During this era of Covid and Masks I have finished a number of paintings, some of which are thematically related to the anomalous times in which they were painted. Two examples are:
It Has My Head Spinning (2020) This is one of a pair of paintings completed during and related to the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been days when I have experienced almost a dizziness or disorientation because the world around me was rapidly changing and taking forms that were novel and unstable, requiring adjustments to what are normally routine daily habits and patterns and divergences from previously accepted norms. However, on other days the world was darker and intransigent, as reflected in the sister painting “It Has My Head Down.” Acrylic on Wood Panel 12 x 12 It Has My Head Down (2020) This is one of a pair of paintings completed during and related to the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been days where the world has appeared dark and impenetrable, where I felt far from others, even those with whom I had been closely connected prior to the pandemic. The symbols—both in form and color—represent the polarization in the US exacerbated by the pandemic. They are separated by multiple barriers and a great, seemingly unnavigable, distance. However, on other days the world was moving rapidly and chaotically, as reflected in the sister painting “It Has My Head Spinning.” Acrylic on Wood Panel 12 x 12 This blog is sporadic, completed in fits and starts, and deliberately non systematic. Much like my painting. I sometimes go weeks without working. This was particularly true over the past few months as I have been recuperating from double surgery (including my dominant, right, shoulder). My shoulder is fine and I am painting again.
Encountered some intriguing work by Farr Ligvani at the Soka University Founders Hall Art Gallery a few weeks ago. Fascinating, deceptively simple, architecture-inspired work with acrylic and PVC. I recently discovered the wonderful "Art As Experience" podcast, hosted by Sheila Blake and Tom Xenakis. The title derives from John Dewey's highly regarded "Art As Experience" book. Their show is based in Takoma Park, Maryland, and is broadcast via WOWD. The hosts are accomplished painters and offer insightful reviews of art shows in the greater Washington, DC area. Although respectful of all of the artists they discuss, they do not shy away from sharp criticism where they think it is warranted. Not only do Blake and Xenakis provide detailed, stimulating reviews of art exhibits, they also take little side trips and offer suggestions to budding artists regarding technique and career building. As an untrained artist, I have learned quite a lot about the history of art. I have no doubt that the show will be equally appealing to professionals and established artists.
Yesterday we saw the musical "Hadestown" at the Walter Kerr Theatre in NYC. I was simply blown away by the words, the emotions, the symbolism--the sheer power--of the performance. I had heard and purchased the Anais Mitchell album a couple of years ago, well before I learned it would be performed first off, and then on, Broadway. The album features Mitchell as Eurydice, Ani DiFranco as Persphone, Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) as Orpheus, Greg Brown as Hades, and Ben Knox Miller as Hermes. Every song packs a punch, not least of which is "Why Do We Build The Wall?" The song is so timely that Mitchell could easily have written it about the contemporary controversy over the ill-considered and awful well that the current president is obsessed over (she did not). Some of the words are below. They make me shiver.
"Why do we build the wall? My children, my children Why do we build the wall? We build the wall to keep us free That's why we build the wall We build the wall to keep us free How does the wall keep us free? The wall keeps out the enemy And we build the wall to keep us free That's why we build the wall We build the wall to keep us free Who do we call the enemy? My children, my children Who do we call the enemy? Who do we call the enemy? The enemy is poverty And the wall keeps out the enemy And we build the wall to keep us free That? s why we build the wall We build the wall to keep us free Because we have and they have not! My children, my children Because they want what we have got! Because we have and they have not! Because they want what we have got! The enemy is poverty And the wall keeps out the enemy And we build the wall to keep us free That? s why we build the wall We build the wall to keep us free ... I am excited about some new art space in Ridgefield called the Ridgefield Pride Art Center. The Center has 6 private studios and 10 or so semi-privates. I have recently moved into a private space (and, finally, out of my dining room). RPAC will host classes, workshops, critique sessions, and will show some art (at least until its associate Ridgefield Pride Art Gallery opens in September). Resident artists can take advantage of the online store that facilities the sale and mailing of originals and prints (my stuff can be found there). RPAC had an open house this past Saturday and the official opening is today. If you are an artist looking for space outside the home, check it out.
