I have not abaondoned you all I just had a semester with no art classes and no time to do any of my own. Done A LOT of reading and writing though and took a little abstract to share. Writing is an art too you know!
Exams next week then off to kauai then home for summer! See what inspiratio life brings... Going to Apply to NYU for a degree in Art Therapy.. see if they'll have me! Hope you enjoy my logic about art!
Aloha

The word “Art” is initially assumed to be a proposition of harmony; a caressing of the senses and a meditation on beauty. Art also means the skill of execution. However, nowhere in this thought process does anyone define weather provocative, unsettling or obscene cannot still be skillfully and beautifully implemented.

A meditation on beauty, in Buddhism and Hinduism the mandala is exactly that: a circle of essence or completion, used for spiritual and ritual significance. Across several spiritual traditions mandalas are used for focusing attention, as spiritual teaching tool, for establishing sacred space and as an aid to meditation or trance induction. The process of creating it is as important as the final result. This is art as we initially assume it should be; where the quality, production, expression or realm, according to aesthetic principles of what is beautiful, appealing or of more than ordinary, makes sense. It also presents us with the concept of via negatonis, the path of enlightenment depicted by the artist who walked the road, and read by the viewer who is handed his travel journal upon arrival.

With the concept of religion in the back of our head we can look at the process of art making as a path. However not every path is straight and smooth. Why is it then that we expect a work of art to be purely a representation of harmony? If it is seen as any other human process there is always learning involved, errors, obstacles and sidetracking. This does not mean it cannot come to a wholesome conclusion but it does explain why we should not expect it to be visually as well as mentally pleasing. When we pick up a piece of art we should expect there to be a lable saying: “View and interpret at your own risk. The artist cannot be held responsible for provocation or insult. Produced in a place where impure thoughts and erroneous beliefs are also processed.” We are trusted with a piece of personal development, a thought process in the hope it will elicit a response.

Of course some artists work to make it a purely pleasant experience, to induce a state of rapture or ecstatic trance. On the other hand it is exciting to analyze those concepts that create the forks in one’s road. It is easy to follow one path and not look at what lies next to it, focus only on the goal ahead. However that is not how life works generally. There are many places we visit or stop to rest and many detours we tend to take; assuming we still intend to come to the end of that path and not change our minds as to the destiny of our travels. Andres Serrano is one of those people who likes to shock people into realizing the other destinations of the road, who likes to point to the trees and reveal sirens and centaurs. His “Yellow Jesus” combining the two factors “bodily fluids” and “a symbol of faith” sets them even further apart than if they had not been contrasted. It is created not necessarily to blaspheme but to ask the onlooker why this disturbs him so? What is it that makes bodily fluids so disgraceful? Does it matter that it is the artist’s pee that gives Jesus his glow in this picture?

Provoking and shocking, apart from it being something I like to do myself, I feel should be beneficial to both parties. For me, the artist, it is a way to analyze a theory from both sides, find extremes and conceptualize what it is that is provoking, why it messes with my concepts of decorum, righteousness and propriety, but also; what ties them inevitably together? For the beholder it could be a reason to analyze the end of his path: was that really the destiny he had in mind? Why was he going there again? On the other hand seeing his aim for what he assumes to be a higher state of being and his ultimate destiny contrasted with something so vile, he might adhere to his original concepts even stronger and in a way asphalt his original sandy path.

To irate gives a sense of power, power over life in the ability to analyze it but also the power to provoke others to look sideways and stray of their path (or at least enjoy the view along it). A road might be better traveled when it is not laid out for us, when we have to find our own way instead of following directions. The artist has the means to visualize and record these travels, like a history of sorts, and represent it to others as a learning experience. The art is to skillfully portray discord, master the technique to tickle someone’s interest enough to want to evaluate the opposing concepts or simply shock them into it, inviting them to become a different/better person by doing so. If you are looking at art you are looking at someone’s opinion. Don’t say you didn’t ask for it, you were wandering off your path!