Contents
1 An elaborate artist statement
i Preface Page 2
ii Introduction Page 2
iii Evaluative processes in a culture of avoidance Page 3
iv Reflections on the state of contemporary art Page 12
v The condemnation of repressive manifestos
In visual art. Page 15
vi An outline for a unified approach to
visual art Page 17
vii On drawings Page 21
viii On printmaking Page 24
ix On the aesthetic of my art Page 31
x My basic approach to visual art Page 33
xi Conclusion Page 41
An elaborate artist statement.
Preface
I always explain my aims, subject matter, techniques, reasons, aspirations and inspirations. I am always ready to defend, discuss and think about art. For over thirty years I have noticed that non-artists and some artists have argued that the only thing that explains art is the work itself. This is more evident today then ever before. As an active artist and an art activist I do not accept this line of thinking. It is insulting, irresponsible and uncalled for. It is my responsibility to explain, discuss, and talk about my art. I will not forgo any opportunity to do so, in fact I seek the opportunity to do just that. In the following remarks I put forward a small selection of my ideas.
Introduction
That art involves in the making of objects is a given. A great amount of interest is always given to answering in part or in whole the question, how do we do it? A useful answer is a mechanistic one. It is motivated by the idea that machines or programs can replace artists. The arguments are coded in discussions dealing with form and content. We can argue that both form and content are different states. Today’s ways of doing Things are not the same as yesterdays. With a modernist spirit we can always say it will be better tomorrow. In other words we celebrate the fact that over time form will become an unimportant issue. This is because modernist says that design always argues that there are good forms and bad forms. The next question is what about the individual content of a work of art? Well relativism has already given us the answer. It argues that all is relative. This means that in some ways we should not bother because content is relative. After all any narrative is just a story among infinite stories. With these two arguments we can see that the two criterions of postmodernism has been ushered into the art world in a natural way. To let relativism dominate art theories totally, without any notions of quality and performance goes against personal interest in any activity. At the same time relativism makes it difficult to open serious and aesthetically driven discussions of new developments. In fact it is easy to argue that relativism will lead us to be forever drawn to mediocrity and a rather boring life style bordering on lies and deceit.
In a culture were everyone is avant-garde it becomes difficult to accept all kinds of visual activities especially if it is done to pass the time, or done for therapeutic reasons. When the word “new” means good art and representational art means “bad” art, we find our selves alienated and on the verge of abandoning visual culture and replacing it with invisible objects known as art theories. We are all motivated by the potential of the new and the avoidance of the old. We already see this with discussions and claims, made by experts. For example art critics like to claim that they know what artists should do, and that the artists is often ignorant and is blinded by ambitions and wishful thinking. An interesting project that was tried by architects in the past was to replace the artist by integrating the art as part of the building. The results were a total disaster and thus few still argue the relevance of this esthetic. Another example is exemplified by what I have heard from some art historian. They claim that as curators they are visual artists and that each of their shows is a work of art. With friends like that who needs enemies.
As artists perform their various activities, so does the public. Since we celebrate and evaluate individual achievements. We need to be transparent and fair-minded in our approach, both as artists and as non-artists. We need to be just, respectful and accountable in how we go about our evaluative tasks.
My approach is a simple one I start with simple ideas, so simple that everyone can easily accept and conclude with ideas and notions that are surprising and requiring little arguments to defend and substantiate.
In the sciences we have a well known principle that says the followings, when we have two explanations that basically explain the same results we will chose the one that is least complicated. In the visual arts we have something similar. It says that every visual work has a simple subject matter, even if it does not have one, we say that no subject matter is the subject.
We now differentiate between a complicated subject matter and a simple one. If we have two simple subject matters we chose the union of the two provided there is an agreement among them. This new complicated subject matter can be called the objective subject. An objective subject matter is a complicated subject matter but the simple subject matter is rarely objective subject. It is clear that if many people see the same artwork and the rate of agreement among the viewers on what is the subject matter is very high then the subject matter will be a very simple one. We can also argue in a very convincing way that over time the simple subject matter may become domineeringly the objective subject and that it becomes time independent. Furthermore we can use this form of arguments to describe a post-modern artwork. This I will do at the end of this section.
To interpret highly charged social subject matters in a beautiful gentle and highly symbolic ways is an improper and meaningless way some artist have chosen to do their art. The maxim of many is anything represents anything. It used to be fun to look at nature and see our dreams in it, such as horses and animals in clouds and constellation systems, rivers or mountains. Today these interpretations we expect only from children. Today artist likes to talk about serious things like death anxiety survival identity and gender issues. When looking at what artist produce we notice that only some are experts and they are the only ones that can question the work of art. Furthermore only those experts can question the artist. After all who are we to question we are wasting our time if we challenger artistic claims. And if you do question you will find yourself alone ignored and forgotten. You will never be consulted and you will never be in demand.
An analysis of various arbitrarily chosen catalogues published in Canada from 1970 to 2000 reveals that they can be divided into two categories. Catalogues dealing with ephemeral art and catalogues dealing with the other arts. Thus the information and conclusions in these publications are either not verifiable or somewhat verifiable. Thus we can ask the following, what is the point of evaluating ephemeral shows? How can we come close to examine the claims that are made in them?
