Objectivist movement and art - two approaches

[Victor Pross]

Victor, I summed up my position because I am leaving this discussion reference your refusal or inability to explain what abstract art or painting is in contrast to "objective" or "representational" art. My "circular" argument is only my way of not sanctioning your jihad against artists who make art you don't think is art, say Pollock or Picasso, by saying their work isn't art and they aren't artists. Milton Friedman stated his positions forcefully and clearly but wasted no time on the character of his opponents. That doesn't mean I value his ideas or agree with his ideas more than Rand's.

Brant, I’m sorry you feel that way. I truly believe I answered your question. I explained why (as far as I'm concerned) abstract painting is not art: it communicates no “abstract theme” or subject matter. It lacks artistry and skill. It is paint on a canvas. Your dissatisfaction with my answer, however, is not the same thing as my not answering you. I did answer you. So you disagree with me. That’s okay.

Your characterization of calling my rejection of abstract arts as a "Jihad against artists" is melodramatic, to say the least. There are tons of people who feel exactly as I do. There is noting controversial about my position. Plus I love artists. I love ability and vision. Far from enacting a Jihad against them, I'm standing up for artists --and I'm against the posers. I’m against those who dip worms into colored paint and have them wriggle on a canvas to produce a "painting".

Sure, the practitioners of modernism pose as individualists, but the nonconformity they symbolize is as socially-oriented as any conformist. Just as the conformist accepts the standards of others without validating them rationally against reality's facts, so does the modernist operate by the standards of others -- the opposite of anything others uphold as meaningful, poetic, beautiful, skillful and melodic. They reject tradition because it is tradition—right or wrong. No, it is they who are enacting a Jihad against values, rationality and standards.

You know, I dare say that the broad public at large finds “abstract art” as vacuous, fraudulent or pretentious. So I’m hardly a "non-mainstream rebel" here posing in a contrarian role because I find it romantic. I'm standing up for my principles...like anybody else here. I don’t really care to be the odd man out, but if that’s the way it is…so be it. Can you respect that at all?

I think the public rejection of modernism and postmodernism is a vestige of common sense.

-Victor

Edited February 10, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Victor Pross]

Kevin,

I’ll take Michael’s post at face-value. If I was out of line to call your address to me as snotty, I apologize. If, as MSK states, art is deeply important to you, I can assure you that we have this in common.

Your definition of art as “spiritual autobiography” is interesting in two respects: it conveys an implicit acceptance that art is “communication” and this is where the “autobiography" comes in. That is, does not autobiography communicate? Now, the “spiritual” reference conveys, as I take it, the artist’s “deepest values.” Would you say that your point of view here is consonant with Rand’s approach to art? I mean, in this respect:

Selectivity in regard to subject: the artist must select a subject that best represents his sense of life—or his point of view of the world or some aspect of it. And this also calls for clarity: the artist conveys his sense of life in his work—his “spiritually.”

Is this a fair interpretation?

Edited February 10, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] Perhaps I could call it "spiritual autobiography" as long as folks trusted that I wasn't trying to import any christianoid nonsense into the discussion, because art properly connects us to our deepest natures.

I like "spiritual autobiography" better. To me that implies a record of meaningfulness, of process which has left a residue of connection to wellsprings of our being.

With respect to Beethoven, I would say that he indeed had to reach deep to come up with "cheerful" in the face of incipient deafness. One of the amazing powers of art is its ability to take our greatest pain and suffering and transmute it into beauty. And please don't mistake my use of the word "deep" to mean "ultra-serious" or "hifalutin"--a belly laugh comes from as deep a place in us as a sigh.

He did reach deep, and then still deeper. And there was an unquenchableness to his spirit. I understand the sense in which you're using "deep." He would have, too.

I cried when I first saw the gravestone in the cemetery in Vienna (last summer). I didn't know if I would cry. But the plinth was so austere, so noticeable amongst the others in its design. A ray of sun was breaking through the clouds -- there'd been some rain earlier; the large gold lettering "Beethoven" was struck by light. The tears came to my eyes.

