Masterpiece
Number 18 of the CFR Series in my estimation is my first qualified masterwork. I share this auto-assessment with caveats. First, an artist who proclaims his own painting great is seldom confirmed by the critical consensus. Second, a critical consensus is an imaginary construct, currently. Third, the hierarchy for greatness in art is and has been a contentious category, due to analytic disparity. The critique itself is a weaponized fictional form created to foment cultural revolution. The Critic is a complicated designation. Social and New Media before it have radically reshaped the field of response to all virtual content. In its imagistic forms, in its derivatives, art is subject to a range of critical protocols that operate outside the aesthetic field. The corporatization of all Media shades any discussion of value(s) and meaning for art and artist. The competition for artistic means, the movement to transform “art” into a fungible designation, and other applications have the practical effect of diminishing the general comprehension of the artistic enterprise, as it has emerged over centuries in the West. Global art is a complex term that requires substantial “unpacking” to be discussed with acuity. The market(s) for art further muddy the picture. Is an auction price the proper measure of art mastery? Do we calculate artistic excellence by noting the number of institutional or retail appearances made by an artist or his work over a specified duration? What do we make of the notion of relevance for art today, in the performance review of the art maker and his product? Are management tools the proper ones for attributing greatness to art? Can we and should we make the general presumption of fine art a function of the business dimension? Ought art run more like a business, and how will that affect society’s perception of art mastery? As a technical term, does “masterpiece” carry too much colonial baggage to remain the linguistic “reserve currency” for the best examples from the Canon? The Canon itself has been under a multi-directional assault for decades, if not since its erection. Is the art historical pertinence of a Canon exhausted? If so, what are the implications for so-called masterpieces?
I can call Number 18 a masterpiece, if I want. At the moment I know of few interested parties willing to engage with my creative and theoretical progress to the extent necessary to judge the merits (of my art, the theory underpinning it, myself - the artist and thinker). From that point of view, I have little fear of contradiction in my auto-assessment.
Local Arts Update
Astoria Visual Arts (AVA) is presenting the Astoria Open Studios Tour 2019 July 27-28, featuring the creativity of fifty artists in 24 locations. I will not be participating this year, but wish those who are participating all the best in their endeavor. The AVA opened its gallery in downtown Astoria in 2019 and has been active in promoting and developing awareness of fine art in the community and beyond through very good programs that include an excellent residency, an artist registry and the Astorian storefront initiative.
Mess Hall Alternative Art Space at Pier 39, Astoria
Mess Hall
Instead, I consigned “Subnets” from the 4D VyNIL Network Series to Mess Hall, an alternative art space and dining area attached to Hanthorn Crab Company at historic Pier 39. Tom Hilton - Fisher poet, local legend and friend of the arts, himself an outstanding mobile photographer - is the owner/operator of Hanthorn Crab, which offers the best in crab, shellfish, smoked fish and specialty delicacies (e.g., crab cakes and cheese/crab melt to die for). His new alt.art venue features select NWC-centric photos, focused on the natural beauty of the region and evocative fishing-culture scenes. I am serving as consultant for the project, which I wholeheartedly endorse, for the Mess Hall content, context and menu. I LOVE “Mess Hall” as a gallery/art space moniker, not to be confused with Kunsthall(e), or maybe to be properly confused. I ripped some logo ideas for Tom’s perusal. I dig how the M + H collaborate. The upside-down “A” and the “V” are good for referencing “art” and “venue,” if not quite adding to logo legibility. The set implies a neat animation, which you can test using the nifty SS virtual gallery controls. Re: the logo; Tom mentioned his dad’s initials, an emotional contingency.
Subnets
The painting looked fine in its wrapping on the Mess Hall wall. Tom installed a portrait of a Morris Graves bottle I painted in 2004 or so and gave to Tom at some point in the past year. I will post installation documentation of the naked paintings, when they become available. I typed up a minor guide to creating a consignment document for Mr. Hilton. If you are interested in that material Dear Reader, I will happily share it in a future entry. I suggested to Tom he was being overly cautious by not unwrapping the artwork (after it was hung). As a former pro art handler, I will freely admit that I have a soft spot for contemporary art presented in its latest packing materials. Something about plastic, tape and foam turns me on, still.
