This is a conceptual art piece that challenges conceptual art pieces! There is a blank piece of paper and a poem underneath that reads:
Tom Friedman made an art piece
“1,000 Hours of Staring”
(at a piece of white paper
touched only by the artist’s gaze.)
I could do the same masterpiece
in 46 minutes and 13 seconds.
Can you tell the difference?
Here’s some concepts-y’all without the art. And by just READING them, the idea of concept art changes from pompous to poetic (and fun).
PAINTINGS TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN YOUR HEAD by Tom Hendricks.
(based on Yoko Ono’s idea of paintings to be Constructed in your head from her book “Instruction Painting”)
PICK A COLOR:
Pick a color
Slash it all over the canvas
Until you’re happy.
RUB-A-WAY PAINTING:
Get a blank canvas
Let anyone who wants to, touch it.
When it’s all worn away it’s finished.
MOUNTAIN SIZE:
Paint a painting in your head.
When you’re finished, imagine it’s the size of a mountain
People are coming from all over to stare at it.
That’s a big draw!
SMELL PAINTING:
Paint a painting with no colors only smells.
Then close your eyes.
How does it look?
SHRINKING PAINTING (Exhibit For Atoms):
Paint a painting in your head.
Now imagine that it’s beginning to shrink
Just like it’s out of “Alice in Wonderland”.
It’s getting smaller … smaller …
Now it’s so small that only atoms can come to your exhibit.
Look they all have teeny glasses of wine in their hands and
They love your painting.
HOT/COLD PAINTING:
Imagine a blank canvas in your head.
Wherever you paint red, the canvas gets hotter.
Wherever you paint blue, it cools down …
Finish the painting.
What does it look like?
What does it feel like?
SO THIN PAINTING:
Imagine a painting in your head.
The canvas is so thin … that all the paint bleeds through.
You look at the other side and THAT side looks better.
So you hang it up backwards.
PAINT WITH FEELING:
Paint a painting in your head of things that feel good, bad, or unusual:
Pudding, carpet, nails, sand.
When you’re done close your eyes and feel the art!
SOUND PAINTING:
Imagine you can paint with sounds –
A train whistle here, a bird song there,
A jackhammer in the corner.
Are you done? What? What??
LOVE PORTRAIT:
Imagine a painting in your head.
You’ve done a portrait of the person you love the most.
Do I know ‘um?
SIDEWAYS PAINTING
Imagine a blank canvas in your head.
You turn it sideways and paint on the edges
Slashing brushstrokes left and right
Until you’re done in a flurry.
Everyone that sees it thinks you’re a master!
You take a bow.
PAINTING OF PURE LIGHT:
Imagine a work in progress in your head.
It’s a dark room
You load your brush, not with paint,
But from a tube of pure light.
This one’s going to be glowing!
’ 
DON’T PUT THIS HERE!
Some fun conceptual art here – with a post-it pasted on cardboard and framed. The post-it reads, “Don’t put this here!” But where do you put it?)
THE GREAT DIVIDE IN ART
There is a great divide in art. It’s been going on for over 100 years. It’s time to end it.
The first major divide in modern art was when the Impressionists broke away from the French Salon and it’s type of painting. From then to now, there has been an understood divide in art that implies that
somehow realism is old fashioned (and can’t develop) while a more abstract or free form in art is the only thing that should be considered modern and up to date (though it can become just as generic, stilted, and conservative, as the salon art it first rebelled against!)
Let’s look at three examples of this art divide:
1. THE FRENCH SALON versus THE IMPRESSIONISTS
2. MATISSE AND PICASSO versus JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY
3. DUCHAMP, POLLACK, and CONCEPTUAL ART, versus ROCKWELL and WYETH (The ASHCAN SCHOOL and PHOTOREALISTS)
THE FRENCH SALON versus THE IMPRESSIONISTS
On the Salon side there were artists such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Bouguereau painted realistically, with some exquisite nudes and portraits of young women. But many of his works, though technically excellent, were somewhat stilted, and formulaic.
On the other side were the Impressionists such as Monet, Renoir, and Degas. Their works were a breath of fresh air from the conservative Salon. They were full of vivid color, and the charm of every day life; though at times they were sketchy and their work seemed sloppy, or unfinished.
MATISSE AND PICASSO versus …. just about everybody!
Matisse and Picasso were on the front lines of art that shocked. The first was a ‘wild beast’ and the second was a ‘cubist’. The world around them was barely catching up to accepting the Impressionists, and they had hardly even heard of the post-impressionists, who got their recognition much too late.
Luckily both Matisse and Picasso had long lives, and that allowed them to break a lot of rules, bring a lot of vibrant change to art, and become the two most celebrated painters of their century. Though in fairness not all of their experiments worked, and often we praise what they could do at their best and excuse the rest.
DUCHAMP AND POLLACK AND CONCEPTUAL ART versus ROCKWELL AND WYETH
Here the art divide was very wide. On the modern, and up to date side, were Duchamp who wrote his own rules for painting, or in the case of readymades, no painting at all. Duchamp in turn, certainly had an influence on the later art movement called Conceptual art , where the concept was the art. And too there was Pollack who was known for his action paintings where he would throw, splatter, or drip, painting on a canvas on the floor.
