thoughts run amuck, but there is not much to cleave from these spaces that have been emptied of all material matter after the man left the trap door open and i fell asunder, it was the pressure of losing his cerebral muse into the waves that she said would pull us under – now we have nothing to lose and there is a pounding in this heart that goes faster faster with expediency that rolls a wave of thunder that brought down the rain tonight keeping us neither wet nor dry – it is the devil, she cries, pounding the ground awake from below and we feel her ache – we scream her scream for why must we swirl into this dream of living when it goes out of control under steam and plows down too many innocent things, innocent dreams that were just beginning to breathe softer under her soft sheen producing golden rubs upon their round chins and pursed lips; we shall never understand this, this life that is full of happiness, yet it pulls some of us under until we become buried within a storm so devastating that we question reality – was it really just a blink – in this bed of stolen slumber we shall finally find what could never been seen ~
(Apologies – it has been forever since there was freedom to just write a bit of stream. I am a bit lost without having a paper to write, a lecture to watch or a chapter to read. This bit of breath (2 courses start soon) has me choking on air.)
“So long as the artist does not belong, in the most concrete sense, to one of the great historical classes of humanity, so long he cannot realize a social expression in all its public fullness. Which is to say, an expression for, and not against. The artist is greatest in affirmation.”
~ Robert Motherwell
It is interesting, searching Motherwell’s book this weekend for personal research, I stumbled upon the above quote. The quote reads as the artist equivalent to Judith Butler on defining gender and sex. It should really come as no surprise for Motherwell was a philosophy student first, artist second. I left notes in the margins pointing out echoes of Marx, Rousseau and Foucault.
“To express the felt nature of reality is the artist’s principal concern.” ~ Robert Motherwell
What is reality…really? Is it the artist’s reality or the reality of society, a certain faction that is addressed within said art? How is it that this goes expressed in art? What is the purpose of art if the artist’s concern is expression of Felt nature – are we involved in this feeling too? If we do not get moved, who failed who?
A thought to leave with you – actually two:
1) I recently watched The Examined Life which is a fascinating documentary featuring several of the philosophers mentioned in recent papers on this blog. žižek’s brief interview took place in a garbage facility. He spoke of consumption, i.e. overconsumption and our throw-a-way society. He felt that society is too quick to forget where all this garbage goes – we just throw and ‘poof’ it is gone from our mind. It had me thinking – it would be wonderful if school age children took a field trip to a local garbage facility to understand where everything is going. In this “wonderful world”, they then would visit an artist’s studio whose work is composed from garbage or found things….
2) Would it be wrong to have a Conceptional Art Museum with nothing in it?
(This blog post has been powered tonight by First Listen @NPR : Laura Marling.)






