I KNOW WHEN THE STOVE IS HOT...

DON T ASK ME TO CHANGE MY MIND ABOUT WHAT MY

SENSES TELL ME.

POLITICISING THE AESTHETIC (an assault upon reason)

by Paul Henrickson

tm.

2011

THE FIRST FACT: The assertion and the research

Fifty years ago a colleague, by the name of Malcolm O Brien, (a pseudonym) mentioned two interesting claims in defence of a third colleague by the name of Marvin Montvel-Cohen. They were two controversial assertions. One of these was that Jews were leaders in cultural development and that artists do not lie. When I mentioned this second claim to William Mullen the artistic Director of th e Santa Fe Concert Association he vehemently disagreed . Oh yes, they do! he replied. I then took the opportunity to mention a little history to those claims and that a few years after they had been made I was in a research position to put the second of them to the test. The result of that psychological research is to be found in the document entitled The Perceptive and Silenced Minorities http://www.scribd.com/full/1026587?access_key=keymb9k9xgfhkydzslk166 available on www.scribd.com. What that research indicated was that creative people when manipulating non-verbal material or in making judgments about art products they also achieved low and non-significant correlation on lie scales. Interestingly enough it was this singular group of high creatives and non-liars who consistently in high school and undergraduate university levels received a grade point average one grade point lower (sufficient to keep them out of the teacher preparation program) than the predominant group, that is the liars and the non-creative people. It was this second group who would go on to become the teachers to in our school systems. Why, it seems reasonable to ask, would the powers in society which decide events for that society s future eliminate from positions of influence, such as teachers, those individuals who told the truth? Why should the superficially socially agreeable be advanced over the perceptive? It is easier that way, of course, but the results are unsatisfactory.
THE SECOND FACT: The analysis and conclusions

That finding supports the general belief that artists are different from ordinary people, and, it would seem, in a most desirably moral way, that is, they tell the truth. There is, or course, one refinement to this conclusion requiring us to be cautious and that is that a creative person behaving creatively at one hour. may not be doing so at a later time. That is to say, that when an artist is performing as an artist and in the process of responding to the materials of his craft he must be honest in all his responses. It is in this sense, and, perhaps, only in this sense an artist does not lie. Later when relaxing with colleagues at the local bar and in the presence of a possible erotic companion some misrepresentation may occur. So, at this point different motivations for behavior are introduced. However, more important to this author is the implication that honest behaviour has in its relationship to art criticism. If honest responses and only honest responses characterize the production of a work of art the

implication for the art critic is that he must be more than customarily astute in recognizing honest effort as opposed to its opposite. This, in turn implies that more than a series of art historical courses are required for a critic to have built up the required level of perception to be able to make reliable aesthetic judgments. When Clement Greenberg during a lecture at Western Michigan University was heard to have made the rather weak defence that such judgments were a matter of taste he may not have been ready to formulate a more truthful response. Consciousness does mature incrementally and I would suppose, that it takes different paths on its way to its destination. As for the erotic needs mentioned above, while they are, in their way, also aesthetic expressions, erotic needs reappear from time to time and even in fantasy demand instantaneous satisfaction, whereas more complicated aesthetic problems requiring more complex solutions which have been symbolically achieved move the individual spirit to a higher plateau and a broader horizon. This may explain why I.Q. levels have been reported a having been raised after listening to music by Mozart...and, on the other hand, why the efforts of Paul Brach, Jeff Koons, and Andy Warhol should, in the interest of an aesthetically sophisticated populous, be denied, through developed sensibilities, the influence they have had....regretably, as Leo Steinberg was aware, all developmental levels are entertained by the circus. Back in 1964, in Art International magazine, Steinberg called Brach s simple yet opaque paintings "the invisibility of an encompassing, undifferentiated homogeneity" ...ergo: Brach, et al, are pretenders, Simon Maguses, passing off lead for gold. If as, I believe, is the case honest aesthetic responses thrive in a condition of existential health all our avenues of information gathering will open.

While Paul Brach failed to achieve creative significance he was, largely due to a poorly informed, but loyal clacqueurs, able to achieve his goals of a place in the Hamptons, a BMW and a Mercedes. While there may have been others unknown to me the one episode to which I was witness took place at the Art Department at The University of California , San Diego, where the focus of the drama was to th rid the department of the one non-Semitic member...a 19 century-style landscape painter from Scotland. Brach s political manoeuvring in order to ensure the complete Jewish dominance over the art department at UCSD had some unfortunate results. Basically, what it did was to deprive the student body of what is essential in a liberal arts institution....varying points of view. The claim that the Jew may be more creative than any other may have some merit after all and I suspect, that merit is to be found in the Talmudic method of education where there is no question which cannot be investigated from several points of view. In my mind there is no doubt that the encouragement of intellectual flexibility is a primary agent in creative thinking. This is so very different from the instructional methods of most other religious, or state run, organizations. In terms of art criticism this understanding offers me no difficulty in choosing a Hyman Bloom over a Katz.

ALEX KATZ

HYMAN BLOOM

QUESTION: Is simplicity or complexity a factor is creative effort or is there another factor also involved?

A clearer refinement of this understanding might be that those who have claimed themselves to be artists may, in fact, not be and that , therefore, their pretence at being creative is highly consistent with the findings (above)in that they behave as they believe they are expected to behave consistent with the stereotype. This, in turn, suggests that artists when behaving like everybody else tell lies like ordinary people. It also suggests that pretence at being creative is detectable and, I suggest, that it is this area of operations that are the concerns of the legitimate critic lie. To illustrate that point and to save Katz from utter condemnation Katz has, at least, conscientiously refined his minimalist approach and the range from successful to unsuccessful works sufficiently believable to suggest that he is serious about his approach and his search. Paul Shapiro, on the other hand, has moved from one pastiche approach to the next, the next and the next and, in so far as I am able to judge never penetrated beneath the surface. It would appear that not only has Paul not penetrated the deeper potential of what he has done he seems to be unaware that there is one. Is he, somehow, similar to Til Eulenspieglel in this regard?

THIRD FACT: In a high fashion dress and unaware a seem had opened.

