Mann Doll

Mann Doll

Theoretical Priciples of De-aestheticized Art

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”- Pablo Picasso

What kind of lie does contemporary art support today?

What kind of truth are we realizing through the contemporary art?

Contemporary scene of visual art resembles the space filled with broken mirrors, where images reflect each other in the multidimensional sphere of media circus. The technique of cataloguing and classification, creation of categories, could serve as the key to the mapping and understanding of complexity of the multitude of approaches and streams that exists in today’s global art scene. Criteria for both, the creation and the selection are borrowed from random structures, and theoretically are questioning relevance of the evolution of art.

The initial categories for the whole system are those of matter and consciousness. They provide the trunk from which all the various branches of the other categories stem. All elements are so interconnected that, each can only be understood as an element of the whole. -Dialectical Materialism (A. Spirkin)

Determination of the significance of styles or tendencies, of the main art stream, groups or any other structures, will become irrelevant in near future. “Anything goes” was replaced by “And What?” With all the information and tools available today, everybody could become an artist. People of all professions are playing with new media. Does Garage Band make a musician, or graphic software a designer, or using digital camera a photographer? New technologies create a game where in competitive manner consequently everybody wants to win. Winning in art, means also experience “15 minutes of world-fame” and becoming a “superhero.” Consumer society deals with superficial substitution for happiness. Who is going to watch the game if everybody plays. Fortunately we can not play at the same time. Audience varies from small groups (family members and friends) to large social groups. In larger social communities, like national structures, demand for “heroes-artists” diminishes and culture is broken into small pieces of individualized performances of regional character. Researching tendencies of art scene behavior in context of contemporary philosophy of art we tend to accept a concept, that everybody is or could be an artist. The meaning, importance and consequences of such mind stream are very profound and have a great impact on cultural and social live. Why? It requires dropping the concept of conceptual thinking.

My artistic approach is created on such foundations. Not that I would be able to perform non-dualistic processes, but I am trying to pronounce a little speculative futuristic prognoses of the era after the end of art. Sooner or later this trend will be labeled as some kind of Unthinkable Art. Historically, realization of such path becomes a paradox to common sense (especially on collective level); however, similar trends are reflected in the air of the post-postmodern rain, and will soon appear on the sky as a rainbow.

Today’s curators are looking for unique and interesting angles to make their point across when using selective techniques for art shows. The usage of traditional approaches secures the system of art cycle, from creation to the distribution, and protects the capital of cultural bureau. Even the most alternative scenes (Technologies vs. Art, or other forums of so called “new media”) are not resolving the issue of foundation of the role of art on the contemporary global cultural platform, because they are based on the traditional curatorial, selective and preconceived mechanisms. What do I mean by that? I refer to the study of the designation processes of mind in relationship to the definition of what we labeled: The Art. As a reference to dialectic philosophies is an example of demonstration the potential of the idea pronounced by A.Danto, about art becoming philosophy. Such Ideas would need to be adopted, not only by artist themselves, but especially reformulated by structures that officially support the larger cultural platforms.

What are results of the conference that took place in Teheran in 2001? Art is still presented to the public in the manner of presentation from early 20 century. Structures that support such static views certainly do not elevate the public consciousness and awareness of issues of modern art world. The Artist Mark Kostabi makes allusion to the idea, of the art being a servant of market. Some curators are trilled by this statements. In the global picture of westernization, M. Kostabi’s phenomenon is becoming a guide – a hero, who is ideal combination of qualities, that contemporary artist should posses. It is also the best demonstration of lie that helps us to realize the truth about art of today.

Like a flashes of neon sign, art is reflected, from the pieces of mirrors everywhere.

Looks like a new quality of question have arisen since Arthur Danto published his ideas in book called “After the end of art, 1998. “Over a decade ago, Arthur Danto announced that art ended in the sixties. Ever since this declaration, he has been at the forefront of a radical critique of the nature of art in our time.” Art is becoming a philosophy.