It is evident that evaluative processes always take place. From listening and reading the literature we know that artists constantly evaluate their work. To produce anything requires making choices. Ask an artist and they will tell you about the difficult choices that they had to make. The artistic community also evaluates each artwork. The totality of the artist’s work is also evaluated in part or in full. Their relative place is also evaluated. The viewers always evaluate artwork. That’s why retrospective shows are so popular and in demand. To say that something is nice is an evaluated statement. My claim is that it is culturally accepted and thus expected to evaluate art shows artworks and artists. Failure to do so can be interpreted as censorship. Because in Canada, we take a light approach in visual culture it almost looks like there is a cultural bases to this avoidance which can be interpreted as censorship is ingrained in the Canadian psyche
By examining what artists are saying we can come to understand what must be the evaluative principals taking place. We also need to look at ideas that are practice independent, notions that are not based on any artistic technique or medium.
Because of the diversity in the methodology of production and reflections that is constantly present is visual discourse it is my belief that we need to listen to artists and we need to synthesize what they say and is being said about them. Not all artists reflect on art in the same way, but they all have a small circle of ideas that explain to them what is taking place. All of these ideas and reflections pass through the sieve of visual evaluation. Evaluative processes are the simplest concept that explains why artists do what they do. To claim that two distinct works are equivalent in their visual presence, that they are equally good is easy to argue but is fundamentally wrong and goes against all activities taking place at any given time. Even the people who make these arguments upon examinations have difficulty supporting these claims.
If we continue to pretend that there is a dialogue taking place between artists and art historian, between the public and the artists, when in fact it looks and sounds like a continuos monologue aiming at the artists and the public. What will happen and is already happening is the loss of credibility in our visual culture and its replacement with advertisement and the culture of the rich and famous.
Another way of arriving at the same conclusions is by the investigations of style. You cannot be an artist without a personal style. You have a style of producing drawings. You have a style of painting an art work. Your styles of being an artist or dressing you’re your attitudes. Everything that is said about style is in terms of having a useful way of explaining visual truth. Our main observation is that some art is more important than others are. By examining style in an intelligent and careful way we come to understand what other artists have understood, that if we don’t evaluate art in public what is considered interesting artwork by all experts except the community of artists is suspect. In fact visual culture in Canada is lucking credibility because artists are not convinced and don’t trust the expert opinions of art historians and art critics and even art reporting. Because they are all driven by money and are unaccountable because of various commercial and various incentives to virtually bribe the starving experts.
Basic concepts of style are a priori knowledge. The way we hold a brash or a pencil is an example of a personal style we call it a spontaneous style. What is interesting is that we classify this style into three types one that produces images that work, images that don’t work and images that are contrives. That is some people say that some art works and some claim that the same artwork doesn’t work. In fact this implies the existence of a group of people looking at art, and looking depends on who looks at art. We can call these artworks as having unstable spontaneous style.
Images that work consist of the set of all good artworks. Images that don’t work consist of the set of all bad artwork, and images that are unstable are the contra verse artwork. We know that any object in the universe can be classified in the same way. For that reason we insist that an artist be present when discussing art. Otherwise we waste our time discussing issues that are beyond our control and understanding.
An artwork can be clarified into one of five categories. Decorative artwork, narrative artwork, symbolic art work modern artwork and post modern artwork. Furthermore a work can move from one category into another. We need a way of dealing with all artwork past and present. For this we need concepts that are independent of the artwork. In a general sense we need ideas like it works, or visual truth discovery when talking about the creative process the methodology, interpretation, evaluative process, bad art, good art, the avant-garde and the new and relevant.
Before I continue I owe the reader a definition of a post-modernist art work. This is my definition. An art work is said to be post modern or a postmodernist work if it is an artwork that satisfies the following six conditions:
1 The art work was created by one artist.
2 It has a narrative subject matter.
3 It is a multi-narrative work that is; it has more than one interpretation. It can have a dominating narrative and few sub-narratives, one of, which must be symbolic.
4 The artwork is about the artist, that is, one of the sub-narratives can be considered autobiographical. It can be based on reality or fiction. In some sense the work is about the real artist or an imaginary artist. The work is a statement about the creator of the work.
5 The artwork has a unique presence and is a commentary on something. Often it is political.
6 It works visually. Notice that the originality and uniqueness of the artwork are not essential conditions, and it is permitted to borrow, copy and collage everything.
After some reflection this definition might be too inclusive. We might require further restrictions. Here are some examples. An artwork might be space specific, such as an installation that might be pointless to recreate in another space. Or it might be time specific involving some objects of people such us a performance that losses it urgency after the initial showing. These interventions are easily postmodern but because of the temporary and ephemeral nature of the work. Any evaluative reflections are such that only a theoretical reference gives it any validity anything else results in the importance of the documentary objective description as the most important pronouncement
For some artists the ephemeral quality of the artwork is the most important attribute. For them whether the artwork is good or bad or otherwise is, not very important. In fact, the claim is that it is not possible to have a good ephemeral artwork what is important is to be engaging. And while the work is engaging and questioning we must be honest and do our best to fulfil our task. This is the most important agenda not the final result.
We can fine-tune our definition by introducing the following a weak -postmodern artwork is an artwork that is not time or place specific. And if the artwork is time or space specific ephemeral work then it is a strong- postmodern work.
Reflections on the state of contemporary visual art
All of us who are involved in visual culture the last thirty years have been interesting, puzzling and at times peculiar. Developments that often defy explanations and discussions that were urgent, turned out to be trivial, and often passed over in silence. Cultural forces that were under our control are now hopelessly out of our control. What we took for granted we couldn’t do so anymore. It seems that the battle for visual cultural control is lost. In order to contribute to a healthier cultural visual lifestyle we must be less categorically selective and more accepting and visually tolerant.
I find myself more and more interested in the following question; under what cultural and social conditions can we argue that art is dead? Some have argued that this is not possible, and this exercise is a waste of time. I on the other hand, am not so sure. Remembering the arguments that I heard in the past, advocated by some artists and by some of my teachers, that art is dead and must be replaced by work orders. Has convinced me to belief that this discussion is not complete and definitely not over, and that a more urgent examination of art is now needed.
