Jump (possibly lighter than Rauschenberg)

Make the world a better place. Jump.
I tend to believe this is perfectly qualified to be considered a (potential) performance art piece.

Rauschenberg - too nice to be good?

By some considered an absolute genius, a "postmodern phenomenon", by others, nothing more than a skilled technician, Rauschenberg is one of the world's 10 most expensive living artists in the world. He first became famous in the 50's for his "combines", or works combining (3D) installation with (2(3?)D) painting. Then, as a good, short biography describes,

As Pop Art emerged in the '60s, Rauschenberg turned away from three-dimensional combines and began to work in two dimensions, using magazine photographs of current events to create silk-screen prints. Rauschenberg transferred prints of familiar images, such as JFK or baseball games, to canvases and overlapped them with painted brushstrokes. They looked like abstractions from a distance, but up close the images related to each other, as if in conversation. These collages were a way of bringing together the inventiveness of his combines with his love for painting.

Rauschenberg still creates "collages" today, though any art critic would probably be offended by this way of calling them. Why? Because for an artist to be considered good, he needs to be seen as evolving. And as ground-breaking:

Rauschenberg is an amazingly prolific and formally venturesome artist who, over the past 50 years, has nearly always risked aesthetic trespass, producing work deliberately just one degree or two from being merely ugly, banal, kitschy, gimmicky, showy, facile or, of course, excessive. (from this old review)

On artblog.net, a highly-specialized blog about fine arts (yes, they do forget that art exists beyond fine arts), there was an interesting discussion of art critics about Rauschenberg and modernism. (Do they really write 'modernism' with a capital letter? Heheh. Nothing like the good old idea of godliness in art. Sorry, that was meant to be 'Art'.)
Among much blabla (notice how they can't keep to the topic, and stray off into abstract talk), I found some insightful remarks about Rauschemberg and modernism:

They are cleverly and humorously organized, the color is good, and there are all sorts of visual puns and contradictions going on.

I find this quite delightful. Lightweight it may be, but in this case, so what. It is a relief from the academic tedium and horriblisme and pretentious foolishness we see every day around here. it is "fun art", if you will, with enough skill and wit to sustain it as such.

As far as i am concerned what has emerged since 1970, usually called "postmodernism", is just a degenerated stage of Modernism. Modernism itself, according to how you define it, is no more dead than good painterly painting was in 1850. it is just taking a rest.

I can see the work as pleasurable, if not outright pleasant. But the kind of work I really like is work that scares me, and Rauschenberg's does not.

Even when he uses "heavy" imagery, like JFK, it remains the work of a very talented graphic designer, with undeniable surface appeal but not that much depth or substance.

Art opinion is what it is, which is, historically, usually wrong. It is an interesting subject for a sociological study but it has little to do with art or making art, unless you let it. You seem to think in terms of "movements", and I feel that this frame of mind is a kind of blinder. And there may be an art movement right under your nose which you don't see precisely because of the myopia of that opinion. Put yourself back in Paris inb 1865, knowing nothing. Think about it.

These images are interesting. If they are large scale I am sure they could be quite fun to look at. It is his earlier work, the combines, that I think are quite wonderful. In other words, I see them as much better "Dada" and much better art, than any of Duchamps work. They seem to embody a lot of art history rolled into one,

Discarding a convention simply because it is one, or just for the sake of discarding, or to achieve some concept of "purity" or "open-mindedness" which may, in fact, be more like sterility or impoverishment or absurdity, is neither logical nor sensible--certainly no more so than hanging on to a convention because "it's always been that way" without objectively evaluating its value or utility.

As for the discussion about the difference between modernism and postmodernism, I think the question is way too young to be answered, but artblog.net helps answering it by being so bloody conservative - they seem somewhat blasé, old, afraid of anything with ambitions other than in the exact area (school) they specialize in. And, paradoxically, that old, worn-out attitude is what I would call modernism. For lack of a better word. Does this "looking back at modernism" make one postmodern? I find the idea of calling a movement modernism silly enough.
But if you need a label, you can call it Postboredism. I don't like to be bored, young and naive as I am. Thus, I ask from art to pull me in, to provoke me, and not only exist in an esoteric shell (though I admit the shell can be fascinating, too...). Fortunately, many artists today think it is not too much to ask. Are they postmodern? Or modernist? Or Great, or Small? How would I know. They make me feel richer. Is that not enough?

Art too extreme?