I always believed in finding the answers in the space between, looking for the middle course. Neither postmodernism nor new media approaches are answers to the understanding of the positioning of the art of tomorrow. Postmodern world is a world of entertainment. It’s like an amusement park, where possibilities are endless and we feel overwhelmed for a while, but we have a need to relax from excess information and go back home.

Kostabi is one of those, who understood the art market, and because of his intelligence he penetrated the system, took advantage of it, so he can do whatever he wants. We pay for expensive tickets out of our pocket. I admire him because he realized the dream of every artist. Or is it not a dream of every artist to get recognized and sell art work all over the world?

If not, what is?

Is it still relevant to ask question, such as, what is Art? How do we deal with it? What is the nature of beauty? I would like to refere to the dialog between Einstein and Tagore from 1930.

EINSTEIN: There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe - the world as a unity dependent on humanity, and the world as reality independent of the human factor.

TAGORE: When our universe is in harmony with man, the eternal, we know it as truth, we feel it as beauty.”

E: If there were no human beings any more, the Apollo Belvedere no longer would be beautiful?

T: No!

E: I agree with this conception of beauty, but not with regard to truth.

T: Why not? Truth is realized through men.

E: I cannot prove my conception is right, but that is my religion.

T: Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony, which is in the universal being; truth is the perfect comprehension of the universal mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness. How otherwise can we know truth?

- by Dmitri Marianoff, published in NewYork Times, August 10, 1930

“Contemporary artists would never approach new horizons. One of the reasons of this failure seems to be the separation of artistic activity from speculative thinking.“

2001 Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, International Conference on the Philosophy of Art.

What happened since the time of the conference? How to overcome speculative thinking, if it arises as a cultural result of values supported by society we live in?

How to identify or place individual art work into the world of already so complicated and diverse art scene, without compromising originality, respecting evolution in art? How do we deal with the fast passing, minute to minute changing tendencies of art? How the individual artist contributes to the art of its lifetime, and not just contributes to the 15 minutes type of history? What are the values, reasons of art of tomorrow? Is there analogy in art history to the situation of our era? What are the future forms of the visual exploration? What will the production of art going to be in near future, 10 years from now? What is the role of new media? Does artist have to be involved in the philosophy of art? Could individually created piece of art be created in isolation? If so, how are art processes structured on individual level and on the global level?

It is intriguing to think about becoming a pioneer of the new Era of Art. My motivation is to explore the field of possibilities. In have no interest in inherent aspect of art rather I am interested in the evolution of possibilities of artistic thinking. In 1999 I have graduated in Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, with installation inspired by I. Kabakov, where I exhibited my workspace with drawings and prints on floor and the white canvases, with intention to question the meaning of the art itself. White canvas was there to raise the question of reason for continuation of mark making and the End of art narratives. I have seen closed circle of possibilities. If anything was possible, and everything was an art; than nothing was an art anymore, so Art was Death. But as I realize today, that was just the beginning of my long journey to the realization of truth about art.

The Incredibles (2004) refreshed feelings about the End of Art.

“When everybody is a superhero than nobody is superhero”.

In order to continue in activities leading to product that is labeled as an art, I had to formulate and reconsider following facts:

1. Analysis of situation.

2. Underlying misconception of self and wrong motivations.

3. Formulating the solutions and strategies.

4. Continual fabrication and visual symbioses with reality.

1. ANALYSIS OF SITUATION

From the Teheran’s conference: Post-Modernism & Contemporary Art,

27 April - 1 May 2002

The Problems of Contemporary Art:

- Aesthetics in Contemporary Art

- The Fine Line between Artistic & Non-Artistic Work

- The Language & Expression of Contemporary Art

- Contemporary Literature & Art

- Contemporary Art & Technology

- Globalization & Contemporary Art

- Post-Modern Art: Features & Characteristics

- The End of Art

Post-Modernism & Trends of Contemporary Art:

- Minimalism

- Conceptual Art

- Land Art

- Video Art

- Body Art

- Anti-Art

- Local Art

- Feminism

- Post-Modern Architecture

Theoretical Origins of Post-Modern Art

Theoretical Principles of Modernism from the viewpoint of Modern Philosophers:

- Humanism

- Rationalism

- Subjectivism

- Nihilism

- Aesthetics

- Enlightenment

2. UNDERLYING MISCONCEPTION OF SELF AND MOTIVATION

I have slightly touched topics of traditional dilemmas of dualistic mind. The acceptation of dual aspect of things, leads to judgmental thinking, not only in art. Creation of categories is beginning of the tragedy of the era after the end of art. This is why Beauty and any other category could be defined, which leads to the continual labeling.