Creative impulses, if there had ever been any, in the pretender may have been redirected toward the identification of mass preference, which then becomes the determining factor in production...which describes the various styles checked out by Paul Shapiro. After all many of us have been taught that we are only good when we do what we are told. The truly creative life is one of intense and focused energy directed toward solving a problem which the mind may not yet have fully identified. The most significant difference between intellectual activity and creative activity may be the degree of mystery which may explain why Einstein s mathematical efforts indicated implications he was unable to accept. On the other hand the dramatic switch in styles affected by Don Fabricant tells us, without doubt, that his aesthetic search was rooted in his ability to perceive and to judge. A belated bit of advice to His Excellency the Governor would be he would have done more wisely to have given this recognition posthumously to Fabricant than to indicate to an already dumbed-down public that their political leader is with them all the way, after all, the recognition was for excellence in painting and Fabricant was a painter... whereas Shapiro

is a clown
Shapiro & friend Fabricant: etching

This matter also raises the much more complex issue of judging works of art on the level of their creativity. It also underscores, on yet another level, the perpetual conflict between the conservative mind-set (which is, by and large, the mind-set of the community, the secure consensual agreement level) and the more experimental (which is, by and large, the mind -set of the individual when that individual is thinking about what he perceives). It describes, as well, unfortunately, the perennial battle between the perceptive individual and the society in which he lives. The question of how the creative mind works is of abiding interest and how, as well as why if the creative interest is on target and focused, this gets reflected in moral behaviour. My guess is that those people, such as painters, sculptors, composers and creative writers who are working with material under their control and who judge their progress in terms of some mental image are unable to make aesthetic decisions that are contrary to that mental image. To do so would be comparable to disobeying a muse ...a divinely sent messenger, or, in other words an inner authority . Somewhere among these above mentioned possibilities lies the answer. As a negative example of what I am trying to describe one of these creative pretenders , whom I d never before met, ambushed me at one gallery with the announcement, out of the blue, that he was going to become Santa Fe s best known artist (that was his expression, not mine) while I would be known only as Doris Cross s landlord. Paul Shapiro may. Indeed, be better known than I, but I cannot help but to wonder whether that is the issue. It appears that it had been for him. Had I had my wits about me at the time and not been taken thoroughly off balance by this thrust I might have suggested he set his goals somewhat higher. Well, he has achieved recognition by the Governor of New Mexico and we all recognize that for what it is no matter what the state or who the Governor. It was not only the socially inappropriate behaviour of having inserted himself into a pre-scheduled meeting between two others, but, even more, the illogic of confusing fame and excellence. One is a temporary nuisance, the other a grave offense when misapplied and underscores the fact that although this person claims to have come from Boston, there is absolutely no way in which he might be considered Bostonian , that is a very special human condition and there are fewer and fewer people who recognize what it is. While Paul Shapiro has been chosen by Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico as one of New Mexico s excellent practitioners Paul has, to that extent, achieved his aim of becoming well known .It is the system I criticise at this point, not Paul s creative efforts. But the system has, as in the case of many, but not all, of those presently (2010) selected, done the New Mexico community a disservice. Pretence and public relations are all that matters, and as the little boy wanting to be a part of the celebration, asked, are we having fun yet? "No one paints watercolors like Taos artist Tom Noble no one can, and no one will," said his nominator, Anne Uhring of Albuquerque. "For more than four decades, the man has proven himself as an exceptional artist who captures the best New Mexico has to offer, based upon a lifelong love of his native Taos and the generational influence of his family roots."

Tom Noble

Helen Rumpel stitchery

Phyllis Kapp

Inger Jirby

Obviously the claim that no one paints watercolors like Tom Noble is an incorrect statement, yet obviously acceptable if seen as an aspect of public relations. I see it as intentional deceit and even if viewed, in the Clement Geenberg sense, as taste it fails to achieve, what for some is a higher priority, .... truth. Worse, this approach to salesmanship and the construction of a reputation discourages the pursuit of individual enquiry and self-questioning essential in the building of an aesthetic consciousness. It seems to be, in every dimension, anti-life, non-organic and the dumbing-down of awareness and highly convenient for the dictatoriat . The above comments say nothing whatever about the specific aesthetic qualities of the works pictured, that the author leaves up to the reader.
NEW FACTS: Complicating events and illogical solutions

At this moment there are so many disparate lines of thought in my mind converging on what appears to be the central theme which is, I think, art and politics. So, to tie these last thoughts together I would conclude that artists would make poor politicians and its reverse, that is, politicians becoming artists, seems even more unlikely since one of the requirements of an artist is to respect the nature of his medium. The medium for the politician are the people in his community and while the rhetoric of respect is always present and enunciated its manifestation in practice is rare.
AN OTHER FACT: CONJURING MYTHS

Those topics, art and politics, are, generally, separated, perhaps out of convenience, for ease of analysis. However, in such a separation there is a cost and that cost relates to either the enrichment or the impoverishment of human experience. For political actions do affect aesthetic sensibilities, or by way of example, some decades back there was in Sana Fe , New Mexico, great concern over the Chinese taking the traditional turquoise and silver designs and copying them and taking over the market. The American Federal government employees decide that the various Indian Pueblos were the best to decide who was or was not a member of the Pueblo. One problem with that was that since membership was often honorary it was not necessarily based on ethnicity. In the course of these deliberations two artisans emerged. One of these jewellers appeared to be full-blooded Indian and the other whose Indian components were unclear. The first person produced non-traditional designs, the second produced traditional designs. I know nothing of the deliberations that took place within the Pueblos, but the end result was that the designer of nontraditional jewellery was no longer Indian. This was the first suggestion I had heard that DNA determinations might be altered by one s aesthetic sensibilities. I am not ridiculing the idea that DNA might be altered by externally received aesthetic experiences for there are those who maintain that playing appropriate music during pregnancy may beneficially alter the disposition of the foetus as, it is supposed, the consumption of alcohol, drugs and tobacco. In short, what may appear to be a separation might better be seen as a qualified separation. It would, however, be a travesty of logic to declare a person to be a non-Indian because he designed nontraditional pieces. It would seem helpful if the parameters which distinguished jewellery design from DNA could remain distinct...at least for the time being.