The gravestone is in what's called "The Musicians' Corner." A lot of great musicians are buried, or memorialized, there. It's not where Beethoven was originally buried. Or of course where Mozart was. I thought the difference in style between Beethoven's gravestone and Mozart's was so appropriate: Beethoven's a stark, geometric plinth, Mozart's adorned by a statue of a female figure, a "muse" I suppose.

As I understand it, art is a universal human need. Either we find the art we need in the culture around us, or we must create it ourselves. It is in its capacity as a reflector of our inner lives that I think of art as intrinsically autobiographical. When we say we love a certain work of art, don't we mean that it expresses some deep unspoken part of ourselves?

-Kevin

Nicely said.

Ellen

___

[Kevin Haggerty]

Heya Victor,

I accept your apology, gladly.

Jeez, art is my all-consuming obsession, so yeah, deeply important. And truly, I recognize that this is the case chez Pross as well, so yes, I see a commonality there and always have. (I'd hoped for some direct discussion of my thoughts on Pollock in the other thread, but I totally understand if that moment has passed for you.)

And yeah, I do try to keep my comments on this board at least conversant with what I know of Objectivism. My big problem with Rand's position as you state it here is summed up in this sentence:

Selectivity in regard to subject: the artist must select a subject that best represents his sense of life—or his point of view of the world or some aspect of it.

The equation of "sense of life" with a single "point" of view, that a human being has a single "sense of life," as if all one's art must express the same basic things over and over again, strikes me as needlessly one dimensional--even a little naïve, come to think of it. I have a more complex sense of self. As I've matured as an artist, I've learned to trust my subconscious to guide me when my conscious mind resists. Sometimes my art knows me better than I do, if you know what I mean.

That there is no room for an aesthetic "minority report" in one's oeuvre, seems to invite denial and dishonesty. Rand seems to talk about one's "deepest values" as if it weren't a plural but a monolithic, unchanging singular. So if, say, I have some very nihilistic feelings at times, and recall with some sorrow and regret a time in my life when I was given over to them, I mustn't make art expressing it--or if I do, I must make it absolutely clear that I repudiate it. As a viewer or reader, I tend to find such art preachy and condescending, y'know? As an artist, I want constantly to challenge my charished beliefs as a way of getting the most honest work from myself that I can. I think art should respect its viewers enough to simply lay it all out there for them to draw their own conclusions.

While we're on the subject of Rand, I'd like to make another comment about The Fountainhead. I know I am by no means alone here when I say that I found the character of Howard Roark fascinating and even inspiring as a portrait of an artist who will not be trifled with; an artist who's obsessive commitment to his genius is absolute. But I don't see him as the healthiest soul I've ever encountered. All that staring through people as if they weren't there is not a good sign. And his shock that he might be thinking about another person at all after having had violent sex with her, though it rings true to his character absolutely, gave me a chill. But I recognize that there is something slightly inhuman (or maybe just inhumane) about artistic obsession. At times artists can completely disregard our physical bodies or our relationships with "mere" flesh and blood humans. Surely, you can remember drawing for so long at one sitting that you damaged the nerves in your fingers or hand? Or perhaps lost 10 pounds in a few days time because you "forgot" to eat in the midst of inspiration? And what artist worthy of the name, hasn't been guilty of acting as if our closest friends or lovers are really inessential baggage from that annoying "other life" outside of art?

Thing is, non of this would be too remarkable if it weren't for Rand's entirely extratextual insistance that Roark represents her "ideal man," that somehow Roark embodies human (not just artistic) perfection. So, interestingly, I think to her mind her novel would absolutely conform to her concept of art as being reflective of her "highest values" while I find that her novel conforms to my more pluralistic (if you will) sense of self and a more complex, ambivalent characterization of the artistic temperment.

Put another way, I find a more "warts and all" approach to my "spiritual autobiography" more fullfilling than being the p.r. man for my "highest values."

Perhaps this is why I find value in Abstract Expressionism where you do not. I recognize that I am at times confused, lost, chaotic--that my world and my self can be mysterious to me--and that out of these apparently negative states, artistic riches can be forged. I think confusion, loss and chaos are themselves worthy subjects for contemplation. I see in Abstract Expressionism a reflection of my own inner "creative chaos" and I am grateful to artists like Pollock and Kandinsky for having the self-discipline to capture it on canvas.

