Banksy time and again creates tasty and adequate images like that of Leanne the chambermaid, the Bomb Hugger, the Radar Rat or the black girl that overpaints the swastika on the wall that Banksy had painted there before. He is quick and handy to react to stuff like the corona crisis and he wants to show to people in distress that someone is there, someone cares for them, someone wants to bring a little relief to them. Occassionally he creates iconic images like the Balloon Girl. He acts like a very good publicity agency. One of that kind that time and again receives prizes for very good and creative adverstisements and advertisement stunts. What he does is creative, but not abysmally creative. It is a bit superficial, but not very superficial. This is a trap he skillfully avoids. If there are complex global or social issues, Banksy will adress them in a simplistic way. He acts like a world conscience. Like a single individual that cleans the atmosphere. Jeff Koons said that when he had to visit a modern art exhibition at school it had irritated him so much that he felt he never would want to have anything to do with art in his life. Based on that, he later decided to do art that will not unsettle people and will never make them uncomfortable with themselves. Banksy does not seem to be far from that either. As it appears, Banksy, in general, wants to make people feel good and comfortable with themselves. In a way that they do not really need to change or to grow: they are more or less super just the way they are. Including their aptitude to be concerned over global problems, war, racism or inequality. People, in general, are very concerned over global problems, war, racism or inequality. Never underestimate their capacity of people to be concerned over such issues. If this still does not make you feel good and feel very, very comfortable with yourself, then, well, it is quite likely that Banksy will start sucking your dick or give you a foot masssage. He will do everything in his power to make you feel good. Like his graffitis are often showing children, Banksy also does art that is interesting for children, and for the whole family. His Dismaland – A Family Theme Park Unsuitable for Children is particularly enteraining for children. That is no mean achievement, of course. Banksy is also good to the art world. In somehow mysterious and therefore interesting ways that can be talked about (without the need for more sophiticated intellectual analysis nor knowledge) he acts like a sparring partner to the art industry. Today´s art world likes to question, critisise and subvert itself (especially it delights on „institutional critique“) because it is insecure as the true creative potency within art (that is identical to itself and complex enough in order not to permanently need to „critisise“ and „question“ itself) has withered for some unknown reasons. Therefore the art world is in need to do something else. Not least as there is a lot of money involved in it. Banksy´s  stunt to have his own artwork destroyed at a Sotheby´s auction further increased its market value. Not a bad desicion. There´s a film about Banksy called Exit Through the Gift Shop. I haven´t seen it, but I have seen the gift shop at the current Banksy Wanderzirkus exhibition. It´s a huge gift shop, and you can buy even a Banksy lavatory seat there. If you´re an artist and people like your stuff and want to buy it, that´s cool. Turn it into a commodity, no problem. However, and especially if you drive it to such extends, it will interfere a bit with your anti-capitalist aura and contaminate it. If you willfully accumulate riches that way in order to donate it to charity, then it´s, of course, cool again. Banksy is nice to everyone. There is not so much mystery about Banksy actually. It is a well-dosed, meticulously constructed mystery, as it may occasionally appear. The true identity of Banksy is unknown. We will assume that Banksy deeply cares for people and their problems. Of course, he will also need to care for himself. There is nothing wrong with caring for yourself too. The mystery of Banksy however is that it can also be seen – in a non-contradictory way – as a publicity agency and a machinery that is exclusively devoted to increasing its own market value and widen its spheres of circulation. That is probably not what it is. But that is the true mystery that it poses.

Recently I have been to the Moco Museum in Amsterdam. The Moco Museum is devoted to the most contemporary art, notably to that of Banksy, and to present this art to the younger generation. It is full of stupidities, but I have to say that I liked the museum. It was a pleasant experience I still cannot, however, fully decypher. It took me more by surprise than the Rijksmuseum. I cannot finally decypher contemporary art either, but finally I like this age of apparently mindless oddities and idiosyncracies that colonise the museum space and that make today´s art. It is probably better than the age of Abstract Expressionism or Surrealism. Modern art was mysterious, but it was also identical to itself. Today the atmosphere is more fluid and probably also more enigmatic. Maybe art has never been as mysterious as it is today. It is probably that mixture between bluntness and underdeterminedness that makes it cosy and immersive. That it resists to be truly immersive although art usually calls for immersion. Its mysterious superficiality that gives it a light weight. It is an intellectual riddle and it opens the space of imagination, actually wider than ever before. A society that can afford to render its art so ineffective must have reached a very high level of civilisation, sophistication, rationality and complexity. It must be a very interesting and stimulating society. As always, I have failed to thoroughly describe it. Such is the essence of mysteries. Mysteries invite us to an ongoing journey.

I feel there was a time when I experienced loftier minds, relatively unloaded with politics, fashion and chic. They encouraged the endurance of a great tradition and protected important development in the arts. I recall spirited, productive discussions and arguments (…) Raise the level. We need more connoisseurs of culture.

Helen Frankenthaler, 1989

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) was a very good-looking woman. She also was the leading female figure in Abstract Expressionism. Frankenthaler was a pioneer of colorfield painting. In contrast to the strict, formal or energetic painting of fellow Abstract Expressionists her signature style (as the specific innovation she brought into the domain), was light, lyrical and seemingly lacking „finish“. Fellow female artist Elaine de Kooning referred to her specific style actually as „Abstract Impressionism“, and Frankenthaler´s art also bridged Abstract Expressionism with Art Informel. Other Abstract Expressionists – like Joan Mitchell – were more critical and rejected Frankenthaler´s art as unserious and incoherent. Helen Frankenthaler had studied under the auspice of Hans Hoffman and had produced substantial paintings, yet her initial ignition she would receive from the explosive innovations by (the then little known) Jackson Pollock (whom she had met in private). She wanted to do something similar. At the same time, in the early 1950s, she dated Clement Greenberg, the art critic that provided an intellectual framework for the (self-) understanding of Abstract Expressionism. Greenberg, Hofmann, Pollock and many other men (including her father) had been fond of Helen Frankenthaler as an artistic spirit. In 1952 she achieved her own artistic breakthrough with Mountains and Sea. Her specific soak stain technique would then be adapted and further developed specifically by Morris Louis. In contrast to the often complicated and/or short lives and tortured personalities the Abstract Expressionists often had, Helen Frankenthaler´s career spanned decades and seemingly was more in line with the light touch and the lyricism of her paintings.

Abstract Expressionism had been a good and a heroic undertaking. It was deeply introspective and an investigation into the deep structure, the deep possibilities and virtualities of paining, and of art in general. It was meant to produce something significant – and it finally did. There is great room for romanticism in the history of Abstract Expressionism. The artists that would develop Abstract Expressionism gathered in New York in the 1940s and 1950s. They were a small scene, and they formed informal relationships to each other and inspired each other (as at least it would later turn out, they also competed with each other a lot and despised each other a lot). It was a quiet scene, as Lee Krasner noted in retrospect. Many of them came from humble backgrounds or from places completely unappreciative, if not antithetical, to modern art like Wyoming (in the case of Jackson Pollock). Many of them lived and worked in extreme poverty for many years (an exception being Helen Frankenthaler who came from a well-to-do family). Yet the spirit of avant-gardism was in the air and would electrify them. They longed for a breakthrough innovation, which finally came with the drip paintings by Jackson Pollock around 1950. Pollock´s work expressed exuberant, vivid creative energy, a radical and relentless approach and a grand and precise intelligence that provided an intellectual framework for the art. Within that framework the Abstract Expressionists found room to operate and to develop their own specific, and quite diverse, solutions, some of higher significance, some more derivative. The relentless intellectual propaganda efforts by Clement Greenberg had made at least Pollock moderately popular (tough not rich) with time, yet it was the tragic death of Pollock in 1954 that suddenly elevated Abstract Expressionism to mythic proportions and created a sense of the extreme importance and gravity of the movement in a wider audience. With Abstract Expressionism, America seemed to have managed to also become a leader in the arts; the center of the Avant-Garde seemed to have shifted from Europe to America, from Paris to New York. Abstract Expressionism became the next big thing, on a world scale. Yet many of the Abstract Expressionists remained tortured souls. In a way, their radical gesture and quest for the divine, even if it is culturally approved, does not match with society. The Abstract Expressionists had been concerned with the seemingly decreasing room for maneuver to come up with genuine stylistic innovations and to produce something meaningful in modern painting. With Abstract Expressionism, they then thought, they had laid a foundation for genuine ways of painting „for the next thousand years“. They seemed to have been in error. Pop art, that followed after Abstract Expressionism, was the last movement within modern art that was unquestionably significant and intellectually superior. From the 1970s on things have become more blurry.

The most significant figures within Abstract Expressionism were Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell (to whom Helen Frankenthaler was married from 1958 to 1971), Mark Rothko and (as a more shadowy figure) Clyfford Still. Yet there was also a significant number of female Abstract Expressionists, apart from Helen Frankenthaler they were Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan or Hedda Stone. The (male) Abstract Expressionists are said to have cultivated a macho-attitude, including an attitude to look down on women. However, no clear picture emerges concerning a clear racism or sexism within the scene. The (male) Abstract Expressionists longed for a viewpoint of the most elevated order, and so they consciously strived for a „white male“ intellectuality – as the supposedly clearest intellectuality and the least entangeled one in mundanity – and they rejected particularities and the voices from the „others“ (so it has been said about them). That is actually not stupid or evil, especially if you can, after all, keep your shit together nevertheless. At least inside the scene the woman of Abstract Expressionism obviously did not find themselves truly belittled by the male Abstract Expressionists, who often were their husbands or their friends. Some years ago I read a book, Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics, by Ann Eden Gibson (from the 1990s) that tries to shed light on artists of that era excluded or forgotten because of their race, gender or sexuality. It introduced me to an actually practically forgotten artist who made some astonishing work (and achieved success at her time with it), the afroamerican Rose Piper (aunt of the more prominent performace artist Adrian Piper). At the recent exhibitions on Helen Frankenthaler (Kunsthalle Krems) and Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel (Albertina Modern) I got me biographies about Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler. Especially delighted I am about a 700 page biography about the Ninth Street Women, the leading women of Abstract Expressionism (written by Mary Gabriel). I am very interested in that exciting, artistically relevant period and how especially women thrived in it. I also need to study the modern jazz scene that thrived in New York as well, more or less at the same time.

*

Women in the arts. In 1971 the ARTnews magazine came to publish a special edition on women artists. It also contained an essay written by art historian Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, that tries to explore the reasons for the absence of women in the canons of great art. It is said to have had a great impact on feminist art criticism, and it has been republished, as a 50th anniversary edition, by Thames & Hudson last year. The question about the (relative, actually absolute) absence of women in the canons of (great) art is indeed a striking one. Have there been fewer female artists than male ones throughout history (i.e. a smaller pool of female artists of whom only a tiny fraction would rise to greatness at any rate in relation to male ones)? Apparently yes. But how much does it matter? Have women artists been neglected and underappreciated within („male dominated“) art history? Likely yes; yet also likely not in a way that art history would need to revolutionised and profoundly reconsidered if women artists finally got their fair share when significance is attributed. Is it „the institution“ or „gender stereotypes“ that pose insurmountable obstacles to women if they want to become (great) artists? Likely yes, yet likely they are not insurmountable. Or have there been great women artists that have remained completely unknown? If there had been more than just some very isolated few, then likely not. At the end of the day, it seems, there have been no great women artists in art history because there have been no great women artists.  As Linda Nochlin admits: The fact, dear sisters, is that there are no women equivalents to Michelangelo or Rembrandt, Delacroix or Cézanne, Picasso or Matisse, or even, in very recent times, for de Kooning or Warhol, any more than there are Black American equivalents for the same.

If there actually were large numbers of „hidden“ great women artists, or if there really should be different standards for women´s art as opposed to men´s – and one can´t have it both ways – then what are the feminists fighting for?, she then asks.Well, feminists fight for the empowerment of women; plain and simple. They fight for balance between the sexes. The first line of Linda Nochlin´s argumentation about why have there been no great women artists is that is has been made institutionally impossible for women to achieve artistic excellence. For instance, nude models were unavailable to women artists. Yet much more examples – or any examples – for why it should have been institutionally impossible for women to achieve artistic excellence she does not offer. While institutions may discriminate against people they do not make an individual success impossible (notably greatness and genius are not institutionally tought and they are, intrinsically, anti-institutional and iconoclastic and develop, for the greatest part, autodidactically). She rather goes on in suggesting that women are generally oppressed by patriarchy and therefore hindered to achieve equal successes like men. Yet how generally oppressed women are in patriarchy seems not that clear either. Patriarchy needs not be that oppressive, monolithic, determined, malicious and identical to itself that it flat out denies women the possibility to engage as artists (or in other domains). Feminism though, or at least feminists, tend to see patriarchy in that fashion more often than not. In a way, they tend to accumulate assets of oppressedness on women´s behalf, if they don´t try to monopolise the privilege of being oppressed quite exclusively for women. Also Linda Nochlin identifies the „victim“ as patriarchy´s favorite position for women. Although, after you have observed it for a while, it rather appears as the favorite position for women in the feminist discourse. But if the artist in question happens to be a woman, 1,000 years of guilt, self-doubt and objecthood have been added to the undeniable difficulties to being an artist in the modern world. I understand what she wants to say. But first and foremost I would like to see a thousand year old woman artist that has never experienced anything else but guilt, self-doubt and objecthood. (Repeatedly Linda Nochlin talks about women being plagued specifically with guilt. Why?)

There is also a second line of argumentation in the essay: „deconstructing“ greatness. As Linda Nochlin cannot find „hidden champions“ of great art who are women she can uplift, she decides for another strategy to balance the sexes: to subvert and downplay, if not to demolish what is behind that disturbing „Greatness“. For instance, she considers „genius“ and „greatness“ as fuzzy categories. While „great“ may be a shorthand way of talking about high importance in art, it seems to me always to run the risk of obscurantism and mystification. How does the same term „great“  – or „genius“, for that matter – account for the particular qualities or virtues of an artist like Michelangelo and one like Duchamp, or, for that matter, within a narrower perimeter, Manet and Cézanne? (she writes in the 2006 reappraisal to her initial essay). To be honest, the shorthandedness and the intention to obscure and mystify „greatness“ rather lies in her own (weak, pathetic) argument. It is your task to sort that „mystery“ out. Genius and greatness she considers overly as qualities attributed by others, by the outside world (for instance the man´s world attributing genius and greatness mostly to other men), and that one is mostly able to develop in oneself due to privileges (for instance being born into an artist family, a rich family, or being born a boy, not a girl). Stories about the prodigousness of great artists at an early age (or thereafter) she suggests as being fairy tales of the Boy Wonder or as such stories, which probably have some truth in them. She derides „common“ notions of genius that consider it as something „innate“ or a „golden nugget“ inside someone, that is immutable and impossible to supress (i.e., in the case of women, also not by „patriarchy“). Instead, she insists, genius and achievement are much rather dynamic activities, something that needs to be developed – and some environments are more supportive and provide more development opportunities than others.

