BBBBrain

(see here about this photograph)

I’m on the brain bandwagon, reading about consciousness and the brain, vision and the brain, the brain that changes itself. It’s a tremendous subject and I’m just at the very, very beginning.

What is consciousness, our sense of self, is something I’ve been interested in since I started studying Buddhism a bit some 10 years ago. For Buddhists, there is no self; and for many brain people, there is no self. There are experiences, we exist, but there’s no thing that you can point to and say, that is moi.

Once Robert Thurman recounted a story about a guy who attended a retreat about no self. At some point this guy didn’t know which person he was in the room. That freaks me out totally.

The more and more I read about it, we are just bits here, there. Seems like the brain makes the continuity, a narrative; it creates a self and what it goes through. I suppose we need that story in order to be able to function. I’m not sure why we need to function. Maybe there's stuff we simply have to go through; because of karma or agita, or something.

I don’t know why there has to be people who get bombed and people who don’t get bombed.

This is all interesting philosophically, but I’m wondering if it’s perhaps a way to approach art. I’m not sure how it could be. I haven’t figured that out because I’m in the middle of it. But I’ve made work that is responding to these philosophies and sciences somehow.

So far I have: legs in motion, legs in space, legs as form (that would be the three streams that make up how we see). I don’t know why legs, except they are limbs that carry us and that you sometimes feel and sometimes don’t. I spent many years not really feeling them. The problem with legs is that Guston painted legs. I’m concerned about the derivative-ness as usual. Then I have guardians/bodyguards (they would be my protectors, maybe my survival instinct). I also have some mirroring, which is how people connect. I love mirroring. I think I need more of that. We’ll see what comes out next.

Guy who had a weird dream

I’ve been tapping various sources to try to learn why – aside from its formal attributes - ancient art is so enticing.

The least interesting vein of information has been my high school art history textbook. There, writers make up a narrative to fit their own idea about what art is. And it seems that for them, art is about the artist and his supreme will. For example, with regard to a figurine from 2100 BC (like this one above), it reads, “The sculptor [worked the hard stone] with consummate skill, making an opportunity out of difficulty.” But the concept of skill and of opportunity, and also of sculptor, is entirely modern. These were societies that didn’t make images consciously, as an esthetic or cultural exercise, but because they were powerful, because they served a purpose.

And I’m not really interested in what that purpose was; who the king was, what he wanted, what was happening around him. I’m not interested in specifics. I like generalities. That’s why I find Joseph Campbell’s conversations with Bill Moyers about myth more interesting. For the former, myths are the ground of humanness throughout the ages. Because, when you boil it down, when you generalize, there aren’t that many themes to develop. So, ancient art might be interesting to me in part because I see a humanness boiled down. Guy praying for direction. Guy walking with animals. Guy who had a weird dream.

Billy Childish

It’s so hard to know if what you’re making is a piece of crap. Worse, if it’s bullshit. I think you know deep down when you’re fooling yourself, when it’s just pretension. I hope so. Anyhoo.

The Billy Childish opening at Lehman Maupin LES was vitalizing. He talked, read a few poems and also sang a few songs. Lots of anger in the writing, but it’s so much his own that’s it’s not a turn-off. It seems that his anger is directly linked to the high personal standards he has for himself and the world around him. It’s probably fair to say he’s an idealist. Aren’t all artists?

The paintings aren’t angry. They’re bucolic, energetic, loose. I almost liked most, but really loved this volcano here. I feel good in its palette, its image, and also its freedom.

As he related, he was able to let loose in painting once his personal life was no longer in such turmoil. I can understand that entirely. I can’t really think of an example where personal mess and artistic burgeoning co-exist, despite the myth that torment is the stuff of meaningful art. I think you are stable and free.

Blogging in tongues

I’m still wondering what’s really relevant about ancient art, aside from its esthetic economy, which parallels a contemporary sense of chic spareness. I think there’s a directness in ancient art that we today read as meaning. No wobbling and ruffles. They’re SYMBOLS, we say. Symbols make us feel profound. I suppose symbols are in fact profound. But I’m not sure those symbols are apt for our times. Unless those symbols are something we need now. That’s what I wonder.

The Ancients didn’t think they were making art. Artness is a value that was imposed much later. I don’t really know what they thought, but from what I gather, visual representation was a tool for them. It showed something. It served as something. I think artists today hope their work will do the same, but it can’t really in the same way, because we have a category called art. So we can’t really go back to art as use. Although art can speak like symbols.

