SOME ALTERNATIVE ART IN TIMES OF DECADENCE AND EXTREMES... MAYBE

Vivi-Mari Carpelan: "The Heart's Desire", copyright 2000
I believe our hearts may look something like this.
This was just before muscle spasms made it difficult for me to draw.

I decided not to add to my previous blog post, which is about a specific problem, but write a few words as a follow up. There's a discussion on LinkedIn in response to the article I posted her on my blog at the very end of the last article, but I don't find the viewpoints very clear. One thing seems quite obvious, though, and it's the fact that the big money making names in the art world are domineering the art scene, but also what is being taught in the art schools. You may recall my post about the exhibition I visited in Cardiff - it looked like a graduate show made up of ideas from a text book about conceptual art, and it was very clearly young and immature. There are alternative artists out there, but they don't get very much support as far as I can see. For instance as Martin has been looking for funding, he has found very little that addresses the needs of the individual artist. The funders, especially the Arts Council, are often more interested in supporting events that bring in large audiences so they can count the number of seats that were occupied. The other problem is very obvious; if you do work in 2D you're "passe". This is ridiculous, since human beings will never stop putting their thoughts and feelings onto a flat surface.

Michael Schwartz is a distinguished art critic in the USA who has abandoned the usual contemporary art scene in favour of a more spiritual and uplifting kind of art. I had the honour of having my art seen and written about by him when I was accepted into the integral art gallery at intergrallife.com.  Here is a video in which he explains "what is so special about integral art". I don't find it very comprehensive but if you're interested you can look up a lot of articles and talks on the site (some of which you have to be a member to see). The art galleries are all available to the public and you'll find that the artists are often very articulate and obviously highly intelligent beings. Although I keep these aspirations and attempts to promote a new kind of art in very high regard, I do sometimes wonder if it's still a bit limiting. These people obviously shun art that only reinforces all that is sick in society. However, they are also adamant about the presence of the "shadow", that darker side of all of us that needs to come into the open so that we can evolve as spiritual beings. What concerns me is that art such as my Project X would not go down well with the integral community because it might be seen as negative. My object is not to dwell on negativity but to inform an audience about the existence of certain problems within society. These problems need addressing very urgently.

I have digitally remastered photos of some of the art I did back in the 1990s. Back then, I was consumed by my research into spiritual matters and Eastern philosophies in particular, but it's also true that there is always a tension in all of my art between what I believe life to be in a deeper sense and the situation I find myself in this particular body, in this particular reality. This tension may be part of the reason why people wanted to buy my art back in the 1990s in Finland. At some point I felt that I had come to the end of my mission to talk so explicitly about what we can be and I thus started to look for an alternative. It took me a good ten years to specify what I felt I had to do. While my disability or issues of marginalization in general were at the back of my art in the 1990s and my spiritual world view was at the forefront, the concerns are now turned around so that invisible illness and similar issues are at the forefront and my spiritual world view is at the back of it all. I feel no urgency to talk about my world view with anyone and therefore I know that it's not my job to do so. 

Michael did say to me that it's not very common for artists to be able to talk about their own art, and that he found me unusually articulate. I enjoyed his interpretation of my art but I'm not sure I want it to be as much about memory as he suggested. I have to say that I often find myself lacking in words and less articulate than I used to (considering I'm a very literal person and sometimes behave in a straightforward, incredulous manner almost as if I had Asperger's syndrome like Saga Noren in "The Bridge"!). Perhaps it's a good thing, perhaps we should not always be able to pick our art apart. After all, a picture or other visual experience is supposed to say more than words can describe. However I was reminded that the bad philosophy I was talking about in my previous blog post also is a problem because artists are being pushed to being verbal and while I personally like a bit of explanation, it's possible to explain art to death. 

I think the pendulum has swung far into two extremes as we now find a contemporary art that is fragmented, contrived and shallow while mirroring only the worst aspects of society (both in terms of context and the way it's being treated by the "authorities"), and a spiritual art that is all about subtle and causal energies and Eastern deities, or the tree of life. While the latter can be elevating, it often lacks a direct connection to mundane life as we know it, and therefore I don't really see how it can make a difference to the layman. I say let's find a golden middle path. This has always been my ambition, no matter what I do. I also believe that the pendulum of human evolution eventually finds the middle. This is a Hegelian concept that I fully believe in - thesis/antithesis>synthesis are an inextricable part of the evolution of consciousness). All art forms and expressions must eventually be found equal, this I believe to be one aspect of the golden middle path. Another thing is, the idea is not to make everything the same shade of grey, but to appreciate diversity. As for contents and meaning, I do feel that art should be constructive and helpful, rather than just depressing and the perpetuating of negative myths or behavioural patterns. I personally believe there is a compromise to be found, one where art can point towards anomalies but also inspire (I'm trying to achieve this myself). But before that we will see a lot of extremes and finding the balance might take a bit of time. One of the extremes we will see a lot of these days is decadent art that copies other artists and art that has been before (the robotic artists in China being a great case in point, but that's the extreme of the extremes). As I found in an investigating documentary I watched the other day, this is the era of an extreme indulgence in the copying of things we have already seen and experienced before, as if that brings human some comfort in a disconcerting world.

