Anyone trying to keep up with music these days? How many freaking guitar-playing songwriters do we NEED in the world? How many hip-hop artists, how many divas?
No one just wants to live anymore because life is suffering – take your pick of a belief system, and you’ll see it starts there one way or another. And you, the 21st century adult, have a sense of things that your 16th century peer never had. And it scares the hell out of you, this immense, indifferent universe. You’d like to cry, and maybe even have once or twice, but after that little tantrum’s over, nothing’s changed. What next? Resign yourself to search for those moments when you’re happy, and leave each of those moments searching for the next? Or do you wish to express yourself, express for all of us your importance, your understanding, your vision, your take on things? Well, okay, go ahead and knock yourself out. Go ahead and make your art.
Just don’t think it’s important, ok? ‘Cause it’s not. Since everyone now has this sensibility and everyone now has this yearn in some form or another, art no longer exists in rarified air. Any smack-daddy with a blowtorch and a guitar pick thinks they’re making art. Rembrandt and Da Vinci and “the classics” stand out for their comparatively enlightened sensibility amidst the societies in which they resided. Walk past the tables of local artists now, and everyone’s a Rembrandt.
Well, not really, but don’t tell them that, ok? Life blows, working for the man blows, and you have this beautiful thing called LIFE and this understanding of how things are and where you fit, and you want to demonstrate your understanding and your sensibility by creating some abstract thing. Knock yourself out. And get in line.
Philip
One Perspective 