Yet that genius still needs to be developed is something no serious voice would truly deny (and actually genius and greatness are not something that is shorthandedly conceived and obfuscated as something „divine“ and little else; they are subjects that have been extensively studied and written about. And as a professor for art history at Yale, Linda Nochlin should actually know about that.) And granted: there is a role of the environment – but it is still the individual that develops to higher or lower levels. If greatness or genius is something that, primarily, has to be developed (as opposed to being a static essence or „gold nugget“) why did not more painters reach the height of Picasso or Caravaggio (since this is what they usually strive for (at least in former times))? Why did not other artists – of any sex – who were not that super good at painting come up with other strategies to make profound artistic statements, as did Marcel Duchamp? (S)cholars will have to abandon the notion, consciously articulated or not, of individual genius as innate, and as primary to the creation of art, hopes Linda Nochlin. Yet, for that matter, genius is, primarily, eventually, innate, a static essence, and (for that matter) a „golden nugget“. In order to be developed, or for the development process to reach it, it needs to be there in the first place. Maybe, after all, genius is a quality that appears more often in men than in women. (In the enlightened discourse it is easily considered antediluvian to attribute actual differences between the sexes to anything else than to („socially constructed“) „gender roles“ and „stereotypes“ (that need to be, or can be, overcome). But there is no reason to rule out the possibility that differences between the sexes are not innate, eventually invariant and firmly rooted (in „biology“)). Creative individuals, though, as they say, are „genderfluid“, and usually radiate both masculine and feminine qualities: Creative women are more assertive, rational and determined than average women; creative males are more intuitive, gentle and empathetic than their male peers. I actually don´t know how much patriarchy can „fuck“ with a truly creative woman – and how much the rest of society actually wants to have her subjugated; and not, much rather, elevated.

It is irritating how much (a certain branch of) feminists likes to see little else in genius and greatness than arrogant masculinity. Maybe to attribute (neutral) qualities like greatness and genius to the „phallic“ and to the masculine is less a problem within the „official“ („male-dominated/centered“) discourse, but rather a problem within the feminist discourse. A genius and a great person is also not someone concerned with masculine erectness or with being a powerful, godlike creator that creates ex nihilo. A genius usually is someone who – highly independently from what´s going on or is indicated around him – gets immersed into something, develops a need to explore that domain and to know everything about it, who will identify deep problems within the domain that sHe wants to adress and to solve. This sHe will also see as a moral duty. With the extremely playful intellect of the genius, sHe will maybe rather try to arrange and rearrange things within the domain (rather than to „create“ – and what is „creation“ anyway?). From this comes the selflessness, the extreme independence and the determinedness of the genius (as a genius: as a person sHe might be driven by more mundane motives like money, fame or ego-gratification all the same). I happen to like these qualities, since they simply are greater than the indifference, the opportunism, careerism and the neglect that prevails in the human realm. In some others, these qualities might cause jealousy and disdain, and they might even like the genius (and its beneficial nature) not to unfold. They might mask it under the guise of feminism, for example.

*

Life is a mystery. Genius, as they say, too. Why there have been no great woman artists seems a mystery as well. Light may be casted on this mystery though if we think of the male:female ratio in the audiences of extreme metal, noise, or free jazz concerts. Extreme metal, noise or free jazz concerts usually enjoy an audience with a male:female ratio of 13:1 (and concerning the artists who play such types of music the imbalance is distinctly more pronounced). That may seem insignificant, but maybe is not. Stuff that truly happens outside society, attracts outcasts and introverts, is highly experimental and performs beauty in (an abrasive) disguise – i.e. true, complex beauty – marks territory that, for some reasons, is not a sucker for females. The abyss of very abrasive, non-conformist creativity is a place where few females dwell. Why is this so (and still remains so)?

We may consider: extreme metal is fearsome. And women are frightened and intimitated. Women like to be frightened and intimitated all day long. They make a cult out of it (a twisted branch of that is feminism). Heavy metal, noise, free jazz are abrasive, and women loathe the abrasive. This may be because women likely score particularly higher (or are more pronounced) than men on the (Big Five) personality trait of agreeableness. Women are more dedicated to fit into a society, respectively to create environments that are friendly, non-confrontational and non-violent. There is perfect reason to that because if archaic violence breaks out women are more likely to become overpowered by it than men. Women are more „sociable“ because they more strongly rely on others (males and females) for their self defense, and more „empathetic“ since they want to reduce the potential for aggression and violence that could turn against them. Most importantly, they are more sociable and empathetic because they need to raise (and protect) children and establish stronger bonds to them. Women are also mothers, whereas fathers are („technically“) more distant figures in the reproduction process. Women are actually a dualistic, a dyadic sex, they psychologically and mentally live in a duality, in a dyade with their (prospective) children. An artist, Georg Baselitz, once suggested that women actually may not be that interested in men. They are interested in their (prospective) children.

In their dedication to create non-violent environments women develop and incorporate their well-known gimmicks like hugging, kissing and complimenting everyone, chit-chating about trivial, inoffensive (above all: interpersonal) subjects, giggling and laughing and seductively touching others (notably males). It is true that the empathy of women is empowering, but first and foremost, in their survial instinct, they try to weaken everyone. In trying to signal they are deserving of protection they weaken themselves and make themselves smaller than they are: in order to vice versa weaken others (men and women) and to weaken the entire collective. Especially loving and sympathetic they are when a fellow woman has qualities to receive (a status enhancing) protection by the collective (e.g. women being much more obsessed and willing to kiss ass of a distinctly beautiful and shiny girl than actually may be men); especially fiece (and, often, fiercer than men) they become when a fellow woman tries to break out of the collective or challenge its (hallucinated) integrity. They are so obsessed with the upkeep and maintainance of „patriarchy“ that, upon reflection, one does not know whether they are only the accomplices of patriarchy, or its true creators.

Whereas men´s methods and weapons of self defense lie in tool-making and strategy, women´s methods and weapons of self defense lie in psychological manipulation. Tool-making and strategic thinking require a sense for abstraction and a dedication to (inanimate) stuff that truly is different from oneself (therein, it requires intellectual transcendence). Psychological manipulation lies in the manipulator trying to convince a fellow human being that they are (in an intimate way) „the same“. And it practically needs to stay away from intellectualism and abstraction, since introducing intellectualism and abstraction basically ruins psychological manipulation (psychological manipulation needs to appear/be distinctly identical to itself; intellectuality/rationality introduce additional layers within a process that confuse, reveal, or cast doubt). Psychological manipulation requires that those intented to fall prey to it remain unreflected and abstain from rationally analysing what is inflicted upon them. Therefore, women abhorr abstract and analytical thinking, intellectual reflection and trying to establish a meta perspective on something. When they encounter such qualities, they feel pulverised and they´ve got to get away from the situation. Yet all these qualities are necessary if you want to do great art.

Among heavy metal fans, there are females too. It is just that the more extreme or the more progressive or experimental a metal act gets, the less it usually attracts (also male, yet in relation to them) female metal fans. Whereas differences in approach seem to reveal themselves already on the general level. Metal is a music to get immersed into and to become very dedicated to. I remember how we, the metal dudes, were analysing with great passion certain guitar soli, song structures or the specific innovations in style drummers like Dave Lombardo or Vinnie Paul brought into Thrash Metal. We learned the lyrics by heart (and many of them I still know, although I may not have heard the specific record for over 20 years). We wanted to know everything about our favorite bands (just like, granted, girls want to know everything about Nick Cave or Adam Lambert et al.). Yet the metal girls, in general, used to remain (what would appear as:) more superficial. They did not dive that deep into the matter, and they did not form bonds to it by graving for a more abstract as well as a more concrete, a theoretical as well as a practical understanding of it. So, it is not surprising that they hardly became musicians (artists!) themselves.

(Also, women do not form bands. Because women do not form groups. Although they seemingly have less osmotic personalities, men are more casual at becoming buddies and at collaborating in a friendly, casual way. They have a greater group instinct. Women have (girl)friends or they may form cliques. But they do not, exactly, form groups. This is maybe so because women are a dualistic/dyadic sex, and so they form dualistic/dyadic bonds (i.e. projecting themselves and their (prospective) children in others). They have less tolerance, or appreciation, less instinct for (unity in) diversity, e pluribus unum: and that is the essence of groups. They have a greater (egocentric) power instinct and they can become frighteningly more competetive against each other than men. (Likely since they are less inclined to see stuff at a more abstract level) they take everything more personal and therefore are more easy to fall out, in intransigence. It has been said (not least in Linda Nochlin´s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?) that women are hindered in their careers because they confront powerful networks of men. But women do not form networks.)

Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? has inspired publications on the absence of women in diverse professional areas. There is also a publication about Why Have There Been No Great Women Chefs? I could not read it, but it has also always bewildered me, why – although traditional patriarchy identifies a woman´s status as being a mother whose place is the domestic kitchen at least – the great chefs, as well as the intellectuals on pedagogy, overly are still males. I recall, in my childhood, in the 1980s, the great chef had been Paul Bocuse. Today it seems to be a guy named Jamie Olivier. Although women cook „with love“, they still do not seem to cook „with profession“. They may cook with the heart, but still not with the intellect (and therefore only with a semi-passion that does not open new perspectives on the subject in question). (Paul Bocuse I remember because it was my dad who regularly liked to watch Bocuse à la carte on TV, not my ma.)

In their dedication to tool-making and developing strategy, men need to think in abstract terms. In abstraction (and in tool-making and strategy) there is proximity to the inanimate. Therefore one might be inclined to think that males are necrophiliacs who love the dead. Whereas females are biophiliacs who are drawn to humans, animals, nature, harmony, the divine, genesis and birth. According to Helen Frankenthaler, the greatest thing art can do is to convey a sense for being alive at a certain time. Yet if there is no sense for abstraction and a need to theorise on something and to view things from a meta perspective, it is doubtful how robust and reliable, how comprehensive your interest and your attractedness to something actually can be. In order to establish „object stability“ I guess it is required that there is not only an emotional bond to it but also an intellectual bond, that you develop a mental representation of something – that actually confirms the others´ proximity to oneself, but also its seperateness and containedness in itself. Such mental representations are necessary for intellectual pursuit and for the creation of (true) art (in fact, (great) art is about delivering mental representations about stuff). If you do not experience the world on such a level, (great) art, and, more profoundly, interpersonal/object stability becomes a more difficult exercise. On that account, women actually may not be truly drawn to other humans, animals, or nature. They only experience it as an extension of themselves. Women are not interested in art; or anything. Women are, through their empathetic and sociable disguise, only interested in themselves (and their (prospective) children).

Because women are only interested in themselves (and their (prospective) children), they are not truly rescued in the object world; and neither in themselves. That women live in a state of fear due to the violence of men is only part of the issue. Since they are deceptive and manipulative in nature, women do not even trust themselves. They are frickle and the reason for what, on the outside, frequently appears as a pure random walk through life they call and mystify as „female intuition“. The „now you see me, now you don´t“ behaviour of women is part of their manipulation toolbox, creating a backlash against themselves, imprisoning them in a permanent state of emotional confusion and an insecurity of their inner selves. As an apparent consequence, … the voice of the feminine mystique with its potpurri of ambivalent narcissism and guilt, internalized, subtly dilutes and subverts that total inner confidence, that absolute certitude and self-determination, moral and esthetic, demanded by the highest and most innovative work in art. Such is the deep answer Linda Nochlin eventually provides on the question for Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?

(It is, by the way, striking how (certain) feminists are drawn, if not addicted, to the notion of masculinity as something frighteningly monolithic, shielded by total inner confidence, absolute certitude and the like (although total inner confidence, absolute certitude and self-determination probably has never existed in any person, man or woman, alive or dead). They are fond of this, and they are intimitated, feel crushed by this. The next moment, they feel compelled to ridicule and undermine, if not destroy that idea, envisioning the male sex as colossaly frail, and men´s total inner confidence as a fake identity, an actual blunt arrogance that just masks a deep inner insecurity. Their views on their own sex are, then, a mirror image to that; envisioning women as strong, powerful, intimitating etc. on the one hand, and weak(ened), intimitated and dependent on the other. An in-between, balance, there is none. There just is this oscillation between ambivalent narcissism and guilt. Yet between such extremes, in balance, this is where life actually dwells, and where there is normality. (Granted, true balance is an abnormality again. Normality is actually: „so, so“. Yet life in itself means and brings about: „win some, lose some“. The more balanced („wise“) an individual is, the more sHe will adapt to that.) (A certain branch of) feminists, by contrast, seems very much in love with the idea and the emotions of total inner confidence, absolute certitude and self-determination that they want to establish/maintain in themselves; notably by weakening the total inner confidence, absolute certitude and self-determination in others (notably in their „adversaries“: males). It is yet the archaic female strategy to „establish balance“ by weakening everyone, and so – and although they strive for masculinity (or at least for the „privileges“ that masculinity brings) – feminists appear, in a way, as the most effeminate women of all.)

The point she is obviously missing is that genius – or any accomplishment – is not a matter „inner confidence“. As an illustrative example, the greatest writer of the 20th century, Kafka, had pathologically low self confidence (he obviously suffered from an avoidant personality disorder). Which is why he wanted to have his ouvre destroyed before his death. Yet he had created it in the first place; like Emily Dickinson or Emily Bronte had. He had been aware of, and haunted/plagued by the enormous significance of his thoughts and visions even before he had written his major works, which he then created in a considerably hostile or neglectful environment. Yet he also had friends like Max Brod, and in a circle of established writers and cultural figures he was, despite having published little and being practically unknown, treated like some kind of god.  Most, practically all, people have other people who are (highly) supportive. At least in private environments (in which we end up living all the same) individuals, and also „lonely“ geniuses, usually find protection; fuck the world. The loneliness of geniuses and Great individuals yet is something inherent to them. Great artists, so it says, radiate an aura of profound solitude.

(Total) inner confidence or (absolute) certitude are not required to do something great or genius (maybe they are rather a hindrance to it). Confidence is matter of the personality. Genius is a matter of the mind. The genius mind is a very good mind, and so geniuses do have very good personalities. Yet, empirically, only partially. Apart from their incandescence, they may be as neurotic, frail, unloving, competetive, disordered or even psychopathic as anyone else may be. Developing genius and greatness in oneself, developing (new ways in doing) great art, is painful, is born with pain, for anyone. The path of the loner is full of horrors, Agnes Martin, a fellow female poineer of Abstract Expressionism and Minimal Art and a contemporary to Helen Frankenthaler, noted. It is, likely, not so much a matter of how „confident“ and „determined“ you are while you are walking this path, but whether how much it is your path that you walk, driven by a consequence that lies inside you (and that may haunt you). (Total) inner confidence or (absolute) certitude is something that you obtain with time – when you have created something great, genius, or of substance. Then you live in the realm of ideals – respectively your mind does. The world does not look the same anymore, and the struggles in this world become more distant to you. The realm of ideals is pacified and timeless. Yet, living and succeding in the material world may just become more alienating and a greater struggle. 

Geniuses and artistic souls are isolated and alienated from their environments, yet they are also distinctly more connected to it and sympathetic to it (i.e. there are factors of great instability in their lives, but also of great stability). The characteristic of genius is probably not extreme creativity, but that it is an extremely penetrating mind, being able to come to unique insights, or establish unique connections (and their confidence, certitude and self-determination actually is their stubbornly penetrating, restless mind). The genius and the artistic soul lives in a distinctly more connected, more meaningful world, that sHe tries to translate to his fellow humans. From this comes the usual sweetness, tenderness and friendliness, the tolerance and the mellowness of the genius (as a genius: as a person sHe may be quite different). Since they are so much more receptive to (inner and outer) stimuli, and a need to create, geniuses are restless and they live, if we may say so, under permanent stress. They often are „tortured“ and have complicated, uncomfortable lives. People suffer. Yet „genius suffers the most“ (says Schopenhauer). Often, it is other people that make them suffer („hell is other people“ one of them once said lol).

