Constellation: Year 1 – Page 2 – John's Learning Journal

My lack of thoughts on Conceptualism (AKA Why comic books are indeed art)

Conceptualism is lazy nonsense.

“Art is Dead. Art remains dead. And we have killed it!” (Paraphrase of some German guy. The Gay Science. 1882. Page 125).

Etiquette would dictate I explain my stance and defend my opinions. But going into the realms of ideas and concepts would be playing on the enemy’s terms.

Better minds than mine have tried to attack conceptual art on conceptual terms and achieved nothing. For nearly 40 years this movement has wasted time. While better movements come and go this one seems to feed on the hate thrown at it.

If you suffer from intrusive thoughts caused by trauma or depression, the worst thing you can do is try to fight or crush them. It just makes them stronger. When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert with all the riches of the earth, Jesus responded by quoting scripture at him rather than playing his game.

So rather than playing into conceptualisms hands by trying to refute it, I will now talk about something that is art. Comic Books.

And besides. If anything can be a work of art by virtue of an artist saying it’s art, then surely any piece of writing can be about conceptual art if the writer says that’s what it’s about. Right?

******

I thought the debate over if comic books are art or not was over. But a few days after the passing of comic-book creator Stan Lee, the talkshow host Bill Maher, decided to take a shot at him and the medium as a whole. Saying that only children read books with pictures. And that smart ones like he was would only read them as a last resort.

Argument 0: Dismantling the case against comics and setting up some rules.

For starters. Many books on art, science, and travel need pictures in order to make sense.

More importantly the objection that combining words and pictures makes an art form of lesser quality means that film, video games, opera, video art, theatre, animation and even a tv talkshow like Bill Maher’s are all unworthy of being taken seriously.

I suspect if pressured, he would retract this point about words and pictures, and claim there was something distinctively bad about comics that can’t be applied to film, illumination, etc. I can only guess what his new point would be. But it seems the core of his argument is that escapist action fantasy of the type Stan Lee wrote is not suitable for mature people.

Again, this point falls flat.

Firstly: Not all comics are Heroic Fantasy. Not even all of Stan Lee’s comics fell into that category (even if it is what he was best known for). This would be like assuming having seen the Mona Lisa, one now knew everything worth knowing about painting.

Secondly: Even if we assume that Stan Lee and classic Marvel (1961 – 1973) stand for all of comics, saying that Heroic Fantasy cannot be worthy art is nonsense.

What is Heroic Fantasy? It is any work that combines Action and Adventure with Fantasy or Science Fiction.

It makes up most of pop culture. Star Wars, Dragon Ball, The Legend of Zelda, The Conan stories, Halo, Foundation, The Terminator, Half-Life, Akira, My Little Pony, Steven Universe, The Stand, Princess Monokone, The Chronicals of Narnia, Indiana Jones, and even many fairy tales fall under the banner of Heroic Fantasy

It’s undisputable place in our culture established, let’s look at some examples of it in literature.

The Lord of the Rings is considered one of the greatest works of English literature. George R R Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ is one of the most acclaimed works of the current century. Watership Down is still one of the greatest novels in the English language.

The Canterbury Tales opens with a story of gods and warriors. The crown jewel of Arabic literature, The 1001 Nights, is full of heroic fantasy. Beowulf and Le Mort De Arthur have shaped the very idea of Britain as a nation. The Iliad and the Odyssey are considered the very bedrock upon which western civilization was built. And Gilgamesh, the oldest written story in existence, is a story about a warrior who fights monsters.

But pointing out that the traditions of heroic fantasy can be found in classic literature isn’t enough. There are pornographic films based on Shakespeare after all.

If I am to prove that comic books are art, I need to show that comic books have artistic merit in their own right. And Just to make a point. I will only use either Classic Marvel or stuff like it.

*******

Argument part one: The Text

In the 1960s American comic books were heavily censored. To the point that they could only tell “child-friendly” stories. But that didn’t stop the writers and artists who worked on them from trying their hardest. Far harder than many uncensored artists do.

Superhero fiction had started out as very rebellious. In the 1940s Superman stood against the oppression of the poor. Wonder Woman fought for a unique vision of femininity that was neither submissive or the quest to become more like men. Captain America took a stance against the Nazis before it was cool in the States. And Namor the Submariner had to cope with being half human while hating humanity.

Socialism, feminism, anti-fascism, and self-loathing. Far from being brainless, these early superhero comics had a strong set of themes and ideas.

But by the late 50s all but the lightest of content had been purged from the medium for the protection of innocent minds. If Wonder Woman ever killed anyone or The Joker wasn’t back in jail by issues end the fear was this would turn all children into violent psychopaths.

But Marvel began to adapt to these rules.

So the good guys could never kill. But shouldn’t that make being the hero even harder? How does one feel when your morals tell you to be merciful when your heart is full of vengeful rage? So the bad guys had to always lose. Does that really mean the heroes always win, and what does it even mean to win? The Thing might beat the greatest supervillain on earth into a pulp. But that doesn’t give him his humanity back, or mend his rift with the other members of the Fantastic Four.

In short. Marvel began to explore what it meant to try to be good. And what it meant to be human. Stories of human frailty, guilt, vengefulness, forgiveness, insecurity, loyalty, love, identity, alienation, nobility, loss, sacrifice, and redemption.

