donderdag 18 juni 2015

Manifesto: Remodernism

A Stuckist document
The first Remodernist art group
(est. 1999)

Remodernism
'towards a new spirituality in art'

Through the course of the 20th century Modernism has progressively lost its way, until finally toppling into the pit of Postmodern balderdash. At this appropriate time, The Stuckists, the first Remodernist Art Group, announce the birth of Remodernism.

1. Remodernism takes the original principles of Modernism and reapplies them, highlighting vision as opposed to formalism.
2. Remodernism is inclusive rather than exclusive and welcomes artists who endeavour to know themselves and find themselves through art processes that strive to connect and include, rather than alienate and exclude. Remodernism upholds the spiritual vision of the founding fathers of Modernism and respects their bravery and integrity in facing and depicting the travails of the human soul through a new art that was no longer subservient to a religious or political dogma and which sought to give voice to the gamut of the human psyche.
3. Remodernism discards and replaces Post-Modernism because of its failure to answer or address any important issues of being a human being. 

4. Remodernism embodies spiritual depth and meaning and brings to an end an age of scientific materialism, nihilism and spiritual bankruptcy.

5. We don't need more dull, boring, brainless destruction of convention, what we need is not new, but perennial. 
We need an art that integrates body and soul and recognises enduring and underlying principles which have sustained wisdom and insight throughout humanity's historyThis is the proper function of tradition.

6. Modernism has never fulfilled its potential. It is futile to be 'post' something which has not even 'been' properly something in the first place. Remodernism is the rebirth of spiritual art.
7. Spirituality is the journey of the soul on earth. Its first principle is a declaration of intent to face the truth. Truth is what it is, regardless of what we want it to be. Being a spiritual artist means addressing unflinchingly our projections, good and bad, the attractive and the grotesque, our strengths as well as our delusions, in order to know ourselves and thereby our true relationship with others and our connection to the divine.
8. Spiritual art is not about fairyland. It is about taking hold of the rough texture of life. It is about addressing the shadow and making friends with wild dogs. Spirituality is the awareness that everything in life is for a higher purpose.
9. Spiritual art is not religion. Spirituality is humanity's quest to understand itself and finds its symbology through the clarity and integrity of its artists. 

10. The making of true art is man's desire to communicate with himself, his fellows and his God. 
Art that fails to address these issues is not art.

11. It should be noted that technique is dictated by, and only necessary to the extent to which it is commensurate with, the vision of the artist.

12. The Remodernist's job is to bring God back into art but not as God was before. 
Remodernism is not a religion, but we uphold that it is essential to regain enthusiasm (from the Greek, en theos to be possessed by God). 

13. A true art is the visible manifestation, evidence and facilitator of the soul's journey. 
Spiritual art does not mean the painting of Madonnas or Buddhas. Spiritual art is the painting of things that touch the soul of the artist. Spiritual art does not often look very spiritual, it looks like everything else because spirituality includes everything.

14. Why do we need a new spirituality in art? Because connecting in a meaningful way is what makes people happy. Being understood and understanding each other makes life enjoyable and worth living.


Summary
It is quite clear to anyone of an uncluttered mental disposition that what is now put forward, quite seriously, as art by the ruling elite, is proof that a seemingly rational development of a body of ideas has gone seriously awry. The principles on which Modernism was based are sound, but the conclusions that have now been reached from it are preposterous.
We address this lack of meaning, so that a coherent art can be achieved and this imbalance redressed.
Let there be no doubt, there will be a spiritual renaissance in art because there is nowhere else for art to go. Stuckism's mandate is to initiate that spiritual renaissance now.

Billy Childish
Charles Thomson
1.3.2000
First published by The Hangman Bureau of Enquiry

11 Boundary Road, Chatham, Kent ME4 6TS

woensdag 27 mei 2015

“What does it mean to be human in a world which is continually contesting ‘certain’ people’s humanity?”

wdw

Symposium
Between Nothingness and Infinity
14 July 2015, 6pm
Bringing together artists and scholars in the physical environment of the exhibition NO HUMANS INVOLVED, this symposium acts as a point of departure for an understanding of the ‘nothingness’ and forms of alternative knowledge production that underpin the historically produced dilemma of the position of Blackness. From an acknowledgement of this ‘no-place’ as neither pessimistic or optimistic, the notion of subjectivity and self is questioned and challenged by investigating what Edouard Glissant calls the consent to not be a single being and instead many beings at the same time. Through this lens, key themes such as materiality, time and sound will be reflected upon in contributions and performance lectures by Nana Adusei-Poku (Curatorial Fellow, Witte de With), Karan Barad (Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy and History of Consciousness, University of California), Kara Keeling (Associate Professor of Critical Studies, University of Southern California), and Alexander Wehelyie (Professor of African American Studies, Northwestern Unversity) and members of the artist collective HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN?

zaterdag 2 mei 2015

book recomendation

I found a book that could be interesting for you:
The Language of Fashion by Ronald Barthes, find it at Wijnhaven 907.9 BART
Read this Review:
 http://sydney.edu.au/arts/publications/philament/issue9_pdfs/MAYHEW_LanguageofFashion.pdf