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Showing posts from 2012

Defining the Undefinable (in several parts)

“I am an artist”. This single sentence is possibly one of the hardest and also one of the easiest to utter. One the one hand, a person whose values and merits of art mirror those of transcendence beyond physicality or even spirituality, because creativity is neither, might actually have a hard time uttering these words, thinking himself somehow unworthy of the title in the face of his own predetermined image of the artist. On the other hand, another person whose opinion centers around the conception of absolute pluralism, where anything and everything can and therefore must be art, might have a rather easy time pronouncing these words, thinking that his identity as an artist is a given, because of the standard definition he has set upon the word. But things may not be so easy after all. Because what is art? This is an age old question, and we have basically learned not to ask it for fear of appearing naïve, foolish, redundant, cynical, trite, old fashioned, because the contempora

Pat Passlof at WCU's Fine Art Museum and Black Mountain Collge Museum

The world is a hard complex place to navigate. In this respect, the art world is as impenetrable to some, as the Amazon rainforest. Moods and tastes are changing on a seasonal basis, celebrity and spectacle are the ever consuming product churned out by media savvy oligarchs and recycled as yesterdays pop culture by thousands of artists. The word art has been redefined so many times, so as to encompass virtually anything and everything the mind can provide with a reasonable amount of substance. Damien Hirst was heard saying that his medium today is money, a line that would make Warhol blush, and as such he retooled the moral impetus of art and artists everywhere yet again. The art market is the biggest totally unregulated market in the world right now and it shares a spot in the sunlight with student loan debt as being the biggest bubble about to burst any day now, the way it did in the 1980’s. It’s a vicious cycle, one that seems to have no end. But all things must come to an end

A Movie About Robert Wilson

I recently watched this awesome documentary about Robert Wilson.  This is a must see for every artist young and old, contemporary or traditional, kitsch or avant-garde.  Also if you are a fan of Philip Glass, and I most certainly am this movie is for you.  It is a great look at the life and work of one of the premier avant-garde artists of our time and I can only hope that it will inspire others to make some great art.  In these trying times, god only knows we need the inspiration.