END OF THE WEST (Photo: LG McLean)
END OF THE END OF THE WEST
Today (July 23), a wayward raccoon sauntered through the yard and the EotW installation, was about to move along, did a U-turn, and very deliberately knocked over “Blue Skyscraper” after tipping over the Rhino in “Song for the End of the West.” The raccoon then continued on to his next stop. My son Lachlan excitedly provided play-by-play commentary, as the scene unfolded. I had been wondering how the “Yellow Skyscraper” in the backyard got knocked down (twice) last week, and now I know. We have a little furry critic or art vandal doing mischief on his rounds. The NWC wildlife has been interacting with the EotW array with more boldness and frequency during the summer months. Visitors include deer families, with lots of fawns, a bluebird nesting in a tall cedar in the frontyard, and other critters. Lauren shot the photo above. We were concerned that the excellent job our landscaper Rick did would deter our non-human community. Not so. The trimming back of the greenery front and back was precipitated by a friendly reminder from our landlord Tad that we are contractually obligated to provide upkeep on the bushes and grasses on the property. I had neglected to inform him about EotW, post-storage delivery. It’s all worked out. The progressive consumption of the art (representing Western Civilization) by the lawn (Nature) had likely drawn the attention of neighbors, who value trim yards over time-based contemporary art, absent any declarative designation. I haven’t de-installed the pieces yet, but that may happen in the next few days. So, if you want to inspect the art site before it disappears as such, do so ASAP.
“Occupy Concentricity,” OWS Poster 2011 (PJM)
Occupational Awareness
If a citizen in the American democracy approaches his responsibility as such more than casually, he will take seriously the task of informing himself through available channels, starting local, moving global. Based on my direct participation in Occupy Wall Street, as a co-organizer of Occupy with Art/Occupennial/OWS Arts & Culture WG from 2011-12 through the present, I have continued to monitor many informatic resources and maintain sources that serve to expand my understanding of occupational phenomena arising from OWS, its precursors, and subsequent movements and uprisings. Followers of my communications and the AFH platform recognize my interests through the art and theory I generate and share, and through projects I make available in the public sphere. I would describe the endeavor as ancillary to my primary vocation, which is aesthetic. Since my focus is 4D, what is called for is analysis of all fields and sectors of commonwealth that relate to art production [which more or less encompasses every field and sector identified and mapped by Management guru Peter Drucker, extending from the main ones (military, government, technology, financial/economic, social/cultural/educational) and the essential subcategories (medical, arts/design/entertainment, management, manufacturing, etc.) even to a spectrum of subcultures, events and informal patterns or trends.
Creator: Alexandra Clotfelter
Origin: Savannah, GA
Site: http://www.ladyfawn.com
Currents
The profusion of happenings indicative of opposition to the 1% versus 99% status quo includes the Yellow Vest movement, which is - contrary to monopoly media assertions - ongoing. The unprecedented uprising in Puerto Rico is rocking the brutal regime strangling the population, via a kieptocratic economy and Kafkaesque governmental status quo. In Hong Kong, rejection of Chinese post-Colonial authoritarianism has materialized in massive street protests and subsequent clashes. Through a 4D lens, these phenomena are interwoven eruptions, pressurized by the routine operations of extraction/exploitation + command/control regimes/schemes/systems. The regional destabilization of Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Americas must be acknowledged as a globally precarious situation. In my own media scans I find fewer reliable media with each day passing. Major media is practically useless, since it is driven by profit-motive and owned by entities who survive through truth-management, which is in the fictional continuum of Propaganda. The struggle for the future of humanity is what I gather is at hand, and the forces dominating the struggle are emergent in the fog and blur of false media projection. The Donald Trump moment in history is concurrent with the disintegration of the West as the seat of functional democracy post-WW2. The upheaval is radical and desperate, the risks existential. As humanity shifts to 4Dimensional perceptual/interpretive modes, reassessing Time, Space and our relations to The Thing (objects, order, experience), the likelihood of every sort of tension caused by resistance against this inevitable shift (through the invisible border separating 3 and 4 dimensions) manifesting in calamity is heightened.
