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STICKING YOUR NECK OUT AND THE PERILS OF PROGNOSTICATION
So, it all comes back to whether you accept the prognostications of others or not. The ‘next big thing’ of the music industry often comes down to a ‘one hit wonder’ heavily promoted and quickly forgotten. Is it any different with art? In one respect it isn’t. An art book lives a very long time and its digest of its time lives with it. Books, after all, are precious symbols of culture and civilisation to be preserved at all costs in spite of the remainder bins filling faster than they can be emptied and their contents pulped. Any predictive art compendium will no doubt follow suit as it its premise is overtaken by reality.
NOTHING IF NOT CRITICAL [to quote Robert Hughes]
Promoting locally made products in any arts field is a necessity and whether that is down to critics, radio hosts or the press, there is little being said or heard other than on an artist-to-artist level. Surely, we can do better. Or is even that question irrelevant when mind-numbing screen-time experience swamps all others?
THE RADICAL ELITE AND THE ART OF LEADING HORSES TO WATER
Even a cursory glance at the history of art in the last century or so suggests radical change occurred with great frequency – at least that is how the history is written.
IN IT FOR THE MONEY
So, according to a shocked pundit, people are into NFTs for the money. Wasn’t that the point? Any pretentions towards promoting the work of artists went out of the window when every man and his dog jumped on the bandwagon in the thrall of the investment property syndrome and the potential of making a killing, as they say in stocks trading.
THE PRECIOUS HAND
There is a reality to being an artist today that seems to be at odds with public perception.
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
In the Divine Comedy, Dante entered the Inferno of hell looking for Beatrice. He was in a dark place, literally and emotionally. A dead Beatrice couldn’t help and sent the Roman poet Virgil to act as guide. Art was to show the way to redemption. In many respects the society we now live in resembles the hell that Dante created. Moral and ethical questions go unanswered in that traditional sureties offered by religion, government and monarchs have been substantially eroded through news media platforms.
ONLY DOCTOR WHO RECOGNISED A MASTER. FOR THE REST OF US ITS MERELY AN ACT OF FAITH.
As an artist I find myself increasingly unsure of what is art, what is not, and how to define or even recognise a ‘masterpiece’
DRAWING A LINE AROUND THE NAKED FORM. HOW BIZARRE.
The life drawing class I attended last week had a sign on the door telling anyone that entered that there was a nude model inside should anyone be offended. If the entire class had been naked [a bunch of elderly, misshapen bodies ravaged by life], I could understand the warning, but an attractive blonde perched on a stool – hardly.
THE COLOUR OF SUCCESS AND THE PRISMATIC QUANDARY
How do I know what the audience is actually seeing in terms of the colour I use? Do they even give the same names to the colours as I do? Are they seeing colour at all?
I HAD LITTLE TIME FOR STAFF MEETINGS AND THEY FOR ME. A WASTED OPPORTUNITY.
While art as a profession certainly wasn’t taken seriously, there was the belief that any student need train only once and could be in the same job with yearly promotion for life.
ALL ARTISTS LIE WHEN THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. TRUTH AND LIE HAVE NO MEANING.
When we use imagination to create anything, how much is already programmed?
WHEN ELSEWHERE IS NOWHERE AND HERE AND NOW SOON DISMISSED
An art gallery owning friend was expressing her frustration with gallery visitors a few days ago. Many were in and out in two minutes