Geniuses may encounter praise and approval in their lives and times, yet they may also, and easily, encounter an enormous amount of ignorance and neglect. Just like women! True artistic creation of any kind is a very lonely process, a totally selfish act, Helen Frankenthaler put it, yet that is also a totally necessary one that can become a gift to others. The true artistic genius, first and foremost, (and therein probably not wanting to make a top-down „gift“ to others, or seeing her work and motivation as „selfish“ but rather as selfless), wants to bring joy and enlightenment to others and wants others to participate in his richer and more meaningful world. Often, this gift is not wanted. In the contemporary era, an annoying disrespect and disapproval for genius comes from the feminist rhetoric, that does not see the sweetness, the importance and the enrichment of the world due to the gifts of the genius and the great artist, but that primarily (if not singularly) views the „white male genius“ as a principle for the erection and maintainance of an ideal of a loveless, self-congratulatory masculinity, which it therefore wants to overthrow (to erect an ideal of their own loveless, self-congratulatory feminity, as it occasionally seems). Because of their uncanny, mixed-at-best experiences through history, I think geniuses should start a #MeToo movement too. Unfortunately, they are too isolated and dispersed over space and time. They cannot even truly found a collective. 

The feminist notion of the greatness of women being squandered or made more difficult to achieve for them due to patriarchy at least does not completely take into account that great people/women are distinctly more competent than society. Why should a great woman succumb to a weak shit like patriarchy, or a completely weak shit like „sexist“ jokes or mansplaining? Greatness, more or less by definition, means that one is bigger than the environment. Geniuses, like psychopaths, are not even actually humans. Like psychopaths, geniuses cannot effectively be intimitated nor controlled by anyone, for their inner lives and motivations are distinctly different from those of ordinary people. Whereas the psychopath follows the drive that comes from his abnormal ego, the genius follows the drive that comes from her abnormal mind; therein, both cannot even effectively control themselves or adapt themselves to social norms and expectations (hence the occasional „tragedy“ of such people). The (occasional) feminist notion on genius also partially fails to take into account that geniuses and Great people, inherently, are addicted to difficulties. And the greater the difficulties they encounter get and the more they get driven into themselves, the more powerful and productive geniuses usually become. (Great) Genius, also more or less by definition, is a mind that wrestles with difficulties no one has been able to overcome so far. Geniuses see a problem, or witness an uncanny atmosphere – others usually also do: but they become immersed in finding a solution to the problem, or coming up with solid stuff that creates other atmospheres. They want to clean and rejuvenate the atmosphere. Geniuses and Great individuals thrive on difficulties.

(Granted, it seems situational whether or how much genius or Greatness may unfold. For instance, a high proportion of geniuses has been Jewish – at least since the 19th century: when Jews did become „liberated“. Yet if I try to figure out Jewish geniuses before that time solely Spinoza would spring to my (partially educated) mind. Geniuses and Greatness seem to appear clustered in space and time, in tandem with unusual historical eras. You may think of ancient Athens around the time of Periclean democracy, the Renaissance, the Age of German Idealism/the Goethezeit, the Golden Age of Islam a thousand years ago or Vienna a century ago; the golden period of Spanish painting or of the Dutch masters (when Spain or Holland had been on the height of their power). Great art and innovation in general is something that does not happen. Art in Latin America/Argentina, for instance, has steadily produced stunning and worthwhile things; yet stubbornly it so far has never managed to transgress the threshold to true innovativeness and high intellectual significance: it has remained epigonic. Not least in our time, and obviously on a worldwide scale, great art there isn´t either. Maybe the postmodern subjectivity actually (on a deep level) isn´t ingenious, or is lost and confused by its own complexities and patchwork character.)

Is genius a quality that is rarer among women than among men? According to research a minimum IQ of 125 is needed in order to exhibit genius. And maybe the threshold is even lower, or does not exist at all. With a more moderate IQ you can be a genius as a comedian, an actor, a pop musician, a sportsperson, a politician, a criminal – or a scientist, artist, philosopher all the like. There are, in absolute numbers, plenty of geniuses around – with plenty of them being female. Maybe one person out of ten thousand truly is a genius (which makes a lot of geniuses in this world). Greatness at intellectual pursuit, i.e. to create something of high intellecual significance, yet requires great intelligence, being very erudite, being able to keep a lot of things together and put them in a perspective, operating at a high level of abstraction and differentiatedness, and genuinely thinking at the level of theorising. Greatness necessitates an intellect that relates to an IQ of, say, 160 or higher (your score at IQ tests may however vastly be different, especially if you are an artist). Greatness can also happen without genius; without genius greatness may then be „eminence“. Greatness, in general, is more associated with a distinct breakthrough and establishing a new level of human understanding (geniuses just may – primarily – remain singularly creative and distinctive). Yet the higher the IQ gets, the smaller is the percentage of females in the respective cohort. Very high IQ societies like Prometheus (IQ 160+) or Mega Society (IQ 175+) have few (if any) female members. In a way, like the historical canons of Greatness. (A common experience among people of this intelligence is, by the way, that they frequently are „not wanted“ and rejected by society. Society is as racist and sexist against them as can be; and in relation to them, society´s oppressive force is not patriarchy or capitalism, but its mob rule.)

Today, many established artists are female. And as far as I can see their outputs are on par with those of male artists. Women thrive in the art world of today. Ok, great. The downside, however, is just that art and the art world today is not Great anymore. There isn´t a IQ 160 level of Greatness that is dominant anymore, but an IQ 140 level of Smartness. Great minds are, for mysterious reasons, absent from today´s art word; it´s „smart“, intelligently adaptive people who run the place. Hence, it is also more easy for women to thrive in the domain. Art is not Great anymore. The disturbing „Greatness“ has been demolished and dethroned. Greatness is a dethroned emperor. And, inside the wire, they even seem to delight on that! Today I believe that it is safe to say that most members of the art world are far less ready to worry about what is great and what is not, nor do they assert as often the necessary connection of important art with virility of the phallus … There has been a change in what counts – from phallic „greatness“ to being innovative, making interesting, provocative work, making an impact, and making one´s voice heard. There is less and less emphasis on the masterpiece, more on the piece, Linda Nochlin writes in her postsrcipt and reappraisal to her essay 30 Years After, in 2006. Greatness has been effectively subverted by the feminists, and the lobbyists of diversity; and with her essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Sister Linda has laid a foundation for that. That´s where we stand today. We´re liberated. We don´t have to be Great anymore.

Upon reflection, I actually have to admit: Women, you are cool. Nice, how you played that lol. And actually, you did the greatest job of all. By weakening everything and everyone you, once again, elevated us to a higher level of societal progress. Qualities like beauty, harmony, intellect, stimulation etc. are good when they appear in art. Yet is even better when they appear as characteristics of society! Today we may not live in a peak period of art, but we live in a peak period of society (notably as concerns the position of women and children, non-western cultures, and minorities). The Renaissance produced better art than is produced today. Yet society today is better than in the Renaissance era. Heck, by weakening everything and everyone women, once again, elevated us to a higher level of societal progress! In the labor division between the sexes women´s call may be not to create culture. Women´s call may even be the more noble, the more sublime one: it is women who build civilisation.

*

There has been a solo exhibition on Helen Frankenthaler at the Kunsthalle Krems recently which presented artworks from all periods of her career in a chronological order. I have been especially delighted yet by her ultimate works from the 2000s. Now there is another exhibition on Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel at the Alberina Modern which also more extensively presents art by Helen Frankenthaler (and Joan Mitchell and, notably, Lee Krasner). I have to say that I like Helen´s reduced, pacified large canvas color field paintings from the 1960s and 1970s presented in the Albertina better that most of her (signature) paintings (from the 1950s) presented in her solo exhibition. Her latest works from the 2000s still strike me most. They are very reduced, almost monochromous. An art that you may find stupid, but these works display great taste and an exactitude that you feel that it cannot be transgressed. She has reached the gound and became identical with the mysterious abyss of imagination, it appears. There seems nothing „behind“ it anymore. It is like the colour field finally coming to itself. With Rothko, as it has been indicated and as would spring to mind, this has nothing, or only little, to do. It does not have the mannerism and not the intellectual framework (therein the high intellectual significance) of Rothko´s paintings. Yet while it does not have the intellectual gravity and cultural significance, the icon character and the symbolic character, the objective weight and the highly distinctive signature style of Rothko´s art, it does also not have its repetetive mannerism. It shines as subjective and private. Yet it is subjectivity and privateness of the highest order and of the highest (true) self-containedness. It has reached the ground of imagnation and mastery the artistic process is aimed at gaining access to; it has amalgamated with the ground, as it throws up simple, pacified and contained images and visions, aesthetic clarifications of the (frameless) ground; in privacy, in silence, in self-containedness (via having reached the ultimate objectivity), in solitude. It cannot be disturbed by anyone or anything from the outside anymore. Maybe it is beyond the good heroic quest for the absolute that characterised Abstract Expressionism. Maybe it is a more „feminine“ amalgamation with the ultimate principles. Maybe a trajectory leading to such a final result has lied within the calmer, more unagitated style of that artist all along. Eventually, Helen Frankenthaler seemed to have reached the Nirvana. Virgo Heroica Sublima.

Today I believe that it is safe to say that most members of the art world are far less ready to worry about what is great and what is not, nor do they assert as often the necessary connection of important art with virility of the phallus – haha, fuck you. Get a life, (wo)man. Actually Helen Frankenthaler worried about what is great and what is not a lot during her artistic career. She was melancholic (and underwent, like many creative people (and notably the Abstract Expressionists), frequent bouts of depression) as she felt that hers was not a time where art was great, or can be great. The greatness of the Old Masters seemed out of reach, intangible. Rubens was her favorite painter. To her, Rubens was the principal painter of vitality and of the flesh, exuberant, positively and in the most cultivated way indecent and obscene. Helen Frankenthaler´s notion of greatness in art was that great art delivers a charge that strikes the viewer. And, to her, Rubens was supercharged: the greatest painter, and the wettest painter, who had ever lived. Helen Frankenthaler came to the conclusion that art´s greatest purpose is to convey the sense of being alive at a certain time. Yet times are a-changing. While great artists like Rubens or Shakespeare had managed to convey that sense of being alive in their time, the 1950s in New York were a different time, that required the artist to come up with different solutions. Shakespeare and Rubens were probably greater than any other artists, but the 1950s were not their time, in which their specific art could be convincing. Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky, in their combination of exuberant creativity and creative virility and a sharp, precise intellect, she though considered great masters of her time – though maybe not as great as the masters of the older times. Alas, men again.

Raise the level. We need more connoisseurs of culture, at any rate. And get a life, (wo)man.

Disclaimer: There is some irony, some bluntness, some exaggerations in this text. They should primarily be understood as reactions to the questions that the essay by Linda Nochlin (unintentionally) leaves open or provokes. I am usually sympathetic with the underdog, but the then-underdog attitude and heuristic expressed in the 1971 article has become quite more powerful today, and the powerful need to be questioned. Also, feminists usually like to „challenge“ patriarchy and the status of men and to become „uncomfortable“ to them. Well, challenge accepted. It´s a heyoka empathy thing.

Disclaimer on disclaimer: The deep irony of the piece however is that the provided explanations for gender differences actually seem quite plausible. Not that I actually want it to be this way. I am rather indifferent on whether one sex is superior, inferior or equal to another. Concerning this human realm, I am mostly a neutral observer.

November 2022

Right now, there is an exhibition on David Hockney in Vienna. I only had a vague knowledge about David Hockney before (now it is somehow less vague), yet on the spot I alluded Hockney´s paintings to those of Alex Katz. That is what, vaguely, came to my mind before joining the exhibition. What also came to my mind is that Alex Katz must be somehow more profound than David Hockney. Yet why would Alex Katz be more profound than David Hockney? That is not a mean question. And therefore this reflection should be about rolling out, collecting ideas, why someone like Alex Katz would be more profound than someone than David Hockney.

Both Alex Katz and David Hockney stem out, or had a distinct encounter with poop art. The style of painting and the use of colour is bold and simple. Katz` portrayal of humans is close-up and distinctly flat, almost two-dimensional; Hockney portrays people in a reduced but less idiosyncratic and recurrent fashion … Why would Alex Katz be more profound and make more sense than David Hockney?

(Right now I realise that I just mistyped pop art as „poop art“! Lolroflmao! I am not negative about pop art; on the contrary, I consider it the last movement in modern art that actually had a brain – yet for comedic reasons I do not want to correct it but leave it as it is, there above.)

A possibility may lie in Clement Greenberg stating that the original problem of painting is how to depict a three-dimensional, spatial world (or, as we might add, a four-dimensional spacetime) on a two-dimensional canvas. We might add that artistic genius somehow seems to gaze into additional dimensions. These additional dimensions cannot, by human measure, exactly be quantified and located, unlike our three-dimensional space/four-dimensional spacetime. Distinguished works of art seem to offer glimpses into these higher dimensions, present an imprint of how higher-dimensional objects would reveal themselves in three-dimensional space/four-dimensional spacetime. They are mysterious imprints, related to the capabilities of genius and genius insight being usually referred to as „mysterious“. Due to this mysterious, dimensional insight it is possible to reveal – or offer a glimpse – at an inner, actual „essence“ of that which is portrayed. That is, then, a „metaphysical“ insight, and the highest point of art – to be the „actual metaphysical activity“ (as says Nietzsche, with reference to Schopenhauer).

We also might think of the blank canvas confronting us with the „deep structure“ of painting/art. The „deep structure“ of art is the Experimentierfeld ihrer Möglichkeiten, the field of experimentation in order to bring out new possibilities of expression that make sense in the universe. This field of experimentation, this deep structure, is necessarily additionally-dimensioned. It is a space of apprehension and intuition of additional dimensions and of both lucid and enigmatic signals that stem out from those dimensions. To bring out this lucid and enigmatic signals of additional dimensions is the noblest goal of art. (We may also say that this deep structure and field of experimentation is the space of imagination itself. Yet products of imagination do not necessarily make sense in the universe; they can be stupid, or bad art, all alike. The deep structure and field of experimentation is, in a way, a space of transcendence, yet referring to the finally and ultimately meanigful, the transcendental. It is a framed space.)

Alex Katz, nevertheless, reduces three-dimensional humans to two-dimensional ones. That´s the gag. And he does so in a highly distinctive and expressive manner. Probably this came as a reflection on the Greenberg dictum, probably not. Yet you sense that he had experienced the dimensionality of the deep structure, the field of experimentation, and managed to come up with a solution that tames the deep structure´s abysmal dimensionality, that he had managed to come up with a new signifier – for a signified that, necessarily, remains obscure (that concerns both for the signified of the imaginative space of painting or the Greenberg dictum as well as of the humans portrayed – in their enigmatic, both deep and flat, hidden and revealed etc. presence and essence). You sense that Katz had gone through and seen through something. He has come up with something, with an erect signifier, that makes sense in the universe.