They painted a world that was both bleak and optimistic. Heroes suffered, and villains often had tragic pasts. Heroes had to fight against the political system and were often hated by the people they were sworn to protect. When the good guys wanted to quit being heroes you couldn’t blame them. Things carried over from issue to issue, a broken friendship or trust would stay that way for months or even years.

But the heroes would find something to keep fighting for and persevere. The world could seem cruel and uncaring. But all the normal people had their own stories to tell and their reasons for distrusting the heroes. And villains would often make a right choice that would either cost them their lives or see them become heroes in their own right. Avengers Hawkeye, Black Widow, The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver all started off as villains.

If this rich tapestry of the human experience and the many ways good and evil are linked is not the stuff that literature is made of, then I ask you, what is!?

Obviously this was not the only thing going on in the text. These were escapist fiction after all. Time still had to be given over to epic fights and empowerment fantasies. And the heavy continuity made the characters personal-lives very soap-opera like. Marvel was never attempting to be Tolstoy or Proust. But there’s a big difference between not being “High Literature” and not having any literary qualities. If you assume that the two are one and the same then you must assume any writing that is not Balzac or Joyce is not worth reading. Some people really do think like that. They don’t tend to be much fun. They’re too busy looking smart. To paraphrase Winnie the Pooh “They’re clever. And have brain. And they never understand anything.” (Milne. 1928. Page number unknown).

We need entertainment fiction in our lives. To keep us sane. To give fun contrast to high literature so when we read it it feels fresh and exciting. To sometimes introduce big ideas and to explore them in a fun and creative way. And to give us hope. Entertainment fiction is not the enemy of high art. But its partner.

So Marvel’s books did have literary qualities. And there is nothing to be ashamed of in reading escapist fiction. But are the books actually good? Are they enriching to read, for either children or adults? They might have deeper themes in concept, but be unreadable vapid trash, who’s attempts at deeper themes and ideas just make things even worse. Violent nonsense and pretentious.

Well, this is a very subjective matter. There is no work of fiction so good that you won’t find someone who will say it’s the worst thing ever, or so bad that someone won’t say it’s their favourite book of all time.

But I’m going to say, yes. Classic Marvel was not only good. It was Fantastic.

Argument part 2: The Art

Marvel comics of the time didn’t always have the best illustration. Jack Kirby’s art tends to be ugly. Steve Ditko’s pencils were strange, muffled, and often technically inaccurate. The printing and colouring methods of the time were very simple. Which would often make art look cruder than it actually was. But again, the artists worked with what they had. What Kirby and Ditko lacked in elegance they made up for in talents for expressing drama, power, dynamism, motion, and inner-turmoil, Kirby’s talent for drawing action scenes may still be unsurpassed. And Ditko brought a weight and atmosphere to his comics that was unforgettable.

And while less famous, John Romita and John Buscema did make truly beautiful art. And all of them had a strong background in classical drawing techniques. Either way, when you picked up a Marvel comic you were picking up a book with dynamic illustrations that was built on the best traditions of western art.

Argument part 3: The Writing

But the artwork is only half of a comic. It also needs good writing and story.

I’ve alluded to the fact that classic Marvel comics were often a balancing act of High-concept fantasy, hard-hitting action, morality plays about human frailty and courage, and kitchen sink soap opera. These elements were very well balanced. Even across years of work. Characters felt very human, whether they were superhuman or not. Even with a cast of hundreds all the characters created in the 60s and 70s were distinctive and unique. Hence why they are still having stories told about them today.

Where the writing in classic Marvel struggled the most is the actual prose. It’s overblown, over-descriptive, and the dialogue is unnatural and often interchangeable among characters. It a million miles away from the minimalist writing of 20th century novels and the would-be-cinematic writing of today. It mostly resembles the verbose writing of the 19th century. But not as well constructed and no-where near as elegant. Or put simply, the writing is very clunky. It was clunky back then and it’s even more so today. So is this the chink in the armour? Proof that Maher is right and the work of Stan Lee and others like him is not art?

Well it doesn’t ruin the comics, that’s for sure. But there’s more to it than that. The writing is very efficient, which might sound strange as we tend to think of less stuff meaning efficiency. But sometimes a large amount of words lets you cover a lot of story in a single page, rather than writing one plot-point over ten pages. And a lack of subtilty isn’t always a bad thing. You can’t always afford to be subtle when writing such short stories.

It can draw you into the emotions far more quickly than realistic writing could. And when the characters are showing great passion it can evoke passion in the reader.

In “The Amazing Spider-Man #33” The eponymous hero is trapped under several tons of machinery while water rises up slowly, threatening to drown him. Spiderman is exhausted and on the brink of death. But he knows if he can’t escape someone who is relying on him will die.

Stan lee writes out Spiderman’s inner thoughts as he repeatedly tries and fails to lift the heavy machinery. The result is an almost Shakespearean monologue on guilt, pain, desperation and duty. Steve Ditko’s pencils are at their finest. But it’s Stan Lee’s writing that makes us feel like we ourselves are trying to lift this impossible weight. And when against all odds Spiderman lifts the giant machine over his head and proclaims “I did it. I’m Free!” It’s hard not to want to cheer or break down and cry.

Isn’t that the mark of great writing?