Let’s look at two very popular statements, the first being that we are all artists. And the second, that everything is a work of art we can easily argue that these two statements have been with us for many decades and that these could lead us to conclude that art is dead.
All we need is a consensus in our present day postmodern culture. Some will argue that this is contradiction. Postmodernism implies diverse views. True but certain beliefs can easily exist that leads to very little diverse conclusions.
We now ask is it possible to have a cultural situation that would make it obvious that the above two statements are always true? The answer is yes! Here it is. We divide art into two categories, C1 and C2. C1 will include all traditional art. Any art that looks like past art is C1.Any art that is made in the same way as some C1 art is also C1 art, and all decorative art is C1 art. And C2 will include cutting edge art. Over time C2 artworks transform into C1 artwork. And C1 art always stays C1 art. The last question that we need to complete the argument is how we can tell if we are looking at C1 or C2 art. Clearly modernity makes it simple. Modernity insists that the art be closely associated with new technologies. If new technology is not involve it’s not C2 art.
We now make the following remarks. We live in a business-oriented society. Everything is thought of as business, or I should say the language of business is strong enough for the arts. Artists are asked to take sessions on how to photo artwork. How to write interesting artist statements and curriculum vita How must be famous and if you are not famous, make sure that your name is found among the names of some famous artists. With a business sense of humor, we can say that if you want to sell art you need to invest in it. Having works on consignments tells me that to sell aggressively would be difficult.
We know that the public loves entertainment of all sorts. That the public loves visual art is obvious and needs no explanations. Without being drawn into a lengthy debate over quality and merit of visual arts. We remark that art has the ability to entertain and over time we will increase or decrease the number and qualities of visual activities. Over the last 100 years we have seen a proliferation of galleries, museum places to show art, and diverse and possible venues to look at art. Who pays for the art? Here is where we find a consistent confrontation between artists and the public.
It seems that for the public whether art is dead or not is not very important. What is important to the fans is the consistent supply of good art at inexpensive prices.
The condemnation of repressive manifestos in visual art
It is obvious that modernity or postmodern philosophy have in a certain way the ability to describe and explain certain contemporary visual art in part but not in whole. Contemporary art exists as an activity, independently of what is said, and not because of what is said.
Since the body dominates our interest in its form and in the multitude of contemporary subject matter, and since the disappearance of the great narrative. The images of the body in its infinite physical possibilities and equally our sensitivity to interpret all the nuances of facial and gastrulas information have, pushed nonrepresentational art to the verge of extinction, and forced its rebirth as commercial and decorative art.
The lessons of abstractions have led us to witness the prolong and agonizing death of modernist visual culture and its transformation. Only the body can feed our interests to provoke and spread human narrative. The stories we tell are of our time. They are at times serious, funny, whimsical, dark and serial, but never abstract. We need to see more engaging art and less boring art if that is at all possible.
An important element in nonrepresentational theories was the discussion of spirituality. It was always abstraction from a humanist concern and never the other way around. We all work with an inner sensitivity that enables us, most of the time, to determine if something works or not. But for some cultural reason we give it very little importance.
This passive and sedative view is the enemy of visual culture. Why value experimentation if nothing was created? Why question anything if the artwork is mundane? Why use new technologies and new materials if there is no subject matter? Why accept boring art work and find it offensive to say so? Why abandon the important activity of interpreting, synthesizing and contributing to the understanding of our time?
Why accept and worship the beautiful if we say nothing about the collective desire of humanity? It is my decision to withdraw and reject this commercial and decorative visual art culture because I have the choice to refuse the notion that art is only a business and that, money is the only important central idea and ignore the knowledge and power of visual art.
The time has come to reject the humiliation and exploitation of the myths that life is art and that we are all artists. I refuse art for arts sake divorced from a subject matter while not exploring the ugly.
Why treat the public as stupid? Why try to educate the public? Why claim that the public does not understand visual culture? Why not recognize that people are visually sophisticated and that if we are prescriptive in our approach the public will avoid us. Why not insist on a debate about art by including the artist, by engaging the artist to explain why the art they do is important and why the public should care? Why some art are shows good and some are bad? Why think that evaluative theories are synonymous to personal opinions? And lastly why not inform and reflect on our visual history in a serious way and not in our present commercial and “Its only business” way?
An outline for a unified approach to visual art
We live today in an age of fast drying haircut, virtual colors and plastic paintings. People always ask me why I do what I do. Why make ugly art? They always confuse the artist with the narrative of the artwork. They wonder if I am a pervert, or a sadist. Did I torture animals when I was small? One person left their phone number and told me that they can release my tensions anytime anywhere, because they were impressed With My art. All these interesting confrontations force me to explain and inform the community about art theories, instruments, and processes that are involved in my art.
This small effort is made up of a collection of thought whose main idea is to achieve enough unity, but not total unity when thinking about art. It is general enough in order to handle the diversity of all my artistic productions. It is also academic rather than chatty chat.
Here are my main ideas. That art is an activity that needs no explanation. As such it is meaningful to speak about visual research. G.E. Moore has said, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”. I like that. For me this captures how I explain the meaning of my art. That is when you look at my art, you can evaluate my research, its direction, and its subject matter.
In the past thirty years it became clear that we could think of the artist as a researcher. This is how I see myself. As an investigator belonging to an international visual art community, researching in a personal way the production of visual works. My area of research and expertise is social commentary.
Postmodernism has given us philosophically diversity and plurality. Using the notion of research and the notion of an activity, it becomes obvious that the range of investigations today is much more diverse, and definitely more serious. It also keeps the notion of continuity in aesthetics and the theories of art.
