I AM A CONTEMPORARY ARTIST!

A Cotemporary art composition

Every time I hear an artist declare, "I am a Contemporary artist," I rejoice that she is alive, and not a dead woman talking. Yes, I am being waggish, for I know very well that her label for her professed avocation states something besides the fact that she happens to be my contemporary as well as yours.

Contemporary artists, in the amputated sense of the timely term, lay sole claim to owning the fashionable art of our time if not legitimate art in general, yet their work is often artless or arty at best. Their proprietary claim to artistic contemporaneity would put them beyond criticism if only they could have absolute sway over the temporal domain - as their enragement demonstrates in response to any attempt to judge their work according to critical standards; or, more simply, to judge it emotionally, as wrong, or bad; right or good is quite all right, however, although we often hear them say, "There is nothing right or wrong about art."  

After all, the anti-art antithesis to art intends to expressly eradicate intellectual and emotional judgment altogether, along with art's traditional emphasis on perception and skillfully finished objects, by means of swinging an anarchist's ideological anti-ideological hammer, as absurd at that might seem. Thus did intellectual anarchists divorce feeling from intellect, leaving consumers with arid, castrated concepts, signs of the decadent process that dooms each calcified culture to intellectual blathering over its own mummy.

The valleys have been brought high and the mountains laid low. Intellectuals, who take the side of The People only when disgruntled, now wail over a democratic wasteland. Intellectuals have always been frustrated aristocrats. Philosophy, art, and mysticism, or high culture, are aristocratic or noble endeavors, while civilization, or religion and social values, are democratic endeavors.

Now aesthetic judgments have been smashed to bits and distributed to Tom, Dick and Harry, that the Invisible Hand guiding the Mass Market may set an economic value on the so-called Contemporary art of our disposable trash culture. Only the artists themselves are allowed to declare what their art represents, if anything at all, and therefore pass valid judgment on it. Unfortunately for the judgmental process, many contemporary artists are nearly illiterate, possessing even fewer comprehensive reading and writing skills than drawing skills, wherefore their judgments are often absurd and as superficially silly as the philosophical pronouncements of a dozen contemporary fashion designers.

Contemporary art lays claim to conceptual art, but conceptual art is not unique to our age. Conceptual art arises in every period of artistic change. In Greece it was replaced by perceptual and perspective art during the age of Pericles. Conceptual art was dominant in Egypt and other lands in pre-Greek times. Modern conceptual art will be replaced as well, and sooner than most judges think, for our contemporary conceptual art now lacks cogent concepts, the essence of any useful logic. Conceptual artists really do not know what they are talking about, and art functionaries given to explaining nonsense are, like John D. Rockefeller's dad, selling snake oil. Since "Contemporary" artists cannot conceive of anything in particular and have even eschewed representation, they can only unwittingly represent the complete breakdown of high culture. If the truth were told, if we were not so afraid of the opinion of our contemporaries, most of us appreciate prehistoric cave art more than contemporary-contemporary art, not to mention other masterpieces since then.

The only legitimate art at the moment, at least in the Contemporary artist's subjective opinion, is his sort of art, originally a presumably original, revolutionary, avant-garde, leading-edge, neoteric and the like sort of art, yet today, in objective effect, since the death of the modern movement's intellectuals, all too often democratic and banal, anti-artistic and profane. Any other art, namely non-contemporary art, is reactionary. It necessarily smacks of infidelity; to wit, fidelity to artistic standards now deemed classical.

"Contemporary" art has thrown out the baby, or the world, with the bathwater. May heaven forbid that any work of art skillfully represents anything at all, and then too artfully, for then it will be adjudged as too "graphic" or "realistic" or "unoriginal." Victory must go to artists without objective standards, in a sort of popularity contest where the value of a work depends not on its own merits but on associations: on who is a cool art personality, for instance. Senseless, meaningless works are highly praised and appraised by market manipulators, thus robbing the public by rendering it blind.

