Totality

Art exists in a broad spectrum combining concepts, gestures, performances, and objective works.

Impressions, perceptions, and ideas that cannot be put into words must be articulated by other means, each of which extends the cultural vocabulary of the human condition.

Strike Counter Strike

Collective idealism can never tolerate art.

But this is an ancient idea.

Art is the expression of an autonomous individual, one who takes a measure of reality and expresses that measurement.  What matters is the discernment necessary to evaluate whether a work is a true reflection or a falsification.

Critical Clarity

"Feeling" is not reasoning.

No artist maintains credibility or integrity who claims purely subjective and emotional perspective is superior to established fact, and no such expression rises to the level of art.

Lies and propaganda may be interesting for what they are, but culture and history remain objective in judgement, and uncaring as to whether they are viewed as unkind.

The foundation for intellectual and perceptual elevation is Reason, a point of departure that is most essential, even as the transcendent sense of being rises beyond all understanding.

Impermanence, Transformation

Detachment clarifies perspective.

Reality changes, while perceptions and emotions do not always follow.

View and Variation

Art expresses belief and judgement.

Certainly this means art represents a philosophical perspective, whether viewed as a representation of reality or as gesture alone. To interpret or to simply experience any work implies a philosophical choice.  Were it otherwise one would have no choice, other than to accede to, or impose, diktat.

What cannot be expressed directly can, and will, be evoked by other means.

System

Nothing is random, but only apparently so.  It is an appearance only.

Everything has a cause, and in terms of the finished work, that is the role of the artist.

Where Monsters Roam

Observe the decline in prominence of the arts.

If technology alone directs culture, information is everywhere available and nowhere internalized.

This is a failure of the imagination generated by an extreme sense of self-importance brought on by "connectivity".  It is a state of illusion, one that dulls and devitalizes the creative sense.

Knowing

The artist creates perceptions and impressions.

These will be accepted or rejected on face value, or, in certain individuals, they will become knowledge of things beyond appearances. Who genuinely perceives, views, listens?

For most, this will remain a mystery.

The Uncanny and the Avant-Garde

Assemble elements both predictable and popular and there is nothing unexpected.

Now strip away, by degrees, these elements. That which was recognizable evolves toward the unknown, taking on an alien aspect while remaining somewhat within the realm of experience.

This is the aesthetic beauty of the unexpected, outside the bland, dull order of shock and offense.

Bell in the Fog

One who recognizes objective reality and deals with it accordingly creates with visionary clarity.

The worst circumstances are nonetheless actionable to such an artist. Corruption, like every element of culture, increases until it exceeds its boundaries, and thus its possibilities, then grows weak and declines, sometimes precipitously.

Whenever possible, act; when action is not possible, gather strength.

Force and Limit

Engaged in the creative act, it is possible to maintain focus on the outcome.

Trace expression from aesthetic concept through emotional and intellectual evaluation, and what is significant is total effect.  All else reflects the cultural climate, regardless of the degree to which any personal, subjective, and objective forces combine in composition and execution of the work.

Grasp of Reality

Historically, art directs attention and reflects cultural direction.

Dictators and tyrants have always punished artists with whom they were in contention, but it is only since the twentieth century that such base, evil impulses have become pervasive in a general culture overseen by internationalist media promoting global conformity of thought.

And thus it is that the artist rebels against a new dark age.

To Rise Above

The artist chooses, and afterwards the only choice is forward.

This is transcendence: to rise beyond circumstance and obstacle, ridicule and contempt.

And this is expression, as opposed to pretension, which is defined by attachment.  Attachment to the self, to recognition, and to the lesser things, wealth and personal power. These have no significance beyond themselves.

The way of the artist is elevation.  Above, beyond.

Reality, Gesture, Object, Effect

Balance reason and the intuitive.

The creative act expresses synthesis of idea and media; it is in flux until it is complete.

Less and Excess

Impression is foundation; expression is judgement.

If the artist expresses sagacity, the work confirms clarity of perspective.

Culture Counter Culture

Art implies faith in perception and artistic vision.

Those who will not trust enough must never be trusted.

By Now

Cultural progress is in difficult straits.

Everywhere cultural expression is superseded by grasping ideology, and the loss to forward thinking is substantial.  A kind of socially-engineered suspension of intellectual risk that stultifies critical thought has generated, over time, a lack of vigor, even a dazed timidity, in the arts.

In every form and manner, give voice to truth. To deny the existence of truth is to deny life, and to know nothing.

Attention and Immersion

What most consider to be "culture" is, plainly stated, too easily grasped.

The fact that one experiences does not necessarily mean that one comprehends.

Listen, Hear, Know

Art in any medium conveys ideas. In a word, art speaks.

Denial of objective meaning does not change facts. Art confirms when all else fails or falsifies.

Beleaguered

From any perspective, the persistence of failed ideas is truly insufferable.

Neither artist nor culture can thrive is an atmosphere poisoned by absurd ideologies and dogmatic denial of the fundamental right to call into question what one collective or another asserts to be "settled issues". Clearly, these are viewpoints that operate to the advantage of one at the expense of another. Expression will be free, and if not, it will be pointless.