We can argue, using the ideas of culture, that the visual arts contribute and enrich various disciplinary activities, such as sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, computer science, mathematics, architecture, environmental studies, philosophy and other diverse studies.
In this new postmodern paradigm, we see a movement driven by globalization and democratization when it comes to the question of who is a contemporary artist. This can be proven by taking note of all the similar art ideas coming out everywhere and at about the same time. Such new and synthetic approach in art is producing a universal culture of visual art. It also explains the universal postmodernist understanding of what artists do. This makes it possible for artist to be considered as equal, without taking into account their socioeconomic, religious and nationalistic background.
I am interested in the universality of visual truth. Modernism introduced the notion of the avant-garde in order to
explain and control the production of visual truth. Postmodernism has made it clear that modernism cannot function with a finite number of subject matters. It has given us an infinite collection of subject matters. In fact as I see it, each work of art becomes a member of at least one set of subject matters, and this is very important. A postmodernist theory also makes it possible to claim that the creative process of looking at past art history, by today’s standards is trivial and unimportant.
Postmodernism enlarged the area of visual investigations from a small finite list that can be dominated by society and authority to an infinite variety of subject matters and ideas. It offers us the proof that anything can be an area of visual investigations.
The problem that needs to be addressed is that of the tools required in order to describe objectively the artwork, the
Subjective understanding that comes after an objective discussion, and finally the evaluative discussion that comes at the end. This approach makes it possible for the enlargement of ideas from the particular to the universal.
We need art theories in order to discuss the importance of the subject matter that art deals with. For me, artists are disturbers of social and cultural peace. They are impartial and bias free when it comes to investigating visual truth. They are only driven by the subject matter and by some universal intuitive understanding of what works visually. This comes from intensive understanding and experience of the visual language.
Art from the 1970's is a preoccupation with the diversity of styles, and the search for visual ideas and truth. Its maxim is thinking globally, act locally. I have a set of ideas by which I explain my art. My art raises issues, which resist easy dismissal. It is based on a unified theory of concepts and aesthetic discourse. My strategy is to introduce the concept of universelization as inevitable and desirable.
Since art is a meaningful activity, this implies that we can talk about and discuss the art works. The discussion has always some structure, as well as some personal narrative. Some artists claim that all artwork are autobiographical. Let us assume that a work of art has also some non-autobiographical information. Since we cannot distinguish in any reliable way between the two, I claim that over time everything becomes non-autobiographical. Therefore, I choose to say that all autobiographical information is part of the subject matter and that the subject matter is the most important component of the artwork. For this reason, I say that the artwork is about the subject matter and not the artist. For me, at least all artists are equal and it is important to talk about the artwork and not the artist.
In summary, for me art is an activity. I see myself as a researcher searching for visual universal truths, by producing strong personal works of art. That the personal narrative is unimportant is obvious, and if it is important it becomes part of the subject matter and thus loses its documentary autobiographical components
On drawings
Direct action is based on the existence of visual principles or visual laws. These laws or principles are not deductive and I believe not finite. Their existence is based on the existence of artwork that codes them in real time and space. These actualizations are the manifestations of the genius of the artist. They are not theoretical ideas but objective truths.
These principles are the a posteriori discoveries of visual research. We don’t have to ask how these visual discoveries operate or why. We can simply say that they become our visual vocabulary once we come face to face with them. It is in the domain of the artist to reveal and create these visual objective truths.
In the past 30 years it has become clear that we need to think of artists as researchers, working in a personal way in the production of visual works. For me artists are in some ways disturbers of social and cultural peace.
Drawings for me come from the ability to handle lines and paintings come from the ability to handle color. It seems to me that the human psyche is more tolerant with color but less with drawings. A mess is always dominated with lines and less with color. Consequently drawings as artworks are hard to accept. They seem to be suspended in cultural space between writing and the technical world of paintings. It is easy to argue that drawings are simpler to make and paintings are more difficult. It is only resent that drawing has come to be recognized as a distinct activity, with its own agenda although at times it is not clear if that is the case.
When I was in elementary school living in Israel our school took us to see a Van Gogh exhibition held in the Tel-Aviv museum. I declared than that to me the paintings were drawings done with a thick brush with the intention of covering all white spaces after a simple contour drawing was introduced. This observation stayed with me and became the basis of my art. I am and always was interested in contour drawings. For me a drawing always has a painterly and a linearly quality. The linearity of a painting pushes the work to become a drawing and the painterly quality pushes the work to become paintings. Many drawings that concern them self with the depictions of volume are in fact paintings and many paintings that are dominated by contour lines can be easily thought of as drawings. In fact we can speak of drawing a painting or painting a drawing in ways that deepens our understanding of both art forms. Drawings are by nature narratives and paintings decorative.
I find it incredible that even though, interesting and challenging, drawings are not easy to make. Many artists are not interested in examining this activity and are too eager to claim that they are experts with drawings, when what they draw is bad, shallow and insignificant. It is also surprising that technological development has nothing to offer to the research and investigations done with drawings. For me this is in some ways a blessing and a perfect manifestation that computer programs cannot replace artists.
As an artist I see myself in contemporary culture as a visual scholar working against the monopolistic jurisdiction of modern art and contributing in a significant way to the understanding and empowerment that is needed in the art of drawing, and its interpretations. I do this by redefining drawings as a postmodern visual and political activity.