Anyone who dares mention any standards at all is deemed intolerant by his intolerant contemporaries, and is roundly castigated as a fascist. Such fear of fascism is justified in Russia, once the most significant revolutionary cradle of Contemporary art; but now Contemporary artists are perceived by reactionaries as an insult to art and country, degenerates who deserve stiff fines and even imprisonment for corrupting Russia's finer artistic sensibility. Yet reactionary artists in the United States, although somewhat dismayed, appalled, and even embittered by the rise of an unmerited art aristocracy supported by the nouveau riche, are content to let history take its spiraled course; they would allow in that course an honored place for anti-art if only fine art had its place in the Sun instead of mausoleums.  

The revolution against artistic authority has been overwrought and has almost destroyed itself. The original negation of traditional art promised artistic freedom for anyone who wanted to call himself an artist. But revolutions that destroy the cultural infrastructure, having nothing humane to replace it with, are doomed to eventual desolation, for civilization itself is an art. Commerce has commercialized what was once the anti-commercial-art movement, turning it into a profitable caricature of itself. We have inherited a Frankenstein monster; a patchwork of good intentions gone awry; a veritable junkyard of junk for the sake of junk, a cultural wasteland. The old money stooped to conquer and picked up trash for further profit; but the newly rich do not know the difference, and now adorn their walls with such junk as a newly painted, crumpled front end of an automobile, and compliment themselves for owning and displaying such a cool smash hit above the Art-Deco couch in their enormous living room. 

Sometimes in desperation we need to wipe the slate clean and start afresh with novel techniques and various modes of expression, but natural law may not be avoided short of death. In death and life we discover the laws of dissolution and recomposition, and realize that our elders did many things rightly in pursuit of happiness.

Verily one must die to live again.  The revolutionary modern artists did not regress far enough. Smashing all objects save one, the illusive subjective object, is insufficient. The devoted iconoclast smashes everything in sight, and what is left, seemingly nothing, is good enough to be smashed as well; thus, with faith in Nothing, he goes much farther than a white square on white, or a white kite or satellite orbiting the creative narcissist; and with the annihilation of his triangular ego, he is one with Nothing, and he only exists, in the black anarchic abyss, if Nothing exists.

Only then shall Osiris return, whole again, with his romantic member intact, and the arts of Isis and her kin everywhere shall blanket the Earth. In being without existence, the artist, unconscious of it all, receives all; and in being with existence he expresses its general truth, goodness, and beauty in various ways, in accord with the natural laws of the human race, one law being that of reason, which sets the ape on his feet with head in the heavens, giving him sufficient cause to strive for divine harmony, that the matters below may correspond ever so pleasingly with the intangibles felt above.

As the renaissance of the evolutionary principles of beauty gradually reemerges from the tombs, Contemporary art, in the popular or impoverished sense of our time, shall in fact succumb to reactionary art, at which time conceptual artists will have to take up sketching and writing with a vengeance in order to recover their sanity. Talented installation artists will find jobs in show business and the rest will have to take up the installation of Venetian blinds, carpets, drapery, cable, and shapely urinals to eke out a living.

 

Editors
MIAMI NEW TIMES

Re: The Arté of Bitching

Dear Editors:

I have been following the flak responding to The Bitch's pot shots at the Arty Party (artéparté) assembled at Lincoln Road's artécolony, artécitycard member ArtCenter, to celebrate Artécity's handout of $17,500 in awards to the winners of the Art in the City competition - thank you very much. One of the two judges of the competition, Alessandro Ferretti, is the managing developer of South Beach's $100 million Artécity condominium development.

I did not see the pot shots taken by The Bitch, but I was at the artéparté's arty party. I understand that The Bitch felt there was something flaky about the gallons of Grey Goose vodka laddled out in huge martini glasses to the distinguished guests.

Grey Goose, as The Bitch knows,  is an arty vodka: it's punch is artistically packaged in an attempt to create the illusion of a sophisticated French masterpiece. The product certainly looks expensive, and it is, weighing in at $36 per bottle. Many imbibers have reportedly been bedazzled by the brilliant bottle alone, bethought themselves much richer than they really were after partaking of the crystal-clear , vanilla-flavored vodka - the water hails from Gente Springs of Cognac - and saddled themselves with debt.