Reduction is, of course, nothing new to painting and art. Reduction and reducedness are parts of existence and, when entertained properly, have their own specific charisma in art. Think of Minimal Art! Objects/sculptures of Minimal Art usually have an enigmatic, allusive, evocative presence. Although they, first and foremost, usually are nothing but – present. They are silent, artificial, uncommon yet all-too-common, elaborated as well as primordial. They are unterdetermined. They are, sheerly, present, and signify presece. And therefore they adress man´s/woman´s/diverse´s faculty to derive meaning and arrangement from that sheer presence. Are we, or do we prefer, to live seperated and unterinterested, maybe hostile to that which is present around us, or do we try to establish communion, etc.? In their unterdeterminedness and silence, these objects are usually mildly uncanny. Alex Katz` flat, unterdetermined figures are mildly uncanny too. This unterdeterminedness is a condition within existence. We, for the most part, live in a world that is unterdetermined and silent, full of opaque and intransparent people and objects. When investigating them, or when trying to establish communion, they may provide insufficient response, getting us nowhere, because they are opaque and intransparent to themselves too. And then again, it may be otherwise again. Alex Katz´ paintings are profound because they confront us with that with that character of the world, and of humans, oscillating between flatness and depth, lack of imagination and provoking imagination in the eye of the beholder. Therefore they have metaphysical quality.

Hockney seems not that profound. His style is not a stylistic innovation, his style is more a personal style/Personalstil. An artistic style of high order is a theoretical achievement trying to be a foundation of how artistic expression can (ultimately) be meaningful and definitive (like science). Therefore stylistic innovations of high order, like Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, etc. usually come in with theoretical manifestos. (It is pleasant that the exclusiveness with which masters of modern art treated such styles as absolute (i.e. thinking that true art is exclusively Cubist/Surrealist/de Stijl etc., or it is not) is now rather a thing of the past – yet it is unpleasant that their heroic endavours of producing an art that is profoundly rooted in some meanigfulness and whose creativity had undergone a hard-to-achieve actual transformation is now a thing of the past too and has given way to, well, a more democratic but lighthearted and noncommital opportunism that rather characterises the present state of the art.) Katz has achieved a personal style that nevertheless is of theoretical quality and stands as a landmark in painting. His stylistic innovation makes sense in the universe. Hockney´s style is not that profound and remains, if you may, a personal style (maybe because of this Hockney is actually quite a diverse painter).

Hockney is, however, let us reiterate, a quite diverse painter. He is also famous for his landscapes. He touched upon many, and diverse, genres throughout his career. He is autonomous (to say he has always been avant-garde may be an overstatement, since, e.g. painting in a figurative way at a time when abstraction ruled the place, as he did, reveals some autonomy, but not necessarily avant-gardeness). He came out with his homosexuality and tried to find artistic means for expressing it at a time when homosexuality was still considered a crime in England and could be persecuted by law. His Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from 1972 has been auctioned for 90 million Dollars in 2018 and is therefore the most expensive artwork of any living artist. I do not know, however, how such a reverence is justified in that case. Alex Katz` paintings are rarely auctioned for more than a million dollars, more commonly, the best selling ones go away for half a million dollars. He does not only portray humans but is also often painting flowers, landscapes and architecture.

Once in my life, in 2005, I have been to the prominent art fair in Basel. Alex Katz was quite prominent at that Art Basel (also prominent was Tom Wesselmann who had passed away before). Before me, there was an elderly couple who had come across a Katz. She said to him: „Alex Katz. We should have ourselves portrayed by Alex Katz as well.“ They must have been filthy rich. It immediately struck me that they´re flat, as in the portraits of Katz, as well. Probably with not very much knowledge about the glorious deep structure of art. Although, as I realised, that would be not their fault. I became remorseful. I do not like to think lowly of people, I prefer to see only Buddhas and so the space of imagination opened whether they are actually quite ok guys, yet the encounter was, although somehow seemingly revelatory, too brief and so the space of imagination seemed to become blurred and fading away almost in an instant. Found my way upstairs and had a smoke. Then somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

Addentum: Probably it was that couple from Basel that paid 90 million Dollars for the lackluster Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). Yet, that could be. HA! Hahahahahaha.

Norman Rockwell was the leading figure in America´s golden age of illustration and he is considered as one of America´s greatest artists. In the first half of the 20th century, before there was TV and a culture of visual bombardement, illustration was the primary source of visualisation and visual storytelling. Innocence was there too: traditionalism, family values, the spirit of the American pioneer was still prevalent, the dawn of a new age of modernisation, urbanisation, technological advancement etc. seemed to be, due to rising living standards, a promising one as well, resulting in a climate of optimism and a hope for reconciliation of opposites. This added up for the art of illustration to blossom, and Norman Rockwell was the finest flower to bloom through this period; and also after it. Over the course of 40 years he created more than 300 cover artworks for the Saturday Evening Post depicting not only contemporary affairs but, moreover, the spirit of the age in an unimitably charming way. Recollections of an unburdened and happy childhood, family and neighborhood affairs, communal and, finally, national topics are prevalent. In their spirit of the American pioneer, they depict people aiming at taking responsibility, engaging in innocent fantasies and hoping for something and, generally, supporting and approving each other. People approving and supporting each other: that may be the core element of the illustrations of Norman Rockwell. Bad people, including fine artists and fine art critics, have derided this as kitsch and of creating a false consciousness of an American idyll that, in such a way, would not exist. Rockwell, yet, was, in general, right with his optimism; for the more profound part, he depicts the bonds, and our sentiments for bonds, that keep us together for good. He depicts a human humanity. You know, art, at its innermost self and substance, is about creating bonds, associations that magically add up, relationships that are established from the invisible, by the faculty of our sentience, that are there for good and that create a stable network that makes a more solid and liveable world. Therein, the kitschy illustrator Norman Rockwell acutally always operated from the core of what is the spirit of art. He lived in a state of constant bliss and enchantment. Despite recurrent motives and being formulaic, his illustrations always come in the most unexpected way; like the blooming charm of his depictions the freshness of his creativity and the innocence of his perception – as well as the charmingly critical spirit – never got drained. Norman Rockwell´s idealism and his belief in the nobility of the American national character, as well as his optimism, was for real. He was America´s Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, our Austrian painter of the Biedermeier age. After the decline of the Saturday Evening Post and illustration in a more general way, yet the uprise of minorities and of a spirit of a more critical self reflection of America, Norman Rockwell found other outfits and included issues of race. Over all the decades before, the world depicted by him had been a white world; the guideline of magazines was not to depict black Americans in any other than a subservient position so as not to probably unsettle parts of white readers; and Rockwell in general did not want to unsettle people and make them feel uneasy. The Problem We All Live With, depicting little Ruby Bridges walking her path through an outrageously racist society, did become an icon of the Civil Rights Movement – and one of Rockwell´s finest expressions of his genius of articulation and grasping the substance of social and human issues. Behind the so-called facade, Norman Rockwell frequently suffered from depression, and his second wife, Mary, succumbed to alcoholism, depression and an untimely death, not least as the burden of playing the American role model family to the entire nation became to heavy to her. Depiste being wealthy and beloved by the nation, the fine art world did not take Norman Rockwell serious and derided him. He, by constrast, and due to man´s deplorable tendency to often view the grass greener on the other side, ever more sought to be a „true“ artist and developed an inferiority complex out of being a „mere“ illustrator, which added to his depression. Rembrandt was his favorite artist; yet it were the Abstract Expressionists who, after years of starvation, caused a tectonic shift, as they finally and irrevocably put America on the global map of high art in the 1950s. Many of the Abstract Expressionists continued to have a troubled, if not short life even after they had gained fame, yet Rockwell, in a way, internally competed with them. The Conaisseur depicts Rockwell in an obvious competition with the, then, late Jackson Pollock, whom he masterly and unexpectedly imitated, seemingly setting the question about who is the greatest American painter: Jackson Pollok – or Norman Rockwell? Great art is transcendent and jenseitig, opening up a spacetime of endless imagination and possibilities and confronting man with it: in order to transcend man and evoke his higher self: and Jackson Pollock clearly was the master of his time, and one of the masters of any time in this regard. Yet art is also this-worldy, diesseitig: „kitsch“ shows a universal perspective, a global common human denominator, it shows that we are embedded and that we are, safely, „at home“, due to magical, invisible, yet humble and all-present bonds of sentience between humans and between creatures. Norman Rockwell, in his state of bliss, probably was too simple-minded to truly succeed at „fine“ art and to grasp the necessary philosophy like Pollock (silently) did. Yet the endless rooms his mind is able to always open up, with astonishing facility and freshness, his grasp upon substance and essence, and his genius articulateness, makes him governor, makes him king, in the this-wordly realm. While Pollock likely has reached an absolute peak experience of creativity and, therefore, may have lost momentum afterwards forever, I guess that Norman Rockwell was one of that kind of creatives that simply go on and continue to create, untouched by anything, and adaptable to anything, forever. He lived from 1894 to 1978. Times have become considerably more cyncial. Therefore I wonder what he would do, triumphantly, now. Norman Fucking Rockwell.

I like the paintings of Paul Delvaux. Considered a Surrealist – though not by self-definition – his vision is heavily inspired by the metaphysical landscapes of Giorgio de Chirico. Despite that it seems a little less bleak, a little less uncanny, a little more cozy and homely. You have nocturnal scenes (not the aggressive and desert-like daylight as in the landscapes of de Chirico) or scenes in deep twilight (i.e. in a state of transition), overwhelmingly depicting women, occasionally also children, men or skeletons within classical or regional-style architecture, and you usually have trains or stations which are usually not moving and seem misplaced and enigmatic. Nevertheless, they are there. It´s a dreamlike scenario, though not an unpleasant one. There seems to be peace, there surely is tranqility, there surely is grace. The delicate women have big eyes but seem to be de- or transpersonalised. They are otherworldly. You may see muses or animas in them, you may see Modigliani-like empathetic idealisations of women, you may see melancholy in them, you may protest against their sedatedness and reduction to „creatures“ by an eroticist painter. Yet, it all does not seem to fit. They remain – otherworldly. It´s a hypnotic realm. I like the trains. They seem to be our companions. I also, when recollecting memories from my childhood, like night trains. They are at work for us and for the people on duty when everything else is in slumber. They are honest and upright and in a gentle way forceful. Night trains make me feel the world is safe and protected from within. In the landscapes of Paul Delvaux you have loneliness, melancholia, aspiration, you have death. And you also have coexistence, maybe togetherness, maybe even communion, seemingly an essential communion as all elements seem to get alike in a universal substantiality; – women becoming statues, skeletons becoming humans, trains becoming individuals, etc. In these atemporal realms there seems to be a concurrece of life and death, it seems a threshold realm. Maybe a realm of suspended animation. A realm of transition, with trains coming out of nowhere, waiting to take you to an unknown or inexistent destination. The light that illuminates the nocturnal scenes often seems to come from someplace else. It seems a light from an enigmatic absolute, that illuminates a universal scenery of what can be depicted and what can be depicted not, what can be said and what can be said not, etc. It´s the threshold realm, and it´s the universal arena. I find these sceneries quite pleasant, although I do not know if it could be pleasant to live with all those sedated idiots and untouchable women and lost children for long. Paul Delvaux is not a heroic artist. He is said to have had maintained an intimate relationship with his childhood, out of which he painted and developed his vision. That is cozy and homely, there should be more of this in this world. It is clearly an inner sanctum he is revealing.

24.2.2021

Proto-Surrealist Giorgio de Chiroco – about whom there is great exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg at the moment – and his approach to art has been the focal point and impetus for these investigations into the essence and the spirit, the ideal of art. He demanded (with reference to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche) that art had to become an exploration into metaphysics. What metaphysics is supposed to mean and to be is not entirely clear. Yet, even less than that, and to the misfortune for those who think they can deride metaphysics, it is elusive or confused. Metaphysics means to explore the hidden meaning and essence of things and to enable a meta-rational understanding, i.e. an understanding that is not purely rational, even less irrational, but that establishes a meta-level and perspective upon purely rational understanding, and the a/irr/rational fabric of the world, of existence. It is a transcendent undertaking. De Chirico demands that objects and the entire banal fabric of existence needs to be considered as a mystery, as an enigma in the first place. The introspective exploration of these enigmas is then what may unfold as true art. A truly introspective and profound piece of art, he notes, is created from the most profound depths of the artist and his existence, „where no birds sing, no streamlet rushes“, etc.; where nature and the object world disappear from view and „the dimensions, the straight lines, the forms of eternity and infinity“ emerge; both as a metaphysical abstraction upon approachable reality as well as an imagnative space where visionary realizations of such metaphysical abstractions upon approachable reality can happen.

Giorgio de Chirico´s metaphysical paintings, his visionary realizations of the metaphysical realm „behind“ apparent reality, respectively of the meta-rational metaphysical abstraction upon apparent reality, depict seemingly random or irrational juxtapositions of things: ancient or outdated architectures combined with more contemporary ones, including industry, dummies becoming human or humans becoming dummy-like, therein mirroring each other, playful children becoming identical with their own shadows, sympathetic encounters among humans seen from a more distant viewpoint, rushing steam trains at the horizon of a scenery that seems mostly static and atemporal. Strange illusion! It is a bit uncanny, but not too much. It is an irritating landscape, but an explorable one. It is static, but also vibrant and dynamic. It is dream-like; also seemingly in that respect that most of our dreams are somehow unpleasant, yet the unpleasantness then dissolves into transcience and irrelevance. What an inviting and uninviting world! Says de Chirico, „metaphysics“ to him is „nothing gloomy“, it is rather „tranqulity“ and the „meaningless beauty of matter“, presented in a clear-cut fashion – therein overcoming the weirdness and confusion of the everyday perspective upon reality. It is erect. It is about phantasmal evocation of objects that are wrongly „derided by universal stupidity as petty and irrelevant“. In the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, those banal everyday objects confront the viewer, and the inhabitants of the metaphysical scenery, with their own silent presence and solidity, their individuality. Their own mysteriousness. The bloated philistine mind will deride such undertakings to investigate the „mystery“ of everyday objects. In its vanity, it will think that it already understands the everyday objects. For the philistine mind, there is nothing to explore. Therefore, it is actually pretty unknowing. The metaphysicist, by contrast, will put himself into a position of childlike stupidity, in order to gain higher knowledge and penetration.

This silent presence of objects, of architectures refers to metaphysics actually, and primarily, wondering about presence. Why is there something, and not just nothing? may be the initial question of metaphysics. In these metaphysical visions, those forlorn objects and architectures, seemingly ripped off a meaningful context, confront you with sheer presence. Sheer presence is something sublime. It also is something that is tangible and approachable, even something you can love and can get into deep contact to. Eyeless, this stuff nevertheless seems to look out into the world, in its own confirmation, and looking  for its own confirmation. Presence, existence, may then, immediately, make man question for essence, for the meaning and interrelatedness of these objects, and for how man can manipulate them. That is the human intellect that illuminates this world. The sheer presence of objects, and the experience of objects in their sheer presence, is highly evocative. Within this evocation, you experience there is connection between things, an atmosphere in this world, a proto-state of meaning. The seemingly random juxtaposition of things and situatedness of (real or pseudo) persons in the metaphysical paintings of de Chirico refers to that there is context between things, and that entities, of course, can only appear within context. The context is enigmatic. It needs to be discovered, it needs to be manipulated and rearranged, in order to make more sense, to create a world that is more inhabitable, that is more overloaded with meaning, that finally makes sense. It is an ongoing process. The metaphysical world de Chirico depicts may be a world in dissolution and disarray as well as a world of coexistence, even communion, finally a highly sentient, animistic world of togetherness. Coexistence, as seems to be the call, needs to become communion. To explain and to construct within such a world is, then, a matter of physics and of technology, as well as of ethics. Therein, metaphysics is not someting that is „behind“ or „above“ physics, but grasping the primordial. Grasping the primordial will make you feel good, and pure. It is mankind´s return to innocence.