On printmaking
I was always interested in printmaking because of its ease of execution and the misery that it offers to those that work with no subject matter. For them it is not how it looks but how it is printed. Even today thirty years after seeing my friend ask “is the pressure right”, “is it printed correctly” without having any idea about the image, I find this strange. My fondest memories are that of someone asking whether a particular color works better then the orange they used. When I asked if they thought about the image in terms of the color they said no. They then tried to convince me that color comes later. That’s when I though that printmaking is the place where all the stupid hide. Today, even though artisan printmaking flourishes, I find that some artists are producing an exciting body of work that is interesting, challenging and very good.
I was always interested in discussing the place of contemporary print making as an art activity and ways of distinguishing between original prints from Christmas or birthday cards in our present day consumer culture. Since my colleagues in various prints studious don’t think much of what I say, I take my time to explain my ideas. Print making developed out of the desire to produce the same image more than once. It developed separately from text printing. It has its beginning with the production of coins, weapons and pottery. It became obvious that in order to succeed in making many copies of the same object one has to be organized and thoughtful. This realization came about in a natural way and was coded in processes known as techniques, which is made out of rules and duties. In the past a print was not far from the technique. Over time and because of modernity the subject matter of the print gained more recognition and the problems of making prints were slowly pushed to the specialized world that exists in all apprentice based activity. In other words it became the science and the art of these various crafts.
These remarks are intended for anyone who wishes to understand all printmaking in a unified way without caring about its rich history and its diverse list of techniques that are available to the practicing artist. This work is not restricted only to western prints. It explains and demystifies printmaking when we are overrun by the diversity of its history and endless technical considerations that fascinate artists but not the public. It is an approach that permits us to look at prints without restrictions. For us the “where”, “when”, “why”, and “who”, about prints is totally irrelevant when looking at prints. The only thing that is important is the “what” which is for us synonymous to the subject matter of the print under consideration.
Occasionally we ask what is a print. Over time many things were said. In fact we can say that each generation has its own definition, or understanding of what is a print. Many of the definitions have the structure of a restricted definition that is it explains and identifies some but not all prints as such. One think is certain and that is a print is a single image. For my part it is obvious that not all images are prints .A natural observations that we all make when we are small is that we leave foot prints when we walk on a soft surface such as sandy beach. This experience takes on a primal quality. On the other hand we can leave marks on the ground using a branch or a pointy stone, this to is something that has imprinted our human psyche. I claim that these two simple observations have been made by man kind from the beginning of time and that the distinction between a print and a painting or the difference between a print and a drawing lies within these simple human experiences.
All activities can be reduced to simple human actions, thoughts and experiences. That has been with us for eternity. It is for this reason that we understand many diverse activities. Even though we have a harder time seeing the importance, and relevance of an activity but an easier time with explaining what it is.
In the visual arts prints have played an important role and thus many of the best-known artworks are prints. They are in fact icons of visual culture. And in another obvious sense prints have popularize and made known masterpieces in all cultures for the last 500 years.
A print comes in many sizes this leads us a natural form of classification. We have the miniature prints up to the large format prints. This form of looking at prints is not quit reviling. So we try another approach. It is common knowledge that some prints are reproductions, and some not. This distinction needs explanations. It is common practice for artists to take one of their images and make posters, postcard, buttons and occasionally shirts; mugs, coffee cups and other objects referred to sometimes as merchandise. In fact certain artists have more success then others. There are companies that buy the rights to print some images by some artists and sell the print to the public. The technical way of achieving this is at this moment is not important, what is though is that it is a reproduction of a preexisted image
Prints that are not reproductions are sometimes referred to as original prints or art prints but most of the times just prints followed by the name of the technique. For example Rembrandt’s print the “presentation in the temple” Is an etching with dry point. Or Martin Lewis “The Great shadow” dry point or Sue Coe “The Veal Skinner” lithographs.
We are now ready for a definition it reads like this the collection of all prints is made up of two disjoint sets. One set we call reproductions and the other set we call original prints. The difference between the two is that a reproduction represents and shows another object and an original print represents and shows itself. Because of this an original print is an artwork whereas a reproduction hardly so. This is a problematic destination. How can we tell the difference between the two? Well this type of situation is not unique to the arts. It is a social problem and we know that we must protect self through legislation and education from lies deceits and exaggerations. Ignorance is not a virtue. Never collect or enjoy art alone always do it in public. Search the assistance of artists. Ask the artist what they offer. A final word on this, printmaking has a rich history and depth. To tell the difference between an etching and a woodcut, as an example is not an artistic activity it all depends on the urgency of the situation, and personal interest. It is one of the preoccupations of all collectors in all fields of collecting, from collecting hockey cards to collecting dolls.
I like to think that the art world has problems with contemporary postmodernist printmaking, because of the luck of concepts and ideas. Here are the central ideas about my printmaking art. It is a discussion independent of any technique. Printmaking deals with two things. The first in making mono prints and the second is making editions. If we use the notion of similar images instead of exact duplicates to deal with editions, we can then say that contemporary printmaking is better served if we distingue between these two editions types. The first we call exact edition and the second interpretive edition, indicated on the print by the symbol E.I. Thus we can say that an edition consists of a collection of similar images.
While we are talking about editions here are some technical facts. 1/1 is the numbering used for a monotype. The numbering is placed after the edition is complete. If ten prints were printed then it is an edition of 10. If we want an edition of 100 we must print all 100. Otherwise the edition is not a real edition but a virtual edition. The reason for this is that over time all virtual editions become real editions. An edition printed on a computer cannot be a real edition but by default, a virtual edition.
We have a problem if we want to produce more images of the same edition. To solve this we borrow from the book publishing business. We introduce the idea of the second and other edition through the following numbering systems. We call it the extended numbering system. It works like this. “a/b” means that the size of the edition is the number “b” and on each print, the number “a” is any number between 1 and b. The numbering on the second edition starts with b+1 and ends with 2b. That means for example that the number 12/8 means that the first edition is an edition of 8, and that the number 12 represents print number 4 in the second edition. Obviously each edition has the same size.