Directions

(Still from a Ryan Trecartin video)

The Occupy Wall Street protesters are teaching me a lot about horizontal. There have been accusations, critics, worries that the movement has no leaders, no demands. But what I’m seeing is that it is precisely this widening of the field that is allowing for the movement to embrace other groups and complaints and to grow. This horizontal can also be called non-hierarchical. I’ve heard Ryan Trecartin’s videos being described as non-hierarchical. I suppose they could also be called horizontal.

But frankly I’m more attracted to vertical for it’s concentrated energy and strength. In terms of social movements, there is of course the word “uprising.” That surge is vertical. In terms of art, I see columns, standing figures, even seated figures, back straight.

The problem with vertical is that it is narrowing. It’s a funnel, and in terms of art, I personally need to let it spill out so as not to be constrained. But really, I guess you need both directions. The base of the horizontal, the thrust of the vertical.

Going beyond

What I’m trying to figure out is why mankind’s first images have such a contemporary feel. Is that work relevant to – even significant to - our times other than formally, esthetically?

Formally, esthetically speaking, the work lives on today because it lives: high-contrast patterns are energetic and bold lines are vectors. Furthermore, when images are schematic, they go beyond a specific time. Why is there no respect for the schematic? Is it because it’s not observed, because it’s not what we see with our eyes? Some schematic images can look like generalizations, but others are metaphors, they point to something bigger.

Schema: A pattern imposed on complex reality or experience to assist in explaining it, mediate perception, or guide response.

But why is it relevant to our times? I’m not really sure.

This art is pre-self. There is no turning inward, no me-reflection, no depiction of subtle emotion (brains then just didn’t do that yet). The images these cultures made served as consciousness. They were used as consciousness. Art today can expand our consciousness. So the connection must have to do with consciousness. With letting go of the self. With making a leap outside of ourselves and into understanding.

Hallucinating

(Georges Braque, Lying Nude (The Bather IX), 1932)

I’ve been thinking about hallucinations. Generally we associate the word with acid and mushrooms. That doesn’t interest me so much mainly because I’ve never tripped and I never want to. I don’t need it, I’m scared enough as it is. I suppose it has be powerful. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson just published a whole book on the influence tripping has had on modern art.

Georges Braque also used the word “hallucination” to describe the process of artmaking. Miro did too. In a statement in Minotaure, December 1933, the latter said:

It is difficult for me to talk about my painting, since it is always born in a state of hallucination, brought on by some jolt or other – whether objective or subjective – which I am not the least responsible for.

From what I gather, these artists were both using the word to describe what we might now call a process of “making the unconscious conscious.” I doubt many would use the word “hallucination” anymore in this way in our times, because we’ve become so familiar with psychoanalysis, dream interpretation and representation, etc. It doesn’t really qualify as halluncination, in my mind, because it’s familiar (now). We can explain it, whether it’s accurate or not. I think a hallucination must be something that feels outside the self.

Direction

(Thomas Hirschhorn, Tool Family, 2007)

I don’t see my drawings before I make them. I don’t have a vision or a continuous voice that dictates what’s next. I just do and work with what comes out. If I have a preliminary idea, it never works. So what is it that moves the work? Because they are moving as a body, the drawings keep coming out, and they change. I must therefore have some kind of inner direction. I just don’t know what that direction is.

I suppose I have a position: that art is best when it’s personal. It doesn’t have to be about you – and please, spare me - but I like it when it’s your verve, stripped of pretension. For example, I like Thomas Hirschhorn, despite what I used to think. His work isn’t about him, but it is deeply personal. And it is deeply visual. Yes, I also think art at its best is visual, that it’s its own language, not dependent on explanation.

One definition of consciousness is that it is generated by language. Language describes and then we have what it describes as part of our awareness, as part of how we conceive of the world. There was a time in history when language wasn't as developed, when a mind couldn’t reflect on itself, couldn’t describe itself, guide itself. This mind, a pre-conscious, two-part mind called the bicameral mind (Julian Jaynes), hallucinated voices and figures as guides. Sculptures and effigies were made not as a reflection of these voices but in order to aid these voices.

This is all related, I just don’t know how.

La Pointe Courte

Agnes Varda’s first film “La Pointe Courte” from 1955 combines staged narrative with reportage. As such, she has been named the grandmother of the French New Wave. The film itself follows the existential discussions of a couple as they stroll through a poor fishing community – the husband’s native village - in the south of France. Or maybe we’re following the town and their residents, which include this couple. Both elements have equal weight. The film can be somewhat tedious – especially the staged narrative – but it sticks with you nonetheless. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Varda was a photographer before she turned to film, so many shots look like well-composed stills with movement. It’s precisely this movement - not precious – that makes what you’re watching so alive. And cats. So many cats doing their thing, making life bearable. See the one in the background here?