A 4D analyst can readily track the sequence of massive confrontations, of which OWS was one. To my sensibilities the most profound of those occurring immediately is the Hawaiian protest against TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope), because of its connection to Standing Rock, and therefore its linkage to Bernie, Occupy and more. I wish the Protectors making the stand there all the best. Speaking of Rock, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson made an appearance today at the protest and offered to mediate the negotiations between the occupation and the Hawaiian Governor. I admit that I put my 4D analyst hat on, whenever a consumer portable cultural icon shows up in support of Occupiers. It’s the point where Media Philosophy and a handful of other Media disciplines converge in image + embodiment with wide distribution off-message. The scenes are always awkward, especially when totally unscripted, which is not to say, “spontaneous.”
Graphic from “I Win. You Lose.” A Call to Action by students from the School of Visual Arts. Participants needed to occupy every corner on Wall Street and deliver a message…. ! (December 13, 2011)
Transgressive/-missions
I found a notice in my inbox regarding a project that is, well, Fake Occupy, to paraphrase POTUS. I subscribe to the Novad list, which makes some sense, given the site you are scoping is titled Mystic Novad, and I shared my feelings on the latest episode of BR/Bui occupational co-optation. For those new to subject, Brooklyn Rail is a venerable NYC-based monthly that Phong Bui founded with Editors Ted Hamm and Williams Cole. The Rail used to cover art and local politics. I wrote for BR during the OWS/OwA period, at Ted’s invitation, mostly. I never knew Bui, personally. Eventually, one of my essays precipitated an editorial conflict that resulted in Hamm and Cole quitting the publication to pursue other projects. My relationship with the magazine ended there, pretty much. The Rail (which I no longer read) apparently reduced its coverage to artsy stuff. Bui post-Occupy has engaged in curator activities, under the BR banner, a complicated - problematic - configuration, if one still clings to the antiquated notion that ethics have a place in the art world, or anywhere else, for that matter. Here’s what I shared with the Novadim, piggy-backed on a congratulatory email, for one of our ranks receiving final OK to practice medicine in the USA:
Does anyone else think it's bullshit that Brooklyn Rail's Phong Bui is co-opting Occupy (again) to further his art industrial ambitions?! Look here: https://mailchi.mp/brooklynrail/out-now-may-2019-issue-2532621?e=815761fcee
During OWS Occupy Arts & Culture WG was constantly on the lookout for and addressing instances when art world players used Occupy to get and promote unaffiliated gigs for themselves, their friends without going through the designated OWS channels. The still-impressive autonomy statement we worked on re-oriented what was going to be a co-optation statement, as some of you may recall.
So far Phong has used the Occupy moniker to promote major undertakings at Mana Contemporary, the Venice Biennale and now Colby MoA, as a part of a residency he's doing there. IMHO, Bui is an opportunist dirtbag (I can elaborate if anyone's interested... based on my experience at the Rail, and following his path afterwards). The Occupy Mana deal situated the group show etc in the whitewashing investment tool of a despicable, union-busting billionaire mogul with a very grim profile. In my analysis, the whole Rail curatorial series is colored by Phong Bui's controversial (at-the-time) affiliation with artist-evicting/gentrifying developers in Sunset Park ostensibly as a Post-Sandy community event ["Come Together"], but which actually glossed over the forcing out of many creative practitioners in that part of Brooklyn. Bui turned that event into a shameless self-promotion vehicle and top-tier artist-insider circle-jerk. ...featuring Chuck Close, Lisa Yuskavage, Richard Serra & 300 others, most of whom had extensive connections to the Rail, or wanted some!? That episode seems to have faded in the memory of many, although it happened in the same rent-raising, precariat-smashing moment that necessitated ASAP.
As I said, I can go on. Phong Bui is a bonafide douche, and represents much of what ails American art, when it serves the interests of the super-rich & powerful, and operates like a cuckold for their cultural tyranny here and throughout the global markets. As the editor of the Rail, he has wielded increasing soft-leverage in the NY art scene as the art media for the city has suffered the same shrinking effects/corporatization that has decimated the free press in this country. That he feels entitled to appropriate "OCCUPY" for his own brand and operations says much about power post-OWS, in the Age of Trump. In all Bui's messaging there is no direct action on the 1% v 99% status quo, only nominal pretense and virtue signalling. I find it outrageous, given what many (thinking of RevGames, OwA and others) sacrificed as committed occupiers. Bui and his select set of "winners" cynically have capitalized on the crushing of OWS. It makes my skin crawl.