With this numbering scheme in mind we chose to number unlimited edition in the following way: we number the images sequentially and write an edition over 2. That is the number 213/2 means print number 213. Also we can’t have an edition smaller then three. Let’s face it an edition of two is very close to a mono print. We can always ask, “What is the point” of such a small edition?
Let’s get back to our main topic. For me the art of printmaking deals with three distinct objects, monotypes, exact edition and interpretive edition. Because of this the image is what matters most to the visual public and not technique. In fact technique is unimportant. My slogan is Image first technique last. Because of this large and divers activity we need some additional definitions and clarifications. We need the notions of print types.
Type one is prints that went through the press once. Obviously lithographs are some times type one but often type two. Type two is prints that went through the press twice or many times. Type three is prints with other interventions such as collage color by hand adding or removing without the use of the press. All prints fall into one of these types. To explain my prints I only have to say that I am interested in type one interpretive edition.
On the aesthetic of my art
Three meta notions dominate our perceptions: the beautiful, the ugly and the mundane, known also as visual display or just plain the ordinary .A visual art that is dominated by the aesthetic of the beautiful degenerates now a day into the artisan and the commercial art. Its ability to expound on serious issues are handicapped, with the outcome that what we have is useless and at best uninteresting art, but mostly we end up staring at totally un engaging and boring visual art.
In order to contribute to a serious visual dialogue we must have a strong understanding of the ugly. Any artist that wants to make beautiful art cannot be taken seriously. They can be considered to be involved with handcraft, and not in contemporary art practice. Contemporary art must be dominated by a subject matter. We live in an era of diversity and plurality of subject matters. This means that the medium used tends toward mix media and a must have a strong understanding of the ugly. Any artist that wants to make beautiful art cannot be taken seriously. They can be considered to be involved in handcraft and not in contemporary art practices. Contemporary art must be dominated by a subject matter. We live in an era of diversity and plurality of subject matters. This means that the medium used tends toward mix media and a secondary place in the discussion. Furthermore since we live in a postmodernist time sociopolitical subject matter is of great concern to visual artist and by the nature of the subjects ugly is needed to produce better results than the beautiful. Serious and challenging art cannot be compromised. To claim anything in the name of the “beautiful” leads us to stupid and boring art.
For my art I consider our time to be dominated by misery tragedy and pain. My role is to ponder and reflect on present day issues and contribute to the ongoing dialogue that is taking place. For me the human form constantly degenerates into the ugly from the young and the beautiful. The tendency in our times is towards cruelty and savagery. What is important is that we must never take human rights for granted. That’s why “art for the sakes of beauty” is vulgar and irresponsible. We must take a stand as visual artists and we must get involve in the ongoing political discourses, otherwise we end up as cowards and wimps.
Some artists have abandoned their social conscious to the beautiful. Because of this they have serious handicaps. Some of them preach that life is art that is everything is art. To those I say go to the grave without me. Others say that we are all artists. If so why do it, why consider it as an activity. Still some say art is dead that the ability of art to discus issues is long gone and that we need new tools and new mediums. To this I say open your eyes and start looking and stop reading only artists statements and paid advertisements.
What is clear is that the ugly is the key to the discovery of visual truth. How can we be in control if we cannot handle the ugly? Is it not true that one of the aims of art is to subdue the forces of the visual universe? Is interior decoration a high art form only for those who have beautiful things or is it ephemeral, plain and ordinary accessible to everyone. Have artists sold themselves to the devil. By preaching that everything should be beautiful they have become oppressive and abusive and dishonest. They have abandoned humanity. My art is outside the beauty parade it does not prostitute itself for a free ride on a train going to nowhere. My art is in your face it is serious and it is ugly.
In order to regain and consider art as an intellectual activity contributing in a serious way and taking its place as an important contributor we must liberate ourselves from the beautiful and consider the ugly as an equal.
My Basic approach to visual art
My approach is based on a natural description of an artwork. I do this by the following viable processes. The idea is to be able to describe all artworks. We need this as our starting point even though in some sense we cannot talk about all artwork simultaneously. We cannot attempt not to evaluate an artwork. We are obligated to make an effort.
I introduce an important concept that has been around for ages and that is the idea of an object working visually. It means that the object in question has a presence. This can be used to explain why we notice certain objects in nature more than others do.
Collecting bones, rocks, and other objects is presently very popular with some artists. Obviously those artists don’t collect everything. They select the ones that have a presence.
I now want to give the definition of a work of art, but first I need a definition of visual art. This is done by highlighting two obvious observations.
Here they are; (1) the artist must be a human being recognized as such, (2) the work of art must have a presence, and, (3) relationship between (1) and (2) is that the artist created the work of art
These conditions are strong enough .for us not to accept paintings by elephants or even by children as art. On the other hand these conditions are not strong enough to constitute a definition of a work of art. They are somewhat weak, because not everything created by humans is a work of art.
Since it is popular with many educators and artist to argue that it is best not to argue who is an artist. I reluctantly accepted the fact that we are all artists and everything we do is art. However this does not stop us from examining and discussing what is done. All artworks can be divided into four classes. The first class we call, Class 0, this consists off all ordinary works that aren’t very good but are simply ordinary. The next is refered to Class 1, consists of all artwork that works well. In fact all objects that are arguable good. Clearly some decorative work belongs to this class. Then we have Class 2; they are all the good works that are subject driven. And finally Class 3, which consists of all artworks we consider masterpieces obviously class 1 and class 2 can end up as masterpieces. Class 0 can also end as a class 3 work. And obviously objects in class 3 can be transformed into any of the lower classes.