Alcohol has been a traditional sales tool ever since natives were induced to sell their real estate for a bottle of it, and eventually to buy a small piece of it back at inflated prices after drinking it. I do not drink booze, so I asked for a soda pop, expecting to be handed one of the dinky bottles of Izze pop. I was handed a tumbler containing one ounce of pop and three ice cubes. It was free, but it reminded me of the five bucks I was charged for six ounces of seltzer-water in a disposable tumbler at the Miami Scope show, so I felt rather bitchy myself. Still, I have no complaints about the generosity of the South Beach faction of the artéparté, especially in contrast with the stinginess of the people who have taken over the business of This Great Nation of Ours.

I read Artécity publicist Dindy Yokel's letter in response to the bitching. She is a good publicist, and presented her case rather well. But she should have refrained from the personal aspersions refering to the alleged immaturity of The Bitch. Yokel's sophomoric bitching leaves her and her clients exceedingly vulnerable to dangerous artistic intelligence.

For instance, she resorted to the parent-child approach - as if her mental development had been arrested in high school - to what she arrogantly called"infantile" back-talk. She projected her own deficiency on The Bitch, stating that criticism will arrest the development of the entire community, when the contrary is obviously true if history is accepted as evidence. Her puerile put-down inferred that The Bitch is childish, therefore incapable of competent judgment, thus inviting a counter-counter-attack indicating her own professional incompetence - this may serve as my own self-inditement. 

Only then did Yokel threw up a facile facade for the benefit of her patrons; to whom she publicly advertises her unwavering loyalty, without mentioning their qualities or principles.

I like to end my letters to editors with a positive suggestion. I suggest that caviar always be served with vodka at arty parties, and that chic pop always be served in the dinky bottles it comes in so the guests may familiarize themselves with the package.

Sincerely,

David Arthur Walters

 

The Artéparty
Artétorial by David Arthur Walters

It appears that all systems are go for the completion of the $100 million Artécity condominium project in Miami's South Beach. In case you live up north and have not heard the buzz yet, Artécity is becoming real estate's latest symbolic epicenter for the Art Deco renaissance now picking up steam in South Beach's Art District around historic Collins Park.

The Artécity development encompasses nearly a whole city block. It appears in some of its publicity as an enormous pink, prison-like compound, perhaps to reflect the neoconservative trend intentionally widening the gap between rich and poor, as well as the subconscious fortress-mentality of many affluent Americans. However that may be, Artécity is far more attractive to the discerning mind than the modern neurosis reflected in its advertising. Designed by Miami's famed Arquitectonica, the complex comprises two new buildings and three older buildings - including the historic Governor Hotel, Henry Hohauser's 1939 streamlined masterpiece at 435 21st Street. Viewed from Collins Park, the New Wave Artécity buildings present a wavy appearance by virtue of their curved balcony railing; an allusion, perhaps, to Art Deco's original Art Nouveau or 'natural' influence.

Collins Park, across the street from Artécity, is named after John S. Collins. He arrived in Miami in 1906. He detected the presence of water in Miami Beach and started farming avocados, fruits, and vegetables, commuting by boat between Miami and the beach. His land holdings eventually included the area between 14th and 67th streets. He deeded Collins Park, the nine acres from the beach front to Park Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Streets, to the city in 1913. Two structures presently sit in Collins Park: Bass Museum of Art and Miami Beach Public Library.

