GUIDE TO LIFE ARCHIVE GUIDE TO LIFE ⇒

Earlier art fulfilled the function of representation. Now that the function of representation is fulfilled by other means then art has become either a means of self-expression or an investigation of aesthetics.

If you take away the function of representation then what is left? Cubism was all about representation in another “truer” form. And did modernism then become about representing things that couldn’t be photographed? Or it becomes about the material itself - of paint actually, because there’s no other material that has no other function except to make art is there? Bronze?? And what about photography? You photograph things that don’t count as worthy of being photographed, but this tradition could be exhausted. Or you photograph things that don’t exist. But it’s a question as to whether the trick still works of seeing a photo and assuming that it’s real. It seems like you are thrown back onto either aesthetics or self-expression. The trouble is that aesthetics is uninteresting as soon as it becomes about believing that what you are presenting is beautiful or interesting because no one can really still believe that beauty as a transcendent quality really exists can they? Golden section is a nice idea but not really convincing. Fractals and mathematics may be pleasing but beauty is something else. But then is beauty always subjective. Probably. The problem with self-expression is that it could be inherently uninteresting. And self-expression is only interesting as an idea and not as reality. But if both aesthetics and self-expression are only interesting as ideas then this is impossible to express as you can’t portray them without content and as soon as you portray content either it is uninteresting or you are trying to get something that you think is really beautiful or something that you think is really interesting and unique to you or particularly tragic etc. in through the back door and that undermines your premise and shows that you don’t really believe in it anyway. So the only position left to us is one of hopeless nostalgia.

Self-expression either functions because you’ve got something unique to say or it functions because we’re all the same (or groups of us are the same) and it’s just another form of communication.

So back to self-expression: if it’s all just self-evident because we’re all the same then it doesn’t mean that it’s inherently uninteresting but just that it’s inherently undramatic. Banal but not meaningless if we assume that communication is never meaningless, just it either works or it doesn't. then the issue of making art without self-expression is a non-issue. So where is the boundary that I nevertheless seem to worry about? Is it self-expression or more to do with image making and is there a difference? Maybe it’s to do with making up images. But then what’s the difference between a made-up image in Photoshop and a drawn image? If the only difference is that with a photograph there’s always the idea that it could be real whereas with a drawn image you know that it’s not then the question is whether this is enough of a difference and not just a comforting mind-trick on my part: because no-one can really believe in photographed reality any more. Is there a parallel with crime fiction and novels? What is the feeling I get of not wanting to be burdened with other people’s feelings (stronger, it’s an imposition).

Actually the difference between a photoshopped image and a drawn image is the issue of handwork and by extension talent. If you say that someone can draw then it’s an absolute quality but if someone can do photoshop then it’s a learned skill.

If you consider that there’s already more than enough artists and art in the world then the decision to be an artist is either because you believe that what you’ve got to say really is unique or it’s an inability to do anything else or it’s a completely pragmatic decision that it’s what you want to do and if there are people out there prepared to support you in it then that’s well and good. Then it means that the only consideration in making work should be whether it’s sellable or not because any other considerations are putting yourself forward as a genius.

If I was an astrophysicist I would go to conferences and there would be sure to be the same feeling of ambition and injustice in the air as there is in the art world. There’s probably the same feeling that some people are doing research that’s crap but still getting funding but would I have the same fundamental doubt about astrophysics as a concept?

Do I really truly really doubt the meaningfulness of art?

Everything today is about metaphor and that’s a result of hearing in advance what could be said in language about what we produce. The audience has become an analysis of possible meanings. It’s impossible to have an act of production not polluted by the imagined future act of reception BUT maybe it’s possible to reimagine the possible audience so the act of production is transformed. Maybe it would be possible to imagine a viewer who only looks and compares how what they are seeing correlates with their lived personal experience. You would have to reproduce something that had no metaphoric meaning. That probably isn’t possible but maybe something could b e represented whose only metaphoric meaning is the decision to represent it. It would be impossible to avoid the content associated with the act of selecting what was to be represented but maybe this line of thought is in itself not interesting enough to be seriously distracting.

What is my subject? Did I have more of a subject in the past? It was different because I had a subject and now my subject is questioning what a subject could be. It this what it means to get old and lose our dreams. All that is left is pretending to be the person you were before you lost all your illusions. Looking at young artists and what they do and actually thinking that it isn’t enough but still trying to imitate it because you can’t see another way. Naivety is uninteresting but what do you do without it? Aging, disillusionment, hesitancy is very interesting but how do you make art about it when the only thing that is valued is power of conviction, the blind hopelessness of throwing yourself into the void.

The answer isn’t necessarily abstraction but the production of irrelevant content, but this content has to appear on first glance to be relevant as otherwise it becomes about banality.

I think painting is meaningful but in a completely different way to how it is believed to be meaningful. I get angry when faced with evidence of artists being satisfied with following their inspiration or mood or whatever. I think this is stupid or weak. Maybe it’s all very, very simple. Maybe there are always moments of beauty whatever you do - like the beautiful moments of a slow motion video - but that these moments are simply NOT ENOUGH.