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Art by Robert Welburn Standlee

One.

All artists are cannibals. Artists eat art and other artists, and other artists art. Like so many human activities, art began as a simple Monkey see Monkey do process. In the Times of the ancient man, when the shaman covered his hand in the blood of a dead animal and left his hand print on a cave wall, someone saw it later and copied it. This act of copying takes up about 90% of all art activity from prehistoric times until the present. Of the remaining 10%, only about 1% is truly original in that its beginnings were spawned from an homogenous and innovative idea. But until the work of the 20th century, all artists, even the Masters, have simply copied nature, beauty, and the human form. All art is an imitation, an illusion.

So I have stated that only 1% of art is truly original or innovative. That 99 percent of all the art works that have ever been created to some extent are merely an act of copying, a reproduction of someone else's idea or someone else's art work itself. Ironically, when the 1% of all art which is truly original and innovative is first received by society, it is usually rejected, frowned upon, shunned, disdained, dismissed, and yet only a few years later, becomes accepted as the norm. Meanwhile, the middlebrow, all really like that other 99 percent of art which is merely a copy, an imitation. And that might be a copy of what 10 years ago was so innovative that no one I liked it. The point is most Monkeys have very vanilla tastes. They are more likely to enjoy Thomas Kinkaid more than Anselm Kiefer. But the validity of fine art vs. art for art's sake is that one is not about whether you like it.

Now let's step to the side and ponder music for a second. Once upon a time, I was going to study for a music degree. Right at the moment I was to leave junior college and proceed to a four year school, my a music teachers told me not to study music. Their argument was that my tastes in music were very simple. They said I really liked pop music based in the simple I, IV, V, progression of blues. They used the analogy that music could be thought of as food. The blues is very bland much like an uncomplicated soup. But if music is soup, once you began to study jazz the recipe becomes more complicated. Suddenly our simple I, IV, V, soup now has sevenths, ninths and elevenths and thirteenths. Our very bland blues is now a Cajun hot spicy recipe of steaming fire soup. We don't like the new soup. It is too hot. It is too spicy. It makes us uncomfortable. So as to regards of jazz and soup, the former we don't want to hear, the ladder we don't want to eat.

So does that mean if there is bland music and spicy music is there a bland art and spicy art? And if so which one is which? Earlier I mentioned the work of Thomas Kinkaid and Anselm Kiefer. How would we determine which artist is bland or spicy, a mere copyist or efforts truly innovative? Let's stick to the analogy of music, shall we? While music is made up of chords and notes, what is art made up of? Is it paint? Is it pencil marks? More precisely art is made up of elements and principles of design. A work of art as a whole is kind of like the sections of an orchestra, each section contributing something to the overall piece. The work of art has form, content, and subject. Each of these sections working with or against each other to create meaning, harmony, discord, chaos, or beauty. But within these sections the principles and elements appear not unlike the chords and notes of music. And while chords and notes shape will we hear, the principles and the elements of design shape we see.

They can also shape will we feel physically and emotionally. There is space and light, weight, value, line, texture, repetition, form, content, subject and object. How do these things present themselves in the works of Thomas Kinkaid and Anselm Kiefer? Let's look briefly at Thomas Kinkaid. His work is of a pastoral nature. It is a style of art that has been around for centuries, and is at least 100 years obsolete. His main attraction to his work is supposedly his mastery of light. Anselm Kiefer’s work is tied together with the guilt of the German nation at the atrocities of the Nazis and the hope of redemption. Most of his sculpted objects are dense and heavy, made of metal, lead, rock, and sometimes gold. The size and weight of his pieces set a dismal mood for the viewer. His paintings might be covered in lead, rocks, gold, and I saw one with a propeller of an airplane on it. Another painting had a dead sunflower attached to it. All of Anselm Kiefer’s is work is supposedly very spiritual and highly meaningful. Just drenched in meaning. Go Anselm.

I would find myself at a loss to try to tackle a explanation of Anselm Kiefer’s spirituality and the overall meaning. But Thomas Kinkaid, who reproduces his works on a huge corporate scale and merely has the content of a pastoral scene seems to be lacking in originality yet most monkeys do not know better than to like Thomas Kinkaid. I loath Thomas Kinkaid. Unfortunately for me, I loath Anselm Kiefer as well. I really really wish that I liked Anselms work. But when I saw a large exhibit of his work I was struck with the realization that painting is dead. That as a painter, I am not innovative at all. If Anselm Kiefer and his works are the future of art I do not want to go.


Two.