-Kevin

Edited February 10, 2007 by Kevin Haggerty

[Victor Pross]

The equation of "sense of life" with a single "point" of view, that a human being has a single "sense of life," as if all one's art must express the same basic things over and over again, strikes me as needlessly one dimensional--even a little naïve, come to think of it. I have a more complex sense of self. As I've matured as an artist, I've learned to trust my subconscious to guide me when my conscious mind resists. Sometimes my art knows me better than I do, if you know what I mean.

That there is no room for an aesthetic "minority report" in one's oeuvre, seems to invite denial and dishonesty. Rand seems to talk about one's "deepest values" as if it weren't a plural but a monolithic, unchanging singular. So if, say, I have some very nihilistic feelings at times, and recall with some sorrow and regret a time in my life when I was given over to them, I mustn't make art expressing it--or if I do, I must make it absolutely clear that I repudiate it. As a viewer or reader, I tend to find such art preachy and condescending, y'know? As an artist, I want constantly to challenge my cherished beliefs as a way of getting the most honest work from myself that I can. I think art should respect its viewers enough to simply lay it all out there for them to draw their own conclusions.

Kevin,

I have been thinking about your post all day, and I want to respond to the question of this artist “sense of life” business. Regarding what you had to say about it, I must say that I agree with you 100%--and this is a nice change. (Later, I would like to comment on your observations about Howard Roark, but let me make a few remarks regarding an artist’s “deepest values” and his “sense of life.”)

Taken at face value, it may very well seem that Rand’s writings about this “sense of life” business does seem one dimensional, but at no point does she speak of a an artist’s “deepest values” as being a homogenous single track. Yes, Rand extolled Romantic realism as a personal preference, that is true, but I’m not too sure that she separated the human race into two divides: Romantic Realists and depraved garbage. So, yes, an artist’s “sense of life” can be varied and extremely complex. Like you, I have a more complex sense of self. When I introspect, this becomes abundantly clear in my own case. It is this complexity that I wish to explore with you here. Before doing so, a few words about my background will help illuminate my points:

For years I have been regarded as a freak to the art community. I have faced every kind of smear and rejection imaginable. I have endured years toiling away in obscurity and poverty while those abstract painters and modernists in general—those who are identified as untalented--have had every honor and recognition showered upon them. Yes, it was their lack of talent that was being recognized and celebrated. Men, who would have otherwise happily employed me, have rejected me upon learning that I have been severely criticized by the art guardians---the self-appointed elitists. I have seen commissions vanish that properly should have been mine, but was instead handed to the untalented in the name of ‘open-mindedness.’ Does this make me angry? Yeah, of course.

Abstract and representational painting? I loath art that is all technique and no emotion. So I’m far from being an unbounded defender of representationalism—if nothing is really being represented but masterly technique. And I loathe purported art that is all emotion where nothing is represented to carry the emotion, and that is devoid, arguably, of no real technique.

I have been vocal about my views. Naturally, I have been criticized as being “closed-minded” and too dogmatically wedded to the so-called "stale paradigms of traditional art" whatever the fuck that means. I have, in the minds of some, committed a sin against the Holy Ghost: I have failed to see the legitimacy and value of modernist and postmodernist art. I have failed to conform to the dictates to the established vanguard. This is, perhaps, where I came into trouble. Newton had taught us that for every action there is an equal opposite reaction, so it could be argued that the enormity of the establishment’s hysterical animosity toward me had its own logic.

I have paid price for the sins I have committed against the established order we see in the art world today: I have been relegated to the bottom of the food chain as caricaturing doodling plankton. Cruel is the society on those who do not bow down to its freakish fetishes.

Today, however, critics fall over each other lavishing my art with praise---now that the upper echelons of the art community have officially endorsed me. Ever since the art guardians bestowed their canned odes to me, I have become a Toronto celebrity of sorts. It’s now fashionable to heap flattering adjectives and accolades upon me. I’m the new fad. But critics responded to my art as if I was sui generis, a self-created eccentric without discernable origins. Very much opposite is the truth. The origin of my art is the culture at large. It is the culture that is the derivation of my art.