A metaphysical vision, a metaphysical abstraction, necessarily means „seeing it all“ and from a viewpoint of atemporality, or eternity. In a way, it´s a static, stasis-like scenery, where there nevertheless is some tension, vibration and fluctuation. Despite their tranqulity, Giorgio de Chirico´s metaphysical landscapes are full of tension and vibration. This is so because the world is both static and dynamic. Metaphysics strives for a gnosis into universal and eternal truths, but universality and truth evolve within time, and disappear within time. Stuff may appear and then vanish soon thereafter, like within the quantum foam. This vibration is, eventually, reality, and the situation of man within reality. In de Chirico´s paintings and metaphysical vision you have a recurrent range of themes (like dummies, trains, antique statues). Therein, it´s private. Yet, as metaphysics means: a transcendent exploration of objective reality by the subject; respectively a questioning of what objective reality means for the subject, and vice versa; any metaphysical undertaking is necessarily both objective and subjective. It is universal and it is private. Despite allegations, Giorgio de Chirico´s metaphysical landscapes are not a hermetically closed world; they are not claustrophobic visions; you obviously have room for maneuver and you may walk behind the corners of the buildings or behind the walls that stand erect: but what are you likely to encounter there? Either a complete desert or, most likely, more of the same. In a way, de Chirico´s landscapes are prison-like and uncanny. But this is so because existence is prison-like and uncanny in itself. You do not enjoy vast freedoms in this world, that is quite a limited world by itself. This world is not a wonderland. You may strive for a higher, metaphysical consciousness in order to get out of here, but no wonder, the metaphysical representation of a prison-like world will be prison-like again.

I have been interested, obsessed, by obtaining a metaphysical perspective upon things as well. This is, obviously, the high point of art. A vision upon humanity and existence from the viewpoint of a metaphysical abstraction upon humanity and existence you obviously have in the literature of Kafka and Beckett. They would come to mind. In general, profound art is about revealing hidden meaning and essence of things, and coming up with revelations that both come as a shock and a surprise as well as something completely intuitive and logical. This is so because metaphysics – trying to reach that hidden meaning and essence of things – is an associative/dissociative process that nevertheless happens within a highly sober and rational mind. De Chirico and his metaphysical approach – and his writings about his metaphysical approach are no less, if not even more relevant, astonishing and profound than his paintings – has served me well in trying to get to the essence of what art, over all course of time, should actually mean to be. It is impossible that more people on this Earth can paint like this, expects de Chirico, although at his time, and in the subsequent decades, there have been quite a lot of artists that could. The slump in significance in contemporary art seems to go along with having forgotten about such metaphysical attempts and endeavours. No one in contemporary art talks about wanting to strive for the metaphysical. Art now seems much more about a social commentary than about purification of the mind. This is good, since neglect about the social realm has been a true weakness of art in former days. Yet, a commentary is nothing that is avant-gardist. It may have become difficult, if not impossible for art to be avant-gardist, given the massive shifts within society in the last half of a century, and within art in the, say, two centuries before. But I would advocate taking the approach and the example of Giorgio de Chirico more seriously again within art. Actually everyone is unhappy with present-day art, but no one knows what to do. De Chirico can show the way out. Art should be a breakthrough; art is about achievement. Reaching the metaphysical, the noumenal sphere, is the ultimate achievement, the ultimate breaktrough. It is a transcendent breaktrough, it is the transcendent achievement.

As has been noted, the metaphysical representation of a prison-like world will be prison-like again. If you´re imprisoned, you would most likely want to get out of it. Or at least, enjoy more comfort. So how do you get out of the world-prison? The metaphysical endeavour actually shows a good way. For instance, de Chirico´s paintings show the world in an elevated and lofty way, but also in a primordial way. This means: authentic contact and primordial creation is ultimately at hand. Essence and deeper meaning/truth is tangible, sympathy, encounter and contact is possible, it is a space left to wonder and to explore; despite all its limitations, it is, above all, evocative. You are situated, as a metaphysical individual, in both an ancient (and wise) as well as in a primordial and innocent state; you regain the Paradise Lost of childhood. As a metaphysicist, you´re natural; therefore you rise above this world, which is frequently bemoaned as artificial. You have, from the viewpoint of metaphysical abstraction, insight into God´s plan. That is likely a frightening and depressing insight, but, above all, you have insight into God´s plan, and this means you gain freedom hitherto unexperienced, you anticipate the mind of God, you rule the noumenal sphere. Despite being depressed and melancholic, Kafka and Beckett were highly approachable and authentic individuals. They never did something stupid. They were in control. (At least on the sane side of their personalities) they were internally free. In those respects, they were free from the world-prison, they were operating outside the world-prison. That is an elevated state. Their metaphysical visions, and the metaphysical visions of de Chirico, seem god-forsaken. But they become god-like themselves. No one says that God is happy. Melancholy is a frequent theme in the works of Giorgio de Chirico; metaphysics is melancholic and seems to reconfirm melancholia, God is likely the most melancholic mind of all. Melancholy, as already stated by the ancient Greeks, is fundamental for the more profound and explorative mind. Melancholy is a higher passion, or may open the gate to higher passions. Melancholy may provide you with the means of establishing more profound contact. If the metaphysical landscapes of Kafka, Beckett and de Chirico seem god-forsaken and south of heaven, they also indicate what heaven is about. Heaven is about good contact and communion between entities. Heaven is a realm where good contact and encounter is prevalent, it is a realm where there is true and everlasting communion between individual entities, under the sway of Christ, the universal enabler of communion. It is much less drab than the metaphysical landscape as envisaged in the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico which are metaphysical abstractions over physical reality. With the metaphysical spirit, and the respective empathy, higher realms become tangible. They will multiply our melancholy. And then transform it into an eternal bliss.

19.+21.2.2021

Jedes Ding hat zwei Aspekte: den gewöhnlichen Aspekt, den wir fast immer sehen und den jedermann sieht, und den geisterhaften und metaphysischen, den nur seltene Individuen sehen mögen in Momenten der Hellsichtigkeit und metaphysischer Abstraktion. Ein Kunstwerk muss etwas erzählen, was nicht in seiner äußeren Gestalt erscheint … Wir konstruieren durch Malerei eine neue metaphysische Psychologie der Dinge. Das absolute Bewusstsein des Raumes, den ein Gegenstand in einem Bild einnehmen muss, und des Raumes, der die Gegenstände untereinander trennt, stabilisiert eine neue Astronomie der durch das starre Gesetz der Schwerkraft an unseren Planeten gefesselten Dinge …  Vor allem ist ein großes Feingefühl nötig. Sich alles auf der Welt als Rätsel vorstellen, nicht nur die großen Fragen, die man sich immer wieder gestellt hat – warum die Welt erschaffen wurde, warum wir geboren werden, leben und sterben -, denn vielleicht liegt in all dem, wie ich schon gesagt habe, kein Sinn. Aber das Rätsel mancher Dinge verstehen, die im Allgemeinen als belanglos betrachtet werden … In erster Linie ist es nötig, die Kunst von allem freizumachen, was sie bis jetzt an Bekanntem enthält, jedes Sujet, jede Idee, jeder Gedanke, jedes Symbol muss beiseitegeschoben werden … Den Mut haben, auf alles andere zu verzichten. So wird der Künstler der Zukunft sein; einer, der jeden Tag auf etwas verzichtet; dessen Persönlichkeit jeden Tag reiner und unschuldiger wird … So muss die Malerei der Zukunft sein. Dass mehrere Menschen auf dieser Welt so malen können, ist unmöglich. 

Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico hat (im Alter von 23 Jahren) gemeint, große Anstrengungen seien nötig zu unternehmen, um Künstler zu werden, um zum Metaphysischen vorzudringen, denn: Kunst ist die eigentliche metaphysische Tätigkeit, so Nietzsche (mit Bezug auf Schopenhauer und von dem blutjungen de Chirico zum Vorbild genommen). Metaphysik interessiert sich dafür, zu einem tieferen, „eigentlicheren“ Wesen der Dinge vorzudringen, ein tieferes, „eigentlicheres“ Wesen der Dinge freizulegen. Das will auch (zumindest) die neuzeitliche Kunst; mit zunehmender Intensivierung und Verbesserung des metaphysischen und wissenschaftlichen Wissens, des Selbstbewusstseins des neuzeitlichen Menschen und der Methoden, in die Materie einzudringen, wie diese Methoden dann selbst wieder zu hinterfragen (Epistemologie) wollte das mit dem höchsten Intensitätsgrad die moderne Kunst. Sie hat große Anstregungen unternommen, ja, war ein Rahmen um Anstrengungen metaphysischer Art, zu einem tieferen Kern und Wesen der Dinge vorzudringen und so einen höheren epistemologischen und moralischen Standpunkt für den Menschen zu schaffen, zu unternehmen. Alles andere, geringere Anstrengungen zu unternehmen als eben solche, schien banal und lächerlich. Heute ist das nicht mehr so. Seit in etwa den 1970er Jahren steht die bildende Kunst mehr oder weniger unter dem Spirit der Transavantgarde.

„Die Welt ist tief, und tiefer als der Tag gedacht“. Das ist nicht Mystizismus von mir, sondern das ist unser heiligstes Lebensgefühl. Es ist einfach töricht, von solchen Menschen (wie Kandinsky) zu sagen, dass ihre Kunst „nur um einiger weniger krankhafter Mäzene willen, die so einen Kitzel bezahlen“, geschaffen wurde (…) Man begreift, dass es sich in der Kunst um die tiefsten Dinge handelt, dass die Erneuerung nicht formal sein darf, sondern eine Neugeburt des Denkens. Die Mystik erwache in den Seelen und mit ihr uralte Elemente der Kunst (…) Jene abstrakte reine Linie des Denkens, nach der ich immer gesucht habe und die ich auch immer im Geist durch die Dinge hindurch gezogen habe; es gelang mir freilich fast nie, sie mit dem Leben zu verknoten – wenigstens nie mit dem menschlichen Leben, ( – darum kann ich keine Menschen malen).

Franz Marc

Die abstrakte reine Linie des Denkens führt über das bloße Leben, über den bloßen Menschen hinaus. Es ist schwierig, die abstrakte reine Linie des Denkens zu denken und sie sich zu vergegenwärtigen, da sie eben rein und abstrakt ist und nicht im lebensweltlichen Raum verläuft. Allerdings wurde diese abstrakte reine Linie des Denkens in der modernen Kunst sichtbar gemacht, aufgezeigt, über die Frakturen und Nuancen, die sie schafft, über die Tableaus und Plateaus, die sie errichtet, über das, mit was sie den Betrachter konfrontiert etc. Der Spirit der modernen Kunst und der Avantgarde war eben das Verfolgen der abstrakten reinen Linie des Denkens. Sinn und Intention dieses Denkens war natürlich immer, sich mit dem Leben zu verknoten. Dass das trotz aller Anstrengung nicht gelungen ist, zumindest nicht im gedachten Sinn, trug dazu bei, das Fundament der avantgardistischen Intention auszuhöhlen. Der Sinn von Kunst und der Sinn von der abstrakten reinen Linie des Denkens ist aber gar nicht, sich „mit dem Leben zu verknoten“; der Sinn von Denken und Kunst ist Vorstoßen zur Transzendenz. Die Anforderungen der Transzendenz stellen sich immer wieder neu. Transzendenz ist dabei aber etwas, was im Leben und im Menschen vorhanden ist – denn der Mensch ist ein transzendentes Wesen, wie man sagt. Transzendenz ist etwas ganz Lebensweltliches. Transzendenz und Immanenz des Menschen und des Lebens treffen sich und verknoten sich in einer Dimension, die nicht unmittelbar sichtbar ist. Die Vollendung in der Kunst ist es, dieses Zusammentreffen eben sicht- und verstehbar zu machen. Die Kunstwerke (unter anderem) sind sichtbare Zeugnisse und Emanationen aus dieser Dimension. Heute ist die Kunst als Fenster in diese Dimension weitgehend geschlossen.

Ohne die Dichter und Künstler würden die höchsten Ideen, welche die Menschen vom Universum haben, rasch verfallen, die Ordnung, die in der Natur erscheint und die nur das Ergebnis der Kunst ist, würde verschwinden. Alles würde ins Chaos versinken … Die Dichter und Künstler determinieren im Wettstreit die Gestalt ihrer Epoche, und gelehrig richtet sich die Zukunft nach ihren Weisungen.

Guillaume Apollinaire

Auf ihrer höchsten Stufe versucht die Kunst, die Situation des Menschen im Universum und den „bewussten Zusammenhang des Menschen mit dem Weltganzen“ auszudrücken (ähnlich zur Metaphysik, die ihn auszusagen versucht). Die „Situation des Menschen im Universum“ wurde im Verlauf des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts durch die Technik radikal verändert. Mit dem tatsächlichen Vordringen des Menschen in das Universum, mit seiner Landung auf dem Mond, stürzt das erhabene Raumschiff der großen Kunst scheinbar beinahe zeitgleich auf die Erde und liegt dort zertrümmert, oder aber ist zumindest nunmehr ein bescheideneres und weniger futuristisches Habitat. Mit Heidegger gesprochen, ist die Funktion von Kunst (nach dem Verlust der dementsprechenden Verbindlichkeit, die Religion für sich beanspruchen kann) die Schaffung eines „Zeit-Raums“, also eines integralen Selbstverstädnisses von einem Raum in der Zeit. Dies wird nunmehr von der Technik erledigt, ungleich mächtiger und ungleich die Lebensqualität verbessernder. Aus der Kunst ist die Luft gleichsam folgerichtig so draußen, wie sie aus der Religion draußen ist, entgegen ihrer avantgardistischen Intention gibt sie eventuell noch einen matten Kommentar zum Zeitgeschehen ab und fokussiert sich nunmehr vorwiegend auf ihr eigenes Publikum und ihre eigenen Regelkreise. Allerdings: die höchsten Ideen, welche die Menschen vom Universum haben, verflüchtigen sich damit tatsächlich. Nur weil die Technik die besten Ideen hat, heißt das nicht, dass sie auch die höchsten Ideen einschließt (wenngleich das natürlich nicht unmöglich ist). Die höchsten Ideen, die der Mensch haben kann, sind mit der seelischen Transzendenz des Menschen verbunden, verweisen auf den Übermenschen. Und Kunst sei das Medium, wo der Mensch über sich hinaus weise, Übermensch werde: das sei der Kunst Privileg (wenngleich die Gen- und Computertechnik in zwei, drei Generationen womöglich den „Übermenschen“ einfach achselzuckend tatsächlich hinstellen mag – wir sollten uns aber eben gegen diese Degradierung wehren).