Whatever the flaws in Lee’s writing. He was a storyteller like no-one else.

While never as polished, the writing of early Marvel was very much in the vain of Shakespeare and Milton, highly expressive writing that would give as much weight and meaning as it could in a small amount of time.

Lee liked to use large words in the hopes of teaching younger readers to be more literate. This type of writing blended with the crude but strong art to make something that was more than the sum of its parts. Something evocative and mythic but also instantly accessible, even to young readers. Stories with big themes that didn’t need to be dumbed down or simplified to make sense for everyone. That is something that few writers can do. And if the prose was a little clunky and stilted in order to make that work, I’d say it was worth it

******

Argument part 4: Putting it all Together.

While not the most perfectly polished works out there, the works of Marvel in the 60s and 70s were books that used words and pictures and combined them into something more than the sum of their parts. Stories of human nature at its best and worst on the cosmic and humdrum scales as well as everything in between. It might not have been high literature. But that didn’t stop them from being great art. And the fact that they were made with children and teens in mind and designed to be accessible to all readers neither hurts their literary merit, or their quality in themselves.

I stand by my stance that they are great art. That the objections against them are mere snobbery. And that they are as valid a work of art as anything in prose or in the visual arts.

And best of all. They’re just plain fun. And no-one should have to apologise for reading stuff for fun (Unless it’s Mein Kmapf). This is the spice that makes fiction worth reading. And the comrade-in-arms of high-art.

That is the mark of a great art and a great artist

Rest in Peace

Stan “The Man” Lee.

I ramble about Robert Morris. Writing. And the stupidity of artists manifestos.

For my work in Constellation I’ve had to read a number of artists journals and manifestos. I have done so dutifully and tried to meet them on their own terms. But now I want to give my thoughts on the writing we have to read as writing rather than just theory. I know this is taboo-breaking. You’re not meant to say that your high-school English text is badly written. Just talk about the themes it contains. But I give my reverence to God and God alone. All things should be critiquable.

Including the writing of artists who should have stuck to making art and the art courses that make us read their work.

Forgive me if I let my emotions run away with me here. But I have exerted a great deal of effort doing the minimum amount of required reading and writing for Constellation. So, I feel I should be able to give my honest opinions about the work.

Besides. We are here to engage with 20^th century art critically, not to venerate it. I see no reason why this should not apply to the artists and critics writings or the course as a whole.

It seems to me that the ‘After Modernism‘ module is at least as interested in teaching us about art theory as it is about art works, or art history.

I can’t say I find art theory that interesting, but that is not the problem. My complaint is just how dense and inaccessible the subject is, and just how silly the whole art theory scene is.

I have had to read manifestoes and journals for four different art movements so far, and it seems that with each new one they get harder and harder to read.

I find myself asking “who was this written for?” It can’t be written for the layman. The text is too dense, too conceptual, and the vocabulary is too obtuse. I have been tested and found to have a larger than normal vocabulary. So, when I need to constantly check words for their meaning or context your work will be impenetrable to the average reader. So, far from advertising the work, it would put potential fans off.

“Is it then for other artists?”. I have a hard time believing it. The prose is so dry and academic that, I at least, can’t imagine being fired up to create after reading this stuff. Plus, the rules and concepts are put forward in a very obtuse and roundabout fashion. If you could figure out how to make Pop Art from just reading Pop Art journals without having seen any pop art, I’d be very surprised. Seeing the art in action trumps reading the theory behind it 11 out of 10 times.

So as far as I can tell, these think-pieces are written solely for artistic journals and opinion pages. Sacred texts written only for the initiated. It is certainly as dense as theology, and about as accessible to a nonbeliever.

So, what do I benefit from reading all of these self-gratifying journals that only seem to be tangentially related to making art? It doesn’t make me appreciate the art more. And even if it did, I tend to see any work of art that needs supplementary material to be understood as a failure

“Have you ever seen a movie that you needed to stop watching every five minutes to read up on what is happening? Apart from Dune!?” – Noah “The Spoony One” Antwiler. (The Spoony Experiment, 2013).

Nor does it even give much context as to why the art came into being. I find historical accounts like the ones on the Tate website do that better and in a shorter amount of time.

*******

Now that I have explained why these things don’t feel relevant to me. Let me get into why I dislike them so much.

I have, I am sad to say, read all of Robert Morris’s manifesto on minimalism. And I can say without any doubt it is the second worst thing I have ever read.

The only thing that beats it is the Harry Potter fanfiction “My Immortal”, which is often put forward as the worst work of fiction ever written (I certainly think it is).

The fact that this is considered good enough to be required reading leaves me flabbergasted. If this were an essay and I was asked to mark it, I’d have to fail it. I barely know how to write, being almost completely self-taught, but even I can write better than this.

First let’s talk about the prose. I’ve mentioned art theory pieces tend to be overwritten and obtuse. But this goes above and beyond. It barely qualifies as English. It reminds me of my one attempt to read “A Critique of Pure Reason” by Immanuel Kant. Kant and other philosophers speak in their own academic language. One that requires a constant juggling act of ideas and meanings. If you tried to read the text plainly it will come across as gibberish. You need to think of every word in its purest form, devoid of connotations, and then add in any personal definitions or qualifiers the philosopher has added on. In that respect philosophy is almost like a separate language. And Morris has chosen to write in philosophy rather than English.