Since art is an activity and not a theory we chose to define a work of art as any artwork that does not belong to class 0. We now say something about an important idea already used. The idea is that a work of art has to work. This means that a work of art either works or it does not work, or it works to some degree. This is not an absolute truth but a relative one. It is known that an artwork that works today might fail to work tomorrow. We can say that if it works it is a decorative object or decorative art or a class 1 work and if it does not then it is simply an artifact or class 0. We have many situations of artifacts celebrated as decorative art, and thousands of instances of decorative objects becoming ordinary, just look at cultural dynamics.
We need to focus on three conditions to continue with our discussion. One if we don’t know who the artist then we state created by anonymous .Two, an artwork must always work, and three, the date is also important if we wish to discuss the originality of the artwork. The date does not have to be exact but it is used to settle modernist arguments.
It is useful to look at the postmodernist ideas that “everything works because who’s to say otherwise”. Historically and culturally not everything is accepted with the same enthusiasm. This means that acceptance and rejections takes place as a cultural postmodernist activity and not as a private modernist activity. Therefore description of the artwork, interpreting the artwork and evaluating the artwork is a necessary process that must take place in public, otherwise the art activity can be perceived as corrupt and vulnerable to bribery and consequently questioned and sometimes rejected as serious art and labeled as commercial art. This is already taking place with some artists
Before I leave this subject I believe that we can start with some basic definitions with the intentions of classifying all artwork. If however we encounter some difficulty we are permitted to create a new category as we always did. However over time there is a reduction process-taking place that reduces them to few categories, a kind of melting down process due to the removal of history from the art, a kind of cultural assimilation. Here are my major clarifications.
1 Decorative Art,
2 Narrative Art, an obvious story teller,
3 Symbolic Art, symbolic in a natural way,
4 Modern Art, art that is mainly concerns with forms,
5 Postmodern Art consists of all, four conditions given above plus autobiographic components, a kind of gossip art with certain properties.
Ever one knows that all-important art generates its own history. After all what is the role of “art history”? Furthermore the above first four classifications can be analyzed without mentioning the artist. However the last class postmodern art cannot be analyzed without the presence of the artist. For this reason we must insist that all who are interested in art must make an effort to listen to the artists. Because it use to be fashionable to refuse to interview the artist artists must take it upon themselves to interview and write about the history of their community before it too late and their art is forgotten.
The desire to produce artwork that works is taken as an obvious goal and primal in nature. It is reflected upon when we celebrate our personal achievements.
When we look at what artist do to make sure that there activity works. Copying turn out to be a natural process. And the first thing we say is that the work is an original and not a copy. This can only take place in a transparent and open way in public. Expert driven conclusions is a modernist way of settling arguments. In a postmodernist examination art is not a private activity but a social activity which implies that everyone gets involved it’s an ongoing process and is never final. Modernity likes to talk about originality first then say something about why the artwork works in terms of the creative process and finally the subject matter is introduced in terms of being modern. On the other hand postmodernism insists on a subject matter as the first priority it then accepts the creative process only if the art works and lastly originality is often not considered important. In fact some claim that there is no such thing as originality.
In a postmodernist visual society we notice a plurality of subject matter and a diverse approach to anything and everything. To a modernist it’s a trying time because who’s to say or judge a work of art. How can we be sure that the work is original and the artist creative and what happens to unique ideas? We propose an interesting approach that describes and solves these questions. In the long run it is better then nothing
For us all works of art have at least one subject matter. Modernity finds this hard to swallow. But for us its not difficult its a necessity .It is the most important concept that enables us to discs any art without prejudice in a fair and dignify manner Here is an argument that explains that it can always be done. It goes like this if the artwork has no subject matter, no narrative, or a very weak and boring presence then it can be considered simply an artifact that is ordinary.
Examples of this are plentiful, such as cutlery, like spoons and forks. If the objects in question are very beautiful or worthy of notice they can be labeled as decorative art. For us these labels are not absolute we have many examples of decorative art losing it appeal and ending up as ordinary objects. We also have situation with pictures that had a visual presence and thus a narrative and then loosing them self as artwork to be reevaluated as decorative art.
Consider how abstract art is considered today. The beautiful colors in the artwork mean very, little which means that the artwork is losing their intellectual narrative, which is very important.
We need to examine how the narrative is perceived. First there is the artist statement and discourse. The artist has ample opportunity to explain describe and argue on behalf of the artwork. Then the public can question and look at the work. What takes place is the matching of the artwork with what has been said. We accept or reject the work or we might feel that the discourse and the work have very little in common. Since the interpretive dialogue is personal over time we end up evaluating the work. In other words this process is an ongoing affaire in front of the work or away from it. By the critics, by the fans and this is very important by other artist.
It is intuitively understood that some art works better then others. This is the basic motivating idea that propels composition and the creative process, such as collage and all cutups. This is also the way to argue that not all objects produced by people are works of art. Those that don’t work or work poorly are automatically renegotiated to the category of the ordinary. This is also how artist works. It is the basic tenant of visual thinking.
So now we have am important indicator of what makes an ordinary artifact a work of art. It must work. Clearly this is not an exact science, and is open too many but not endless discussions. I claim that this is the basic engine that keeps us going it is better then nothing. In fact it is a necessary condition but obviously not a sufficient one.