Just as American Art Deco served as a synthesis of art and industry so that art might be saved from the ravages of the industrial revolution and at the same time be decoratively employed to sell products to the masses, Artécity triumvirate Alessandro Ferretti, Piero Salussolia, and Maurizio Cavelleri hope to revitalize the real estate business and turn a handsome profit for all capitalists concerned by associating their real estate project with Miami Beach's traditional artistic institutions, targeting the affluent market instead of the masses

Said cultural institutions are frequently in need of financial rejuvenation. Attendance of the affluent at ballets, symphonies and art museums has been wanting in urban areas that became "blighted" by virtue of the flight of the affluent to suburbs and gated communities, and by the neoconservative curtailment of public services. Admission fees rose to make up for the shortfall and are relatively high in order to cover costs. For instance, admission to the Bass Museum of Art directly started out at fifty cents in the late 60s. John Bass even dropped the fee for awhile when the institution was scandalized by northern art historians who adjudged most of the masterpieces therein to be flagrant fakes. Despite and even because of the scandal, the museum was very popular with the public, who could care less about the authenticity issue. An admission fee was reinstituted, and amounted to $2 in 1990, but it now stands at $12.

Miami Beach is not unique. Many cities are working overtime to revitalize their blighted areas with relatively expensive condominium projects, expensive hotels, convention centers, multiple sports arenas and entertainment centers for the middle class, and performing arts centers for the affluent. Miami Beach's Artécity is ideally located to that end. It is within walking distance from several cultural centers, not to mention Miami's famed beach and some of the most celebrity-frequented and popular dining and entertainment establishments in the Miami's newly sanded and repainted Art Deco world. Artécity residents will have an artécitycard, proof of membership in such outstanding organizations as Miami City Ballet, New World Symphony, Miami Light Project, Wolfsonian-FIU, ArtCenter/South Florida, and the Bass Museum of Art.

Artécity is actively supporting various art institutions to promote its real estate virtues. Artécity recently awarded prizes for an art contest held among the art colony members at ArtCenter/South Florida - an artécitycard participating institution. ArtCenter is located within walking distance of Artécity, on South Beach's chic Lincoln Road Mall. The winning works will be housed at Artécity. To further the Artécity cause, a free neighborhood Block Party hosted by Artécity will be held on January 15, 2005. By virtue of simulcast, the Block Party will simultaneously celebrate a National Foundation for Advance in the Arts gala being held directly across the street behind the Bass Museum. The NFAA advances the careers of future young artists.

Tickets for the NFAA gala itself, An Affair of the Arts, will be sold for $500 to $1,000 per person, or from $5,000 to $50,000 for tables of ten - a small price for the affluent to pay for an excellent cause. About 1,100 are expected to attend. Their generosity is deeply appreciated by all. 125 High School seniors, winners of the ARTS program, will perform. The Arison Award will be presented, honoring Mikhail Baryshnikov - the funds will go to the charity of his choice. The gala is supported by the Miami City Ballet, New World Symphony, and Bass Museum of Art. their relationship with

The neighborhood is certainly grateful to Artécity for the free party for those who might not otherwise be able to afford to attend the actual gala - a large number of houseless persons live in the neighborhood. It is this author's opinion that, ever since the Caesars purchased high office, the Italians have remained by their good example the most generous bread-and-circus providers in the world - in my personal experience, Italian women are the most gracious of hostesses. The entire neighborhood has been invited, on an RSVP basis. to partake of the food, drink, and entertainment. That is, everyone is welcome but this creative author: I have just been informed that I am a persona non gratis because of my construction criticism of the quality of the Artécity advertisements, despite my praise of the acumen of the managing developer and his architect.

No, not all residents are equally enthusiastic about the possibilities of the Artécity project as advertised. Not to mention the vagrant crowd sleeping in doorways and hanging out at the library, one inspired intellectual and two creative artists whom I know have voiced concern with the "Artistic Urbanism" ideology of the project, fearing that it might, like other ideologies, tend to exclude authentic creative art. Such art in many historical cases has been a form of dissent, expressing inspirational dissatisfaction with the taste of the ruling powers, a taste often said to be debased by commercial interests. Needless to say, members of the underclasses have supplied the lion's share of the world's finest innovative art. Furthermore, a number of South Florida artists have complained privately about the exclusive taste of several prominent persons associated with the Artécity development, whom they say are members of the "art-industrial complex" presently corrupting creative artists with money.

