artenol0416_sm_flipbook

Cover story
STARTING OVER:
I
am an artist. I’m
an old artist, and
I’ve been an artist
all my life. About
ten years ago, I
had a revelation,
a Road-to-Damascus kind of
St. Paul moment. At that time,
I was 60 years old, and I had
been an artist since I was about
10, when I painted my first oil
painting. So I’ve been in the
business of making art for 50
years. My road-to-Damascus
revelation was this – I said
to myself, “Listen, I’ve been
doing something for all my life
which is total nonsense. It is the
most idiotic thing in the world,
this thing called art!”
And since then, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve
been doing, and what art is. I now, more than ever,
more than I did 10 years ago, think that art is what
Marx said about Christianity – a “false consciousness.”
It’s a kind of a religion for the godless world,
and we’re coerced, forced into believing in it, under
the premise that it’s a good, benign and refined thing.
We’re under an umbrella of belief that art’s really good
for us. I’ve tried to find out how it’s good for us, but
have been unable to do so. So the impetus behind
By Alex Melamid
IN JULY, ARTENOL FOUNDER ALEX MELAMID
gave a lecture via Skype at the Kopkind
Colony in Vermont. He addressed contemporary
art’s current malaise and offered
several proposals for reinvigorating it.
Those who attended the workshop were
asked to complete surveys on their interest
in the arts and to offer their own vision
for an art of the future, an art that had
been “made great again.” Mr. Melamid’s
talk is transcribed here in full, as well as his
responses to selected questions from the
audience. Artenol managing editor David
Dann acted as the evening’s emcee and
Kopkind Colony board president JoAnn
Wypijewski hosted the event. – Editor
creating Artenol, our arts magazine,
was to uncover what
art is, to find out whether I’m
right that it’s a false consciousness
that serves the upper
classes in order to subdue and
keep in check the general population.
Art does this not out
of malice, of course, for the art
world’s insiders and institutions
also believe that art is a
force for good. But what art is
very good at is keeping things
in order.
Now, with the current revolt
of the masses against the political
elite in the 2016 presidential
campaign, it’s really interesting
to note that art is also a
staunch defender of the status
quo. Traditionally, modern art has been about starting
something new, creating a catalyst for change. Nowadays,
it’s just the opposite: art is a catalyst of the status
quo. If you observe the way the art world works,
you’ll quickly understand that absolutely everything
is controlled. Neither artists nor art institutions are
interested in any change at all. Change is what they’re
afraid of – and rightly so, because they’re doing quite
well financially, myself included.
But for me, it was important to create Artenol so that
IS CONTEMPORARY ART 'IDIOTIC,' 'SENSELESS'? IN A
24
FALL 2016