Happy art labor day

(Peter Bruegel, The Harvesters, 1565)

I’m translating the writings of a well-known international artist (TBA). This artist has nothing to do with Peter Bruegel.

What I’m noticing about his language is his assurance. I want X, I will do XX, it will be XXX. It is, to say the least, confident and assertive. I don’t see how any of his readers could suspect doubt. And if there is any, he’s assertive about it.

This is in fact the artist’s strategy; partly how he communicates his intention and partly how he convinces hesitant dealers. The actual and painful doubt of the creative process is kept to himself because it’s not part of the piece as he sees it. Actual doubt is personal; this art is about ideals.

When one of his pieces is ready for viewing, it has to stand on its own, and separate from the viewer. The viewer looks at something that is outside herself. It may become part of her, or resonate with her, but at first, it’s always outside. Sometimes the artist helps the viewer into the piece. I suppose writing can help do that.

Of course, this artist - and artists in general - can’t and don't have full control of what the viewer sees and what all kinds of viewers see. The piece, once outside the artist and once outside the viewer, has a life of its own.

Commercial Perks

I completed one of my first commercial job last week through Artstep: a 35 foot restaurant mural made to look like old advertising on the side of a building. I was part of a two-person team who rendered the design and execution.

A few things I noticed. First, a large swath of people complimented me on what I was doing, and that’s recognition, whether it’s the kind I had in mind or not. One construction worker on the site asked me if he understood what he was looking at. He did. Seeing it on top of “getting it” seemed to be a perk to his day. To mine too.

Of course, there’s the puritanical artist's panic that doing commercial work is unpure, and that real artists should be focusing on more profound concerns in the studio. Do I want my name associated with this? Does it mean a gallery won’t take me seriously? Will this work effect my “real work”? Who the F cares. I like what we made and I actually have enough money this week to buy some sneakers.

And in any case, back in the studio last night, I noticed a playfulness, a willingness to expand my visual vocabulary. Maybe the mural made me – briefly – less sanctimonious.

Courtiers R Us

(Francisco Goya, Portrait of the Marqués de Sofraga, ca. 1795)

If I want to use the word “metaphor” in a sentence, can I say “The courtier is a metaphor for our times,” or does a metaphor have to be a thing? Perhaps it would have to be the “court of France” is a metaphor for our times. Or maybe I have to use the word “figure” instead: “the courtier is a figure for our times.” In any case, it is.

Among the words associated with “courtier,” is “favorite;” people close to a ruler who are ambitious and climb the social and political ladder because of his or her connection to power.

“Courts” are worlds of hierarchy, intrigue, rules and backstabbing. Courtiers are sycophants with little regard for others. They can also be frustrated servants or middlemen. In historical painting, donned in fashionable clothing, they look as if they were caught in their times. As such and posing stiffly, they are often endearing, ever human.

Can’t we recognize ourselves playing the roles we find ourselves playing?

Creative facial hair

(Master of St. Giles, active 1490-1510. French)

This is the head of Saint Giles, who took the arrow aimed at a hind. What peaks my interest is the asymmetry of his beard: it’s attached to his lip and mustache on the left of the face, but not on the right.

The rest of the painting presents realistic perspectives and details. I’d have to think the unusual facial hair is true to some fact the artist learned. But maybe not. Maybe it’s a visual reflection of the artist’s own experience of looking – a “mistake” he let slip, but that gives the work a vitality that the rest of the image doesn’t quite possess, being as it is, stiff with reality.

The stripes of the hunter's shirt lend some pizazz too, no?

The mind's eye

(Mycenaen woman, 1300 BC)

I’m very much enjoying Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciouness in the Breadkdown of the Bicameral Mind. It’s not at all impenetrable, despite its title and austere cover. In its pages, the author engrossingly traces the development of consciousness, defining it along the way. It is a total trip.

How about this:

… the early Greek art of the Mycenae and its period shows man as an assembly of strangely articulated limbs, the joints underdrawn, and the torso almost separated from the hips. It is graphically what we find again and again in Homer, who speaks of hands, lower arms, upper arms, feet, calves and thighs as being fleet, sinewy, in speedy motion, etc., with no mention of the body as a whole.

The idea here being that words and pictures reflect what is in a mind, a mentality. When there’s no word for body, it means we don’t have it as an image, we don’t have the mindspace for such a concept or thing.

Even though I have a whole body in my mind, for almost a year now I’ve been drawing unattached heads and detached limbs. I think it’s experiential in that I feel my own body only in parts, sometimes physically unable to feel others.