I certainly would not mind having some of that money for my artful essays. Yet my greed did not hinder me from expressing my own concern with the Artistic Urbanism ideology and the impact that it might have, not on the physical plant, but on the morale of the community. My concern was dismissed by the developer's spokesperson because the overwhelming expression of interest by qualified buyers had already rendered my concern irrelevant.

"We respect your right to express yourself and your opinion," the Artécity spokesperson said. "Everyone has a different one and that’s what makes the world go round…. We have had quite a positive response to our materials and our program from people in the position to purchase the units and that’s what we are aiming for."

Controversy and criticism is essential to the development of art. There would be no enduring art absent art criticism. The difference between fine art and the rest is not due to an arbitrary or subjective difference intuitively drawn, but is rather the result of the discriminating judgment of the masters and their critics who congregate in bona fide cultural centers. Nor is the most enduring art created for material gain, and for that reason it appreciates over the long term while the rest passes away in a few years. In any event, creative art redefines art, reaches back and rewrites its history while it forges ahead. Such is the art of living, the Way of the artful life. That is the Way wanted for Artécity Life.

Down with Artistic Urbanism! Up with the Art of Living!

 

artétorial in re artéyokel

We have received an overwhelming response to our article Artécity Life by Miami Mirror Artékritik David Arthur Walters. One response, intended for real estate reporter Matthew Haggman of the Miami Herald, was inadvertantly sent to our cyberspace office. It was typed by Alessandro Ferretti's publicist extraordinaire, Dindy Yokel. According to her resumé, she enjoys a fine reputation for her integrity, which includes loyalty to her national and international clientele. She lists rich and famous clients such as the tax-dodging Gunther IV of the Bahamas,  the German Shepard  who bought Madonna's house.

Ms Yokel urged the Herald reporter to ignore the Artécity Life article, and made mistatements of fact designed to impugn Mr, Walters, implying that he was some sort of crazy bum who had been stalking "us" for two weeks - apparently meaning herself, and Mr. Ferretti and his broker, Jeff Morr of Majestic Properties. See facts in re Mr. Morr at: http://davidarthurwalters.bravehost.com/artemajestic.html

In point of fact, the brief exchanges took place over a single week. Mr. Walters did not know Ms. Yokel or her client. She called Mr. Walters on December 10, and suggested that he visit Majestic Property's Artécity sales office. He did just that, then directly provided Mr. Ferretti with two drafts of his constructive criticism of the publicity. At no time did Mr. Walters ask Mr. Ferretti or anyone else for money. At no time did Mr. Walters intend to impugn anyone's character; quite to the contrary, he believed that the publicity, although a good start, wanted some improvement inasmuch as it fell short of the merits of the Artécity project in such a way that might, at least among well-heeled sophisticates, detract from the reputation of all those concerned with the use of art to sell Miami Beach real estate. Those concerned include Artécity-related cultural institutions such as the Bass Museum, which Ms. Yokel lists as a former client; Miami Ballet Company, which she serves as a director, and the City of Miami Beach, which she names as a former client, and several other prominent institutions. 

Mr. Ferretti did not respond personally to the constructive suggestions directly made to him at his address. Ms. Yokel responded for him, or so she said, and within a few minutes of Mr. Ferretti's receipt. She declared the Artécity Life piece to be "insulting" to her, her client, and his ad agency. When a copy of the final draft - sincerely flattering to her client's project and bearing no constructive criticism whatsoever of the publicity -  was sent to her as a common courtesy, she responded with character assassination, which is somewhat out of sync with the professions of integrity and loyalty to her client's interests that she proclaims to all in her own company's publicity. The concept of integrity apparently implies that everyone  should refrain from responding to false attacks on their integrity, except to say that a response to their own calumny is "beneath" them.