Wenn man das Unsichtbare begreifen will, muss man so tief wie möglich ins Sichtbare eindringen. – Mein Ziel ist immer, das Unsichtbare sichtbar zu machen durch die Wirklichkeit. Es klingt vielleicht paradox, aber es ist tatsächlich die Wirklichkeit, die das Geheimnis unseres Daseins bildet … Meiner Meinung nach sind alle wesentlichen Dinge in der Kunst seit Ur in Chaldäa, seit Tel Halaf und Kreta immer aus dem tiefsten Empfinden für das Mysterium unseres Daseins entsprungen. – Das Ich ist das große verschleierte Mysterium des Daseins … Ich glaube an dieses Ich und seine ewige unveränderliche Form … Darum bin ich so versunken in das Problem des Individuums und versuche auf alle Weise, es zu erklären und darzustellen.

Max Beckmann

„Die meisten Leute sind andere Leute“, sagte Oscar Wilde, und meinte damit: die meisten Leute werden durch Gehalte ihrer Umwelt definiert. Wenngleich die meisten Leute sehr eitel sind, haben die wenigsten davon ein eigentliches „Selbst“ und ein Bewusstsein für das eigene Selbst und ihre Individualität, sprach also Zarathustra/Nietzsche. Der Konflikt zwischen Individuum und Gesellschaft, dem Individuum, das aus der traditionell-feudalistischen oder modern-vermassten Gesellschaft heraustreten will – mit all den schönen utopistischen Hoffnungen, welche Potenziale damit freigesetzt werden mögen –, der Kampf darum, sein Leben zu einem Kunstwerk zu machen und „Kunst und Leben zu verbinden“ war, sagen wir, zwischen 1850 und 1950 (oder 1875 und 1975) in der Kunst prominent. Heute ist jeder Künstler. Deswegen ist er aber noch kein Individuum und kein Selbst. Paradoxerweise haben es die Künstler und hat es die Kunst auch aufgegeben, ein starkes Selbst zu entwickeln und zu transportieren. Eine postmodern-selbstironische Subjektivität, die sich zurücknimmt, hat zwar was Sympathisches und kann ein gutes Korrektiv sein, aber eben auch, und vor allem, etwas Defätistisches und kann ein gutes Faulbett sein. Wer ist versunken in das Problem des Individuums als dem großen verschleierten Mysterium des Daseins und versucht auf alle Weise, es zu lüften? Kunst soll doch sein, wo der Mensch auf den Übermenschen trifft!

Hervorragende Kunstwerke zu machen ist für gewöhnlich eine beschwerliche Arbeit. Doch im Modernismus wurde nicht nur das Herstellen, sondern vor allem das Betrachten von Kunst noch anstrengender, musste man sich die Befriedigung und die Freude, die die beste neue Kunst vermitteln kann, mühsam erringen. In den letzten mehr als einhundertfünfunddreißig Jahren waren die beste neue Malerei und die beste neue Skulptur (und die beste neue Dichtung) zu ihrer Zeit für den Kunstliebhaber eine Herausforderung und eine Prüfung, wie sie es früher nicht gewesen waren. Doch gibt es den Drang sich auszuruhen, wie es ihn immer gegeben hat. Er ist eine permanente Bedrohung der Qualitätsmaßstäbe. Dass dieser Drang auszuruhen sich in immer anderer Weise ausdrückt, bezeugt nur seine Dauerhaftigkeit. Das Gerede von der „Postmoderne“ ist eine weitere Ausducksform dieses Dranges. Und es ist vor allem eine Art, sich dafür zu rechtfertigen, dass man weniger anspruchsvolle Kunst bevorzugt, ohne deswegen reaktionär oder zurückgeblieben genannt zu werden (was die schlimmste Befürchtung der neumodischen Philister der Avantgarde ist).

Clement Greenberg, Modern und Postmodern, 1980

Dass der Mensch auf den Übermenschen trifft, erfordert große metaphysische Anstrengungen. Leute wie de Chirico wollten sich dieser Anstrengung bewusst unterziehen, wer aber will das sonst? Was man in den o.g. Zitaten hat, sind tief denkende und empfindende Menschen (Beckmann, Apollinaire, Marc), und viele andere, darunter eventuell noch tiefere, wurden gar nicht genannt. Dieses tiefe Denken und Empfinden ist allerdings unter den Künstler(innen) der Moderne ganz allgemein und verbreitet. Ebenso, wie es heute offenbar weit verbreitet fehlt. Es waren wunderliche und seltsame Leute, die sich in einer luftigen Sprache ausdrückten und luftigen Idealen nachjagten – der Sprache der Intelligenz und der Kreativität (und der Spiritualität) halt allerdings. Der Künstler galt als Sonderling. Heute hat man ein solches Bild vom Künstler als antibürgerlichem Sonderling nicht mehr. Es hat sich verflüchtigt. Große Proklamationen und Manifeste und theoretische Schriften finden sich auch nicht mehr so ganz. Wenn man angesagte Künstler sprechen hört, hat man eine Idee, warum ihre Kunst immer wieder so dumm ist. Sie ist eben, dahingehend, „Selbstausdruck“. Angeblich steigt in jeder Generation der durchschnittliche Intelligenzquotient („Flynn-Effekt“), unabhängig davon würde man einen gewissen Grundstock von sehr intelligenten und kreativen Individuen zu jeder Zeit vermuten. Aus irgendeinem gespenstischen Grund scheint das in der Kunst der Gegenwart nicht der Fall zu sein, nicht in Erscheinung zu treten. Und dieser gespenstische Grund scheint mir, vielmehr, auch der zu sein, wo der Hund wirklich begraben liegt (und nicht in sozialen und historischen Entwicklungen). Große, interessante, aufregende Zeiten kommen zumeist in Raum und Zeit geclustert vor. Neben objektiven sozialen und historischen Bedingungen ist das Zusammentreffen von Individuen Ausschlag gebend. Eine „Goethezeit“ gibt es (im Gegensatz zu einer „Shakespearezeit“), weil Geothe der eminenteste unter allerhand eminenten Geistern seiner Zeit und in seiner Umgebung gewesen ist. Man hat sich an die marxistische Vorstellung gewöhnt, dass entsprechende Zeiten entsprechende Individuen produzieren, das „Sein das Bewusstsein bestimmt“ u.Ä., und in der Tat fällt es auch schwer, das anders zu denken – allerdings, weil das Gegenteil ja eben auch schwer festzustellen ist. Zeiten, die reif wären, aber nicht zur Reife gelangen, weil die epochenmachenden Individuen fehlen. Vielleicht ist aber sogar das der regelmäßigere Fall. Sagen wir, dass eine Zeit zur Reife kommt: im Hinblick darauf gibt es verstärkende und abschwächende Tendenzen, und der jeweilige Mix ist durchaus zufälliger, als man vielleicht glaubt. Heute kommen dann eben scheinbar zu viele abschwächende Tendenzen zusammen, die ihre gespenstische Sogkraft nach unten ausüben. Das kann schon mal sein. Das ist so aufgrund des Chaosmos, des kosmischen Zusammenspiels von Zufall und Ordnung. Die Idee vom Chaosmos ist ja eben das Zentrum meiner Philosophie und Metaphysik; soweit ich feststellen kann, ist sie sogar grundlegender als alle Metaphysik und Philosophie: denn der Chaosmos ist die Welt an sich.

Ich will Ihnen etwas entdecken, und sie werden es in ihrem Leben vielleicht bestätigt finden: alle im Rückschreiten und in der Auflösung begriffenen Epochen sind subjektiv, dagegen haben alle vorschreitenden Epochen eine objektive Richtung.

Goethe zu Eckermann

Kunst ist, beliebt man zu sagen, Selbstausdruck. In der obersten Etage ihrer Pyramide ist sie aber Ausdruck von etwas Objektivem und Universalem, von einer Subjektivität bestenfalls, die objektive und universale Wahrheiten auszudrücken anstrebt. Dieses Wissen war den modernen Künstlern, wie man an den Zitaten hier sieht, zu eigen, es ist aber eher verloren gegangen und in den Hintergrund gerückt. Die Postmoderne lieferte das intellektuelle Rüstzeug dazu, die Pluralisierung der Gesellschaft und der Aufstand der „Minderheiten“ und „Partikularitäten“ und ihr Drang, sich selbst autonom zu definieren (oftmals eben auch irgendwie künstlich gegen das „Universale“ gerichtet) bildete die realweltliche Basis dazu. Kunst, die von Angehörigen von „Minderheiten“ oder Frauen kommt, als Versuch des Selbstausdrucks wie der Erweiterung gesamtgesellschaftlicher Verständnisse, wird nunmehr gerne gesehen – und das ist auch würdig und das ist auch recht. Allerdings haben Selbstausdrücke oder Emanzipationsprozesse nicht notwendigerweise was gesamtgesellschaftlich Verbindendes, sie können genauso gut Ausdrücke eines saturierten (bzw. nach Satuierung strebenden) Egoismus sein und der Ausdruck eines Zerfalls von Gesellschaft und eines Zerfalls von Geist und eines Zerfalls von Streben. Die Abstrakten Expressionisten haben danach gestrebt, Universalität, Metaphysik und Transzendenz auszudrücken, und haben (angeblich) auch gemeint, die Subjektivität, die das am Besten könne, sei der (junge) weiße Mann. „Feminine“ oder ethnoplurale Einflüsse wollten sie außen vor lassen, da sie der reinen geistigen und universalen Schau entgegenarbeiteten. Da mag man heute platzen vor Empörung. Es kann aber schon sein, dass das stimmt. Es geht um die Durchdringung und es geht um die Durchsichtigkeit gegenüber dem Geistigen. Die Postmoderne heiligt das „Minoritär“-Werden, das Frau-Werden, das Neger-Werden, das Tier-Werden. Ja, das alles ist sicherlich hilfreich, um sich zu verbessern und seinen Aktionsradius zu erweitern. Aber vielleicht tut auch das WeißeralterMann-Werden ganz gut. Es formuliert die Möglichkeit einer Position bzw. verweist auf eine theoretische Position, die es sich eventuell lohnt, einzunehmen. Man muss daür auch kein weißer alter Mann sein, eine Kannibalin aus Papua-Neuguinea kann das ja genauso tun. „Objektive“ Gerichtetheit in der Kunst ist auch aus der Mode gekommen, weil in deren universalistischem Anspruch ein Totalitarismus und Narzissmus des Westens (bzw. westlicher „Männlichkeit“) vermutet werden kann. Was aber, wenn der westliche Universalismus nicht totalitär ist, sondern Ausdruck von genuinem Interesse an der Welt und am Anderen, von Offenheit, Extrovertiertheit, fortschrittlichem Geist, Empathie und Spiritualität, der dann eben deswegen weltumspannende Imperien errichtet, weil er dem kleinkrämerischen, introvertierten (und sexistischen) Chauvinismus in anderen Kulturräumen überlegen ist? Die westliche Kultur ist die intellektuell, wirtschaftlich und sozial ausdifferenzierteste. Daher ist sie schon ganz gut. Die Kunst der Gegenwart trägt auch dazu bei, sie weiter auszudifferenzieren, aber ich finde, sie sollte sich auch wieder mehr auf ihre ernthaft-avantgardistischen Wurzeln besinnen. Falls man gegen den Westen ist: Die Chinesen sind eh schon fast da. Viel Spaß mit denen. Kunst spielt in China im Übrigen (aktuell noch) kaum eine Rolle und wird von den Chinesen kaum wahrgenommen; Ai Weiwei ist bei uns viel bekannter als bei denen etc. Selbst ein alter Linkdradikaler wie Badiou rümpft die Nase über die Dominanz von „ethnischen“ und „sexuellen Partikularitäten“ als Leitmotiv in der Gegenwartskunst („Diese Produkte beruhen auf einer Ichbezogenheit, die so verspielt wie nur möglich ist“) und plädiert stattdessen für eine Neuaufrichtung der Kunst in universalem Anspruch („Die Kunst kann kein Ausdruck der Partikularität sein, ganz gleich, ob sie ethnisch oder ichbezogen ist. Sie ist die unpersönliche Produktion einer Wahrheit, die sich an alle richtet“).

Für drei gute Dinge in der Kunst haben „Massen“ niemals Sinn gehabt, für Vornehmheit, für Logik und für Schönheit – pulchrum est paucorum hominum –: um nicht von einem noch besseren Dinge, vom großen Stile zu reden.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche war ein Philosoph mit einer hohen Affinität zur Kunst, ein Künstler-Philosoph. De Chirico, Pollock, Modigliani – mehr oder weniger alle bedeutenden Größen der modernen Kunst – waren Künstler mit einem großen Interesse an der Philosophie. Für Philosophie interessiert sich, angeblich, jeder. Denn der Mensch ist ein philosophisches Wesen. Ebenso interessiert sich, angeblich, jeder für Kunst. Denn der Mensch ist ein künstlerisches Wesen. Beides, Kunst und Philosophie, ist was für die Massen. Allerdings wird man aus den Massen niemals schlau. Schau, die Massen, wie sie sich drängeln und den Eingang zum Museum verstopfen, um sich dann in einer völlig überlaufenen Ausstellung alter Meister wiederzufinden! Ich habe mich dazu schon mal geäußert, nachdem ich eine nächtliche Vision hatte, wie es bei Monet oder Cézanne doch Tränen der Rührung verursachen müsste, wenn sie sähen, wie sich hundert(e) Jahre nach ihrem Tod die guten Leute in die Ausstellungen drängeln, nur um ihre Kritzeleien zu begutachten! Gleichzeitig sind die Massen immer wieder in der Lage, sich für einen aktuellen, aber unbekannten Cézanne so gut wie überhaupt nicht zu interessieren und ihn genauso gut verrecken zu lassen (was dann natürlich dessen Charmisma und Symbolgehalt merklich steigert). Man will den Dingen gerne auf den Grund gehen, man will wissen: was ist das Wesen, das innerste Wesen der Massen? Es erscheint völlig undefinierbar. Allerdings wird mir eben gewahr, dass ich das innerste Wesen der Massen ja gerade damit eben punktgenau definiert habe! – Mit dem W. sitze ich zusammen; da kommt die P. vorbei. Die P. studiert Philosophie. Der W. ist sowieso immer nervös, weil ihm die große Kunst heute fehlt; das bereitet ihm (wie mir) Unbehagen. „Und wo ist eigentlich bei diesen Leuten die Begeisterung für das was sie machen? Wenn die Philosophie studieren, warum wird da keine Begeisterung für die Philosophie bei denen sichtbar? Sondern immer nur diese lahme Gleichgültigkeit? Wenn sie Philosophie studieren, warum ist dann bei denen keine Begeisterung für die Philosophie spürbar?“, platzt es da plötzlich aus dem W. heraus. Ja, das frage ich mich auch immer wieder, und seit Jahrzehnten. Menschen und Massen sind äußerst begeisterungsfähig, und dann auch wieder das genaue Gegenteil davon. Das Unbekannte und Überlegene begeistert sie nicht, da da in ihnen nichts zum Arbeiten anfangen kann. Das verkraftet die (offensive oder defensive) Eitelkeit des Publikums nicht. Die avantgardistische Intention konfrontiert die Gegenwart und die Menschen der Gegenwart mit einer Antithese, in der Hoffnung auf Herstellung einer Synthese. Diese Synthese mag lange ausbleiben. Das muss die (offensive oder defensive) Eitelkeit des Avantgardisten dann ihrerseits verkraften. Da der heutige Kunstbetrieb auf möglichst rasche und breite Streuung seiner Güter unter die Massen bedacht ist, verkraftet er eventuell den Geist der Avantgarde und der meditativen Versenkung umso weniger.

