Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Invitation to Another World
This article by an artist invites the world back to the world of painting. Not a bad invitation.
As painters invite back all that was banished — sunsets, flowers, history, philosophy, the body — they have a responsibility to painting's special powers. Painting is, I think we can now admit, a very effective way to play the game of the box and the rectangle. Unlike the gallery box, a good painting does not disintegrate after a month. Some have held our attention for hundreds of years. A good painting also does not depend on textual support and can thus cross national and linguistic borders and communicate over time. In a word, good paintings are autonomous.
He is correct that words are not a true support for images, which must stand on their own. When words are used as justifications (and explanations) for visual work you know the work is weak and the focus is on the ego of the person claiming authority, not the art, nor the artist. The artist pays deference to the theoretician in the current art world. There is little satisfaction in looking at textually formed images, little pleasure in producing them — for they are products more than creations.
I think the invitation offered by painters should be to the world created by painting — all real arts create a separate space, a dream world that offers perspective by its detachment from the everyday; a place of entry and meditation, where the premium is on the interior life, on the evolved spirit bringing something to the work, not on passively absorbing the false reassurance of slogans which the media provides so artfully. The real power of art lies in its suggestiveness.