[Previous entry: "ART AND REALITY"] [Next entry: "ART AS A REFLECTION OF HUMAN NATURE"]
01/13/2006: "LACK OF VISION?" by Jose Freitas Cruz
Truly – utterly – new Art does not exist, and any artist who would claim that his art owes nothing to others before him is, in my opinion, a true and utter fool because Art does not live in a vacuum and only gains significance in that it expands the light of the previously known and the boundaries of what was understood and possible until then.
Whatever goes into shaping and making visible the new will have part of its roots somewhere in the old – hidden or unknown to the masses perhaps, but somewhere. The trick – mastery? – of the artist lies in his capability to envision the unfathomable, and in the way he mixes up the pieces of the puzzle to compose a new one we hadn’t been able to see until then; in the way he appropriates and absorbs his influences [past, present and envisioned] and works damn hard to incorporate them all in his work thus gaining the right to be seen as one of their transmitters.
The ‘vision’ of the artist risks being lost if he does not possess the tools and apply the adequate means to communicate it to those that matter most – his contemporaries, as few as these may be [even if this sounds a tad elitist] -, because his vision is never complete, and it can never be fully developed unless the many start sharing in it, scrutinizing it from various angles and revealing further possibilities. Unfortunately, for the one claiming ownership of the ‘vision’, this is the way it is.
To shed light on the new and later complain that others can see what has been exposed reveals a limitation quite improper of an artist, and yet so many fall prey to such behaviour. So many react shallowly to the realisation that they have affected and inspired others and forget in their rage that they too had once been affected and inspired by artists, musicians and poets who through their work made it possible for them to see what they so wish to reveal. Basic human nature I’m afraid. Short-sightedness, Fear, Vanity, lack [loss] of vision…
Animosity and competition amongst artists has always been rife, and is perhaps inevitable given the size of our egos, but what would have been the point of there being one sole fauve, one sole impressionist, one, and only one, surrealist artist… would there have been a Fauvism, an Impressionism, any Surrealism worthy of mention? I think not. There would have been something new, undeniably, but something that would have died at birth without gaining significant momentum. A freak in its time – at best, perhaps (but not guaranteed), to be rediscovered generations later - lost and of no use to those living at the time of its unveiling. A loss.
Inspiration triggers experimentation and entails appropriation. It seems to me to be the way it works. In the long run appropriation becomes diluted [absorbed] within the artist’s unique script[ure] and may – after much hard work and, unarguably, not without a little twist of the hand of fortune – shed light a little further.
Transparency and acceptance of one’s own influences seems to me to be a healthy thing to keep up. Though it is impossible for me to thank the Breugels and Bosch, le douannier Rousseau, the Yugoslav naïfs, Magritte or Dalì for the initial push they gave me I do try to maintain an open dialogue with the artists I’m able to meet one on one, about how their work is meaningful to me [if, that is, their work affects me and they are willing to talk.]
In 1998 I was completing a series of paintings for a solo exhibition in Oporto but couldn’t come up with the element that I felt was lacking to give them that extra oomph. Over the time they had become a representation of my wanderings in India and the Tibetan plateau [maps, maybe?] and I needed an element to counterbalance the footprints – my footprints – I had placed on the painted surface. I wrote to a good friend and fellow artist who’s work revolved around compositions with knots [he used between 50 and 80 – his paintings were the actual knots tied onto the canvas] asking him to ‘lend’ me 6, 8 and 12 respectively, explaining him the whys [the 6 perfections; the noble 8fold path, the 12 links of interdependent arising… the unfolding/untying/attempted learning of which my wanderings had been about] and enclosed a sample painting as a gift. I mentioned in this letter that his contribution and inspiration would figure in the exhibition catalogue, of course.
I felt, in my gut, that this was the right thing to do. Perfectly unnecessary, according to the gallery director, but the right thing to do to appease any ‘ghosts’ that might haunt me. Many years before he decided to move north we had visited one another’s studios and often worked together: his work changed, my work changed, and during that time we both accepted these changes and grew. Still, I was not altogether surprised when the painting was returned to me, along with the letter, upon which had been scribbled in red ink – I would prefer if you did not do this!!! Sadly, for him, he was not open to dialogue.
It takes a load of guts. Sometimes the sight of something similar to your own work just hits you in the stomach and the last thing you feel inclined to do is acknowledge the other. But it’s part of the deal, it is bound to happen if you expose yourself. The only way you can avoid it is by keeping it all to yourself – but what is the point of being an artist if you don’t want to expose yourself and do not want to touch others? Bridging the gap with another artist I’ve moved through my work stands up there for me alongside selling a piece or coming upon something of my own, somewhere unexpected – first I’m left breathless, but then the flow is restored in a WHOLE-some way… and I’m led to see things I hadn’t noticed before.
