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The Hendrix Axiom

The Hendrix Axiom - probably articulated a great number of times in the past but I am claiming it as my own because I feel so strongly about it. Simply put, the Hendrix Axiom states that one much learn to play the blues before you burn your guitar. The correlation I draw to the art world is that regardless of your philosophical leanings and deep seated meaning you want to express in your art, you should first learn the basics, learn to create realistically, then burn the world down. A study of any of the great artists pre-1940 will show that typically they arrive at a mastery of realism before making the creative jump into the unknown. By skipping this critical step in the learning process, we are churning out generation after generation of shitty artists who fall back on their implied meaning to overcome their technical skill level. I have and will continue to resist this trend. I am a student of the arts with the intention of improving my technique and knowledge of the creative crafts. There are no shortcuts to greatness and all this ignorance of technique will result in a minor flash in the pan, forgotten before the paint is dry. I hope that history judges us gently, we have made great art for thousands of years and still have time to recover from the last 75-ish years of folly.

4D Project 5 - Word on the Streets - This project is a tribute to Bob Dylan (and INXS) but more than that, it is a statement about the future. With our relatively high average standard of living in Colorado, it is abysmal that we rank in the bottom half of the nation in per capita spending on students. Without education, there is no future. I created these three simple words on the reverse of my family’s picket signs which contained more wordy slogans on the same topic. The signs were then paraded down the 16th street mall to the State Capitol building and displayed for all to see. I consider this more of a moral imperative to uphold what i believe is right more than i would consider it art but who am i to say? Contemporary art is not an interest of mine and thankfully, clicking the post button below will end my active obligations on the subject. Mic drop, grumpy old man OUT!

4D exercise, poetry in public...

grg1973-blog

sign in Luxembourg, 2006

Montgomery Reading Response

There is a fine line between art and vandalism apparently. I am not onboard with all this statement making and defacing of property. I find it to be really trite and a little too self-aggrandizing to think that an artist’s ideas provides license to vandalize. There is a direct contradiction between claiming your roots on the streets and creating works for a global high fashion corporation. Robert Montgomery’s answers to the questions seem very dense with name dropping, he seems very eager to let the interviewer know that he has read the classics and associates with all the right people. I do applaud the fact that he says one of his aspirations is to sell a work in order to buy billboard space. This displays at least some modicum of decency, he can freely vandalize something he himself owns. His notion of giving those same billboards to the Occupy movement is respectable as well. I also respect his level of recognition of the history of Berlin, it would be too easy to barge in and make a mess of things in the name of art. This level of actualization does show respect and maturity. Overall, I think his work is too abbreviated, complex manifestos in Twitter-esque brevity. If you want to be a writer, then write. Short obscure statements serve little lasting purpose.

Holzer reading response

Reading the article on Holzer, I am reminded of a passage from Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminati Trilogy. One of his characters, a government agent, writes down simple facts that he knows to be absolutely true regardless of surrounding conspiracies and stores them in a bank vault. This elevation of simple words on paper into a precious treasure mirrors my view of Holzer’s Truisms. While I personally couldn’t reduce my artistic output to words, I admire her dedication to doing so. This bridges the gap between poetry and visual art. She seems in a self-deprecating way to admit that text her main medium because of a lack of skill at painting. We all must find whatever niche we fit in, wherever our passions take us. I find it closer to poetry and philosophy than art but apparently, the art community at large disagrees and has elevated her works into the realm of the fine art. I am continually dismayed at the number of artists, Holzer included, who conceptualize their works and outsource the physical creation to others. This strikes me as one step too far removed from the creation process, if I am not making it with my own hands then it doesn’t really belong to me. This is one of the many reasons I am completely unfit for the world of contemporary art.

Work in progress, "generational loss". Will be in display for around an hour next Wednesday outside the piano lab and then destroyed.

Word art circa 1990, repurpose Macbeth

Project #4 - The Artist is Reluctantly Present. The construction of a wall is a thing unto itself and to curtail any suggestion of social commentary in this performance, let me assure you this has more to do with securing the self behind a barrier, an act of concealment of the artist than any sort of commentary on current events or the history of barriers being used as boundaries between cultures. Those issues are important but they are not my issues. I don’t have issues, at least as far as art is concerned. My intention with art is to present an image, a reflection of some part of the world, for the enjoyment of the viewer. I don’t want to influence your mind or opinions, that is not why i create... I create snapshots of my view of the world, like them or not, i’m ok with that... I have long maintained that I prefer my artwork to speak for itself, that art requiring explanation or interaction with the artist has not achieved it’s full potential. The music is an original composition, an edit of a longer piece created by myself and a friend about a lifetime ago.

Penultimate 3D foundations project

Reading Response - Performance Art

Performance art occupies a strange space between theater, art, and philosophy. Without contextual explanation, the actions in a specific performance art piece could mean any number of things, all equally valid. I imagine how the work of Marina Abramovic would be be approached in a completely different manner if she stated her purpose was to stare at the person across from her to see if she could make their heads explode, Scanners style. The outward appearance of the work would remain constant but the contextualized meaning would be diametrically opposite. Performance art made much more sense to me through the lens of the Dadaists and Surrealists as meaning could be disregarded in this schools in favor of form, dreams and interpretations by the audience were key elements to those schools of thought. I personally feel that performance art has devolved into a banal attention grab where the performers try to one up the oddity of the previous and apply meaning where none would be obvious to an uninformed observer. Also, as mentioned during classroom discussion, I am disappointed by the elitism of the art community and the supposition that there is a difference between high art and other performance arts for entertainment. Without the contextualization, there is little difference between a gallery sanctioned performance artist and a street performer pretending to be a statue or the crazy guy on the train who may very well be composing Dadaist poetry for an audience of one. Of all contemporary art, I believe that performance art takes itself far too seriously.

4d exercise, three line drawings of potential action verbs for performance art

20 verbs to consider for performance art

To stack To modulate To undulate To groove To fall To vibrate To break To drink To jump To contemplate To prepare To writhe To rotate To anticipate To reverberate To excavate To seduce To confuse To annunciate To exfoliate

seriously...

my daughter was only a few months old but i swear, David waved to her...

David Blaine spent 44 days in a box above the Thames in London. Was it magic? An illusion? or a last ditch attempt to keep his name in the media for a little...

i visited David while he was chilling over the Thames, was nice to say hi and have him wave to us...

Original video and music, project for 4D class

The shifting of light from a primal form in the shape of a flaming blowtorch to a more controlled technological form of the streetlamp was my primary impetus for this project. The underlying calm background of cloud imagery gives continuity to the work as a whole while the shift in color pallet from warm yellow to cool purples provides visual variety. The short length of the work limited the narrative element to a simple gasp, a twitch and a rebirth. I will likely be composing a longer formation of this concept in the future. This project allowed development of time as a function of image, minimal motion leading to conceptual movement. As perspective shifts, the viewer is changed by result of the input signals.

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