I managed to catch the Joan Miro exhibit called "The Birth of the World" at MOMA last week. I love the inventiveness, playfulness, depth, and sheer beauty of so much of his work. In fact, as noted in my last entry, I recently completed a painting inspired by Miro that is currently at the Spring Juried Show at the Rowayton Art Center. Among my favorite pieces at MOMA are the eponymous work, "Painting," "Mural Painting," "Still Life With Old Shoe," and "The Family." I like the fact that he wanted surrealism to "take on" or compete with Cubism for international prominence. I don't know who "won," but I appreciate and enjoy both. This is the first time I have been able to see, in the same gallery, the model/target image, an early sketch of his surrealistic adaptation of it, and the finished painting. Seeing this project from start to finish was quite instructive. I wonder if there were additional stages that have not been retained.
"There is the way that it is and it cannot not be." These are words from Parmenides of Elea, a PreSocratic Greek philosopher. I wrote this on one of my recent paintings Falling Through Miro (2019). I have paired this with a couple of references to Magritte's The Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe) (1928-9), both in the words I have used and a poorly formed image I have scribbled, all against a backdrop of yellow and other allusions to Miro's Somersault (1924).
Dreams, nothingness, uncertainty, and quantum physics all play roles here. Recently I visited the Met Breuer's above-named exhibit. The purpose of my trip to NYC was primarily to visit the Met, but I decided to drop by the Breuer after a (ridiculously expensive) lunch at a nearby restaurant.
This exhibit was really quite interesting. Think artists' interpretations and renditions of the Kennedy assassination, US/CIA black sites, Iran/Contra, Vietnam War, Watergate, 911, and others. I think the show closes soon, but the catalogue is available. There is a mixture of fact-based findings and odd speculation (aliens from another planet killed JFK). Work by Sue Williams, Sarah Charlesworth, Mark Lombardi, Jenny Holzer, and others. Unfortunately, there was little there that surprised me as I was already aware of major conspiracy theories surrounding these events. Nevertheless, it was worth the visit. Find more by following #MetArtandConspiracy Lately I have been so caught up in the Political Theatre in Washington that I have failed to add blog posts. The controversies, the petty grievances, and the lies have been distracting.
Art has been and can be defined in many ways (obviously). Ad Reinhardt, one of the more interesting painters and thinkers in modern art, had this to say:
“The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else…making it…more absolute and more exclusive—non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective.” And he writes "Tradition shows the artist what not to do." I think there are parallels in Benjamin's focus on "authenticity" (as opposed to reproduction) and Reinhardt's repudiation of tradition, of copying, of art for any non art purpose. Reinhardt seems to have thought that his was the apex or perhaps the end of originality in art (not totally unlike Wittgenstein claiming, regarding his "Tractatus," that he had ended philosophy by solving all of its key problems. In the same essay, Benjamin writes "by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental." Benjamin contrasts exhibition value with cult value, which is grounded in ritual and (at least historically) shrouded in secrecy. He casts these as two poles, between which a quantitative distinction becomes qualitative, perhaps as in a cusp/catastrophe model (my words). Would love to read of others who have explored the space between these poles (or challenged his conceptualization).
I recently re-read (after 30 years or so) Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1955). Of note:
"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be...The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity...The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical--and, of course, not only technical--reproducibility...technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself...the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition." But, I suggest, this is part of the myth of the origin. Recently I have been watching the video lectures in "Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender" by the University of Melbourne, via Coursera. A bit dry, but interesting to me, as a someone with little formal education in art. Of particular note (so far) are the discussions of Henri Rousseau's "The Dream" and "The Gypsy" and his presentations of women in active, rather than passive, roles.
Is this statement (if true) universally true or does sociocultural/historical situatedness matter?