Again, I must ask “Who Is This Written for?”. It’s not written for philosophers. It’s not written for artists, many of whom, even college educated ones, cannot read at this level. And it is now definitely not written for the man on the street (Pretty ironic considering so many of these late 20^th-century artists were trying to “Give art back to the people”).

I know it does not need to be written this way. You don’t need to say, “A work not consisting of impersonal construction will psychologically infer associations towards the surface imperfections rather than the collected and full idea”, when you could say “We prefer premade materials, so people don’t get caught up in the fine details instead of looking at the whole thing”. Who is Morris trying to impress here?

There is a reason why philosophy tends to be written this way. It is the study of ideas in their purest form. It is a science, even if not an exact one. If you put limits on how people like Kant and Sartre talk it will hamper their ability to do their job and to exchange ideas with other philosophers. Books like “A Critique of Pure Reason” and “A Treaties on Human Nature” are not written for the common man. They are written for other philosophers, just as science journals are written for other scientists. Physicists need their own speak to convey their more complex ideas to each other and so do philosophers.

But Robert Morris is not a philosopher. He has nothing to gain, and nothing to prove by pretending to be one. He is an artist, he can only prove himself via his art.

I have looked up videos of Robert Morris being interviewed or lecturing. He does not talk this way in real life. He comes across as a fairly grounded and normal, if intelligent guy. The fact he can talk like a normal person only makes this reading extra infuriating.

Now I’ve explained why the text is so redundant let’s go into why it’s bad on a technical level.

In the 10 pages I was given to read Morris almost never uses line breaks, and the first half has no paragraph breaks whatsoever. It reads like a brick of text written by an angry 12-year-old on Youtube. This is not acceptable for an apparently college educated man. When you add this to the denseness of Morris’s writing the journal becomes borderline unreadable.

It took me 10 hours to read the whole thing. In the time it took me to read 10 pages I could have watched the original Star Wars trilogy and started on the prequels. It was one of the most painful reading experiences of my life. And I am told that future manifestoes get even denser and more philosophical. Suicide is painless, right?

Forgive me for asking, but I must know. Why are we reading texts that we would be admonished for writing?

******

There seems to be an idea that the more inaccessible a work is, the smarter it is, and the better it is. This applies to critical writing, to fiction, to fine art, and it has even bled into cinema. 2010’s Inception has gained a massive fan base purely on making a concept extremely obtuse when the anime Paprika, explained similar ideas in seconds.

The whole thing smacks of elitism. The idea that if the common people can’t understand this but you can (or at least claim you can) that makes the work better. That you are now part of a small club who “get” it, and you feel smarter for it.

I would like to go back in time and find the first person who had this sentiment and shove a pineapple up his ass.

Just because a work is accessible or has broad appeal doesn’t make it bad! The most highly praised film of all time is Hitchcock’s Vertigo. A Gothic drama about obsession and control. I liked it as a child, even if I didn’t get everything about it. And of course, I appreciated more as an adult. But the fact I was able to enjoy it just as a suspense movie doesn’t make it less of a film. The same can be said for things like Shakespeare, Homer, Beethoven, the Portal games, and The Simpsons.

These are all enjoyed by millions of people across the globe. And if you really think that that makes them worse then I can’t understand your mindset.

*********

The sad part is I like Robert Morris as an artist. I still like him as an artist. His works strike me as clever, warm, sombre, curious, and very human. He has an experimental, playful mind that is a tool of great happiness. Happiness that comes across in both his art and in interviews.

But now I’ve read his writings, the knowledge of how terrible they are will always be in the back of my head. And that’s depressing.

My (Very Unobjective) Thoughts on Minimalism

The hard part for me criticising Minimalism as part of this course is that I am already a fan. Have been since I first saw a photograph of a Carl Andre sculpture back in 2011. I now own Alistair Rider’s massive book about Andre. I also own James Meyer’s book on Minimalism and have read it cover to cover. I almost cried with Joy the first time I saw a Donald Judd Sculpture in person. I went to London just to see an exhibition of the paintings of Agnes Martin. Dan Flavin has actually influenced art that I have made and put on display.

I don’t think I can be objective in analysing the art here.

So what can I say? I could talk about the ideas behind the movement and the drama it inspired. I probably will. But I honestly find it far less interesting than the art itself. I could also talk the influence Minimalism has had. But again, I would probably end up just fanboying about it.

It seems strange to me that Greenberg and the Minimalists hated each other. To the casual observer modernist and minimalist art would probably look very similar. More to the point both seemed very interested in reducing things to their simplest and purest forms they had very different ideas about the use of paint or what the shape of a painting should be but honestly to me these feel like trivial details, not worth getting furious over.

It honestly seems to me that the history of 20^th-century art is a lot of overeducated people writing absurd and near impenetrable manifestoes of art theory at a public never reads and is happier for not having read.

Said writers then see their parameters for art as gospel and spend the rest of their lives feuding with each other over whose idea is better. And I am sad to say that reading up on these things it seems that the arguments between these artists and art critics had all the dignity and nuance as two people having a Twitter feud today. Apparently people have always been this stupid. It’s just easier to see now.

Many of these theorists thought that they would reinvent art forever. That history would end with them. That there would be no innovation or experimentation after them because they had figured out the perfect formula for art to follow. None of them ever have and I suspect no one ever will. Art is too big a subject to be contained by one theory of how it should be done.