On the excellent, though very textful art blog by Libby Rosof, a surprizing review of the art of Hermann Nitsch (second part of the review actually, though the first one is interesting as well). The artist was the most (in)famous member of the Viennese Actionists in the 60's, with performances resembling strange, often bloody and/or cruel rituals, sometimes with animals, sometimes with sex. He is also the only member of the group to still be performing today. And he is controversial. Which becomes quite clear, once you've read the review. And the word "controversial" sounds different here- it is not just cool - it is close to aweful, evil. If you dare use the word in art. Libby Rosof does.

PS.: But the blog has many sides to it. Look closer, and you might find this review by James Thacker another step towards understanding something about contemporary art. Here's a fragment:
I found his performance work disgusting, yet intruiging, as it often took place at his Austrian castle (or so I was told)! I thought his graphic work, with as much blood-letting as his mystery plays, beautiful. He was explicit about the analogy in his work beween blood (and wine) and paint. I think I realized for the first time how the material quality of paint could have symbolic value -- a revelation for an American artist hitherto weened on iconography, text book pictures and slides. In class, Nitsch had us replicate taste or smell sensations visually by coloring in a strip of boxes on paper with a succession of colors. The emphasis on sensation and the quality of the medium as an important, if not always obvious, component of visual art impressed me.

Charles Bukowski the rumble-poet

you’re a beast, she said
your big white belly
and those hairy feet.
you never cut your nails. . . .

You might not know Charles Bukowski. Or not like him. But listen to him - he's funny, intelligent, subtly aggressive(and he's just so... American, I guess).

I know, I know what I was thinking (I think):
He's as close to a person as a poet can get.

Rebecca Horn

I'm going to see Rebecca Horn's new exhibition this weekend... guess where it is? I'll keep you informed on impressions. Right now, you can enjoy this short description by artforum:

This Rebecca Horn exhibition promises to prove that it is not mere platitude to speak of pencil and paper as an extension of the artist's body. The show places about eighty-five drawings alongside both her early fabric appendages, which extend their wearers' body parts, and four recent machine installations that perform repetitive bodily tasks. Though bios of Horn routinely mention the year she spent in a sanatorium recovering from lung damage after working with polyester and fiberglass, the artist's own body has remained a refreshingly puzzling absence in her work. —Christine Mehring

The feminist/feminine art of Joana Vasconcelos

If you click on the image above, you will discover that this is not your average chandelier: it is made of tampons. Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos loves to play with the idea of femininity, of the "womanly knowledge", and to put it on its head.
As the French newspaper Libération put it, she uses out-of-date archetypes, but ones which still impregnate the collective memory, to update "portugality". Libération published an article about Vasconcelos, who has an exhibition in Paris, at the publicity agency BETC Euro RSCG. The place might seem strategic, if you hear her say provocatively that she "criticizes the action of consuming, which they are trying to sell". But this is more than a rebellion - it's a provocative flirt, in which the pieces turn discourses such as pop, or the aesthetic irony of kitsch, around and over themselves, adding a new ironic twist to the use of these languages and materials, as the Elba Benitez Gallery's site describes.

Art Away

Once upon a time, in a place art, art away...
The quotes from Lauwers are supposed to encourage my Portuguese and Canadian friends/readers. It isn't easy to create art, namely theatre, in a country with limited background in the area. It seems like working on the desert, with scarce resources, feedback, context, leverage. One feels ridiculous in the face of such theatrical (cultural) monsters as France or the U.S. One may even get local recognition, but it just seems of an entirely different level than the real world (notice the irony in my voice...). Even the internet, with all the good you can say about it, does not solve the problem. You can know more and get a better feel of what's happening elsewhere (and this blog intends to be a small contribution to these objectives), but you're still where you were - everything from the language you use, to the web design you have (if you have a web page!), to the Google position of your group/show/project/notes seems to tell you you're still not there, you're still a provincial artist.
This might not bother many artists. Good for them. But those who are bothered by being provincial don't necesserily worry about fame or such - they genuinely realize there is something missing in what they do - and look for reasons. I believe this can be a very healthy process - but one needs to realize that being far away can actually be an advantage. Lauwers is just one example, Lepage is an even better known one. Those are people who found the lack of serious, powerful guidelines to be a blessing - it allowed them to spread their wings and experiment, without the pressure of a know-it-all milieu. This is not to say being far from the center is the only true way of being a good ex-centric. The likes of Pina Bausch and Robert Wilson, or even of Grotowski and Tadeusz Kantor, proved it isn't. But the other ones, the outsiders are more important - they give hope to the underdogs.