There is a misconception that postmodernism is the root of present day commercialism, that it invented the notion of “art crafted to provoke”, and that its style is propagandistic favoring the so-called “cutting edge art” over the so-called “traditional art”. I find this an interesting discussion that requires proof and definitely more thought. For me modernity has an interest in keeping the notion of the avant-garde i.e. “cutting edge” art. It makes for a trendy commercialization, it avoids the notion of individual excellence and replaces it with some advertising slogan. That’s why it argues that in order to evaluate a work one must only look at the work itself. Everything that is needed is coded in the work. And thus with this idea the place of contemporary artist is not needed. Who cares about the artist?
Certain ideas are in fashion because of modernity and commercialism. Ideas such as there are too many artists. That art is useless “my five year old does it better”. The best is the believe that visual art does not exist and if it exists it is more than dead and in order to save it we need something other than postmodernism. We need something new “like you know something modern”.
Conclusion
I became aware of conceptual art in the early seventies. I saw a show at Concordia University by Alfred Pinsky, a professor teaching art history and the former husband of the known Canadian artist Ghitta Caisserman-Roth. Ghitta and Pinsky had an art school, the “Montreal school of art” for nearly ten years, from 1947 to almost 1957. Their most celebrated student that attended the school was the artist Kittie Bruneau.
The show consisted of large photographs with funny titles, showing Pinsky gazing, and looking into the distance. The titles referred to his thought and ideas that he had at the moment the picture were taken. This show was puzzling to me because the claim was that it’s not photos show but a show about the ideas in Pinskys head.
This was my first introduction to conceptual art. We spend hours debating the claim made in the name of this art. Claims like we don’t need the artwork. It’s all about ideas and not objects. Art is dead long live concepts. All this was beyond me because I saw it, as art whose subject matter was the subject matter of visual art. This was not difficult for me but apparently to others. Since then my view did not change.
Concepts in art are at most the ideas or essential meaning associated with a work of art. Time has shown us that when talking about concepts in visual art we are not creating a particular work of art, and because of that the concept is now accepted as not the work of art. Apparently thirty years latter conceptual art is still a fascinating topic and maybe Pinskys show can be considered the beginning of postmodern art at Concordia University.
In fact this is not that simple. At that time Concordia had an impressive team of modernist teachers. They did not want their students to copy them and in fact many of their students were not interested in abstract art. This was obvious when I remember the annual student shows. The Shows were so divers that it looked like a potpourri of artworks. At that time somehow modernity transferred itself into some sort a hybrid between postmodernism and modern art. Even though I am not working in academia I get the feeling that something in not right. I attributed this to the luck of understanding of art.
Here is an example, one of the first smart postmodern sculpture to graduate from Concordia is Mark Prent. His work is subject driven, engaging, and strong and is considered by many as a very important artist. Yet I have meet professors at Concordia and other universities that claim that he is a modernist figurative representational artist. Students have written dissertations claiming this, which is beyond, believes. Henry Moore is a modern artist not Mark. He represents by his subject driven art, by his methodology and process of synthesizing important contemporary ideas into an artwork that has multi narrative going on at the same moment, rendering the work a strong postmodernist presence. It has nothing to do with modernity. Why is this happening without any protest I have no ideas? Maybe because we live in an expert driven culture, we celebrate subjectivism by introducing it as objectivism. It took them ten years to archive this, from the mid seventy to the mid eighties.
Just remembering and recalling happenings and early performance art of the seventies. Performance art became popular overnight and still is so now. Students sit naked for a week, or naked girls staring into the horizon for hours. I recall seeing Young horny students looking at breasts and penises and not wondering why is this all happening. In all those years I never had a serious discussion dealing with performance art. It was accepted and never questioned. The same is happening today with “new technology”. I interpret this as the result of subjectivism taking over a dominating roll in contemporary art.
When I began showing interests in visual arts it was fashionable to talk about style not concepts. Now it is the reverse, we talk about concepts as if it is the content and not about style. Is it because too much time is spend discussing the concept of the art work and not enough time dealing with the visual presence of the work? Or is it that everything is treated equally and thus pronouncements are to be avoided? Maybe it comes from the teaching that is encouraged in “competence based university programs”. Even though we are moving in the direction of diversity and plurality of the subject matter, we are losing the variety that always existed in the teaching and in the perception of the artwork, and we are replacing it with polite homogeneity. We have lost our autonomy. Everything must be the same. In the name of fairness and equivalence we must reduced everything to measurable quantities, and overall evaluation is not permitted. Works that are unique are passed over for conventional voices that are stylistically similar. Consequently we end up with conservative and narrow perception of what is “a good art work”.
Although style had an easy time in a modern culture, it is having a miserable time in a postmodern one. I think that style is an important ingredient in any individual activity. To claim that anything goes or that to experiment is the essence of cutting edge art and to collage is the key to having and developing skills leads to a “two left handed” visual art culture that despises individual excellence but celebrates homogenized and weak style. To cultivate innovation we need to stay away from the meaning of the artwork. These are personal narratives, its nobodies business. We are only to talk about the narrative of the artwork in terms of how it relates and how it fits the general historic, cultural reality. There are no ethical licenses to a work of art only the need to excel.
On a more serious note terms such as traditional art, realism, conceptual art, none representational art, performance and video art or abstract art are words that have a natural place in modernity. In postmodern aesthetic they only classify the artwork or the artist, because they reveal only a small part of the subject matter, they are not that important. In modernity these terms act more as a filter, they exclude certain type of artwork from serious consideration. We need to be inclusive not exclusive in our visual criticisms. The question that we often come across when we meet other artists or when we talk to each other is “what do you think of my work” Since it is such a complicated and unpleasant moment in closed quarters we often chose to avoid it or say all kinds of lies. In my opinion this question proves that artists have accepted to talk in a faire and transparent way and are waiting for the large art-loving public to get involve in the discussion.