So when the dust settles the only question really worth asking is if these art theories ended up producing good work. Work that has enriched the art world and added to the cultural lexicon.

In the case of minimalism, I’m going to say, yes. Again, this might be my bias showing. The work still seems to cause puzzlement and anger in people who see it. But I at least know that I like it. And I think it has really added to our culture.

I don’t know what it says about me that I liked Minimalist art as soon as I saw it. But I do like things that are simple and still. Like water in the pond, the moon at night, or stones worn smooth by the sea. I also like quiet (at least when I’m not listening to rock music). I like video games with no dialogue, white noise music, or just experiencing things through touch. I once spent a few days at a monastery with no computer and just a few books. While I found it hard going this quiet space was in many ways one of the happiest experiences of my life.

It may not be a very analytical argument, but I get something very similar out of minimalist art. It’s peaceful, and its playful. When you are small there is a large amount of joy to be gotten out of just playing with stones. Putting them in orders of size or colour or just trying to stack them up. There’s no intellectual aspect to this play it’s just fun to experience things being themselves. And that’s what minimalist art is to me. The quiet joy of well-defined shapes just being themselves. I get this particularly out of Carl Andre, Frank Stella, and Robert Morris as art. I get a more sombre but still pleasant calm out of Agnes Martin’s paintings. Ellsworth Kelly’s 3D paintings seem rather joyful and silly, probably due to the bright colours. But it’s a playfulness and humour that I can get behind. Minimalism doesn’t need to be Zen.

I do enjoy Donald Judd’s work. But I’m not totally sure why. For the one who was most insistent on purity his works seem to be the most aggressive and experimental. They also somehow feel more serious. For lack of a better term I will call his work mystical. It seems to suggest to me strange and fantastic new worlds. The fact that I enjoy video games with minimalist ascetics probably comes into this. I hope that if Judd could have lived to see videogames like Minecraft, Race the Sun, and Kairo he would have been pleased with the legacy of his movement.

The one minimalist that I can’t stand is Robert Ryman. I draw the line at a painting that might as well be blank. This suggests no mood nor gives any emotion, it feels like a waste of canvas. And when he does make his brushstrokes visible or tries to experiment with white on white it just looks ugly. If there is any emotion to it at all it feels harsh and salty. Robert Ryman is probably my least favourite fine artist. Pretty ironic considering how much I love the rest of the minimalists.

If nothing else I guess it shows how banal we think of white as the colour. He Yves Klein did similar things with the colour blue and I like his stuff.

The one I respect the most is Dan Flavin. I grew up with coloured lights displays for people with autism, and I still enjoy them now. Flavin’s work with multicoloured lights feels remarkably similar. It certainly triggers the same emotions in me. One is of joy and wonder at seeing colour in its strongest and most beautiful form. Both even feel magical to me. Like I’m in my childhood dreams again. So with Flavin there is a lot of nostalgia involved. But I feel certain even if I’d never had sensory toys as a child I’d still love his work, this is nature not nurture at work. It fills me with pure unobstructed emotion, which I think is what Donald Judd and his friends were trying to inspire.

And while I have no evidence to support this I have to wonder if Flavin’s work may have inspired the sensory art style that I love. It certainly didn’t pre-exist him. So I might owe him a great debt of gratitude for enriching my life long before I even knew of him.

“It’s hard to say I’d rather be awake when I’m asleep, because my dreams are bursting at the seams”

Fireflies – Owl City

While I said I didn’t want this to turn into fanboying. I’d like to point out that minimalism has entered the popular lexicon as a concept. We think of it in music, in design, and even in food. Minimalist interior design is often used to make a dignified environment. Minimalist style is often used in animation and illustration. Videogames have based their whole look on minimalism. I believe it was a big influence on the look of one of the most celebrated videogames of all time, Halo: Combat Evolved.

Donald Judd understood that minimalism was not the final word in the story of art. (Which is refreshing compared to his contemporaries) he knew his movement would come and go and didn’t try to claim it has been totally separate and superior to everything else that had come before it. He seemed like a fairly spiritual down-to-earth guy who just wanted to find simplicity inside himself. And I admire that humility within him. Minimalist art as he defined it is dead. But the ideas of it has bled out into the wider world. And hopefully all across the world many people have a greater appreciation for things that are simple, pure, and quiet. Thanks to the work of him and his fellow minimalists. If even one person has a better appreciation for simple still things that’s a good thing.

But to have given so many people so many chances to see what he saw and hopefully enrich many lives, even ones who have never heard of the minimalist art movement.

If that is not a resounding victory for an art movement, I don’t know what is.

My Thoughts on Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII

The legend surrounding Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII is so infamous that it has come to overshadow the actual work itself. I, and the rest of my class were taken aback by just how small it looked. It is slightly taller – and about the same width – as a man lying down. Photographs always make it look bigger, and I think that makes it seem additionally unimpressive in reality. Some of my classmates said it looked unfinished, or maybe like something a builder had just out down and would use later.