Kunst ist zumeist mechanisch dumme Wiederholung, eine Ansammlung von Vorurteilen, welche hemmt, voraussetzungslos zu reagieren, vielmehr ästhetisch mechanisiert und abschwächt.

Carl Einstein

Eine gewisse Dummheit und Ineffektivität, vor allem mechanische Repetitivität ist der Kunst inhärent. Dass sich irgendwo was auf den absoluten Höhen des magischen Zusammenklangs trifft, ist selten. „Die großen magischen Momente im Studio sind rar“, so der Gitarrenmagier Slash. „Kunst besteht vorwiegend aus dummen Ideen“, geht Willem de Kooning sogar so weit zu sagen: „man betrachte nur den Kubismus: ein Ding von verschiedenen Blickwinkeln aus gleichzeitig darzustellen – was für eine dumme Idee“. Ja und, vor allem aber: nein. Es ist ein zutiefst metaphysisches Verfahren der Entbergung von verborgenen Seinsqualitäten und Wahrnehmungsmöglichkeiten. Es zeigt auf, dass die Welt tief ist, und tiefer als der Tag gedacht. Es war ein Abbild des fortschrittlichen modernen Zeitgeistes vor einem Jahrhundert und, aufgrund seines Tiefsinns, etwas, das ewig Bestand haben wird. Es geht in die verborgenen Tiefen. Es drückt ernsthaften Forschergeist aus, Bedürfnis nach Exploration. Und hier sprechen wir über den Kubismus (!). Carl Einstein war ein strenger Richter über die Kunst seiner Gegenwart, und das war, als die moderne Kunst in ihrer Hochblüte gestanden ist. Er äußert sich sehr kritisch über Kokoschka, über Modigliani et al. Gerade komme ich von einer Gegenwartskunstausstellung, und frage mich, was ich mit meinem Ansatz – Kunst solle das „Metaphysische“ zum Ausdruck bringen – eigentlich überhaupt will, und in welcher Welt ich eigentlich lebe? Was man da immer wieder sehen kann, ist so dumm, hässlich und uninspiriert, dass es nicht nur den Gedanken an die Kunst als Metaphysik unterläuft, sondern eigentlich auch den an die Kunst an sich! Man kann dazu, als Philosoph, gar nichts sagen. Genauso, wie man als Philosoph zu Fußball kaum was sagen kann oder zur Tagespolitik; einfach, weil das von der Philosophie völlig verschiedene Seinsbezirke sind. Genau genommen hat man den Eindruck, die Gegewartskunst ist nicht allein ein recht verschiedener Seinsbezirk zur ernsthaften Philosophie, sondern auch zur Kunst. Kunst entspricht dann ihrem eigenen Wesen nicht mehr. Wir leben einfach in einer sehr interessanten Zeit! Besinne ich mich darauf, dass wir – in Bezug auf die Kunst – doch in einer hundertmal interessanteren Zeit leben als vor drei, vier Generationen noch! Wie leben in einem Zeitalter der Absenkung, die planare, vielleicht sogar die planetarische Fläche tritt umso mehr hervor, die Urfläche und damit auch der reine, der Urhorizont der metaphysischen Projektion! Dort und da ragt etwas empor, aber eher wenig, die Fläche und der Horizont an sich treten immer mehr in Erscheinung, herausfordernd! Streng genommen finde ich es sehr gut, in einem Zeitalter wie in diesem zu leben.  

The art audience is the worst audience in the world. It´s overly educated, it´s conservative, it´s out to criticize, not to understand, and it never has any fun. Why should I spend my time playing to that audience? … I´ll play with the street audience. That audience is much more human, and their opinion is from the heart. They don´t have any reason to play games.

David Hammons

Kunst bereichert das Leben. Sie ermöglicht sogar das Leben, zumindest das der Kunstkritiker. Für die Kunstkritiker ist es lebensnotwendig, zumindest irgendwo ein wenig intelligenter zu sein als der Künstler und seine Kunst. Wie soll er sie sonst kompetent kritisieren? Der große Künstler kommt daher, mit seiner ebenso neuartigen wie tiefsinnigen Kunst, und der Kunstkritiker mag nicht wissen, wie er sich da am Besten draufsetzen soll. Also lässt er es bleiben; und als Revanche dafür, dass er andere ins Dunkel stößt, wird der Künstler im Dunkel gelassen, dem Dunkel seines Tiefsinns. So weit, so klar. Es gibt wohl durchaus Kunstkritiker, die noch weit eingebildeter sind als jeder Künstler, und alles, was Dunkel erzeugt als Affront auffassen gegen ihr Ego, aber in den allerallermeisten Fällen ist es wohl legitime Selbstverteidigung, wenn sie das Eigentliche in der Kunst gar nicht erst aufkommen lassen, weil es ihnen unheimlich ist. Kunst ist nicht zuletzt eine Komfortzone, vor allem für den Sehr Tiefen Denker, dem kaum jemand folgen kann, die Komfortzone der absoluten, abgrundhaften Tiefe, aus der helles Licht heraufstrahlt. Der Kunstbetrieb ist auch eine Komfortzone und auch die Kunstkritik ist eine Komfortzone, Komfortzonen der Zirkulation von Geld, von Meinungen, von Beweihräucherungen, von gegenseitig unterstützenden Beweihräucherungen und von Selbstbeweihräucherungen. Menschen werden nicht gerne aus ihren Komfortzonen gerissen. Der Sehr Tiefe Künstler reißt Kunstbetrieb und Kunstkritik leicht aus deren Komfortzone, hinein in seine eigene Komfortzone der bodenlosen Tiefe und metaphysischen Spekulation. Das ist nicht jedermanns Sache. Der Kunstbetrieb und die Kunstkritik würden den Sehr Tiefen Künstler ja auch gerne in ihre eigene Komfortzone der Zirkulation reißen, und da ist der nicht zuhause. Problem der unterschiedlichen Komfortzonen. Wo sind die Sehr Tiefen Künstler und Denker, die in den abgründigen Tiefen ihre Komfortzonen errichten?

… die bedauerliche Tatsache, dass jeder der anerkannten Künstler nur etwa ein Dutzend verstehender Anhänger besitzt, … aus jahrzehntelanger Erfahrung hat Cézanne resigniert geäußert, jede Kunst sei nur für wenige da. Erst als Bildungsvorrat erweitert sie die Peripherie ihres Kreises und schafft die Täuschung, als wären der Erkennenden viele. Alles dies gehört in in das Gebiet der Auswirkung der Kunst, nicht in den inneren Bezirk des Geschehens…

Will Grohmann 1926

Was haben die Texte, die Welten von, sagen wir, Samuel Beckett oder Emily Dickinson mit der Welt des Bachmannpreiswettbewerbs zu tun? Was haben sie überhaupt mit der allgemeinen Welt des Literaturnobelpreises zu tun? Es handelt sich um Welten, die – trotz aller scheinbaren Gemeinsamkeit und Affinität – eigentlich nicht viel miteinander zu tun haben. Allerdings werfen sie ein Netz über die empirische Welt und vermögen so Beliebiges, ja, die ganze Mannigfaltigkeit der Welt einzufangen. Sie sind, eben, der Abgrund der Metaphysik, in dem die Einzelgänger hausen, und das ist der innere Bezirk dieses Geschehens, des Geschehens der Kunst. Wenn die Betriebe sehen, etwas ist deutlich intelligenter als sie – und hat dann aber wenig Ähnlichkeit mit ihnen, werden sie immer wieder krawutisch. Das ist ein altes Stück. Der heutige Kunst/Literatur/Kulturbetrieb hat, vermeintlich, einen Saumagen. Aber der Abgrund der Metaphysik, aus dem die Einzelgänger kommen, ist ein noch größerer Schlund, und daher leicht auch für Saumägen zunächst unverdaulich. Die avantgardistische Intention hat ihre Grundlage in einer dialektischen Opposition innerhalb einer von Grundsatzkonflikten durchzogenen Gesellschaft. Heute tut sich die Gesellschaftskritik schwer, da es in einer demokratischen Wohlstandsgesellschaft keinen Grundsatzkonflikt mehr gibt und daher auch nichts mit weit ausholender Geste zu kritisieren. Das ist der Saumagen der Demokratie, der damit die avantgardistische Intention einigermaßen ihrer Grundlage beraubt. Wie Badiou bemerkt, vergewissert sich die Demokratie stolz ihrer selbst, indem sie kommuniziert und Informationen zirkulieren lässt: „Die westliche Demokratie ist in der Tat Zirkulation und Kommunikation“. Eine Antithese errichtet man dazu allerdings durch meditatives Schweigen und, als dessen Ergebnis, Kunst die nicht zirkuliert und kommuniziert: „Ja, das einzige Problem besteht darin, herauszubekommen, ob sich der künstlerische Imperativ vom westlichen Imperativ lösen kann, welcher der der Zirkulation und Kommunikation ist … Die wahre Kunst ist daher das, was die Zirkulation unterbricht und nichts kommuniziert. Immobil und unkommunizierbar, das ist die Kunst, die wir brauchen und die sich als einzige an alle wendet, da sie nicht irgendeinem vorgegebenen Netz entsprechend zirkuliert und mit niemandem im Besonderen kommuniziert“. Ich sage ja auch immer, das westliche Denken und Kommunizieren soll mit dem östlichen Nicht-Denken und Nicht-Kommunizieren zusammengebracht werden. Ich glaube, so kann das heute gehen, so ergibt sich eine neue Einheit, eine neue Totalität, ein neues, flexibles Universales – eine neue Matrix. Der innerste Bezirk dieses Geschehens ist Bodhidharma, der schweigend vor einer weißen Wand sitzt.

I´ve always wondered what it would look like reading other people´s minds. Then I got a Facebook account, and now i´m over it.

Mem auf Facebook

Great mind dicuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small mind discuss people, heißt es auch. Tatsächlich: Intelligenz- und Auffassungslevels kann man über Unterschiede im Abstraktionsgrad des Denkens feststellen. Allerdings schreitet die Realität oft mit solch schönen Kategorisierungen nicht einher. Von den Angehörigen der besser gebildeten Schichten kann ich in den sozialen Medien überhaupt nicht groß feststellen, dass sie großartig was diskutieren würden. Das anzunehmenderweise intellektuellere und kunstaffinere Publikum ist allerdings in der Lage, sich tage-, wenn nicht sogar wochenlang das Maul zu zerreissen über Battles Glavinic vs Sargnagel, über Songtexte und Wortmeldungen von Andreas Gabalier, vor allen Dingen aber darüber, wie antisemitisch Lisa Eckhart wohl ist. Da gehen dann die Wogen der Leidenschaft hoch. Angesichts dessen ist es vielleicht viel weniger verwunderlich, warum die Gegenwartskunst so dumm ist, sondern wie tatsächlich intelligente Sachen überhaupt jemals so was wie eine breitere Wirkung haben entfalten können. Lisa Eckhart tritt im Übrigen auch für ein elitäres Kunstverständnis ein, und sie weist auch die Emanzen in die Schranken, die dauernd jammern und fordern, alles sollte immer verweiblichter werden. Aber ich traue ihr nicht ganz über den Weg.

22.-29.10.2020

P.S. 31.10.2020: Gestern war ich mit dem Bertl auf einem Motörhead-Tribute Konzert (von The Röad Crew). Populäre Musik ist ja auch längst nicht mehr das, was sie einmal war, so scheint es ebenfalls. Das so was wie Motörhead so nicht mehr möglich sein könnte heute, scheint einsichtig, da die Zeit mittlerweile fortgeschritten ist. Allerdings, sich außerhalb und gegen die Gesellschaft zu stellen, sollte doch zu allen Zeiten möglich sein. Und vor allen Dingen: gute Musik und Kunst zu machen. Das ist ja, sozusagen, was rein Handwerkliches, und unabhängig von Klima und Zeitgeist. Der Bertl hat aber gemeint: Ach was, das unterschätzt du einfach! Die guten Dinge passieren ganz einfach aus einer Zeit heraus, und aus einem Zeitgeist heraus. Heavy Metal ist heute nicht mehr aufregend, nicht mehr gefährlich. Wie soll man da noch gute Songs schreiben? Ja, wenn ich mir das so überlege, hat er da wohl Recht, und viel mehr vom Mysterium gelöst mit diesen zwei, drei Sätzen als ich mit diesem ganzen Text (und all den anderen). Mir fällt das nicht so auf. Ich bin durch die Gesellschaft so gut wie nicht beeinflussbar. Aber vielleicht fast alle anderen sind das schon irgendwie. Ich finde ja selbst eine Hausmauer hochinteressant und als Provokation zum tiefen Nachdenken, und zwar ganz unabhängig von Zeitgeist. Die anderen aber vielleicht nicht so sehr. Bodhidharma fand ja auch eine weiße Wand hochinteressant und als Provokation zum tiefen Nachdenken. Und zwar ununterbrochen, über neun Jahre hinweg.

Was ich meine, und auf was ich hinaus will: Wir leben eventuell in einem nach-metaphysischen Zeitalter, oder in einem, wo die Metaphysik pausiert (eventuell sich erholt, nach all den Anstrengungen). Eine authentische Kunst, die das Zeitalter mit sich selbst konfrontiert, kann daher vielleicht auch nur nach-metaphysisch und unangestrengt sein, ohne lächerlich zu sein. Die Kunst distanziert sich von sich selbst, so sehr, dass die Kunstwerke zu – wie der Merowinger sagt – „kunstähnlichen Gegenständen“ werden, zu einer auffälligen, aber weitgehend sinnlosen Idiosynkrasie, die im White Cube irgendwie herumsteht. Wenn ich mir die Diskussionen so ansehe: ja, da werden schon Sinngehalte und Differenzierungen herumgeschoben und Komplexitäten abgewogen. Aber all diese Sinngehalte sind nicht sonderlich stark oder profund. Ein komplexer und differenzierender Zeitgeist, der allerdings nicht sonderlich profund ist. Ich weiß nicht, warum die ganzen Kunstkritiker und Philosophen und Intellektuellen nicht darauf kommen, in ihren Befragungen darüber, warum die Kunst nicht mehr ist, was sie mal war. Ich mache hier ja nur einen Vorschlag, wie sich das aus meiner Sicht darstellt. Aber ich glaube, die Crux von all dem liegt eben darin, dass die Kunst keine metaphysische Kontemplation mehr ist. Sie ist keine reine Bestrebung mehr nach Konfrontation mit dem Geist, dem reinen Geist. Dass die Kunstkritiker und Intellektuellen nicht darauf kommen wird ein Zeichen sein, dass sich entlang der abstrakten reinen Linie des Denkens kaum einer bewegt, oder sich bewegen kann. Es wird Zeit, dass einer daherkommt und das tut.