[Witnessing from Astoria (OR)].
PS.: Blessed Mercury Retrograde!
No one on the list has replied to my complaint yet. Fuck you Phong Bui, you and all you other Big Apple art cowards. Your shit smells like Bushwick (Jefftown, LoL) when its 110 degrees outside in the middle of summer. Piss and rats. You fucking hypocrites.
![A work in progress, currently on the big easel; working title is “American Flag 2019 [Currents, Flow and Reproduction (Studio Documentation)]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/501abbd4c4aaab20160f16af/1564111460217-HDGD04GM9C8YXO0WR4Y0/astudio76.jpg)
A work in progress, currently on the big easel; working title is “American Flag 2019 [Currents, Flow and Reproduction (Studio Documentation)]
Independence | Isolation
The image above cannot convey the fact that (working title) “American Flag 2019” is perhaps the most challenging painting I’ve undertaken to date. I am uncertain unfortunately how long AF2019 has been a work-in-progress. Of necessity I resort to archival documentation that is sometimes inadequate. Gauging from the materials in the substrate (cage element, zip ties), I started AF2019 in the 00s, probably 2008. I added layers during the DIM TIM production in NYC. I believe I now have the techniques that will permit me to bring the art to its completion. It (AF 2019) presents a valuable opportunity to revisit last month’s discussion of isolation, and merge it with the theme that is in my mind in July 2019, which is independence. In my assessment, the fabric that constitutes a free speech in the USA and other societies around the globe is obviously under duress. Is free speech so subverted by Citizens United here in America that a commonwealth of ideas is impracticable? I don’t know the answer to that poignant question. The utilization of language for purposes opposed to liberty of expressed thought, experience and meaningful transmission has achieved a critical mass. Combining outcome-based authoritarian praxis with compromised educational facilities reduces the power of individual and collective voice to dictatorial call-and-response performance. To suggest the regime has a significant on art in community is to gravely understate the situation. The substantial capture of free press by a syndicate of forces results in the immediate fracturing of most important democratic activities. We can witness the consequences as the 2020 elections gear up. Or in the censorship of basic free speech in the mode of political, peaceful public grievance sharing. Tech platforms relentless ambition to divert all speech into the various lanes they dominate adds tremendously to the crisis. No topic is sacred. Science and the Arts/Humanities/Culture are positioned as either/or binary constructs. The recursive click-bait that monetizes people’s worst ideas and behaviors simultaneously promotes the stupid or accidental battles among parties who might otherwise find commonality. Polarization among every cohort outside the 1% is amplified, with predictable results. What is the antidote?
The Infinite Web Number One (“Invisible Webs”)
The Web [Is (,) Not Infinite]
The spiders and their webs are becoming visible again, ubiquitous really, as we near the end of our first set of seasons in the PNW. When we arrived in 2018, the webs and spiders in tremendous variety populated foliage, and essentially all the nooks and crannies of our home. The working title for the 4th phase of 4D VyNIL arrived with the arachnid revival: “The Web [Is (,) Not Infinite;” and the phrase coming was unexpected and welcome. I am thinking about the problematic relation of being and infinity. The questions arising from consideration of, for instance, not-being, of Time itself, of structures that span both Is-ness and the perpetual are fundamental, and naturally unresolving. The issues of desire (for answers, if nothing else), but mostly for comprehension of the universe that contains being and all, drives so much in our human responses to existence in awareness. Limitations (the finite) are the quality of all experience in bodily form. Belief in the erasure of boundaries is the root of faith, if not proof of infinity as such. To me these are the stipulations of great art, art that addresses the visible expression of both infinite and not. Mortality is only one version of finitude. Faith suggests it is the bridge to the infinite, absent evidence to the contrary. The mysterious transitions of form and formlessness do not define infinity. In the picture above I documented two distinct webs, which my naked eye saw as minute rainbow-lines, periodically reflecting white light. The complexity of these webs, their deadly effectiveness, the beasts who created them and the lovely prey who would be trapped therein, together comprise a phenomenon that is definitely temporary and fragile. However, every year some iteration of the phenomenon presents itself in what seems to my little mind a potentially endless set of possible shapes. What am I to make of this?