I wonder if you were to tell him, if it would please Andre to know that fifty years on his most famous work is still causing bemusement and anger. I’ve always preferred to experience Art by myself, whether it is watching movies, going to Art galleries or listening to music. I don’t like to feel my opinion being swayed by those around me. I will sometimes go to see a film without reading any reviews, just so I can have an experience that is authentically my own. I didn’t know until this week that “Wherever you will go” by The Calling is considered a bad song, I’d certainly never thought of it that way. So once our class broke up I sat down with the piece to try and get a truly authentic experience of it. I am not sure if I succeeded, because I certainly wanted to like it, and it is very easy to convince yourself that something you want to like is better than it actually is. The first thing I noticed abut “Equivalent VIII” other than the size is the colour. All the photographs I’d seen of it make it look grey, but it’s more of a sandstone colour. It makes it feel far less aggressive than you thought it would be, which maybe adds to the disappointment. For a piece that caused, and continues to cause, so much outrage, (I even overheard two primary school boys saying quite firmly that it was “not Art”) it doesn’t feel that it’s trying to provoke any anger at all. But now I have tried to break away from the preconceptions I had about the work, what do I think of it as it is?

The thing that is most striking about Equivalent VIII when you look at it up close, is that it is irregular. It’s not a perfectly smooth slab. Different bricks jut out, rise up or fade in. This isn’t a machine tooled piece of geometry, it’s a real thing with real imperfections. One does get the sense that it is less about the shape, and more about the putting of the bricks together, like a child playing with wooden blocks. I felt a strong urge to reach out and touch the thing, would it be satisfying to run my fingers across it? Again, I can’t say what is true, and what is preconception but the unevenness of the surface made me think of water (which was the inspiration for the Equivalence series). The surface of water is rarely perfectly still, but it always holds an equivalent shape and general flatness. But it ripples and tremors. I saw a display of several stuffed ducks in the Natural History Museum in Oxford, they were on a clear glass bottom, standing in for water. Somehow, that felt less like water than Andre’s bricks did. Water displays are often a part of Zen gardens, as are assortments of stones. Things like the calm water, or the carefully arranged stones, are meant to provide a sense of stillness and calmness. Intentionally or not, I feel that Andre’s work also does this. I did find, really stopping to take it in, that there is a sense of quiet and calmness to it all. It’s not trying to be perfectly still, it simply is. If Andre really had sanded the surfaces down to make them perfectly flat, it might have felt artificial. As it is, it’s a display of things in order, simply being themselves, without stress or panic. And yes, it made me feel sort of calm looking at it. Far from being a radical work of Art, Equivalent VIII simply seems to be a new version or some very old ideas. Even in the West, a traditional wooden cross with nor ornaments or decoration, could have similar qualities, and the same effect on a viewer. It’s more that the sentiment behind the work was completely unknown to

the commercial and materialist world to which it was shown. Again, I’m not even sure that Andre knew about the legacy he was tapping into, (traditional Zen Art) but I do believe he at least knew the emotional place that sort of thing comes from.

I decided to try to draw Equivalent VIII in my sketchbook, using perspective and foreshortening just like I would on a model in Life drawing. It proved surprisingly hard. I’d get bogged down in the details, ad curves where there shouldn’t be curves, or make it look too straight and flat – or make it look too big and bulky. It’s insane to think that something this simple could be harder to draw than a human body. Maybe because it is so simple, there’s nothing to really latch on to. But in the end, I was able to draw something that could the essence of the work, a little bit of its spirit and presence and I felt pretty pleased with myself after that.

In conclusion, it might not be the work I thought it would be, and I might not like it as much as I thought I would, but I do think it has value, at least for me. I have to question whether an Art Gallery is really the right place for it, far from giving anything positive, it just seems to bounce off most people and I can’t say a work of Art succeeds if the people who need its message the most can’t hear it. But at least I got a positive experience out of it myself. If nothing else, it will help me and maybe others think about how the ideas it has, which I believe are good ones, could be expressed in a more accessible way.

Fluxus: My thoughts

My Thoughts on Fluxus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYo3wF_g-84

Okay. That’s a little harsh. I can’t say I feel negatively towards Fluxism. But I imagine most people would have the above reaction if you showed them a fluxus artwork with no context.

And I do feel that Fluxus was something of a mistake. But a good one. The kind you are wiser and no worse off for having made. Like having ordered the wrong meal but getting to try a new weird meal. If nothing else you’ve broadened your horizons and now have a better idea of what food is and isn’t good.

I really don’t know what I can say about Fluxus art as most of it seemed to take place “In the moment. I can talk about the theory of it though.

In “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”. Edward Cullen Kylo Ren says to Rey that they should “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to”. He suggests that rather than joining the Jedi/rebellion or Sith/Empire they should form a new faction that isn’t good or evil. He doesn’t seem to have any plan or solid idea of what this third faction would do, how it would gain members, or what it would champion. Just that it would be different from all the stuff that came before it. Much the same I feel can be said for the Fluxists.

In the Fluxus manifestos the fathers name a long list of enemies including traditional 2D art, traditional sculpture, abstract art, minimal art, Classical music, traditionally beautiful art, pop art, representative art, classical poetry and theatre, Cinema and pop music, and Narrative art.

This really does beg the question. When you’ve thrown all of that into the shredder what else is left?

Well the Fluxists do admit very reluctantly to having some forbears. Dick Higgins talks about the connections Fluxus has with Futurism, Dada, Marcel Duchamp, Surrealism, and John Cage, with the same reluctance that a proud ten-year-old might admit that the rest of the team helped him win the football match.

