“Art is Dead!” You may find it strange for someone like me, who has spent the better part of his entire life deeply involved with the various realms of, “Art,” to say such a thing. But yesterday, there was this Pop-Up Art Exhibition that I attended. Viewing what was presented at that exhibition really shook me and caused me to feel this way.
 
This exhibition presented the art works of local and international artists. I would estimate that there was more international artist being represented than local. For example, a gallery from Mexico City had brought in the art for the artists they represent, and so on.
 
The problem was/is, all of the art that was shown was so derivative. It was like art you had seen a million times before, with no new revelations. There were people doing mix media, “Combines,” mimicking the works of Rauschenberg. Tons of people were doing various forms of, “Seen-it-all-before,” Abstract Art, Pop Art, Op Art, those mirroring the works of Warhol, and so on. What was not presented was anything new or revolutionary. The only piece I saw, in that entire exhibit, which took up three floors of an office building, that I really liked, was one where there was a video presentation of a nude female dancing, but she had the head and face of the Dalai Lama. A bit sacrilegious, I guess? But, it was fun. …Though I don’t know that I would want to look at that art work day in and day out.
 
What this exhibition revealed, at least to me, is that there is nothing new currently taking place in the realms of art. Thus my, “Art is Dead,” statement.
 
Certainly, this is not the first time that art has become stagnate. …A time where there is no new inspiration being offered out to the world.
 
Even in my own lifetime, there have been points when a new, different, and some would claim, “Revolutionary,” level of art hit the world, and it changed everything. For example, even in music, when it had become very stagnant in the 1970s, then Disco hit and everyone started dancing. Punk came around and changed the entire mentality of the music listening public, ripping apart the music born in the 1960s Hippie generation. Rap and HipHop changed the game forever. Early in the 90s, Grunge took form. And, so on. With each of these events, with each of the new forms of art being introduced, the realms of human understand and mental evolution was enhanced.
 
In terms of actual formulated art works, there was the Bauhaus movement, in the early part of the twentieth century, championed by artists like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. There was the New York School, in the 1950s, pushed forward by artists like, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Willem de Kooning. Then there came Neo-Expressionism which was broadcast to the world by artists like Georg Baselitz, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and Rainer Fetting. Though this is certainly not all of the art movements, or the artists, who set about changing the visual landscape of the arts, but it gives you an example of a time and the personages who brought it about. Now/today, it seems we are in one of those very bleak periods in the arts where all people are presenting is simply representation, or dare I say, misrepresentations, of what was already done.
 
Think about the world around you… Think about the arts… What is new out there? Who is pushing the artistic envelope forward?
 
I believe this is one of the things you much always look at as you pass through your life. This is one of the elements of life that you must always be keenly aware of. Yes, there will forever be, “The same.” That is what all of those of the common, non-artist mind, will embrace. People of that mindset never want to see, “The New.” They just want to see the, “Already Accepted.” Why is anyone guess. But, I guess, the answer is, “The known is easy.” It is known so it is known.
 
But, think about it… Maybe you like a certain style of music. Once upon a time, in the long ago and the far-far away, that style of music was revolutionary. All of those who came before, hated it—believed it to be bad and corruptive. Now, it is mainstream. What does that say about those people who want to hold onto and only embrace the Already Done?
 
The old is always old. The previously done, is always the previously done. The mimicking, is always the mimicking. None of that is ever new.
 
You must take a look at yourself… Is all you like defined by what has already been done? Is all you create part and parcel of what was previously created? Is all you embrace defined by the old and the accepted?
 
You can look to the art of the past and like it. You can believe that the artists of times gone past were somehow better and/or more creatively developed. But, if you do not remember, that was then and this is now—if you do not seek out and accept new and revolutionary forms of art, then, “Art is dead!”