When Mr. Walters replied in no uncertain terms to Ms. Yokel's potentially slanderous "representation" of Mr. Ferretti, she drew a difference between when she was or was not representing her clients, a difference which will no doubt be illuminating to attorneys well versed in agency law. In fine, if we understand her rightly, when her acts are virtuous, she represents her clients; when vicious, she does not represent them. Again, one of  Ms. Yokel's key values (http://www.dindycopr.com/bio.php)  is Loyalty to Clients.

That loyalty obviously extends to her clients' publicists; in this case, her public self. For one function of a publicist is to protect her client from her own competitors. Furthermore, her clients and their projects, or so it seems, should be immune from all praise and blame not approved in advance by hers truly. And all copies of praise or blame sent to her and her client by way of common courtesy after the fact, constitute, at least from her perspective, harassment of her and therefore of her client.

Again, the factual archives will prove that Mr. Walters had privately rendered some constructive criticism, not of the concrete Artécity but of its publicity, which, at least in his opinion, wanted some improvement. But his final draft of Artécity Life sincerely flattered the project and did not mention the publicity inferior to same. It seems that the saying, Flattery will get you nowhere, is true in rare cases, even when it is honest and true. For there is always a chance that some relation may be offended, perhaps fearing that the appreciated subject might leave a big tip from the coveted purse.

Mr. Walters is a human being. His intentions from the outset were good intentions, wherefore he was astonished, hurt, and angered by Ms. Yokel's personal aspersions behind the scenes, for they seemed designed to ruin his reputation before he even had one, and, worse of all, to kick him while he was down, as if he were a dog groveling for scraps, for she knew very well that his cupboard is bare this Commercial Holiday Season, and that his realéstate office is in the parking lot across from an historic South Beach luxury hotel - nonetheless, he asked no one for money or food, and was generous with his unsolicited, freely given contribution to the Artécity project. Of course he responded likewise to those to whom the denigrating remarks about him were made by Ms. Yokel. He copied her, not wanting to speak ill of her behind her back. But it appears that the traditional ethical practice of publicists who have "integrity" is to lie behind people's backs, and, when the target finds out and protests with the truth, to shout back at them: "STOP! THAT"S ENOUGH! YOU ARE BADMOUTHING ME! LEAVE US ALONE!"

Mr. Walters was led by Ms. Yokel to jump to the conclusion that Miami is a dogs' world of dog-eat-dog in the name of dog spelled backwards - he has since returned to the position of suspended judgment appropriate to his critical position. He soon bid Ms. Yokel farewell and thanked her for her "information", meaning her self-portrait. Since he is certain she will continue her disparaging campaign behind his back, for fear that he might find gainful employment in Miami, he prodded us to publish an artétorial in response to the artépersions cast, stating:

"It is better to tell the truth to the public's face rather than lie behind its back."

Since Mr. Walters is also our managing editor, we are moved to comply with his request, with the proviso that nothing further be said about the matter in these dignified pages if "we" can help it. Mr. Walters agreed to that proviso, and said that he is in the process of constructing Artéwôrldé, a web site where such matters may be more suitably aired over the next year, so that, in the public interest, gold may better be separated from dross, or fine art separated from trash. This project shall not proceed as a personal attack on the integrity of Ms. Yokel, but in the public interest, under the assumption that, since Ms. Yokel happens to enjoy a high reputation with various members of the power elite, she merely represents them and hence is a model not only of her profession but of their interests. One page, entitled Artéyokel, will conscientiously deconstruct Ms. Yokel's ethical perfusions and prove her allegations absolutely false to the facts embedded in media. After deconstruction and reconstruction, Artéwôrldé will be dedicated to the continuous improvement of the artful and urbane life of sincere praise and blame, that the burning trash may illuminate the absolutely unmitigated truth about Maimi hypérealéstate.

Lest the Miami power elite worry about the bonfires that might be lit at Artéworldé, Mr. Walters has asked us to render this assurance: "History is a mistake in want of correction. For example, documents demonstrate that trade in precious stones and metals and fine art was conducted as usual in Florence as Savonarola burned trash to illuminate truth."

Artécity Life
http://davidarthurwalters.bravehost.com/artelife.html