Curious citizens can’t decide what to look at, the painting itself or what it’s about. Which way to go depends on what decade magazine you pick up, new theories popping from the chest of the last big thing, elbowing to the front of the line. It’s difficult to tell what you’re supposed to be seeing. With canted brow self-proclaimed authorities presume to be in touch, having acquired degrees it’s well known, but something is happening here and they don’t know what it is.
Sometimes theories get out of hand. Radical extremists in the fifties, insisting their art must be seen totally for itself alone, banned outside reference of any kind, and we had no pictures of anything for years and years. Now there’s a crew claiming the art is just the signifier of some larger truth, some bigger issue -- refreshingly sketchy, unencumbered with trying too hard or having had too much practice.
Come with me down side streets to avoid the jam up on main, horns blaring, tempers rising. First it must be clear, painting isn’t anything like photography, even though they sometimes cover the same beat, enter at the same door. The painter applies color to a blank surface in an attempt to beguile the viewer into paying attention for more than a moment, not such an easy task. Even better would be to create an image that penetrates the scales of habituation and indifference covering most people’s eyes, constructing a picture perpetually present, forever interesting.
There are no rules for how this is done, although conditions change. Currently the terms of citizenship move under our feet, digital engineers far from sunlight are boring into our back brains, and people watch jumbo-trons with replays instead of the puny little players down on the field. It’s becoming difficult to believe anything, especially anything seen -- imagine Elvis in any context imaginable. That’s the task of the painter, break through all that. It’s a challenge, and it doesn’t help that the art establishment, top to bottom, is in the corner trying to find a withered vein, addicted to controversy and sensationalism, terminal, so sad.
Paintings don’t change and that’s their charm. Oh, they won’t flash through the sensory circuits like pornographic pickups shooting lasers, whatever your device is selling, but they gain by repetition, becoming more solid and real over time. Buying a painting is actually an investment in your own future, but the possibility of selling it again for more money is considered elsewhere. Finally, when dealing directly with art, seeing what’s actually there both requires independence in the viewer and causes it as well -- an incremental, barely-noticeable advantage day to day.
Sometimes theories get out of hand. Radical extremists in the fifties, insisting their art must be seen totally for itself alone, banned outside reference of any kind, and we had no pictures of anything for years and years. Now there’s a crew claiming the art is just the signifier of some larger truth, some bigger issue -- refreshingly sketchy, unencumbered with trying too hard or having had too much practice.
Come with me down side streets to avoid the jam up on main, horns blaring, tempers rising. First it must be clear, painting isn’t anything like photography, even though they sometimes cover the same beat, enter at the same door. The painter applies color to a blank surface in an attempt to beguile the viewer into paying attention for more than a moment, not such an easy task. Even better would be to create an image that penetrates the scales of habituation and indifference covering most people’s eyes, constructing a picture perpetually present, forever interesting.
There are no rules for how this is done, although conditions change. Currently the terms of citizenship move under our feet, digital engineers far from sunlight are boring into our back brains, and people watch jumbo-trons with replays instead of the puny little players down on the field. It’s becoming difficult to believe anything, especially anything seen -- imagine Elvis in any context imaginable. That’s the task of the painter, break through all that. It’s a challenge, and it doesn’t help that the art establishment, top to bottom, is in the corner trying to find a withered vein, addicted to controversy and sensationalism, terminal, so sad.
Paintings don’t change and that’s their charm. Oh, they won’t flash through the sensory circuits like pornographic pickups shooting lasers, whatever your device is selling, but they gain by repetition, becoming more solid and real over time. Buying a painting is actually an investment in your own future, but the possibility of selling it again for more money is considered elsewhere. Finally, when dealing directly with art, seeing what’s actually there both requires independence in the viewer and causes it as well -- an incremental, barely-noticeable advantage day to day.
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