Definition of other reasons of misconception is based on juxtaposing Nietzche’s and Malraux’s models of art and processes of creation.

Nietzche

a. One seeks for oneself a less artistic public. The superstitious belief in the "genius"

b.One harangues the obscure instincts of the dissatisfied, ambitious, self-disguised spirits in a democratic age: importance of poses.

c. One transfers the procedures of one art to the other arts, confounds the objectives of art with those of knowledge or the church or racial interests (nationalism), or philosophy.

d.One flatters women, sufferers, the indignant, etc. False "intensification".

Malraux Andre

Art is a display of universal creativity of individual. Through art work man was, and is, opposing and transcending limitations of his physique, his personal and social (historical) destiny. Malraux refuted to explain art works in relation to the biography of their creators, and was against this method in explaining motives and contents of art.

3. FORMULATING THE SOLUTION AND STRATEGY/ VISION-UTOPIA

a. Revival of Iconic Quality.

Because of the degenerated Era of Spiritual Values and the End of time of Old Gods; which migration and multicultural blend is responsible for, I am looking for Possibility of New Sacral Form. This is not a creation of transcendental art. It is a search for artistic form that allows the content to respect dialectic evolution of social wisdom, where an essence of sacral secrecy is highly respected. It is a new level of the sphere of new colors, shapes and structures. Renewal of art forms is based on reevaluation of sacral attributes from history and than elevating the forces of modern era which define motives and perspectives of redefined sacral forms. It is revival of existing symbols, on global level. It is not a creation of a new religion, but it is a new level of social consciousness. Form remains the same, mind is different. Technology, art and philosophy are integrated into continuous symbioses.

b. Role of the Artists, Galleries and Cultural Industry. Combination of Two Worlds. New Cultural Wisdom. Utopia.

This would be the end of “…marketing game governed by art dealers, Gallerists and publishers, who have to run the business of Cultural Industry.”

The society on global level would be governed by New Cultural Wisdom. Creation of art is not considered anymore as the act of creation. “The art will be spontaneous as breathing.” Artist is producing form, that is instantly and naturally blending into the environment, so the sub-consciousness is directed by wisdom that eliminates the dilemma of hierarchic model. Gallery space is no more required and the whole space is becoming a showcase. The whole space does not require the poses. It is an art of conscious depiction of picture plan, from retinal experience, or selection of the picture frame in consciousness and placing the required aesthetics upon it. Artists are fabricating art that is already blended into environment as natural portion of space and serves as perceptive potential for public depiction. Cultural Wisdom is defined by human consciousness that provides unlimited potential for defining the pictorial framing of reality, and its limits are limits of understanding the phenomenon of reality.

c. Clash of Civilizations. Global Culture. Meta-code, and New Artistic Religion.

We experience on global level formation of new cultural qualities that are based on cultural clashes. (Example: Global cultural experience is formed in LA house, with my Persian and Mexican friends listening to the Japanese techno music, eating Bulgarian cheese with Arabic bread, Russian pickles and drinking French wine while discussing Slovak culture, or latest fashion trends in London.) East meets west or south meets north processes are not completed yet and it is hard to predict the results from the cultural clashes. But we need to look at the presence as the formation of the universal space, where cultural identities will be redefined. This will result in temporary crisis of individual identities but eventually will lead to the identity of global consciousness.