RECENT OFFENCES : Passion vs. reason in public discourse

As it now the 10 of January and two days have passed since the Tucson tragedy stunned many of us and the internet has been supporting regular news announcements and a great variety of interviews with experts as well as non-experts with a considerable amount of concern for what nearly all have called the political rhetoric of the time. We are told it needs to be toned down out of consideration for the possibility that there could be someone out there who might interpret what they hear in ways not intended but still dangerous to society. Although it seems clear to this observer that there is a more occult and sinister reason for wanting to put the lid on incivility. Calling someone rude and ending a discussion on that basis is an easy way to avoid intellectual defeat. Rather what is needed, I think, is not a change in the level of insulting rhetoric but a development of clarifying and explanatory rhetoric. Dr. Gail Saltz had been dealt a rather sour hand when asked by the interviewer to explain to an audience, which it would have been fair to describe as nonpsychiatrically professional. The audience, by and large, is unsophisticated and their likely prognostic interpretation of presumably hastily written and laboriously conceived series of thoughts expressed by the suspect would be anything but professionally encouraging. As a consequence that portion of the interview got short shrift and what truly requires a developed response got barely a footnote and an audience which lacking professional background in the psychiatric discipline is left with the impression that correct psy chiatric diagnosis is a matter of following some prepared check list.... as though immediate perceptions were not pertinent. RELATED IDEOCIES: no matter what the discipline half -baked and misleading information are persistently promulgated by the media...as a natural consequence of their felt need to summarise...prematurley. In regard to unsophisticated audiences and their shepherds, the frauds parading boastfully as experts we have had some notable and very public exposes, very notably one Hans van Meergeren It has been reported that, in today s U.S. Dollars van Meergeren who, during the second world war delighted fooling the Nazis into buying Jan Vermeer paintings he himself had produced. During the court trials after the war van Meergeran was required to paint in the presence of the court a Vermeer ...these well-educated , but blindly uncritical of aesthetic values judges for the society were aesthetically unable to tell good from bad, genuine from fake and required a pastiche maker to prove he could make a pastiche under the supervision of the court. Well, the most that can possibly be said about that comic performance was that it examined both sides of the coin, in requiring of the defendant prove to me you can fool me . It has been reported that, in todays (2010) u.s. dollars he, the fraud, gained $500,000,000 and Vermeer seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death.... and so goes it, century after century...art education never seems to catch up with private greed and the public s stupidity and there are forever those pompous art dealers such as Gerald Peters and Forrest Fenn who deal, not in known works of art, but in very familiar areas of public ignorance. That is where the joy is, not in the art, but in fooling someone.

th

Van Meergeren
PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES: Result from incomplete data

Vermeer

Vermeer

(top) Van

Meergeren (bottom)

We suggest a functioning balance between what we know and what we suspect. I, among others, suspect that the history of the injection of psycho-metric, brain-activity controlling drugs, in the case of Jared Laughner, would reveal him to have been such a victim. If this is so, and the witnesses to Jared s behavior adequately and truthfully describe what they saw then what they saw may simply have been the mind s struggle to reassert its control over itself after the normal evaluative processes of dealing truthfully with facts had been chemically disrupted. If the above it true, then those commentators who passionately support the death penalty for the perpetrator of these murders are focusing on the wrong person. After all it seems an undoubted fact that the importation of large amounts of mind-altering substances were imported into the United States with the full knowledge and complicity of the government of the United States and its agents. So, is it not logical to conclude that those who, purposefully, made dangerous and illegal substances available are the one s responsible for the deaths and injuries at Tucson? It is insufficient to state that the one who pulls the trigger is the one responsible and most especially so when it is known that being under the influence of the drugs in question seriously alters the normal process of thought. I do not wish to remove the responsibility for the decision to take the drugs in the first place from the person taking them but to reconsider the admonishment in the Book of Matthew: But if anyone causes one of these
little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for hi m to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

It is in this light that I view the behaviours of many art dealers as more immoral* than those whose fingers pull triggers. The most obvious difference is that dealers have both reasons and motivations both very tightly integrated with the making of profit and they have no thought of altering either while fingers, which are extensions of the human brain, have, therefore more moral responsibility for their actions than the art dealer whose only and highly simplified motivation is to make benefit , but if we connect all the dots and find that the individual whose finger pulled the trigger had had his normal mental operations maliciously altered, the line connecting dots jumps directly to that source...those sponsoring the Nicaraguan involvement and drug trade. *This comparison is made not on the basis that art dealers, generally, know that they do not know what they ought to know, but worse than that they refuse to learn. We have laws against the abuse of children, parents, and the elderly. I would suggest that it would be just as reasonable to extend the definition of abuse to include the structuring of self concepts that are only consistent with majority rule.
OBSERVATIONS: everyone agreed.......the guy is crazy....lets hang him!....democracy at work.

In this connection the frequent use of the term insane by nearly all participating is the very type of hyperbolic extreme rhetoric all present at these videoed interviews claimed to deplore. But the point I wish to make in terms of its application to my thesis is this: words not carefully chosen have no chance of transmitting the message. Expressions such out of his mind , crazy , and insane used by the nonprofessional to describe their response to a situation and are often heard as fact before they are understood as opinion and therein lies the injustice....for it is in that time period between belief and understanding where fatal decisions are often made...and where some want decisions to be made. I wondered at the time of this shooting who this judge John Roll may have been and wondered even more why so little, at the time, had been said about him and what he had been doing at this political corner meeting. It is now being suggested that because he was a strict constitutionalist and was not in favor of gun

control that he had been targeted for elimination and the world now has an undoubted mentally offbalance suspect to attach the responsibility and, in so doing, obviate the necessity to look further for causes....which may, in fact, be its purpose. If my theory that what fosters creative solutions in art on the psychic/symbolic levels is an awareness of chaos to which the creative mind feels compelled to bring about solutions is correct it might also be helpful to remember that the creative mind often takes a longer and more involved path to a solution than does the uncreative mind. Even if the creative mind arrives at the same conclusion it arrives there more enriched than the other. But, as it has been indicated above there are some with rather hasty mind sets who find the chaos of indecision intolerable and feel hurriedly obligated to arrive at a decision and feel the adequacy of the decision to be of no consequence. These people may also be content to accept the democratic vote on the gender of a rabbit. While it does seem likely our social understanding of the world of creative art is being unconvincingly manipulated it has been for several decades now, ever since Sophie Burnham wrote The Art Crowd and Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word there had been an ever increasing amount of published evidence that there was abroad an anti-aesthetic agenda being imposed....somewhere and somehow and for some reason. Some of this relaxation in judgment may have been based on an awareness of some developmental process where, in the normal course of events simplicity gives way to sophistication such as what might be

represented by White On White by Kasimir Malevich who painted the famous White on White when he was forty (1918) and Whistler this portrait of Lady Maux in 1881 when he was 47. when he was 47 (1881) where it might be possible to assume that the artist wished to draw the observer s attention to more basic aesthetic experiences and, thereby, reminding the observer of what it means to be looking at a painting. That, at least, was the sort of message I was given when attending undergraduate lectures on the history of modern art. However, when one remembers that the Whistler precedes the Malevich by a full generation we might feel the need to ask; In 1881 were there no perceptive