P.S. 2. September 2022:

Diese Überlegungen, die nur zu begründet sind, führen uns zwagsweise zu der Schlussfolgerung, dass man immer vom Schlechten zum noch Schlechteren gelangt … Die gegenwärtige Entwicklung wird kein Ende haben, bis eines Tages ein neuer Haydn, Mozart oder irgendein anderer Meister von gleicher Qualität wieder erscheint. Seine Aufgabe wird es sein, die Melodie wieder zur Einfachheit zurückzuführen, die Ordnung, Folgerichtigkeit und Symmetrie des Ganzen wiederherzustellen und die Verzierungen auf den Platz zu verweisen, der ihnen zukommt. So wird sich dann die natürliche Musik wieder regeneriert finden und ein neues Goldenes Zeitalter für diese so köstliche und ungewisse Kunst wieder entstehen. Doch die Natur geizt mit Genies, und es fehlen ihr die Jahrhunderte, um einen Raffael, Palladio, Pergolesi, Haydn oder Canova entstehen zu lassen. Gehaben Sie sich wohl!

Giuseppe Carpani, Zeitgenosse Joseph Haydns, in seiner Haydn-Biographie

I melt back into indifference

Napalm Death, Silence Is Deafening

Nobody I know is fond of Gerhard Richter. Yet, at least since the turn of the new millennium, Gerhard Richter ranks in the very top segment of best-selling and most influential living artists. That is to say, he is to be considered as a distinctly defining figure of present-day art. Abstract Expressionism had been one of the intellectual peaks in the history of Western art. Its abstractions are meant to express the spiritual, the divine, the gloriousness of mind, they are also meant to be an investigation into the nature of art and painting and the possibilities of methods; Ad Reinhardt`s black paintings assembled within the line of an heroic quest for the „last“ possible paintings. That was in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s, Gerhard Richter came up with his monochromous grey paintings. They are solely meant to express „indifference, shapelessness and refusal to give evidence“. They are meant to mean nothing. Salvador Dali says: Genius spiritualises everything. Yet, how would you spiritualise indifference? Much more than Reinhardt´s black paintings Richter´s grey paintings may be „last“ possible paintings, though rather in the sense of marking the beginning of something new. The limits of human thought and expression, therefore also the possibility of seomething new that lurks behind the horizon can be spiritualised (i.e. via the black paintings), yet indifference may open a much wider and plainer ground, with countless possibilities of exploration; since it may operate at a much lower level and standard of quality. Says Richter: I pursue no objectives, no system, no tendency; I have no program, no style, no direction. I have no time for specialised concerns, working themes, or variations that lead to mastery. I steer clear of definitions. I don´t know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-commital, passive. I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty. That could translate: I´m a pretty average mind. I am a drifter whose morale will largely will be determined by circumstances. I do not try to erect something and transgress the frontiers that are set by contemporary understandings, etc. In Leonardo da Vinci you also had the indefinite, boundlessness and uncertainty, yet Leonardo was operating way beyond the intellectual frontiers of his time. The radical and the transcendent mind will be prone to the indefinite and to experimental uncertainty – and the objective of art should be to open up the mind and the potential of the mind for transcendence. This is what you had in modern art. Contemporary art is more confusing. What you may have in post-modern, or contemporary art is general consensus of indifference. Alongside with his grey paintings, Gerhard Richter, at least symbolically, opened the gates to hell.

Of course, Gerhard Richter is not stupid. Even less, he´s devilish. His qualities are undeniable. Gerhard Richter is raumgreifend, he has Volumen, his oeuvre is of „oddly integral diversity“. He has done abstract paintings, landscapes, portraits, the RAF cycle, church windows, overpaintings. Despite not being avant-garde, he always manages to be at the pulse of time, at least with some delay, that nevertheless, may put more gravity into the whole thing. His art is both realistic and illusionistic. Consider also that Richter is a hybrid between a painter and a conceptual artist. He often presents us paintings that are outtakes or snapshots of reality, without, however, spiritualising them as a fragment that alludes a greater whole, that adresses your imagination of what could be beyond these outtakes, no: you are simply confronted with a rather meaningless snapshot and outtake. Some of Richter´s depictions of clouds, landscapes and seascapes are quite immersive. The objective, however, is to de-romanticise nature, to remind us that romantic notions about nature and the world we inhabit are in the eye of the beholder at best, and not qualities inherent to nature itself. Yet a quality inherent to art and painting is to romanticise nature and to offer higher perspectives, a more sophisticated, empathetic worldview; to elevate not only nature, but also man as the beholder. Occasionally, Richter´s abstract paintings are quite tasty. They combine elements of geometric abstraction and gestural abstraction and his signature style is that he uses a squeegee to make his paintings more interesting. In his RAF paintings there is a mild uncanniness, a mildly non-conformist confrontation of the Bundesrepublik with its past. Richter painted the RAF cycle ten years after the events, in the later 1980s. He has also painted church windows. The respective archbishop did not like them. Gerhard Richter is no slouch. He is, undeniably, a talent and he is academic. There are things that can be said about his art, though not very much. The possibilities of things to be said about his art get drained rather sooner than later. He may not care so much on that behalf, since with his art he is among the 500 most wealthy individuals in Germany. He does not appear an uncomfortable or unlikeable person. It is said he is taken by surprise by the success of his art himself. Consider that one of Richter´s most iconic paintings – Betty (1988) – depicts a woman turning away from the viewer to gaze at a monochromous painting (respectively a monochromous background). It depicts a woman from behind. Despite its solidity and tastyness it is a negative icon. It is an icon of negativity. It is an icon of lukewarm interest, close to being an icon, again, of indifference. – Despite that, it´s an icon. Richter said, it was not easy to overcome Beuys. It will neither be easy to overcome Richter. Richter has Volumen and there is intellectual presicion in his oeuvre, even some space for enigma and mysticism. Upon reflection, Richter´s work and attidute may serve as a watershed between what is possible in art, and via art, and what is not. Maybe that is its historic function. He (at least symbolically) opened the gates to purgatory, the flat land of nearly infinite space, of indifference and mediocrity in art, the flat land we currently inhabit. That nobody I know is fond of Gerhard Richter may just be reflected in his status as the defining artist of our time.

If you like to think about art in a lofty way, you may consider Gerhard Richter and his ineffective art as the enemy. Yet ineffectiveness is inherent to art. Self-criticism about its own relative impotence and incompetence is inherent to art. The problem arises when affirmation of ineffectiveness becomes the substance of art. Yet as such, as the description of the spirit of our age, our present days may go into history´s books: as „the Age of Gerhard Richter and Damien Hirst“. The history of art and of painting had been sensational, and sensationally progressive, for, say, two centuries. (Normally, cultural peaks and climaxes are geographically clustered and last for a generation or two). Naturally, a point will come when all will be said and done in a discipline for quite a while, and it maybe should not come as a surprise that painting had suddenly collapsed in exhaustion, that there had been a big and sudden slump after the radicalities of Abstract Expressionism, Arte Povera and Fluxus. All seemed to be said and done. Pop Art seemed the last occasion to erect distinct icons that capture the contemporary era. Pop Art already was a bit stupid. After the 1960s, society will have become too differentiated and too intelligent for art, to be captured by the means and the spirit of art. The spirit of avant-garde, even art itself, seemed to have become the anachronism in relation to society. The grace that had fallen upon art and, notably, the spirit of avant-garde in the 19th and 20th century maybe had only been the grace of the low hanging fruit. In those bygone days, art could more easily master to be more intelligent and futuristic than society, since society was so stupid. More recently, society may have become too intelligent for art. – Yet also, and most obviously, art has become more stupid and self-defeating, self-depreciating than ever before. That semi-competent artists like Richter, Baselitz, Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons are the defining artists of our age is symptom of a malaise. I don´t know why artists aren´t more intelligent and commited nowadays. Although there are ebbs and floods in the availability of competent people you would also guess that a certain stock of very intelligent and creative truth-seekers are around all the time. The secret of art, and of any enterpise that lies within the mind, is that it is not actually determined by society and Zeitgeist. It´s an enterprise of plunging into depths, of transgression. Despite its insight into its own ineffectiveness, art is meant to be a protest against the ineffectiveness of art. Its purpose should be to erect something. It is, above all, a matter of inspiration. Inspiration is practically independent from society and Zeitgeist. So why isn´t there more inspiration, contemporarily? Yet life, as they say, never ceases to be a mystery.

There´s a Richter exhibition in Vienna right now. Just by the end of this week, the new annual ranking list of most important living artists has come in. Again, Gerhard Richter ranks on top of them all. Yet the ranking mentions also shooting stars and artists that can be expected to have a bright future. I need to look at them. After all, Gerhard Richter is also one of the defining artists of postmodernism, i.e. not necessarily one of the defining artists of the actual present or the future to come. Yet postmodernism at least had a conceptual framework. And there is no guarantee that present and future will have even that, i.e. a minimal insight and self-understanding of what it is doing. Maybe we will lose even that. Maybe it gets even worse than that. Also the Rolling Stone magazine most recently published an update of its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Sgt. Pepper´s Lonely Hearts Club Band got kicked back at postion 24, Elvis Presley has not even an album in the top 50 anymore. Marvin Gaye with his elevator music on What´s Going On is now King, is now President, like Gerhard Richter. I think what is going on in this world is that most people simply are directionless. Also as concerns popular art, popular music, which has clearly been going down the roller coaster (including death metal, which, to my great dissatisfaction, has even become moronic more recently). Yet there are also good things. Two weeks ago I discovered Billie Eilish. I admit that I have not been pretty observant in this respect, but she strikes me as the best thing I have seen in more mainstream popular music in the new millennium. She has synesthesia and her videos are great. I see her in a crown. Her debut album has already been included in the Rolling Stone´s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Maybe the Generation Z will push us forward again. Meanwhile, we seem to be able to live off the fat of older generations, and maybe even for a long time to come. Gerhard Richter or Damien Hirst aren´t actually the most expensive artists. The most expensive paintings sold at auctions in the last decade were from van Gogh, Modigliani, and Basquiat. I.e. the center of gravity is still where it should be. The world is still stable and logical. This is so because the structure of the world is chaosmos, as I always emphasise.

Oct. 16-18, 2020

Abstraction means: to induce from a concrete example a general concept. In themselves, both the abstract and the concrete are tricky. The merely concrete and particular is insignificant and evades definition, the merely abstract is empty or an illusion/delusion. Yet, in order to be productive, to understand the world and to create, the human mind needs to operate within the spectrum of abstraction and concretisation/substantiation, mirroring themselves in each other. (Note: as I am now done with this note, I cannot find a further possibility to refer to that introductory remark at another occasion in the text, so that it is actually useless, but for some reason, I´ll just let it be.)

Abstract painting – with the first true abstract paintings made by Frantisek Kupka in 1912 – set in at the beginning of the 20th century. A specific desire behind abstract painting was to make visible and tangible the human mind itself – as well as to expand and to broaden it, not only via the means of art and painting but also via science and via spirituality, therein also broadening the understanding of the world. The main figures behind abstract painting, Kupka, Kandisky or Malevich, were deeply intellectual, introspective and spiritual persons. It seemed an undertaking in diving into the depths of the mind and throwing up something new, something enigmatic, that, via its abstract forms, is able express the inexpressible itself: the depths and the frontiers of the mind, as well as the horizon of our understanding of the world, and of what possibly could lie beyond that horizon, or beyond that world (therein both the primordial and originary as well as the „spheres“ and the „divine“). Malevich´s Black Square seems to express a wormhole of introspection, a vibrant intensification of introspection, where you mentally destroy or leave behind common knowledge and understanding in order to come out in a new region of the universe with something new (in the case of Malevich it would enable him to later come up with novelties in figurative painting, while Kandinsky stayed inside the abstract realm and Klee coming up with a childlike and virgin amalgamation of abstraction and figuration). Abstract Expressionism would try to express the divine and untouchable via abstraction and make it tangible, reduce the content in order to open up and expand the mind and the spirit; Minimalism would reduce and shape a content in order to express a metaphysics of (enigmatic) presence and coexistence of man with (objects within) the world. Gerhard Richter´s grey paintings from the 1970s by contrast were about using (monochromous and monotonous) abstraction not to express the „spheres“, the „divine“ or anything metaphysical, but to flat out express its opposite: mindlessness and indifference. From that time on, grand narratives, respectively undertakings of art as a spiritual, intellectual, metaphysical endeavour have become falling apart, with interesting things popping up here and there, yet they remain localised. And new impulses to abstract painting seem even rarer.

Sarah Cain (b. 1979 in Albany, New York, resides in Los Angeles) refers to herself as an abstract painter. Like Duncan Wylie she is no super famous artist today, yet she is the coolest thing I have seen in painting since Duncan Wylie (whom I discovered almost ten years ago). Her art is described as „like seeing a rainbow in the middle of a forest“ by poet Bernadette Mayer. I have to say, such a stunning effect it also had on me. It is a combination of mastery over color and (some innate, finally intellectually indecipherable) mastery over form that produces something mesmerising. A highly sensitive person (i.e. excessively open to perceptual stimuli of all kind), Sarah Cain makes dense paintings, in which there is, nevertheless, astounding room for maneuver. I cannot think so quickly of other painters, at least not in the contemporary period, that have such a room for maneuver in combining colors and forms, and, moreover, that produce such astonishingly exact yet unforeseeable results without an apparent underlying formula, since you actually seem to have but a potpourri of stuff and of elements. There are gestural brushstrokes which often make strict rectangular or geometric (i.e. supposedly anti-gestural) forms that are present in most of her paintings, and which I like because they signify the upright, and the challenging and the (near) sublime, they are stern; and they are contrasted with floating forms, waves, or splashes which creates some kind of interesting harmony (between some kind of opposites). There are often (seemingly unmotivated) big black dots that seem to have no function (apart from creating a hole) but that Sarah Cain, as she confesses, herself likes a lot. There often are textiles or objects included in her paintings and one of her innovations was to expand the painting over the edges of the canvas, into the surrounding, which so becomes part of the artwork. Therein, her paintings also become sort of environments, and often she directly interferes with the environment as she does graffiti, paints whole street corners (for instance a street corner in L.A. where there is the epicenter of the city´s trans-prostitution scene, i.e. making the queerest corner of L.A. even queerer), or paints glass windows (most recently at San Francisco International Airport). All of this seems to happen quickly and fervently, yet out of a position of coolness. Sarah Cain seems to just stand there, or do yoga, then get the brush, paint all over something stunning and indisputable, then walk on. Sarah Cain comes, paints, and wins. So it seems. Sarah Cain´s paintings are – without any obvious formula – extremely robust and stable. Unlike most other productions in art, they are able to stand on themselves. They are, above all, extremely tasty. Very tasty stuff – that cannot be actually explained, but that wins over the intellectual, the critic, as it just is (and needs no addenda). It is true that that this art seems not deeply intellectual nor metaphysical either: the introspective element, the introspective endeavour doesn´t seem to have omnipresence (yet Sarah Cain is still young, and, for instance, Barnett Newman came up with his excessive stylistic contemplations later in life) (my neighbour Wolfgang ruminated that there may be less density and presence in her paintings in the future, but more of a meditative restriction and absence). Yet there undoubtely is an expansion within abstract painting, and you may find that in this combination of elements you may have a display of the totality of the human mind, and it is playful, it is colorful, and it is innocent. Sarah Cain is a GREAT painter and she is a VITAL figure in the history of abstract painting.

Thus spake Zarathustra