Comments for Henri Art Magazine

Comment on Opening Another Front by June

June — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:39:23 +0000

Thanks for the Hughes reference. I watched the whole thing, kvetching a lot, appreciating some, and, as usual, being amazed at the curmudgeon’s downturned mouth. He was much cuter when he was young.

What Hughes neglects to notice, of course, is that the popularization of art means that more of us local-yokels will get visually excited and perhaps even take up some kind of art-making, even if we aren’t in New York/London/Paris/Florence. While he has always been of a privileged class, most of us would never have access to anything remotely like the Mona Lisa if it weren’t for the “curse” after which he so cutely names his show.

I’m not fond of the foolish commodification of art, but I am fond of the popularization of art and its availability. Something about my existence outside the rarified realms makes me grateful for whatever tidbits of genius I can see and emulate. Since I don’t have the imagination to believe I’m going to make it at the Portland Art Museum, much less the Met, I find that I can’t get too het up about the expenditures of vast sums on formaldyhyde.

Much more important to me is the rise of a visual culture that, while it may be too much and too often mere reproduction, is also open to far more people. I suspect that if Hughes had his way, most of us wouldn’t be allowed to mess with paints, and, if we can’t afford to get to the Louvre, then we don’t deserve to see the art elsewhere.

But then, I might just be a bit of a curmudgeon myself. He’s quite right on many points, but I’m thinking he needs to get out of The City more.

Comment on reality_image by june

june — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:32:55 +0000

Aha! I detect a train of thought, a roadway through the murk, a path through the dunes — which might get covered with sand very soon

Comment on reality_absence by admin

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:33:20 +0000

Hi Hans!
I read that essay not too long ago. However, it doesn’t address the issue of Postmodernity. It discusses hybridity, a collage of cultural influence. This is something we’ve been seeing for quite a while. There are the usual Postmodern influences in even the text of the essay – trans-contextual (whatever that could mean,) super-hybridity, super-diverse – all of these terms point to the transformative nature of speed, electronic speed underpinned by the Postmodern theoretics found in programs of all sorts. It is yet another way to define the rampant Mannerism and the overarching institutionalism found in the culture that we’re exposed to. This idea of hybridity is something close to the idea of the Creole, an idea we discussed originally in Rough Trade. And this is nothing new at all. Picasso, especially, and his forays into African art are a prime example of this idea. It is a collaged cultural aesthetic, one formed by artists looking for new ideas in other aesthetics in the late 19th century and legitimized as an academy in the 20th century. Here in the 21st century we are not discussing the ideas behind what we see, we merely accept things as they are, as we’ve inherited them. As I said previously, taking Nauman to the next level is not the same thing as questioning and countering what Nauman does. I think the final comment in the article is what we’ve been addressing all along – first in saying that we’re not addressing the underlying culutral/aesthetic issues and second by emphasizing the primacy of vision – looking for a solution, a way out of the Mannerism.
“None of the above makes for a clearly distinguishable avant-garde; as long as it doesn’t regress into messy plagiarism trying to pass for magic, this could be its achievement.”

Comment on reality_absence by Hans

Hans — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:55:17 +0000

Hi Mark, regarding your series on whats after Postmoderne there is the subject called Super-hybridity a theme at Frieze Magazine now, see here the editorial:http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/pick-mix/

Comment on reality_intimacy by Hans

Hans — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:21:15 +0000

Unbelievable, how Bernini could make this, without a little misfortune, so perfect translated into stone..

Comment on reality_absence by Dennis Bellone

Dennis Bellone — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 07:39:43 +0000

I have read and reread this post. I am not sure what I can glean from it in total as words never suffice to describe or create what it is that I seek. I am not a word person although I am not too shabby at using words to my own ends. So with that pre-emptive I will try to say at least what interests me and what interests me not, what stokes my fire as it were is not prescriptive for any one, I separate any and one intentionally, no, what I say is what drives me, it might not drive you.

I don’t care too much about history of before, although I know it as deeply embedded in me as the lines that crawl over my palm. No, I care about my own experience but that experience is not some easy momentary experience that defines me within the culture, no. It is an experience that bridges and predates all the language of art, of words, of everything I know. I have to erase myself in the studio, I have to eradicate myself in the studio, I have to destroy myself in the studio. I metaphorically strip not only myself in the studio, I strip myself of my history, of my flesh, of my bones. I want, no need to crawl out of this skin.

I don’t and can’t care for a culture, if one can call it that, a culture, because does one outside of capital exist anymore? Either way I don’t care for capital, or culture or even what considers art anymore. Art, life has gone underground, perhaps has always been that way?

Art, ART in the culture for the most part exists as a kind of pornography that restates what we already have been taught, what we know, it reaffirms our worthlessness and becomes just capital in a power play to illustrate ones education without paying the price.

But art, yes lowercase art, for me, opens us up, tears our preconceptions apart, tears our idea of self apart, opens a door to some mystery and not some pseudo mystical ideal of self but in a plain matter of fact way, rips us apart from our preconceptions of art, of reality, of self, of life and all that we all hold dear, art, that action to make, to do, to active engagement within searching, to wonder ‘is that all there is’ without Rosemary Clooney singing the tune in some pop reference.

No, my pop reference tonight is perhaps too many drinks and listening to songs from the Upanisad about Brahman and Shiva and Krishna after a weekend of introducing my son to the Mahabharata and then in answer to Hans. What is it that we need exactly, yourself as you really are without history but with history, with understanding what our ancestors brought us and to take it to a new level, that new level is not higher or lower, it is just your time, your being within the time that you are but to use it, to use what knowledge you have and then to strike into the bulls heart at the moment of truth for yourself, for you are both sword and bull simultaneously and obscurity might just be all of our fates, most likely so, but then when the final moment comes you can say to yourself that you did what you needed to do, what you had to do, what was you only option to do, with all of your best intentions, with all of your blindness you said what it was, what was important to you.

And you would risk fuck all to do it, despite the pain, the loss. It isn’t what “we need” it is what “YOU NEED”. Create the world that you need and die fighting for that.

Comment on Matisse and Charlie by Hans

Hans — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:26:05 +0000

Recently in Paris, Matisse was by far the best painter from what I saw. I rediscovered for myself as well Picabia again, Balthus and Derain

Comment on reality_intimacy by Hans

Hans — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:19:55 +0000

PS When I saw the image above, I thought first it would be a contemporary piece by some English artist mirroring a Madonna song, but Bernini..

I rather thought of a new Minimal Renaissance instead of a new Baroque )

Comment on reality_intimacy by Hans

Hans — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:17:22 +0000

I liked your expression of the “fascism of the image”, maybe there could lie an attack point for art ? To end the contemporary mental black out of art ?

Comment on reality_absence by Hans

Hans — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:00:22 +0000

You always come so close in describing the real important points, ~ I struggle for weeks with myself and the poor results look clumsy and bad, and what is even worse, it is not the necessary heart blood in it, the vision is often lacking. So to give up art instead for business and money maybe ? That sounds so weird to do, at the turning point of history when we would need less capitalism and more art, to realize that art is broke. Maybe it is not, and need just the fresh breeze of youth to renew ?

“So what is it that we need EXACTLY?”