James Abbot McNeil Whistler: Portrait Lady Maux

observers who understood Whistler s creative interests even after he had both demonstrated and enunciated them? Karl Benjamin played with this minimalist concept as well but elaborated upon it in several directions such as color, value, direction, overlay and organization so that the observer s attention is held over a longer period of time. However, at the same time even at his best there have been numbers of high school students who had exceeded him.

Karl Benjamin

Barnett Neumann

compare@ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M268UccYVCE I have often wondered whether this fellow seemingly entranced by this vertical red by Barnett Neuman had been mischievously placed there as part of the photographer s subtle comment.

WEIGHING CHOICES: Where is the creativity found, in simplification or in elaboration ?

One cannot help but wonder whether man s mind is so obstinate that it takes, in effect, several generations for a demonstrated point to take root in the mind of the general population. On the other hand and in all fairness to the efforts of others I am not at all sure that even today the conceptual relationship between the reductionist approaches (from the concentration on the physical appearance of objects) of the mid-nineteenth century to the focusing of attention on to the elements of picture making , a shift of attention somewhat comparable to from wearing your best clothes for Sunday service to being a good Samaritan. Yet, even in the same time period as Benjamin s Chino Hills (above) It would not be truly exceptional to find work by high school students which were not products of instruction but rather of response and which were fully as effective as this Benjamin example. Yet, it would be unusual to see a creative high school art student repeat, somewhat adnauseum, a compositional formula. .What I mean by this is that rather than to attempt to clarify for the intelligent reader the possible rationale for the appearance of certain works of art there was, instead, an effort to substitute instruction and authority or social pressure for intelligent and individual analysis...or, even more clearly stated: the force of

social unanimity subverts privately considered judgment. In this way and to this extent democracy is not a productive approach as it encourages immediate decisions after the absolute minimum of reflection. There may be a corollary to this as well and that being that if an individual is an artist and honest in his responses to his chosen medium and, as a social being, does not lie, it might be that he may be equally unable to recognize a liar when confronted with one and falls an easy victim to them because the community mind-set overrules individual insight. In a community as active in the creative and performing arts as Santa Fe, New Mexico which, per capita, has, I would guess, many more creatively active people than the so-called normal community, it is, expectedly, that it also possesses many more pretenders to that status. That is true of Santa Fe and it is, therefore, not at all surprising that the annual selection by the Governor of New Mexico of New Mexico s most creative individuals is a sham. Poor Governor Richardson, it is truly unrealistic for the citizenry to expect perfection from the Governor in all areas merely on the basis of his having received the most votes. The French assertion that 14 million Frenchman can t be wrong simply cannot apply to New Mexico. This is reflected, as well, in the selection process for exhibitions in The Governor s Gallery. When I asked James Rutherford, who was, at the time, the Gallery s director, how exhibitors were chosen he replied that he, the secretary to the Governor s wife and the Governor s wife selected the works for exhibit. When I asked him what his qualifications might be for that job he told me he had had an undergraduate course in Art Appreciation. When I asked about the qualifications of the Secretary to the Governor s wife might be I was told she had an MBA and when I asked about the Governor s wife James shrugged his shoulders and replied She s the Governor s wife . At least he gave minimum evidence as to his doubt as to whether that status as the Governor s wife might qualify, but then, as the purpose of this article, in part, is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of political judgments in any area it will serve as an example of how attempts are made to mould public opinion in the, hopefully, vain attempt to take up the slack in authority awareness. In all fairness to James, however, I think it probable he may have enriched his store of appropriate knowledge over the past thirty years, but, nevertheless we might ask...over how many corpses? Since this research indicates that the liars are far more numerous than the non-liars the playing field is distinctly not level. In such a game someone like Mark Runco (of The Torrance Creativity Center at The University of Georgia) who advised taking creative activities out of the art department is a menace not only to the field of academic creativity studies, but to our civilization as we have known it. One of the only place s in the public school curriculum where creative activity and thought may have a chance of expression is in the art class....even with an inept teacher.... to remove it might do as much harm to the individual as the administration of behaviour modifying drugs as it would remove a potentially valuable and self-directed therapeutic technique. Ideas and awareness do grow, they mature, they develop, they mutate as more data become available and, quite often, new ideas emerge out of a sense, a general sense, of discomfort with whatever the status. The specific cause, if there is one, for this general sense of discomfort may not, yet, have been identified. Unless it be possible to accept the hypothesis that there is within the individual a restlessness regarding the unknown within based on the theory of self-preservation that urges the individual to seek a solution to the chaos in the environment that offers the most benefits. On that assumption alone I would predict an increase in the migration of creative types out of the United States to friendlier environments.
THE ROLE OF CREATIVE BEHAVIOR: The creative thinker may be unconventional and uncommon but his role is to bring conceptual order to chaos

Ironically, however, it seems to me that this effort has come to its flowering in the work and the analysis of the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat who was a valuable victim of those he benefitted. When the female character in the Schnabel film emphatically states in referring to the work of Basquiat This is the true voice of the gutter! in what ways are we to believe she knows what she is talking about? And how are we to

understand that value we are led to believe she finds there? Later, in a trailer for this same film we hear a narrator state no one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another van Gogh . Is there any good reason why I seem to hear in this the same tone of terror at being found out, discovered as being not sufficiently conventionally unconventional? And just where are the parallels that suggest van Gogh and Basquiat had anything in common? I should realise, I suppose, that the rational , these days, is the antithesis of the fashionable.
SOMETHING IMPOTANT: If, as the mass mind insists that people who do whatever it is that they do that the common man thinks is crazy what does it tell us of the highly educated fellow who spends his time trying to make sense out of what the mad man says that everyone else knows is senseless? ............Hhmmm!