AP

China's Art Factories

Here is the art of the past that I have edited so far. The text is from an artist's talk I'm doing soon for the Disability Arts Cymru. I think it's alternative art, at least it's art about the human psyche that the authorities never cared much about and I soon learnt to keep away from them.

"The Realm of Water - Level I" 2002 mixed media collage, sold
This piece is about the subconscious mind

In “The Chrysalis” (mixed media drawing) 1998), there is the idea of the possibility of slowly coming to life while on the other hand feeling boxed in by the limitations that my condition was imposing on my life. The figure is waiting for change. Tension, stress, tiredness and pain were all part of my daily life while I was struggling to keep up with everyone else. 

In “The Sacrifice” (mixed media drawing 2002) you can see that while I believe there is something greater behind us, so to speak, I also felt that the acquisition of a greater understanding of life was a kind of sacrifice. It was like Eve eating the fruit of knowledge, yet it was necessary as ignorance was not a choice. I was tied to the Earth, and I had to let go of any resistance towards life. In fact a greater acceptance of my situation helped me overcome some of my physical and emotional problems. It seemed increasingly important to focus on the issues here and now, in this reality.

"Those Who Wait Will Be Rewarded", (mixed media drawing 1999). One of the most important ideas was however that reality is fundamentally a paradox. In this picture, two realities are intertwined. There is one in which the communication between humans is difficult, there is a block of ice between them and the atmosphere is cold. The other is warm and sensuous, symbolized by a cat and a tree of life with roots deep into the ground. In other words, there are always two sides of the coin, but it's the same coin. In a deeper sense, life is not divided into opposites as it seems to the human mind, but one integrated whole. 

This picture is called “All the World is But a Stage” (mixed media drawing 2002), which not only explains that I think of life as a kind of theatre or school, but it also depicts the opposites of summer and winter and the idea that there is a unifying element and life force behind life as we normally see it. Being in touch with this life force is vital to our well being regardless of how disabled we are.

IS CONCEPTUAL ART JUST BAD PHILOSOPHY?

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: "ME/WE, OKAY, GRAY" (still from video, 1993)

When I was a student of philosophy, which ended up as one of my minor subjects, I was looking for answers about life's deeper questions but didn't find very many. My feeling at the time was that most philosophers sit in their armchair conjuring up contrived problems that have very little to do with what is really going on in the human psyche. The only modern philosopher that I could instantly relate to (and this was when I was 19 years old, without any previous formal education in these matters) was Nietsche. His philosophy is one that encompasses questions about spirituality and the human place in the grand scheme of things. It has an element of psychology to it. Years later, after my failed years in art college in France, I ended up studying the one subject that did provide me with the answers I was looking for, i.e. the psychology of comparative religion. I enjoyed every minute of it - until I finished my Master's degree which dealt with creativity and found that my health problems were making it increasingly difficult for me to read anything at all. 

I have to say, however, that I did nonetheless respect the serious philosopher who is that one deviant human being who is able to question the way we look at reality. Regardless whether these strange turns of logic and the challenge to our conditioned perception is of any deeper significance to the human race or not, it's still admirable. Some of these theories, for instance those dealing with our construction of language, are actually even relevant to human development.

I have often thought, however, that conceptual artists are very much like this - philosophers. They often throw ideas into the air for the audience to catch and look at, and it's very much about challenging our programmed brains. The problem is that the issues they like to dwell on very often end up being excuses for bad art, and in fact it's not very good philosophy either. These people would normally be incapable of writing a convincing, intellectual thesis on the subject of their challenging questions. And if they did, they wouldn't be artists but philosophers... I really feel that this is a great problem and I can't think of a single example of a truly successful artist who can do both with panache. Modern and contemporary art deals to a great extent with social commentary, and that's all fine and dandy. Trouble is, very little else goes down very well with the authorities of art, unless it's technically intriguing. What looks interesting and glitzy on the surface, with a promise of greater depths beneath, is very often just gimmicky art in the end. 

