Everyone is an artist – Joseph Beuys

I am thinking about art a lot. My art & where it is going. Some key words that stick: iconic – see the Buildings category for example. I want more of the iconic stuff. I need the Christchurch Cathederal. And people, I like to do portraits of people I am reading about or watching on video. Hand is another word, and Line. I like to see my hand in the lines, & I like strong lines, I try to return to more painterly stuff but keep adding lines.

Iconis is one of a list of words I have all pointing in the same direction, Kahn might say Monumental, Jung, archetypal, Moreno psychodramatic. In fact Moreno described the Psychodrama method as: “Exploring truth by dramatic means.” Here I explore truth by the means of lines by my hand. I don’t care if that sounds grandiose! I make no claims though for how successful I am, or that I am there.

Here is another I have just done, I have done about six, not sure which one to post:

#469 Joseph Beuys
Larger Image.

This one best caught a look in his face that speaks to me.

I like the boldness & the social engagement. He had wacky ideas, everything is creative, everything is art. There is some truth in that, everything arises from a mysterious source. He seems to consciously make himself the work of art, by creating a persona. Now that is something I quite like, but it is not me. No pseudonyms, no new roles. I am tempted sometimes… I wonder if I could create an artist and do the art from that new role. But no, I just am who I am & that is OK. There are a couple of pictures here by Prince Charles though.

He was in the Fluxus movement as was Yoko Ono. I listened to her son Sean on a podcast the other day, and he spoke of how he was inspired by his mother – you don’t need to be an expert to do art, you can just go for it. He made a movie of his separation with his girlfriend, with her in it! I can see the links!

Wikipedia

Joseph Beuys Online Guide

Update, Matthew Collings – artist, critic, presenter, links to interview, more about art talk.

Hi there, glad you found my site, or have returned, a rambling post coming up…

I update older posts from time to time, Just added more info about one of my podcasts.

I listened to a Kim Hill interview with Matthew Collings I strongly recommend it, you can download it from the link. Kim gets a good conversation going. Main theme: is great art possible today?, especially in painting. Or is it at best a clever satirical footnote. He seem to think it is the latter. He respects highly another critic: Clement Greenberg who was originally quite radical and anti-capitalist, then, according to Collings saw the problems with society as “deeper”.

Now that is an interesting idea. If it is not capitalism but deeper, and I think it is, how can we hold that and not dissolve into despair, even clever despair is not much use. Perhaps despair is a layer to go beyond & not around. Going around it is usually just boring, sentimental, pollyanna, feel good. Hope is not what is required either.

I am motivated to read those essays by Greenberg (see link above). While on the topic of criticism and art talk, Robert Hughes comes up and he has some interesting comment about the differences he has with Hughes.

Interview with Collings, 3.am

Salon interview with Collings.

An anti Collings comment – makes sense too.

Mathew Collings & wife Emma Biggs Collaborative art.

Article on Hughes, Guardian

A Collings/Biggs art work follows

Continue reading “Update, Matthew Collings – artist, critic, presenter, links to interview, more about art talk.”

My Day’s Circle – Psyberspace Thousand Sketches Podcast

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About 20 minutes of my reflections on art, modernism, sketchblogs, journals, realism, and my own efforts here in Thousand Sketches

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Found the link of the things I refer to:

Judith Wright’s Poem South of my Days

KCRW’s resident art critic, Edward Goldman. Art Talk Constable Podcast

The podcast page on Art Renewal Centre

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Technorati tags:

Concept Art – Duchamp – Podcast

Podcast inspired by listening to one on chess, which suddenly had a bit about Marcel Duchamp, which I am quoting * in this one.

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I am on the road & posting this – and the previous dream images which I did at various times during th day – from when I woke up and caught them. from a great café in Fairlie – good broadband! Who would have thought.

* The bit I quote is from here.

CBC

December 28th: “The Immortal Game: A History of Chess”
This interview with David Shenk, author of “The Immortal Game: A History of Chess” deserves a second listen, so it’s our Editor’s Choice for today. He spoke to the guest host of The Current, Derek Stoffel.

Patrick Heron – 1920-1999

Watched a video about British abstract painter Patrick Heron

95 of his pictures can be clicked through in the Tate Online.

Made a Podcast after watching the video.

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Later: The podcast is not so much about Heron so much as about me. Not even that, it is on the theme of the value of talent / training / education / miseducation. I relate this to my psychotherapy process and I think I have an element of envy of the privilege Heron had in being recognised so early in his family.

Some of his pictures follow:

Continue reading “Patrick Heron – 1920-1999”

All art is conceptual art

Another idea that clarified in the podcast. The concept may not be conscious or articulated, but retrospectively it can be seen as something wanting to be born. Just as I can ask “what does this project want?” what is in it’s conception, we could ask that of anyone’s work. I am not thinking of each painting, but of the project… all those paintings of van Gogh spread around the world, and with a museum of their own… it is a sort of installation, institution.

I liked listening to Edward as this question led him from the lemon through the Zen brush strokes back to the lemon. It is all about a vitality in the stroke… it has either got it or it hasn’t.

The concept here in Thousand Sketches? Exploring the psyche in cyberspace – I found it very liberating to realise that a month or two back. What does it mean more specifically?

Some pointers in these words:

Variety – philogeny – evolution – recapitulation

Autobiography – unconscious

Conversation

Global – local – national

Technology – medium – nature

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

This is really more show notes for the podcast we did yesterday.

Wikipedia

Ontogeny is the growth (size change) and development (shape change) of an individual organism; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species. Haeckel’s recapitulation theory claims that the development of the individual of every species fully repeats the evolutionary development of that species. Otherwise put, each successive stage in the development of an individual represents one of the adult forms that appeared in its evolutionary history. Haeckel formulated his theory as such: “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”. This notion later became simply known as recapitulation.

image

It applies in some cases in biology but I love how it makes sense of something in art. And I feel a licence to recapitulate, which without legitimacy or consciousness I have found a bit depressing.

Conversations with Edward

I spent a pleasant day with Edward Coughlan and we did some art, walked, drank coffee & talked a lot.

Art: “Just as You are” – the words of Zuiken my digital version is in the next post, Edward’s lino cut print is also in the next post.

Here is the Podcast: The topics covered include ideas about art, and how thinking about it impacts on our work.

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What follows is a mindmap of the podcast & some of Edward’s pictures we talked about.

Continue reading “Conversations with Edward”