I reject that highly cynical view, so characteristic of many journalists, which recognizes value in the human being mainly on the level of its most confused, degenerate and painful. This view would maintain that a parent doesn t become newsworthy until he loses a daughter to a Dutchman on a moonlit Caribbean beach, or the genius of the gutter is worthless unless he dies of a heroine overdose. How many knew that it was only a matter of time?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXjR-y0WH-I; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXjR-y0WH-I or that of the Japanese-built WWII fort on Guam which probably scores of unfocused, drug-impelled indolents decided to objectify their terrors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VPuD1vOAyw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXjR-y0WH-I

As I understand the tone of some of Basquiat s statements and observe his facial expressions I see a reasonable mind quietly assessing the mind set of his enthusiastic companions and seriously attempting to connect the dots. I also see the innocent expression of someone who takes pleasure in pleasing. entertaining, and providing value to others. Jean-Michel Basquiat may never have known the gutters of Puerto Rico, but I had and I see in him some of the same compassion for others I had met there in La Perla and El Fanguito. But it has not been possible for me to justify maintaining an environment merely because it was a stimulus for a response thought valuable by managers. If the work by which most of us know Basquiat s efforts we might now sadly lament that his experiences with the notable and the managerial others had not allowed him to become what is innate, struggling self may have felt possible to become without the constant bombardment of expectations emanating from surrounding personalities who recognized both Basquiat s vulnerability and the value of the journalistic material he provided...pre or post mortem. As both a psychologist and a graphic artist I do recognize those manifestations of creative thinking and their results which provide valuable material for other and furthering creative efforts. Watching Basquiat take

from his immediate environment whatever was at hand and watch him with great enthusiasm and energy restructure it was, for me, a joy. I see nothing insincere in either his process or his product but I do see heightened and focused selfishness in those around him.

In the film by Julian Schnabel on Basquiat one of the lines delivered by an actress describing Basquiat s work is: This is the true voice of the gutter . It may be possible to see such imagery as signature acts of destruction and expressively meaningful within the context of the relationship between the evaluating mind and the symbols it chooses to convey meaning, but if the hypothesis is correct that the symbols and the methods chosen by the artist are true on the level of one such as Basquiat who is, seemingly, trying to establish a meaning between the mark and the thought and others such as Paul Cezanne, Caravaggio and Edvard Munch we must recognize that their original points of creative departure are much more informed. As a consequence shouldn t we be aware of the possibility that Basquiat might have made dramatic and important discoveries had he, at least, not been encouraged to destroy himself? There is a quotation somewhere from Madonna who expressed envy that she found Basquiat so fragile . Such a perception certainly speaks well for her unless, of course, it was not she who uttered it.

Is it right for the sophisticated to attempt to seduce the innocent into remaining innocent even to the point of helping to keep them helpless in the making of self-defensive decisions for the sake of the entertainment value he brings to others...such as the idiot-savant in TheThirty-Nine Steps.

When creative efforts are used by others in ways inconsistent with their origination as personal expressions and twisting them to better conform to some alien agenda we are, in effect, distorting what some might consider divine intention. I personally doubt that Basquiat had in mind that he wished to become the voice of the gutter.

Paul Cezanne

Caravaggio

Edvard Munch

While art can and has enriched lives it has done so mainly on the individual basis. The aesthetic experience seems to be a very personal one, shareable, seemingly, only after the individual has been able to verbalise the experience and then shares the description with another, unless. of course, those group dancing sessions where individuals gyrate and gesticulate but may be seen as taking part in a community aesthetic.

I think the rationale for seeing tribal performances in that light cannot be denied. The anthropological report of an Aleut community having experienced a frightening earth quake responded initially as having undergone various social misalignments until the ones responsible for marking important social experiences on the totem came up with the icon of a squirrel cracking a nut. After this symbol had been devised and installed on the totem pole the social distress was gone. Just as, perhaps, the Germans who founded this San Jose, Costa Rican bank could not resist placing this mildly altered insignia on the face

of their new location. This can be seen as an act of reassurance that one is still who one was even though in

a different locale.

THE STYLISH COPYIST: The original thinker, the one with a solution doesn t follow recipes.

A more amusing expression of shared aesthetics and politics can be seen in the Diane Denish (the lieutenant Governor of New Mexico) look alike of Hillary Clinton. I find her concern for not having her political style not confused with that of Bill Richardson on the one hand but going to considerable pains to offer some aesthetic confusion as to who was Hillary and who Diane may be on the other. Why Denish would have risked such confusion I have no idea. She might have received offers impossible to turn down. However, for my present purposes it is a useful anecdote in that it has illustrated where beauty and bad behavior might blend their outlines. Handsome is as handsome does I was told when I was young. Or more currently, whatever happened to Vince Foster?

DiANE DENISH

HILLARY CLINTON

LUCREZIA BORGIA

AN UNCOMMON FOCUS: Efforts to bring about change.

The following four images were selected to illustrate the facts and various facets of THE CREATIVITY PACKET a website devoted to exploring what it means in being significantly different and why being so may be the key to humanity s salvation. Picking the one outstanding individual from the crowd may be one aspect of the problem, another may be functioning from the end of European anatomy may be another, emerging from the dark into the light is an acceptable analogy as is the suggestion that creativeness may still remain suspended in a romantic purple haze.

As this essay speaks of politics and aesthetics and, more specifically, the politicising of aesthetics, the author contends that an action that puts an end to all human sensation is one of the more dramatically political acts possible. In regard to building a social consciousness it would seem, possibly, beneficial if memorial days for heroes were extended to include the creation of Days of Condemnation for the evil others have done.
DESIRING SURVIVAL: Is one of the more rational and constant responses

There is, however, no romance in the deaths of four young people at Kent State University, ordered by the then Governor James Rhodes, a university drop out and entrepreneur of the trashy Jim s Place . This is what in all his pride of power he orders the deaths of young people on the grounds they disagree with him about the Vietnam and Cambodian wars. However was this man elected in the first place? The recent student riots in Great Britain, of course, are reminiscent of the student response at Columbia and the even more tragic one at Kent State but it might well be that the one at Kent State was, perhaps by accident, the more significant because of the loss of four young lives. These lives quite probably had only just begun, if that, to know the rather awesome revelations that occur as, like a stripper, life destroys one

illusion after another until, only one, and that uncertain, remains and the curtain falls.

