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ook, Thought-Forms (1905), written by a follower
of Blavatsky, an outstanding, distinguished woman
named Annie Besant. She wrote that our thoughts,
our feelings have forms, that specific abstract forms
can represent jealousy, happiness, anger, emotions of
that sort. Kandinsky took much of his imagery from
Besant’s forms, because he truly believed in these
mysterious teachings. Mondrian, too – they were all
members of the Theosophical Society.
These were the reactionary, senseless ideas that created
modern art. Nowadays, we try to justify abstract art
by – I don’t know – quantum theory
or quantum mechanics, or maybe by
relativity. But actually, modern art
came from Theosophy. Freudianism
was another of the spooky, arbitrary
teachings that played a role in modernism.
But I believe that both are total
nonsense and bullshit, and they keep
our minds imprisoned in an irrational
and senseless environment we call art.
It’s nothing more than a cage.
I feel quite passionate about this.
I’ve always used humor in my work,
as you know, but I’m getting older and older, and
angrier and angrier. I just painted a big, life-sized asshole,
and it’s a painting I’m very proud of (laughs). I
just cannot stand it any more! I’ve even started throwing
raw eggs at a blank canvas. The result is very
beautiful, and it’s better than any art in a museum or
a session with a shrink.
We have to throw off the chains of art, break free of
art’s shackles. You have to understand – we’re imprisoned
by our culture. I believe that everything starts
with culture and art is its major part. Visual arts are
the holiest part of culture, considered to be the top of
the cultural pyramid. You know, art as an institution
is now the size of the Catholic Church. I worked in the
‘I once was in a museum
in Singapore, and the next
day I traveled to a museum
in Denver, Colorado –
and these museums were
absolutely the same.
Alex Melamid
Artist, Artenol founder
Vatican, I painted portraits of cardinals and priests. I
lived for a year in Rome and I got acquainted with all
those people, and I saw how the Catholic Church is a
massive institution. But art today is a bigger institution,
and it has become catholic as well, meaning it’s all over
the world. I once was in a museum in Singapore, and
the next day I traveled to a museum in Denver, Colorado
– and these museums were absolutely the same.
It’s like the Catholic Mass, you know; it’s the same
everywhere. In art, it’s the same group of artists, the
same paintings, and even if they’re painted by different
people, you cannot distinguish one
from another because they look so
much alike.
This situation is getting worse,
and it’s a fraud. It’s a financial fraud,
totally based on a deception. On one
side are the art institutions, which are
nonprofits with tax-deductible status,
and on the other side are the for-profit
corporations. The money goes from
the corporations to the art institutions
for big tax write-offs, and the
art institutions then use the money to
promote artists whose work the corporations or their
shareholders invest in. This cycle increases the value of
the artworks, which increases the value of the art institutions’
collection and also the value of the corporate
shareholders’ investment. Everybody makes money.
But the fraud isn’t only financial. There’s intellectual
fraud, as well. Children are taken to museums
and told, “Look at this! This is important!” It’s like in
Detroit where there was a great uproar over whether
to sell the art in the Detroit Institute of Arts – “What a
catastrophe for Detroit!” some people said. Yeah, that’s
Detroit’s biggest problem! Obviously not. We need to
change these art institutions, and then we’ll change
the world for the better.
28
After Alex Melamid’s presentation, the
workshop was opened up for questions from the
participants. What follows is a selection of questions
asked and Melamid’s response to them.
So if we were to demolish all that fraudulent art, what
kind of art should we be interested in?
It’s up to the individual. You can do whatever
you want! You can dirty some surfaces with paint,
whatever, it’s your private business. It’s an individual
thing – you don’t need an institution to support you.
It’s like with religion. You can believe in whatever
you want – God, evil, devil. But it’s your problem,
not an institutional problem. You know, there’s a very
important book which I discovered recently. It’s by
Richard Popkin and is called “The History of Skepticism.”
Philosophical skepticism was very important,
beginning in the 16th or 17th century. It offered the
insight that everything we take for granted shouldn’t
be taken for granted.
I’m having trouble grasping what the crisis is here.
When you say we have to break the chains of art, I feel like
that in itself is removed from the reality we live in. I don’t
see what the crisis is, as a person who isn’t entrenched in
the world of art.
FALL 2016