"The easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself; for we believe whatever we want to believe." - Demosthenes How does one remain Stoic in the age of outrageous political behavior? Can we sit back, unattached, while fascist tendencies grow stronger, while minorities are persecuted and out nation is divided? No, I don't think Epictetus would agree with that (although his comments about the "loss" of a child make one wonder). Since we can't ask him, we don't really know what he would have suggested. Does it matter, though? Epictetus would certainly agree that we should not be attached to a person (including him) so that we tie our fortunes to that person. So perhaps there should be less focus on whether one is or is not following his version of Stoicism, and more on whether we can indeed live with our actions, whatever they may be. Or, rather, our philosophy of living. Engage, but don't become overly attached?
If we are embedded in an incomplete world, how could we possibly know it? Can we grasp the totality, or even believe with confidence that there is a totality or whole waiting to be discovered, if we can only see the parts in space (physical, mental) and time around us?
This website has been dormant for too long. Actually, no, not too long, as that would suggest attachment to a preferred indifferent (thank you, Epictetus). I am not so attached. Regardless, I have taken up painting during the last few years, entered some art shows, and hope to display at more. Soon I will upload images of these on a new page.
Gödelian phenomenology is characterized by its incompleteness: The subject is "always" already there but never in its totality. The life we lead must be incomplete. It may be that only in death is totality achieved; unfortunately, the subject will never witness this. For death is the ultimate Godelian paradox.
Kurt Gödel was a relatively obscure mathematician who existed on the margins of the Vienna Circle until formulating one of the most important mathematical statements of all time (and consequently moving out of obscurity). This formulation (there were, in fact, two related theorems) challenged--well, refuted--accepted thinking about the consistency and completeness of mathematical systems. Also, and of much more interest to me, were the philosophical implications of Gödelian incompleteness. The paradox. In general, a paradox exists when logic requires that the mind draw contradictory or inconsistent conclusions. Assumptions or axioms stipulated as true, when considered together, are logically inconsistent. Individually they make sense. Together they they make nonsense. Nonsensical, as I mean it, does not imply untruth. but merely a conclusion or conclusions that do not fit within the parameters of Aristotelian logic. Aristotelian logic is encapsulated by the syllogistic form. One syllogism with which many are familiar is: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. Taken together, the major and minor premises require the conclusion. Syllogisms don't tell us what is true about the world, but only what conclusion must follow, given particular premises. In any case, Gödel revolutionized logic and the philosophy of mathematics (specifically work by Russell and Hilbert). I am neither a logician nor a mathematician and won't try to delve too deeply into those realms. Gödel's 1st incompleteness theorem is akin to the liar's paradox, which is of the form "all Cretans are liars" and is attributed to Epimenides, himself a Cretan. If a Cretan uttered that sentence, then a paradox is suggested. If the sentence is true it is false, and if it is false it is true. Or take: "this very sentence is false." The paradox is clear (which makes it confusing!). As Rebecca Goldstein as written, Gödel essentially stated that "This very statement is not provable within this system." My interest is in the implications of this paradox for subjective, conscious experience. That is, in a phenomenological application of Gödelian incompleteness. I will expound on this in subsequent entries. [Note: My understanding of Gödel's work is indebted to Rebecca Goldstein's excellent Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Gödel] http://www.rebeccagoldstein.com/books/incompleteness/index.html I find phenomenology to be intuitively appealing. I appreciate how Husserl sought to pare down the world to its essence, its core. Like so many philosophers both before and since, he attempted to tear and down and then reconstruct philosophy and knowledge on an entirely new footing. Phenomenology focuses on life as it is lived, and existence as it is experienced. The world that we encounter is nothing more than the world we intended (even if it is not the world we would prefer). But we don’t really encounter the world as if it is somehow separate or distinct from ourselves. Husserl anticipated the contemporary notion of embodiment, of grounded cognition, that has become popular in contemporary psychology and philosophy. He, along with Merleau-Ponty, thrust the lifeworld into the centerfield of philosophy, even if it was criticized from various perspectives. This is what I find intuitively “correct” in Husserlian philosophy.
|
Live Free or Die. Archives
July 2020
Categories |