There might be, I think, one objection to what I heard offered as a form of lament and that was the idea that somehow in all this angrily violent confusion the purposes of education may have been forgotten. Had they? I asked myself, and then immediately came up with the answer. No, not really, I told myself for how can one separate out from life, its quality? One s life is the sum total of one s experiences together with one s responses to those experiences and the torment appropriate for Rhodes should be his having to forever wonder what good he may have prevented from occurring. One may even interpret an extrapolation of this thought in the theory that ghosts ( and they are perceived that way by some) , are a tenuous contact with unresolved experiences. Once yet again, we have, in America, raised the football player, the successful politician and the Ms. Beauty to the level of national hero without understanding an iota about it beyond the volume of the hoopla which accompanies the claim. Leonard Bernstein wrote a very successful portrait opera in WESTSIDE STORY . Can there not arise up another compassionate composer to outline the tragedy inherent in the people of Ohio having elected to an office he should never have had who would take that opportunity to deprive patents of their children? The recent student demonstrators in Britain may not have seen the events to which they were reacting as anything more than another governmentally imposed hurdle placed along the path of their development on the excuse that economic conditions demand it. The attitude appears to be that someone must make the sacrifice and the most available are the most vulnerable and the least aware. Even while it remains necessary that members of parliament be driven in proper dignity to their decision making sites as they represent the successful achievement of the system of the earlier generation and evidence that the system is proper and should be maintained. These students may recognize that the season of austerity was a product not of the system but some of the selfishly perverting functionaries of that system.
CHESS MOVES: Sacrifice a pawn to rake a king

Since today marks the second day of the Tuscon terror where a 22 year-old has been charged with several murders and one attempted political assassination in the frequently shown commentating videos it has been, to a great extent, reassuring to detect some understanding that rhetoric has the purpose of directing behaviour. Politicians, of all stripes and colors and moral levels of development are aware of the power of speech and, understandably, there is the desire to be expeditious, that is, as effective as possible as immediately as possible. Unfortunately, it often takes a bit longer for ideas, especially complicated ones, to take proper root in a new environment and it is this matter of a transplant s needs that is important. New ideas in a new mind might require more focused attention than comes across in the heated excitement of watching our words generate responses in a naive and mass-dominated mentality...the power of the propagandist.

But, I find myself asking whether the above outline fits the real scenario. Was the suspect Jared Laughner acting on his own or had he been earlier on selected as a likely candidate for the creation of yet another Manchurian Candidate to be kept, mole like, in reserve, until the time most politically appropriate to let him loose upon his own, setting his parents up for blame for a lack of parental guidance (even after their rights and obligations as parents had been taken from them by the state) is not, I think, the answer. The answer, I think, to both political intelligence and aesthetic sensibility is a deeper awareness of the self . Check out your own responses, then do it again, and at least a third time as well. The following information from some recent report seems pertinent: In all, the researchers found that the rate of antidepressant treatment increased from 5.84 percent to 10.12 percent between 1996 and 2005.
That translates into a remarkable increase from an estimated 13.3 million taking antidepressants to 27 million people now on the mind and body-altering drugs.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/027054_drugs_antidepressants_health.html#ixzz1BNUjRLP5

The following excerpt from the internet demonstrates the dangers of other -directed passions: (it lets the real culprits off the hook
and punishes the victim again for being fooled into being the victim).
BLAME:

Is the inheritance of the ignorant

Originally Posted by hmanvolfan Just hang his ass in the town square and leave him hanging there til his head rots off and he drops to the ground.

Drawing and Quartering would be fitting. Set an example.

Pos t ed vi a VolN ati on M obil e

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Socrates and Hypatia

I suspect that the charges brought against Socrates were made out of a pure terror resulting from the vision of an out-of-joint society. Tropism is the term to describe a behavior in response to a stimulus. Money has been used by our society in that way, as a means to achieving desirable ends and used as well, as a desirable end in itself. Whether these goals may in the present instance be described as being in competition may be speculative, but for sure, the tropic law of satisfaction of needs will prev ail as certain as a blade of grass will crack open 30 centre meters of asphalt...and some of those held in subjugation will rise up to reek their vengeance. Governor Rhodes was as Mollock when he ordered those youths killed.

The comment by the mature lady (in the video below) to the effect that education is not primarily for the positioning of oneself for the exercise of power is, it seems these
days, a forgotten ideal. According to report, Socrates was accused of denying the gods there were and of introducing new ones. But this, I think, was a mischaracterization of his method. The interpretation that had first been given me was that Socrates was perverting the young and of course, the key word perverting carried the only message necessary and to pervert was evil . There could be no argument against that, but then, eventually, when the Socratic method had been described as one that called upon the efforts of the individual to place observations and facts in comprehensible order as opposed to accepting instruction by authority I began to believe that intuition was superior to intellect. The thought that the concrete-cracking blade of grass was only the beginning and eventually, I realized that Socrates, like Hypatia of Alexandria, represented to the mind-set of the time , or any time actually, the potential dissolution of order. While it

does, quite reasonably, support the dissolution of an order it also calls for the creation of a more completely integrated order encompassing a greater number of characteristics. This describes a creative effort.

And this they could not tolerate. The lack of an order that was acceptable to them was a monstrous terror, but what Socrates had in mind, I believe, was that the mind makes with its effort an order out of the chaos it perceives. That process, of making order out of chaos, describes a system of evolution, and one that is never-ending and one opposed to any order imposed authoritatively. Established social custom which we call convention is the social glue that gives the group its profile and its identifiable characteristics. It is also the basis for the growth of the interstitial e mergence of dissention between groups. If the creative mind is superior to that of high intellect it would seem that the social experiences of Socrates and Hypatia need to be re-evaluated if the specie is to survive on an acceptable level comparable to its potential. The action of Governor Rhodes was ill-considered and criminal. One wonders whether Socrates accepted the drinking of the hemlock simply because he was too fatigued by the effort to get the resistant minds of the majority to recognize a better arrangement. It must be exceedingly painful for original thinkers to watch their carefully and somewhat tenuously developed concepts fall into the hands of theatrical mountbanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLsozHuVWzA
THE ROLE OF ART #1:

