Saturday, January 17, 2009

What Remains After The Thought Object Has Been Dismissed?

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Is art since 1945 nothing more than what remains after
the THOUGHT OBJECT has been dismissed?

In 1945, Jackson pollack became heir apparent to
MODERNISM's search for "pure art". Jackson achieved
from within and without what Malevitch and Kandinsky
had tried to do beginning @1920. He reached the pure
feeling in art! The truth behind the concepts,
hidden-objects and things that art had until his
breakthrough been limited to representing. Pollock
achieved communion with the THOUGHT OBJECT! Now the
rest of humanity could too! Modernism having reached
its' objective was free to die.. The world entered
into an orgy with the THOUGHT OBJECT. Hell, you could
have anything in the Fifties... safe sex with a
THOUGHT OBJECT; and multiple climax too! Finally
Rauchenberg came along, looked the 'TO' straight
between the eyes and said: 'you can go now, you hold
no mystery' (chuckle, chuckle, hiss!). And so it
went, maybe to die. We now had nothing left to ponder
and only ourselves to search. The multitudes said we
have sex, and then we have death in this life; and
after safe-sex with a THOUGHT OBJECT, even death holds
no mystery. The time of the anti-climax had begun!
As John said, the Cage door was left wide-open; we
were all free to run... and so we did.
POST-MODERNISM, the multiplicity of duplicity,
the plurality of the Five Stages of Death (Anger,
Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Suicide and
Acceptance). There could be no turning back, only we
didn't know that then. We still had not reached the
stage of acceptance; so we made fresh attempts to cage
something, anything. The Sixties were born: sex and
drugs and rock and roll - and everything in-between...
Then came the Seventies: the last disco in
Pain-In-The-Ass. Caught with our pants down and our
faces dirty. God was dead, art was dead, even Zen was
dead. The necrophiliacs vision of the way it was. I
think I'll go talk to this dead hare; I'll wrap myself
in fat the world is so cold.
When the Eighties came around we were really
feeling bankrupt; but hey, anything to make a buck
right? Let's just make some money, it'll be just like
old times - the Fifties. Only now we can have sex
above ground. we can even let the homosexuals out of
the closet. And in Germany Kiefer can get in touch
with his Nazi roots. Why not? So Schnabel went for
the power, Koons reached for the gold and Madonna
became the Ave' Maria of the Anti-Climax. She proudly
pronounced herself the Icon of the After-Sex.
Finally by the Nineties we come to acceptance. We
readily admit there is such a creature as
Post-Modernism, and that furthermore, it is nothing
more than Modernism's Tombstone. We have reached
critical mass. Science, religion, and philosophy give
way to a glut of information and are no longer afraid
to admit they have no answers; that maybe the answers
don't exist. But the Nineties will not be without a
hero. In accepting death, we have earned the right to
embrace it. There is one man on this planet who has
no fears, shame or doubts that it should be so. That
man is Dr. Kevorkian. Just remember: you have the
right to die.
(1995)

Vide: ...Where are we now?

2 comments:

  1. Matter of free will & choice, not forced to be forced

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  2. boneyard,

    thought full post... had me thinking all night.

    i think if you are looking for a singular progression of art history, then we must consider that art is maybe no longer separate from culture at large. media, marketing and art institutes themselves may have collapsed. we are left with immersive installations that compete with cinema and video games to stimulate desires in this unified market. as for actual bliss? i think this comes from a global experience of trauma through media, which again is probably impossible to separate from the gallery or museum. trauma is a contemporary religious experience, almost dionysian.

    this being said, i do not think a single, progressive view of history is truthful. but that is another rambling comment.

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