Once someone told me that avant-garde simply meant those in front, like special soldiers who are first employed in a battle, and he told me this like I did not know what it meant. I have just proposed that to truly be avant garde ( in art) that one must be at odds with society, culture, and the status quo. One person who heard me thought this statement was too black and white. It was presented to me the idea That the Avant garde could be right in step with society and culture and still be considered on the cutting edge of art. After careful consideration my thoughts on the above statement is bollocks! The avant guard must be out of step with culture and seeking ways to innovate are they simply become a billboard for already establish standard. How could art be cutting edge if it reflects only what everyone already agrees is authentic? It amounts to masturbation. Where is the avant garde today in the world of fine art? Is the art world truly looking for art that is real? That is relevant? Or has it become merely a clique or of club reserved for artists and art that insured the gratification of a consumer commodity fetish culture and society? Why does the standard of the art world seem to undermine art itself and the artistic expression of millions of would-be artists? The answers to the questions above can be looked at two ways. One way is that there has to be a line drawn between art that is good and art that is a bad. The other part of the answer is you have to decide what is good and go to great lengths to insure that it is enormously valuable. Why? Revenue. The art world runs on billions of dollars each year. Even though critics and historians never agreed on aesthetics or even what art is, there is enough agreement to be picky about what is high art, what gets hung in Soho, what gets bought by the MOMA.

Let me paint you a picture. In this picture the art world looks like a huge pyramid. all of the artist of the entire world are on the pyramid. Let's assume that all of these artists have a master's degree in fine art. At the bottom of the pyramid you see artists whose work doesn't have it. These artists never get much attention and are highly regarded as art failures or perhaps craftsmen or artists for art's sake. Above these artists Midway and to the top of the pyramid, you find artists whose work has it. These artists are successful. Some of them make enough money to call themselves professional artists. But none of these artists actually exist in the art world market for the art world market exists slightly above the pyramid. At the very top of the pyramid is a tall ladder which successful artists climb in order to get to the top of the art world market. Here their work is bought sold and traded to either guaranteed their continued success or knock them off the ladder back on to the pyramid. one day you might be an art God, the next day you're in the street.

So if you are artists and you have an MFA and your work has it then theoretically your in pretty good shape. you probably can sell your art and might even be able to make a living at it. But what about the rest of the artists? What about the artists that exist who aren't even on the pyramid? Let's continue our painting shall we? As I said, the artists with MFAs whose work does not have it live at the bottom of the pyramid. But living on the ground by the pyramid are the artists with BFAs whose work apparently does not have it. Further out from the pyramid are artists who dropped out of school you may not even regard themselves as artists because of what school taught them. Their work is completely ignored.



Some have been educated others have not. But out of all these artists, what is the consideration of their work? Is it possible that within the ranks of the ignored that the battle of the avant-garde is really being waged? I propose that it very well maybe. For this is a book for those who are still fighting the battle perfect of perfecting their art. for those who are constantly pushing the envelope and themselves. Artists who work for me neither fame nor fortune but who work for joy and despite of sorrow. This book Is for all artists and to defy and admonish any system which would rank them.

I have to stop here for a moment and address a dangerous pitfall. I loathe the term Art for art’s sake. I am not speaking of the artists that are pleased to render it. It is what I call “goop” and Americans love it. The name Thomas Kinkaid once again rears its ugly head…….Artists who endeavor in Art for art’s sake are at the very bottom of the art food chain. They are the lowest of the low. It is only sadder when someone makes money at it. Art is an intellectual exercise. Its execution should be wisely considered and thought should go into it. This is called Content. Art without Content is not art.


three.

Art is a search for what is real. For centuries the ideal of art has been beauty. To the Greeks art was the search for beauty and truth. Later, Immanuel Kant stated that concepts cannot be beautiful. So in the face of modern day conceptualism, where concept has replaced beauty as the Ideal of Art, beauty as the ideal of art is dead. Art is now dead along with it and the post modern movements that live on in its place replace art with something else. Something that is more like a lie. Where is the art that is real? Where is truth?

If we look far back in time tot eh prehistoric the art of the primitive man was about that which was most important. It was an artwork of Survival. Whether they painted cave walls with the animals of the hunt or they carved fertility figures of women, their art was about their very life, the necessity to survive. It was sacred and real. throughout the ages of all civilizations art represented those societies, their rulers and their gods. During the Renaissance of Western civilization art was realized and brought to perfection under the commission of kings and the ever watchful eye of the Church. As the power of Monarchs and the Church began to fade, artists were forced to find new patrons, a new direction, a reason to create art without religion, country, or even cause It was at that moment the avant-garde was born. An art looking forward not backward, advancing not retreating. For art must be on a quest for something besides its own glorification, lest it become a parody of itself, a joke, or a lie.

Today art finds its audience to merely be the art world itself. Its patrons are those whose money alone seems to validate Modern Art. Not only that, it is made into something exclusive, remote, Isolated and largely not understood (have you tried to come to an understanding of Anselm Kiefer’s work yet? would you like to write a paper about it?). can art represent anyone or anything, have any meaning for anyone, when its value separates it from the people and sets it apart? Sets it apart not as something sacred, not as something true or beautiful, but merely an Icon…..a Commodity. An artifact that is only relevant to itself.