Theory, criticism and honing Excaliber

And now, since it is one of my major interests, I must relate this sociological relationship to the process of identifying creative thought which is, by definition, unconventional. It is also the reason why creative thinkers are anathema to convention. It is also the reason why group response, or mob reaction, is often enlisted to rid society of them which is why the Governor Rhodes of Ohio at the time of the Kent State demonstrations used his power with the national guard to kill them, and why individual confrontation is, usually, unsuccessful because those bound by the conventional are unable to step out of the box which contains their collection of thoughts. Those other, alternative, ideas are simply not available to them. Jacques Louis David, the painter of The Death of Socrates ( above) has been considered one of the western world s great, truly great, artists. I do not share that opinion. That is, I do not share that opinion to the extent that in the word great we are expected to understand, or read, creative as well. The most clarifying comparison I can make in order to underscore my meaning is this. In David s case he flatters the academic and classical pretensions of the tyrants of the time. David s reputation was great and among some today still is and there is no argument that he knew his craft as well as techniques of public relations. He supported the moneyed and political establishment and they supported him, but I am incapable of considering him a creative artist. At the very most he was noteworthy. If we asked the questions what

concept, other than social obedience, did David espouse?, or, what new process of applying paint to canvas did he promote? and the answers might provide us with a more truthful evaluation of his position. Expressed another way, it might be said that the conventional approach is a tried and true approach and that in times of stress it is best to depend upon what we know to work. This analysis, however, is faulty because it assumes that the passage of time has been ineffectual and it, tragically and mistakenly, assumes that the human mind is a blank sheet and that whatever is written upon it will forever be carried out and if, by chance, this doesn t turn out to be the case the fault lies, then, with the social challenger who is either behaving badly or he is insane and, therefore, should be executed or put away like Martha Mitchell who responded to a political ideal as opposed to its reality. If, on the other hand, we assume as the theory of tropism does, that living organisms respond to friendly and unfriendly stimulate appropriately we must then, re-evaluate the causes of behaviour. In around 1970 I was researching creative behavior at The University of Northern Iowa when, by chance, in my home office I heard a radio broadcast of someone representing the State Department of Education (for Iowa) that in order to gain more control over the hyperactive and socially disruptive student that a calming drug (Ritalin?) be administered so that the object of education might proceed undisturbed. This spokesman for the Department of Education for the State of Iowa went further to urge that teachers, also, be injected with this calming drug. When I tried to have this incident verified the Department of Education in Iowa claimed they kept mo records of that sort and I should try to contact the radio station from whom, as yet, there is no response. At the time of the broadcast I wrote to this fellow, whose name I have forgotten, to remind him that the list of behaviour characteristics which he had identified as those any first grade teacher can identify the one or two in her classroom who would become the rapist, or murderer were the same as those which identified the creative personality. He responded with the one liner advising art teachers like me to keep up the good work. There seems to be no talking to the proud and the would-be powerful. Having tried to present an image of how I, in general, see our present day and it many confusions let me now try to focus on what is sometimes called the art scene . Immediately below is a photograph of a Jeff Koons work placed on exhibit at Versailles.

In the Palace of Versailles having been chosen as the specific site for a major Koons exhibition the sophomoric ridicule is made evident just as it is in his delayed pubescent display in the photograph with the woman who, at one

It would be reasonable time, was reported as having been his wife. to express the interest in identifying the mind-set of the audience Koons thought he was addressing. In other words who might find this display amusing? However, to credit Koons for his daring effort it might, after all, be a more than descriptive response of how he lampooningly reacts to his social encounters.

Louis XIV was pictured in a somewhat ambiguously gendered costume featuring a brazenly exposed, highly frilled crotch. To Koon s credit he doesn t hide what one might be getting, but then one expects rulers to be more aloof, at least from time to time. Koons and cohorts think it enjoyable simply to poke fun at others and to insult their sensibilities, much like a child, having caught and adult naked might declare with great excitement to his peers I saw his whatsits.! Koons is even more of an artistic failure than David who at least put hand to brush but Koons most outstanding accomplishment is reminding us that the art buyer may be both tasteless and stupid. I am reminded of the anecdote told by one New York Socialite of how he, when back stage, kissed the breast of

Grace Bumbry and at a banquet opened his fly and pissed into a platter of asparagus. The question is not one of choosing a more moderate position for where wisdom is required compromises are irrelevant. I find both Koons and David unacceptable the one for his rigid obedience to social dogma and the other for his childish ridicule of it. Neither of these people have contributed much of significance to what is generally thought of as art even while they may have effectively ridiculed social standards. Pissing on a platter of asparagus degrades both asparagus and the pisser and publicly displaying one s genetalia defeats the mystery of a private encounter. ...they are both negatively productive.
THE ROLE OF ART#2: The spearhead of public perception

I can accept the theory, as a theory, that before anything can be improved it must be destroyed, but there seems to me that there is a difference between ignoring, disassembling, reassessing, redefining and the mindless smashing in mad frenzy of concepts without a subsequent equivalent rebuilding and a presentation of a substitute or replacement.

This work, by the Santa Fe artist Dan Bodelson will do as an example of what a well-behaved, but uncreative artist does, as did David and as does Koons for their respective audiences. Bodelson s technical abilities continue to impressively improve and he gets better and better and as he gets better and better he, as a person, also disappears, little by little...and I think he wants it that way, or , if he doesn t r eally want it, he chooses it as the best way out of a complex set of social expectations, expectations laid upon him by his parents (his father is, I believe, a medical man, as social figures they are prominent and function well with other prominent social figures. Dan s wife, for awhile, posed as some sort of aesthete by commercially promoting her arrangements laid beneath layers of differently colored matting.... to go with any decor As a couple, as a two-generation family, they presented themselves quite acceptably to the rest of the socially underdeveloped and aesthetically illiterate social leaders. When I attempted, in my published art criticism,

to point out that there may be more important, life-enhancing, functions involved in the production of

images....and in their appreciation....my attempts were unsuccessful.

Dan Bodelson and wife.

As Clement Greenberg might have said, if presented with the above comments: It is a matter of taste . Greenberg may have been satisfied with that rather flippant response, perhaps, because his audience at the time may have provide evidence they were not prepared for a discussion. Well, it is, after all, true, but as thinking creatures we must ask ourselves why? and this brings us to the point where several important questions arise. There are more, quite probably, than I am able to elucidate. But, for example, in the matter of taste what is so important about blonde hair, real or fake? We may be able to agree that blonde hair is distinguishing..It does distinguish, after all, set the person wearing it apart. However, not so much in Scandinavia.

