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Friday, June 23, 2017

picture making -- figuration re-appears

So what is abstract art? Why it’s total freedom, escape from the shackles of mundane reality, the ability to make stuff up. In the beginning critics romanced about emotional states, the inchoate internal machinations of the angst-ridden mind there on the canvas for us to contemplate -- so superior to the obsolete lumpen dumbness of ‘copying nature.’ Representational art was considered too easy, too commercial, and yes, too common and accessible to even be considered by several generations of scholars, university faculties, and grant administrators. It was banished, marooned, and so were any artists who wanted to paint that way.

Artistic freedom, now there’s a myth. Gaining official acceptance is more like passing a velvet rope manned by a coterie of true believers in whatever is currently chic among millionaires, so discerning, such lively minds. They’re not keen on originality, preferring the nods and winks of a corrupt clergy while an innocent flock foots the bill. Good to remember it isn’t parasitic if the host benefits, but today’s art establishment, tier upon tier of arts bureaucracy, tax sucking museums and subsidies to non-profits, teaching facilities on every college campus sure drains the system, but what we get back is so worth it, so they say. Still, wouldn’t someone like to ask, where is the art on the walls of ordinary people, what is the investment in art of the average middle class household, and how much does the everyday citizen think about art? 

This isn’t about the artists, they could go do something else. It’s the culture that doesn’t need this enormous welfare apparatus, the multi-level art support network, all those fat bureaucrats and skinny artists, but what it does need isn’t there, an authentic artistic expression that has somehow been subverted and maligned. Art and artists should be a part of daily life. Art ought to be a family investment as an enhancement to the home, as a marker of endurance and stability, and as a bond of personal identity when out in the world. It’s probably going to be a picture of something. 

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