I get updates from the Saatchi Facebook page and it's amazing how often they promote art that is just "clever", i.e. it's a construct (often a face) of little bits of something, and it is technically very well advanced. This is usually not conceptual art, it's just art that looks good on the web. But what does it say? Not much, as far as I can see. On the other hand - and this is a bit of a paradox - there's the idea that individual artists are only eligible for grants and other funding if they provide a challenging view of reality and society in particular, and this is generally speaking the realm of performance art, installations and videos. These pieces don't render themselves well in photos nor are they easy to understand and relate to, so they have to be accompanied with a thousand words. It's the well articulated, but not necessarily very comprehensive, philosophical statements that convince the jury, as far as I can see. How often than not do we end up with art that is not of the heart but of the mind? How often is this just bad philosophy and not art at all?

I'll give you an example. I was checking out a short article on a Finnish female artist who is considered one of the most innovative and is therefore internationally acclaimed. She is Eija-Liisa Ahtila, born in 1959. She also likes to have characters perform in ways that people wouldn't normally behave. In "Okay", a woman paces up and down the floor speaking loudly about violent relationships, and during the course of this performance her voice and thus her personality changes. What does it mean? Her work is supposed to be reminiscent of Finnish cult director Aki Kaurismäki's films - we just watched "The Man With No Name" and found the explicit contrivances about people who can only express themselves through their sentimental music very unconvincing. No - not all Scandinavians have Asperger's syndrome or mild autism like the heroines in many criminal stories of today. In another piece, some women go down in a lift to a place beneath the surface of water, they float around discussing atomic catastrophes; apparently this is meant to be some kind of parallel to their personal crises. I'm not sure I don't find this analogy a bit far fetched, and worse still - I don't really care. I'm not sure this is good psychology either, and so it leaves me indifferent. On this note, I have to admit I haven't seen any of this in real life and may have a better opinion if I did (but I doubt it). You may recognize the imagery of floating women and people in awkward, dreamlike situations from my review of Pia Borg's work.

On her website, Ahtila explains "ME/WE OKAY from 1993": "A short film with three fictional episodes and narration consisting of rhythmic monologues. The subject of these three humane dramas is the transformation of one´s identity. ME/WE is about balancing individual identity and about control. OKAY uses a single on-screen persona and various voices to consider the shifts, desires, and inhibitions of the ego within a sexual relationship. The subject of GRAY is the change in reality caused by a catastrophe, and the blurring of the boundary between ego and other."

You may like to check out JAR, an online magazine that attempts at a synergy between art and serious research. I signed up for it but couldn't figure out how to upload my stuff. I hope they have made it easier.

Modern/contemporary art is supposedly all about the fragmentation of the human being. It seems to me, that only those who admit to being existentially lost are considered serious artists. As far as I can see, it leaves us with a body of work that is mostly nonsensical and chaotic. I don't find it helpful to human evolution. I don't believe life has to be that way at all, and my own art does not express a fragmented world view. I'm not saying I am not interested in conceptual art... I will continue to be curious, and probably more so the older I get. I will continue to try and read what people mean even though I struggle to do so. However... We were watching a documentary about the Turner Prize and whether the art that has been awarded or nominated really is any good. I would say that sadly, most of it is just gimmicky. I mean come on, someone gets an award for turning the lights on and off in an exhibition space! This artist has nothing better to do than make art about his inability to make art - and that's quite a symptom of the "modern". And yet another is awarded for flattening silver plated objects and giving them a "new lease of life"... It's just sad.

What do you think? I would love some comments.

As I had just finished this article I came across this one, and here the author, Ben Lewis, states as he ponders the decadence of contemporary art (decadence has crossed my mind too) and especially that of Damien Hirst: "There is a pattern typical of these end-phase periods, when an artistic movement ossifies. At such times there is exaggeration and multiplication instead of development. A once new armoury of artistic concepts, processes, techniques and themes becomes an archive of formulae, quotations or paraphrasings, ultimately assuming the mode of self-parody./.../ I believe that this decline shares four aesthetic and ideological characteristics with the end-phases of previous grand styles: formulae for the creation of art; a narcissistic, self-reinforcing cult that elevates art and the artist over actual subjects and ideas; the return of sentiment; and the alibi of cynicism." Read more about "why modern art is so bad" here on www.prospectmagazine.co.uk! It's potent stuff. I don't agree that the use and repetition of certain style elements is all bad as they are signs of the times, but I do agree that style can easily become mannerism and a lack of originality.

Damien Hirst at Tate Modern, "For the love of God": This skull is covered with real diamonds. Perhaps this is meant to be
a cynical comment about modern day art collectors...  

"But what a small and conservative act of rebellion this glossiness is. Art has become small, superficial and self-indulgent in its emotional range: sentimental rather than truly intellectual or moving." I couldn't agree more, though my knowledge is quite limited due to years of ignoring the whole realm of conceptual art. I love the end: "To paraphrase Trotsky, let us turn to these artists, their billionaire patrons and toadying curators and say: 'You are pitiful, isolated individuals. You are bankrupts. Your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of art history!'”