Why is being apart important? I suspect that it may be important as a form of affirmation I am here! and, as an appeal to the rest of humanity confirm to me that I am here and love me for who and what I am! It was excitingly and erotically important to the Kennedy brothers, but ultimately it was vitally important to Marilyn, whether she was murdered or not may yet to be decided but being distinguished did cost her her life. Can this consideration of the need among human beings of some kind of individualizing contrast teach us anything about the school of sardines above. Is the matter of any individuality, or separateness, of any importance to them? Is the loss of a few of their number to some predator of any matter to them? Or do they collectively see themselves as a single unit and the loss of a few nothing more than a scratch on the arm...so to speak...to the community as a whole.

It might be viewed that Dan Bodelson has taken the opposite view, that his survival depends on being highly conventionalized and definitively common. My analytical inclinations suggest to me that he has chosen this path of subjection of the self in defence of the threat his good looks has placed him in the homophobic arena and the subject matter of his work lurking, as it does, in the romantic shadows of the American West

acts also as a defensive screen against what might pass as contemporary openness on the subject. Either in escape or in behaviours of self-promotion it is the self that is at issue and the myriad of questions and issues which surround that profound question haven t yet helped us to understand whether Emin s unmade bed is a work of art ( as The Tate would claim ) or the painful outcries of a psychotic.

Billy the Kid I am not ready yet to make comments about this guy. Yet OBSERVATION: All art, it might be said, is an expression of the self. So be it. If it s out there for the public to see, it is also subject to evaluation

I have very little insight into why a notable number of artists (mainly photographers, it would seem) find their own nakedness a worthy subject unless, of course, there is some fascination with the process of decay, or, as might be, it constitutes a new form of phallic worship as one form of regenerating a once renowned source of delight not unlike Cinderella s personal fairy godmother who, with a touch of her magic wand brings about a fascinating change in both appearance and behaviour. Such efforts in the various plastic media also include images of their personal creative wand. This is an aspect of their self-absorption which I do not understand unless, by chance, it is an expression of their self Looking for, that is, searching for, a meaningful venue of communication and a source of public admiration which might feed the needs of the ego one can become a good and obedient boy and do what pleases those in authority (whoever they may be), parents first, and then the church and state, one negotiates this exchange of value at a real cost to the unique self one might suppose oneself to be by hedging the bet as Jeff Koons. Sasha Baron Cohen, and others have done by exhibiting their insecurity regarding creativity and consciousness . This consciousness which seems more like the apotheosized self may be an adjunct, I might suppose to that all encompassing search for a personal identity are all these gentlemen saying: nevermind the name, I am what hangs between my legs.

Rolf Kopple

Odd Nerdrum

Henri Matisse

Larry Rivers

Tom Eakens and model

tatooed body (the choice is yours)

Walter Chappell

Tracey Emin s Bed

REPOSITIONING AUTHORITY : And Clement Greenberg said it was all a matter of taste.

Had I been chosen Governor and allowed to exercise my aesthetic judgement as a part of the privileges extended to me in that august office I might have risked ruining a promising political career by telling the people they were damn fools to expect the leader of any populous to know what needs to be known for the selection of the state s most worthy ...in whatever the area. It would also be expecting too much of the mass mind to sort out the real from the fake and that selection by any governor at all is nothing but a charade. Most politicians, Bill Richardson not the least among them, know no better and the awareness on the part of a struggling mass to discern the truth is complicated by the imposition of an official opinion and how many little boys are there who say the truth and announce that the chief executive is bald naked?....at least in so far as aesthetic taste is concerned, but then he and everyone else will have Clement Greenberg to come to their defence....won t they? The matter is, of course, a matter of taste, but that phrase covers a whole lot of bad behaviour in addition to being a conversation stopper. It is hoped, in all of that, that taste will enjoy the continuing input of sophisticated aesthetic information. From out of a different discipline we get the following excerpt from an insider s view of information control. The woman narrating is Catherine Austin Fitts http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1001.html . She, on yet
another level emphasises the importance of truth ...just to allow something to function.

Going over some of my experiences in academia and in the gallery scene I m wondering whether a form of this attack poodle scenario isn t functioning in these areas as well. I can t tell you how my trust plummeted when the supervisor over my research work at UNI in raising serious questions about my sources applied the wrong gender to J.P. Guilford. How does one argue with someone who doesn t know what he should know in order to be in authority? In Santa Fe I fought off the belief that artists got to be well-known and gallery directors assumed the reputation of being aesthetic seers rather than what they really are...purveyors of exhibition spaces...and

state governors like Bill Richardson posing as experts on aesthetic matters and selling their favors....there is a name for that sort thing. Not being Governor, however, I am free from the burden and free to enlarge upon a defensible rational for my choices. In my not inconsiderable period of time in Santa Fe I did manage to meet a great many people, not a few of whom felt they had reason to dislike, or to fear me for it had quite readily become apparent that I would write what I thought , but also not infrequently modifying my comments if I f elt there were special circumstances. In consequence there were, I suspect, more complaining than praising letters to the editor. Very little of that was bought to my attention, however, interestingly enough it was Sam Scott who brought to my attention that when John Konapak, the fellow posing as arts editor, asked him to criticise my show at St. John s College he refused on the grounds that he was specifically requested to give a hard time. Additionally, Sam made a point of telephoning me to tell me those were his reasons...all of which rather points up my theory that the honesty engendered in legitimate creative work does carry over into the arena of social intercourse....however, I hasten to add that this is not the case with everyone, but I am so pleased to have at least one, one might describe in this way. The following 8 artists I would have chosen, had I been governor and five of them I would also designate as being honest in their social encounters. That is a fairly impressive fallout.

Frank Ettenberg

Bradford Smith

Bradford Smith

Sam Scott

Sam Scott

Sam Scott

Frank Ettenberg

Chuzo Tomazu

Chuzo Tamotsu

Doris Cross

Doris Cross

Doris Cross

Peter Rogers

Peter Rogers

Storm Townsend

Storm Townsend

Janet Lippincott

Janet Lippincott

Janet Lippncott