Don't bring class politics into it! Art, that is - not that all I have to say relates to art - here - but mostly it's art, of a kind - wot I talk of - and -
STOP WAFFLING!
sORRY, BUT AS i BEGAN, IMPROVISING, IT STRUCK ME THAT (YOU'VE GOT THE CAPS LOCK STILL ON). That a certain ambiguity? Uncertainty. No, no......................lack of clarity? perhaps
is not always a bad thing
unless you're an airline pilot
EVEN IN ART?
yes!
lOTS OF PEOPLE APPLUAD AMBIGUITY IN ART (tHE CAPS LOCK! AGAIN!) But,
you know
as well as I do
(because I try not to patronise, as if you're some 16 yr old kid)
that in art ANYTHING GOES
yes it does
and that relates to not only the creation but the reception - see? 'Cause ain't we all different somehow? I mean, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, as is Great Art and what our eyeballs interpret - ways of seeing (John Berger), which I've not read, probably goes into all that.
You know, a lot of art theory books go into great detail regarding the socio-political/aesthetic/historical blah blahs of art and that's all well and good but I rarely read them and have never done so cover-to-cover. It doesn't help an artist. I'm not saying Ignorance Is Bliss but one can be clogged up with knowledge to the point where it's stifling the flow of creativity - don't you think?
I knew two would-be writers who'd studied English to a high level and couldn't write a damned thing because of it (they confessed). Instead, they ran a writers workshop (what's the saying? them that can do, do, them that can't, teach?) which I was a member of for a few years. Back then (mid-80s) I wrote shorts stories and poetry. Those were the fallow years regarding Art-making. I stopped around 1980 and didn't start again until....? 15 years later?
I'm mindful of the 'burden of influence' yet fully aware that's it's impossible to deny or escape and don't mind that. Anyone with a basic knowledge of 20th century art will be able to see where I'm coming from or, more to the point, who. Ezra Pound's dictum 'Make it new' plays no part in my practise although, of course, I hope to create an image which occasionally causes someone to think 'I've not seen anything quite like that before'.
Untrained, I can't help but be a bit 'rough 'round the edges' - often - or sometimes...er...more 'professional'? Whatever that means. I like the rough 'n' ready approach. In exhibitions I'm drawn towards pieces on paper, even old, torn paper, sketchy work, simple work, scrappy brilliance born of spontaneity. You know? Perhaps it's the prole in me. Whatever, it's one reason Dieter Roth is an art hero of mine - I love the mess he makes, or made once he got into his stride having dallied with clean, precise post-constructivist design-type or typographic classicism (concrete) - all of which he did quite brilliantly.
London's being remade as a clean, gentrified city of big business and big-earning inhabitants but thankfully they haven't yet taken the wrecking ball to every council estate and although, yes, it's better (?) than the decaying wasteland it was in the 70s I'm not happy with the mass cleansing (social, architectural) that goes on. No. We need some mess, some dirt. From decay grows healthy, vibrant, living creativity! It does? How? That's another story.
A politician once said 'We're all middle-class now' but thank god it's wasn't true. Trouble is, there's a middle-class cleansed, controlled, contrived....ambitious look to a lot of what's made in the name of...um...creativity. I see it at all the zine fairs I attend. Well, OK. So professionally-made! On such quality paper! Being a maker of art on paper and booklets I see a correlation between the two - art and art on paper. That's just me, though. leap across the divide and the attitude is the same. Someone takes a good photo then enlarges it to the size of a house and it's BRILLIANT FINE ART! Of course it is. Why? Well, it costs a far bit to do that. And you need a studio or storage space to hold it. And they're borne form, not class, but dedication, seriousness! Of course!
And so on.
I could say loads more but right now I'm out of time.
So.
Bye-bye
Oh, here's a print I made a couple of weeks ago...
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| RTomens, 2019 |
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