I can understand why. The Futurists and the Dadaists also wanted to burn everything that was old down and throw it all away. Without even comparing their art, this fact makes the Fluxists seem derivative and horribly late to the party. Almost comical.

Fluxus theory has fallen at the first hurdle in that it is trying to be new and original in a very old and unoriginal way. So how does the art stand up?

It’s weird. Maybe not as weird as it would like to be. But even as an experienced fan of fine art I have no idea what I am supposed to get out of, or take away from this. And I imagine to the layman and laywoman it would probably just feel like a mistake.

When I watched the Black & White Fluxus short film ‘The Sun in Your Head’ It just felt like a series of unrelated images only head together by the style in which they were shown. It had no real themes or motifs. And it didn’t make me think about or feel anything. Not even boredom. It did make me reflect on the narratively abstract films of people like Jorden Belson, Jan Svankmajer, and Lawrence Jordan. Lawrence Jordan’s collage films have no story. And are also just images. But He uses certain types of images, music and slow animation to make a mood of sadness, wonder, and nostalgia. ‘The Sun in your Head’ has no style and thus no mood.

I had a similar reaction to ‘In Memoriam to Adriano Olivetti’, The musical act made using things like typewriters and cash registers as instruments. It’s novel to be sure. It totally breaks the rules of how music works and is supposed to be. And it does still sound like music. But once the novelty wears off it’s not that interesting. I doubt anyone has it on their music playlist.

What it did make me think about was how Paul McCartney and John Lennon would break the rules of how pop and rock music were meant to work and sound all the time, and every time they did they not only made their music better, but often helped form new genres and subgenres. They weren’t as rebellious as the Fluxists. But they changed music completely in the ten years they worked together. A much greater feat.

As for the rest of the Fluxus art works I’ve seen? Most of it seems to be live events or “happenings”, which are extremely hard to judge without video footage. But from what I’ve seen they feel more like live Monty Python Sketches played dead straight than real art works.

The made objects like a piano full of nails, or a chair covered in a huge chunk of fat just feel like Dada. But without any of Jean Arp’s strange beauty or Duchamp’s self-mocking humour. It isn’t much weirder than Dada, or notably different. But it doesn’t feel as fun.

Though it does perhaps feel purified.

Dada would sometimes take ideas and techniques from the old art world. Fluxus never does. Dada art can be beautiful. Fluxus art is mostly ugly. It’s quite ridged in that sense. But you do have to admire how dedicated they were in that regard.

In closing. The Fluxists set some very tight limits on what they were aloud to make. The idea that the stuff they were making would replace classical art is absurd. It just doesn’t have the appeal to even compete, let alone replace. But working with limits isn’t always a bad thing. A child playing with sand and a few stones at the beach has very severe limits on what he can make. But that doesn’t stop him from making whole words of adventure and fantasy with his stones and sand.

I get the same feeling from the Fluxus artists. One of playfulness. Doing whatever strange things you can with what little you have. And it’s that same spirit of creativity and experimentation that gave us things like the surrealist paintings of Dali or the music of the Beatles. So maybe you can look at fluxus art is almost a tribute to that spirit of creativity that pushes art forwards. The art might feel like a mistake. But the heart behind it is not. And that is beautiful.

Pop Art: My thoughts.

Here is an extra Journal on Pop art to show I have thought about what I’ve seen and read. I will attempt to answer some of the questions raised in the slideshow.

I for one do not think of art as a pyramid with say Banksy at the top and Drake at the bottom. Nor do I see it as a continuum with artists going in and out of style. I like to think of it a being like an Eco system. Like a coral reef. Many things living in harmony and co-operating to make one beautiful world.

High-art, “Low art”, and everything in between all influence and build on each other. Even the finest artists need to be entertained and to relax with a fun movie or silly video game. And even if all you do is make Sonic the Hedgehog fan art you are being influenced by centuries of fine art. Pop culture acts as a gate way for people to access and better understand fine painting and literature. And most of the people who make violent video games and write erotica will have their favourite classical composers and poets. Even if they’re shy about talking about them.

I pop art did mean to challenge that binary idea of high and low art I can respect that. But you can’t just try to tear something down for the sake of tearing it down. You work will be ugly and hollow. It’s why The Last Jedi is such a terrible film. At the bare minimum you need to have an idea of what you want to put in the place of the old stuff. The Futurists had an idea of what they wanted the art world to look like, even if they failed.

But what you really need is something to say in your own right. Breaking the taboos is not the end in itself but a necessary step in marking your masterwork.

Alfred Hitchcock did not plan to reinvent Cinema when he made Psycho. He wanted to make a film that would make audiences scream in terror. In pursuit of that goal he made a film that challenged the nuclear family idea. talked about issues of childhood trauma, guilt, control, sanity and identity, sexuality, and self destructive behaviour. And to do this the film had to be more violent and sexual that any Hollywood film before it. In doing so it changed what could be shown in films forever.

Psycho is shlock horror film who’s most famous scene is of a naked woman being stabbed to death. Psycho is a beautifully shot, acted, and scored film in a tradition of tragic fiction that is as old as western society.

It embodies the reef-like Eco-system I was talking about. It takes the best of both ends of of artistic spectrum and makes something that can be enjoyed by connoisseurs and casual film-goers alike

That, to me, is the real Pop Art.