But many more traditional viewers just shook their heads at all these art experiments, and preferred the humorous story paintings of Norman Rockwell, or the subtle but realistic landscapes and portraits of Andrew Wyeth. (And don’t forget other schools of realism like the Ashcan school, whose subjects, average people, were a little too real for the public; or photorealists, who painted as exact as the photos they painted from.)
So things are muddled, it’s kind of confusing, but which side was right? Here’s my answer:
I love art, and I love painting. But I love BOTH kinds of painting. I am an artist. And I’ve done art all across the divide, from realism to conceptual art and I love doing it all.
I appreciate technical excellence when it’s used to make a great painting – part of the fun of painting is to find a painter with great technical skill – but I also appreciate the freedom that allows innovative artists to take art into new areas that the rest of us could not even imagine. Why do I have to take sides when I like, no love, both sides?
Modern artists have had to fight the traditionalists to get fair respect. I understand that. But at some point that division into ‘us’ or ‘them’, may go too far, and those on the supposed cutting edge have become so insular and isolated that they forgot to acknowledge and appreciate the achievements of the past and the other half of their contemporaries. Why is it either or or? Why can’t both sides be appreciated – specially at this point in time when we’ve just finished the trek from realism to conceptual art.
History of ART in three sentences:
Art went from total structure in realism (painting exactly as is) to total freedom in conceptual art (painting rules invented by the artist). OK, we’ve gone through the complete range. Now instead of being stuck in only one or the other – total realism, or total choice and concept – we have the choice to do either, or anything in between, or all of the above.
Those lines in the definition of the History of Art above, also define a big part of the new Postmod Art, a new type of art that is all inclusive.
The new art called Postmod art, among other things, calls for an end to the great divide in art. Now both types of painting are just fine – and so is any type of art in between.
Let’s shift the emphasis. Instead of two different camps in a great divide, fighting each other; let’s emphasize quality and innovation in whatever art you do. Then the future is open to all, and we will have a period of real vitality in art again.
==============
THE GREAT DIVIDE (Part 2)
There is a second great divide in art. This divides art into style or substance. Like the first divide, the new art says both are valid, and neither is more right or more modern.
Style: The subjects can be anything: portraits, still lifes, landscapes, etc. But what stands out is the style of the painting. The 20th century ushered in all kinds of style arts ‘isms’. Here are the main ones:
1. Impressionism
2. Pointillism
3. Fauvism
4. Cubism
5. Abstraction
6. Photo Realism
Substance: This type of art covers all subjects too. But what is key is the thought or substance behind the art. During the 20th century the vanguard of modern art seemed to bounce back and forth from Style to Substance and back. Then too some areas of the world favored one over the other. Major schools of substance art included:
1. Expressionism
2. Dadaism
3. Surrealism
4. Conceptual Art
5. Pop Art.
————————
More on Postmod Art at
http://tinyurl.com/38a5txu
POSTMOD ART or NO-ISM : This page is all about the new art movement.
My goal is to get painting out of the Ivory Towers and back into the world.
Conceptual art ended MODERN ART. And for the last 40 years no one has known what to do with it!
.
VIDEOS
Video 1. Snake Oil
The Snake Oil art piece both clamps down on one type of art while opening the door to another.
Video 2. Five Doors To The Art Revolution: Door #2 Art
Here’s why I think Modern art is neither modern nor art (or at least not very good art) anymore. 1. Cold 2. Disjointed 3. Can’t communicate it’s message 4. Weird 5. Elitist 6. Technically poor if there is technique at all 7. Pompous and inflated, often takes up a room 8. Non functional, not useful, not integrated into life 9. No breath or scope. From Five Doors to the Art Revolution, video #2.
Five Doors: Art http://tinyurl.com/38a5txu
.
POEM
Modern Art
Modern art
you’ve lost your way.
I’d rather see
a comic book,
fashion drawings,
or children’s art,
an illustration,
or anything but
Modern art
you’ve lost your way!
.
SAYINGS
Weird art is easy. You put a strip of raw bacon across an expensive violin – but it’s not great art!
Modern art is the salon art of our day.
Look at that
pencil and pen.
How many drawings
are left in them?
Sometimes painting needs bigger themes then ‘look I’m weird and have problems’.
Postism – a back to basics art that takes art forward.
Modern art – it’s either fishy or fowl.
There is a difference between a sketch and a sloppy painting. The first is fresh and lively. The second is unfinished and needs work
See this link for more:
http://tinyurl.com/38a5txu
See this link for article, “3D Art Theory”
—————————————————
Tom Hendricks
(editor of the 19 year old zine Musea)
ZINE, Named one of the best ZINES by UTNE magazine. Featured on ROCKETBOOM)
http://www.Musea.us
MUSIC, 5 full CD’s of free Post-Bands Music)
http://www.Hunkasaurus.com
BLOG for Musea, Art Contests, Weekly E-mail Messages)
http://www.Musea.wordpress.com
Musea Zine 