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| Rembrandt Painter in Studio |
Nowhere, apparently. According to the values that define Postmodern art, we do not make art. Don’t despair, we can still make work, it's just called something else, and that something is kitsch. Before anyone becomes offended, makers of kitsch are in good company. Robert Storr, now the dean of Yale’s School of Art, once named Andrew Wyeth “our greatest living ‘kitsch-meister'."
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| Wyeth Spring |
Kitsch, as defined by Keynote speaker Odd Nerdrum - is not the kitsch that we shrink from, meaning art that is in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but art that employs mastery of technique, combined with narrative, romanticism, and emotionally charged imagery – all of which are taboo for the postmodern artist. As a philosophy, the Kitsch Movement as Superstructure is based upon personal experience and is humanist in nature.
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| Odd Nerdrum Self Portrait in a Tree Trunk |
“Novorealism addresses the capabilities of evolutionary developed human sensory systems as opposed to technologically based expressions. Novorealism has opposite priorities to those of 'official art'. Instead of chasing novelty it strives for authenticity, instead of glorifying ugliness it contemplates beauty, instead of prescribed irony it searches for sublime, instead of detached objectivity it engages the personal, instead of craving shock, it strives for greatness.”
What is needed now? What stops representational art from becoming kitsch – and now I am referring to the other kind – the one that IS the art world “no - no"? In a word, authenticity.
Although I don't remember who said it, this stayed with me, "One must paint each brushstroke as originating in the heart and moving straight through your arm and on to the canvas."
"You should be able to go to art with the burden of your life." Roger Sruton
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| Friedrich Winter Landscape |
2 comments:
this is definitely a post to think about!!
Thanks for your comment, Kathryn. Although I'm not in love with the "k" word, I think most artists are not, I feel liberated with the idea of not having my work grouped in the same category as the distancing, ironic work.
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