Learning Journal exercise: Pop Art

I was sadly not present for last week’s lecture on Pop Art. But I will do this exercise based on the reading material, videos and links given on the moodle page.

The pages on Pop art covered reading a small history or the movement’s theories and artists. Reading a manifesto from one of the artists of the time. A little bit of history from the Tate website. Watching a lecture on Andy Warhol having trouble keeping up in the world of commercial illustration. And Finally looking through a digital gallery of works of Pop art by many artists, it also came with some questions to think on.

I feel the most important ideas in in these pages is the perceived rebellion against what was seen as worthy of being art. Making art about things like advertisements, foods, cars, comics, and movie posters. It’s all very crass and graceless. It seems the most important thing here is the desire to get dirty and down with the common folk rather thinking about arty things.

It seems like a misstep to me. You should be defined by what you are. Not what you’re not.

The work I found most interesting were the paintings of Roslyn Drexler. That might be a bit disappointing with her being the most “Normal” artist on display here. I liked her bold colours and strong sense of power. She adds to emotion to the posters she bases her works on and gets to the heart of what she sees. But it does make her work comparitively safe when the rest of the pop artists was have seemed to be making pure nonsense back in the day. That lack of “madness” is probably why she is so much less well known

I also find the works or Roy Lichtenstein interesting. But for all the wrong reasons. I find his work to be a cold mockery of comic book art. Draining it of all the drama and emotion that makes the medium so powerful and just leaving behind tropes and conventions of the medium. A cruel parody of the art of the working classes done by a rich, wealthy man. The fact Lichtenstien is reported to have been frightened of the men he stole from would suggest he felt that way too.

reading up on him here has done nothing to warm me up to the man.

Does any of this relate back to my subject, animation? I don’t think so. Animation as it’s name would suggest is about bringing things to life. Pop art takes living art of others. kills it. and puts it’s corpse on display where educated people can see it. Animation is used to tell stories and build characters. Even abstract animation follows this rule. Pop art doesn’t have stories and characters. It has bits on piece of those things taken out of their context and preserve as some kind of record of what life outside the museum might be like.

Animation creates. Pop art records the creations of others.

The part I struggled with the most was listening to the lecture on Andy Warhol’s strugges in the advertising world. I just didn’t find it interesting and I really wanted to be doing other things.

I guess I could fix this by trying to watch it in smaller parts rather than trying to watch it all in one go.

As for the final question. My feelings on pop art remain unchanged despite having read up on it in greater detail now. Maybe I’m just being closed minded but everything I read just seemed to confirm my feelings. Pop art is a cold and cynical movement more concerned with the meta-context around itself than making good art.

It is often said a good work of art stands on it’s own merits. Regardless of who made it or when it was made. Honestly I with Pop art to be crude, cold, and uninteresting with or without context.

When Andy Warhol and Wolf Vostell paint bottles of Coca-Cola I don’t get any thing from either one, even though their styles are so different. One is crude and the other is elegant. But niether seems to say anything about coke. I don’t sense nostalgia, hatred, fear, relief or anything a sugary drink might inspire. Just a statement of “This is a thing that exists”

And I already knew that.

But putting my personal feelings aside. I still think it’s failure. In his manifesto Lawrence Alloway says he wants art that relates to the common man and the world he lives in. A man who might vanish and turn up three weeks later painting walls for money.

But Pop art refuses to see why things like soup cans, movie stars, Comic books, and cars matter so much to people who can’t afford to study philosophy. It is part of the cycle of left for them. Not a crazy oddity to be broken down and remade. When actual working class people make art they make rap and Reggie music. They draw comic books about flying Snowmen and gun toting Judges. They paint great works of biblical art on the city walls or make fairylands of floating rubbish. They don’t make art about drinking coke. They make art about being human.

Pop art failed miserably. It ended up being more elitist and removed from real life than Abstract Expressionism could have ever dreamed of being.

Modernism. My Thoughts

Forgive me for talking about how modernist art comes across now rather than the theory that inspired it. But how modernist art has integrated into our world is fascinating.

Modernist theory seems very aggressive. Puritanical even. That the movement died out is not surprising. Saying that painters can only work with paint as paint was as confining an idea as saying that video games should have no narrative or that comic books must only be light-hearted and silly. These restrictions are so intense it would not take long for artists to rebel. Video games had Silent Hill. Comics had The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Modernism too would have it’s day.

Time has made even the darkest arcade games and the most mature silver age comics seem funny, warm and safe. I feel like something similar might have happened to modernist art.

Mondrian, Rothko, Kandinsky, and even The Futurists’s paintings seem to me to be fun, cute, relaxing and even playful. Like easy listening music. They make me feel happy. Even in galleries and media these artworks would be used to add some colour and frivolity to room. The bright colours and bold shape are both child-like and would look good in media for children. That these painting once caused anger and came from an angry place.

But sometimes the past can surprise you.

Does this change my feeling on the paintings? I don’t think so. It is certainly fascinating to learn. But for better or for worse these paintings really do stand on their own. Separate from the artistes who made them and the movement they embodied.

Because even if Modernism was a cage the foundations for making great paintings were solid. Making paintings just about paint and colour was a path truly worth following. Even if only for a while.