Americanization of world can serve as model of globalization of globe with its positive and negative aspects. Migration to caves is limited. S.J.Lewy

4. CONTINUAL FABRICATION AND VISUAL SYMBIOSES

I would like to scratch the surface beyond the point of A. Danto’s philosophical questions about the end of art. Not that I would have “the guts” to elaborate on his ideas from philosophical perspective, but I just want to reflect on some fragments and articulate them strictly as an artistic vision.

"A philosophical question arises whenever we have two objects which seem in every relevant particular to be alike, but which belong to importantly different philosophical categories.

…and this is no less the case when seeking to account for the differences between works of art and mere real things which happen exactly to resemble them.

…for example, regards paintings as very complex perceptual objects. So they are, but since objects can be imagined perfectly congruent with those which are not art works, these must have equivalent complexity at the level of perception. After all, the problem arose in the first place because no perceptual difference could be imagined finally relevant. But neither can possession of so-called "aesthetic qualities' serve, since it would be strange if a work of art were beautiful but something exactly like it though not a work of art were not. In fact it has been a major effort of the philosophy of art to de-aestheticize the concept of art. It was Marcel Duchamp, a far deeper artist than Warhol, who presented as "readymades" objects chosen for their lack of aesthetic qualities - grooming combs, hat racks, and, notoriously, pieces of lavatory plumbing. "Aesthetic delectation is the danger to be avoided," Duchamp wrote of his most controversial work, Fountain, of 1917. It was precisely Duchamp's great effort to make it clear that art is an intellectual activity, a conceptual enterprise and not merely something to which the senses and the feelings come into play. And this must be true of all art, even that most bent upon gratifying the eye or ear, and not just for those works which are regarded as especially "philosophical," like Raphael's School of Athens or Mann's The Magic Mountain. Were someone to choreograph Plato's Republic, that would not, simply because of its exalted content, be more philosophical than Coppelia or Petrouchka. In fact these might be more philosophical, employing as they do real dancers imitating dancing dolls imitating real dancers!

Where are the components for a theory of art to be found? I think a first step may be made in recognizing that works of art are representations, not necessarily in the old sense of resembling their subjects, but in the more extended sense that it is always legitimate to ask what they are about.

Now of course not all representational things are works of art, so the definition has only begun. I shall not take the next steps here. All I have wished to show is the way that the philosophy of art has deep questions to consider, questions of representation and reality, of structure, truth, and meaning. In considering these things, it moves from the periphery to the center of philosophy, and in so doing it curiously incorporates the two things that give rise to it. For when art attains the level of self-consciousness it has come to attain in our era, the distinction between art and philosophy becomes as problematic as the distinction between reality and art. And the degree to which the appreciation of art becomes a matter of applied philosophy can hardly be overestimated." - A. DANTO

I believe that art should reach the level, where its own representation would be representation of the pure existence. What do I mean by pure existence? Ii is purification on the level of non creation. All creation is pregnant by its causes. Consequently purifying the causes of creation will purify the act of creation itself.

Global consciousness on the level of cultural wisdom will create the platform, where all representational things will become work of art. It would be consciousness and its possibility to frame the fragment of reality and apply the aesthetic quality upon it. The reality in cultural wisdom level is ultimately de-aestheticized. Marcel Duchamp’s idea of the danger of aesthetic delectation would be eliminated and his vision completed.

Every aspect of reality could become art, but Wisdom Culture does not allow the reality in dualistic (judgmental) sense to become the art neither on collective level, nor on any regional level. It would only exist as a potential view, on the level of one’s consciousness. However in later stages of development of wisdom culture, in the stage of ultimate equanimity, the nonjudgmental aesthetic experience of reality as ultimate art could be realized simultaneously in more than one person. Evolution of collective experience could follow. The result of such parallel experience manifests the evolution of human kind toward the subtle spiritual qualities and realization of inseparable quality of beauty from the existence itself. It is experience of highest aesthetics. This will lead to the formation of new social structure, where “shamans” will protect the global Sanctum.

The essence of the Sanctum is present in every aspect of reality, which holds the door to the potential creation, where the seed of the nature of beauty could be found.

About the Author

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