melon'n lemon : entry for 16/06/2003 at 18:12

¶ finally back to slovenia. i am happy to be here, it is much colder than in venice and there is no dirty water all around to drive me crazy. it was not only once that i have wanted to jump in to save myself from overcrowded venice and its varporetos. and than...first impressions concerning venice biennial are very sceptic.
there was a big part of venice dedicated to painting. i do think painting today is nothing more than a crown from the middle age, or a nice candle holder in the church or a coat of a king. all these i had been studiing in the arthistory so i can't help myself thinking of painting as something very historical and something that today has a role of secondary applied arts. i hardly understand that the generation which has grown up with the monumental age of painting and its final attempts in the eighties, is seriously trying to reactualise it as something that deserves a revival and full attention. please common! painting is like glass or potery design! no power, no influence, too many times quoted formalism. if you are young and you like to paint be aware you are not doing art in terms of triggering mindset but something that belongs to therapy, craft and to dinning room. still exceptions do exists, and primarly if you want to do it you have to be old enough.
i was so happy to meet luisa from generali foundation to be able to have a long and frank talk on issues about modernism and postmodernism, form and function of today. we could easylly agree that any comeback of modernistic art in relation to contemporary art is simply senseless unless you see modernism as something that has been going on from the renaissance period till now.
but i still think that igor's talk was the right thing and it was challenging in terms of the thinking patterns of his generation. but i am afraid i am not able to say these problems concern me unless to see it as a history. it is similar that i am not in the same way concerned with the world second war as i was recently with the war in iraque.
to be bored with relativism of postmodernism and to claim to come back to the modernistic ground is simply not acceptable for me. where the fuck is the tradition of documentaX, why there are not more attempts to do this kind of convergence, why talking about form does not think of more recent visual form of digital aesthetics.

i simply prefer poetry of urs fisher and ursula rucker.

isn't autonomy as fake as self, reality and time?

despite all talk i think the quality of works in the part called individual systems (no 'above-discussed' paintings! huray!) was high and we do not wittnes the revival of modernism as such but just an attempt to be as clean as microchips. i see it more as an illusion, as a white dream, as utopia. igor actually talked about it in similar way, just the starting point was different. but for me illusion can be just as real as anything else, and cyber world is just as real as material.

modernism is back if we want it back. i dont! bush we'll govern with its capital if americans will still vote him. but remember he hardly got fifty percent. i hope there are at least fifty percent of (young) curators that do find another forms of expression and communication more time and place related as painting itself.

excuse: this is just one part. the next time would be interesting to talk about hou hanru zone of urgency. it is another story on its own. (18:12)

ccf :

"painting is like glass or potery design! no power, no influence, too many times quoted formalism"

Oh come on! Please tell me which art-form of today has power or influence (to the general public)? (besides advertising)
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melon :

i am not speaking about the power of art as such and at that point i am not dealing with the role of art as such neither. there are many definitions about the role of art in general. i am not extremly notorious to find the ultimate meaning or role of the art, instead i think of it more as of love for example. the point is to see glittering meanings occasionaly, but one of the major attractions is the inability to comprehend it. so art can sometimes means this, sometimes that, it is often easier to know what it does not mean (to me).

the same is with painting or solid sculpture. i just think the opposite as tomaz brejc. for me paiting is becoming more artificial than technology, more of a farse than a metaphisic of expression. for me paiting as an artform of now and for now is dead. i can compare its production with the production of various artistic handmade objects.

i was not talking about its power in general, but more about its power and status in art history. tomaz argues how the invetion of photography didn't destroy painting and he claims that the influence of digital technologies on paiting is not crucial for its existance as such. nevertheless i see the issue totaly different. unfortunately for me Paiting with big letter P is something that belongs to centuries behind. like obelisk, like church architecture, like a console in a church etc. its only relation to the world is historycal.

i think slix's form and content is much more interesting form today's art production.
(slix is a linux version of operating system, that can be booted from a cd)

however, advertising is another story. for another occasion. but all in all it is very visual and thus it has some sort of status in art history. but maybe we ask someone else.
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melon :

one of the texts on paiting of tomaz brejc (a respected art historian in slovene language only) can be find on http://www.zveza-dslu.si/Povezave/Equrna/sl2000.htm
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ccf :

No, no, no, you're not gettin away this easy this time :)
I am NOT trying to support painting. Art is NOT love.
Art has to be treated objectively if you want it to posses a certain value and position. Otherwise it is Love.
The aesthetic aspect of art (the one where people say "I think this is good art becouse I like it") has moved to design and applied arts, it can be displayed in galleries (such as the venice bienalle) but the art of today and now as you talk of it should not be displayed in galleries, it can not be displayed and comprehanded in one single view. Because there, it has NO power and NO influence. That is why I find your statements illogical... By what I know about Art (which is not much nway) I wouldn't call the art of today "Art" anymore but we've been through this many times before... :)
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melon :

but...
i obviously wasnt clear enough...no, no - you are right - art is absolutely not love. 100%agree
but..
i just find it a nice comparison in terms of trying to define it.
it is just similar way how we try to define those terms, like what is art, what is love, what is 'to be', what is me, what is you etc.
...the only answer seems the PROCESS of answering it...the final definition still not exists and probably with these definitions we would reach the end of humanity. :))

:-) and i find extremly precise observation - that aesthetic aspect has moved to applied arts and design.
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