I painted and drew as if I were an alien intelligence contemplating my own human species from a distant realm with a bemused objectivity…as though I was encountering them for the first time like David Bowie’s Ziggy. What I saw was a strange land filled with archetypes, caricatures. I saw a vast and vacuous wasteland, populated with grotesque caricatures standing before funhouse mirrors. I am inspired by the memory of hundreds of hours of observing mass media and pop culture, but always with a mixture of awe and contempt. I have painted our culture as monstrous and fascinating, bizarre and theatrical, stirring and ridiculous, brilliant and banal, beautiful and ugly, innovative and slavishly conformist. I could never totally make up my mind in estimating the value of pop culture and the people who create and comprise it. I have always suffered from a terrible ambivalence.

This damn culture! Man, is it ridiculous or brilliant, beautiful or ugly? I now realize that it is all of these things! Kevin, I have always thrived on ambivalence and complexity, and I believe that ambivalence and complexity is reflected in my art. In my art, I am praising popular culture while simultaneously ridiculing it. Is it any wonder that I had to write an article called ‘the dark side of caricature’ and the ‘light side of…’ on top of it? Talk about complex and perhaps contradictory. There are many who sum up my work as being nothing other than ennui, a permanent sneer, a contemptuous dismissal of idealism—but they don’t realize that it is really outraged idealism. This is - at once - dark and light.

Our culture is a vast Cecil B. Demille tableau, a grotesque tragicomedy, as it is a heroic drama. It is brilliant as it is bizarre! The fractions of an inspired and insipid culture are scattered all about like a shattered mirror: some of the fragments reflect a beautiful glitter, but most of it will cut you. It is this mixture that you will see in my paintings and drawings. Like a culture, a personality can be complex and it can even contain contradictory elements, and I do think my art is a reflection of my own contradictory personality.

As there are degrees of visual acuity, so there are degrees of awareness: I have an active mind intent on understanding the world and the people in it. I am prepared to summon every conscious resource that will enable me to grasp the things of my concern. Part of what makes art ‘good’ is the artist’s skill at capturing his worldview and essential concerns in his art. A work of art embodies a viewpoint about human nature and humankind’s place in the world.

There is a 'point of view' in my art. By their very nature, my caricatures cannot come out decorous and beautifully detached; they must be charged with fear, horror, anger, humor, and irreverence. They are also inspired by love, passion and good-natured humor. It is believed that the art of any period is a faithful mirror of that culture’s philosophy. So when you see some of the monstrous and grotesque caricatures I create—the composite picture that emerges is merely a microcosm of our culture. In view of the responses I have received, my effort to achieve a highly stylized representation has succeeded with flying colors.

I am confirmed in my conclusions about popular culture. I find that there are scores of people who agree with my artistic interpretation and who share my sense of humor. They have exercised their own independent judgment and saw the merit of my work. The critics and media commentators, juggling its shrill adjectives like a 42nd street movie marquee---‘daring,’ ‘hilarious,’ ‘brilliant” ‘spectacular’---among other Broadway-like ballyhoo---have done nothing. Their praise means nothing to me whatsoever.

An artist friend of mine once said: “love the artist, for he gives you his soul”. Truer words have never been spoken. Sadly, they were spoken as a bromide to people who did not understand their profundity. Yes, I have given my soul---contradictory as it is. I have satirized this culture and made a mockery of it. I have reflected in caricature what I considered to be frightfully bizarre and inverted. Yes, I have done all of these things, but I have nonetheless paid the culture a homage. Still, I know just how ridiculous and nihilistic this culture can be. I'm torn! I have underestimated the degree of insanity people are capable of. Now I don't. I look at the state of the culture, at the state of modern art, and I feel as if I have landed on a truly bizarre planet.

It is this angst (and my attempt to laugh with a heart of healthy mirth) that will always find itself in everything I do in my art. Preachy and condescending? No, I want to be honest. Could I ever be a monolithic unchanging singular artist? No, never. I don’t want to be. Warts and all, there it is. Is art a spiritual autobiography? Kevin, yes, it is. And I applaud your observation. You are right on the money and it is a very good phrase to employ. And when you wrote "I recognize that I am at times confused, lost, chaotic--that my world and my self can be mysterious to me--and that out of these apparently negative states, artistic riches can be forged" You spoke right to my heart, brother.

-Victor

Edited February 11, 2007 by Victor Pross