Dr Great Art Podcast 57: (Im)Maturity in Art

Dr Great Art Podcast, Episode 57, "(Im)Maturity in Art."
Immaturity, maturity, and the desire for the latter in art and the repression of that in culture.
Link: http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-57-immaturity-in-art
#maturity #arthistory #contemporaryart #markstaffbrandl #drgreatart #jamesdavidaudlin

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(Im)Maturity in Art

Hi this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 57th "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one.

Today my Artecdote concerns immaturity, maturity, and the desire for the latter in art.

I have long found this to be a problem in our art and our culture in general at this time. I was reminded of it recently by a great post on Facebook by James David Audlin. He is a remarkable scholar and author. More about him later.

Let us start with his post, where he addresses culture at large.

James writes, "Grass in lawns is kept in a juvenile state and not allowed to grow to maturity and go to seed, and then die back to be replaced by a new generation. Cattle are forced to remain in a constantly lactating state, hens to do nothing but get fat and lay eggs. Forests are forced out of the natural growth-dieback-grassland-regrowth cycle, and artificially maintained at peak growth. While rivers by nature drop silt at the slower-moving insides of curves as they age, with the result that the curves over time get more pronounced, becoming meanders that eventually separate into semicircular ponds, rivers today are forced to remain perpetually in a young state, cleared of the sandbars and unnaturally straightened for the sake of human maritime traffic.

And the human public is likewise kept forever in a mental childhood by the kleptocracy, with vapid distracting entertainment, and never taught how to use the mental tools that adult minds use, those that empower the mind to engage in critical evaluative thinking; rather, people are trained to _believe_ that they think, when what they “think” is merely the programming brainwashed into them by the media and the social institutions.

And the result?

Lawns become infested with noisome insects bearing Lyme disease; to maintain them in a juvenile state the grass must be frequently cut, putting out air pollution and causing allergic reactions; and watered, depleting the potable water supply; and heavily fertilized and weedkillered, giving humans cancer. Cow milk causes serious allergies as well as heart and brain issues. Peak forests drop dry branches and leaves to the earth below, creating a lot of dry detritus, which eventually burns, causing vast forest fires that can destroy whole villages. Rivers cleared of sandbars are highly prone to massive flooding.

And humans who don’t think are no longer human – but rather no more than cattle, hooked up to extractors not to suck milk out of them but profit ... profit for the kleptocracy that keeps them in this infantile state."

(This is from his not-yet-published collection of essays, 'Ranting the Truth.')
James is allowing me to podcast this excerpt as well as add my own thoughts.

As I suggested, I feel this has a lot to do with problems in art now.

My thoughts:
What still remains unrealized in criticism and theory, sadly, is Susan Sonntag's far-sighted feminist call for an "erotics" of appreciation in place of a dry aesthetics. A philosophical wooing in this direction can be found in renowned art critic, art historian and psychologist Donald Kuspit's writings. In his book ‘Idiosyncratic Identities,’ he formulated three vital necessities for rejuvenating art in our postmodern times, when "the avant-garde [has died] from entropic pursuit of novelty."

These requirements are: to find the heart of creativity in desire, to embrace idiosyncrasy, and to nourish one's yearning for healthiness. Kuspit has continued to promote and expand on these ideas in his recent works. I have learned from Sonntag and Kuspit about the necessity of including desire as an integral element. Desire clearly plays a role in antithetical strife, which is a form of competitive yearning. However, this struggle can be interpreted more broadly. Interaction with foundational tropes, as I discuss below, can be fertile ground for personal, idiosyncratic development, especially when questioning them, combining them in unique ways, or extending and elaborating them.

My metaphor(m) theory in practice encourages unconventionality and manifests a desire for maturation on the part of the creator. Even if that maturity itself is not reached, the desire and will to achieve it is drive enough. The struggle to mature is a synecdoche of the will to reach psychological healthiness. In addition to leading us to a combined intellectual and sensual appreciation of literature and art, Kuspit's ideas could help us value "art that possesses a quality of desire that seems to undo the system from within, making it seem at odds with itself in unexpected subjective ways."

All artists must of course retain their childlike ability to play and to be inspired, but I am suggesting we need to simultaneously grow out of the cultural indoctrination to remain in a perpetual state of late adolescence, which corporations do to us in order for us to be easily manipulated consumers. This is an important personal dialectic. Yes, find your inspiration in your own unique experiences, which might include popular culture or youthful insights. My own suspicion is that we have many of our clearest insights around the age of 10, and many of our muddiest, less-unique thoughts around 18 to 25, due to exaggerated desires to "fit in." This is where the corporations endeavor to keep us. However, we must GROW and develop from those initial sparkling inspirations to become truly inimitable sources of light ourselves. Self-study, self-critique, hard work, the growth of social, emotional, technical and intellectual intelligence enrich our art.

James David Audlin is a scholar and author, originally from northern New York state, now living in Panama after previously living in France.

He holds degrees from Rochester Institute of Technology and Andover Newton. A retired pastor and university professor, his best known nonfiction book is 'The Circle of Life,' a study of Native American philosophy and spirituality. His most popular novel is "Rats Live on no Evil Star", also available in French ("Palindrome") and Spanish ("Palíndromo"), in his own translations.

Audlin is recognized most for his massive two-volume restoration of the original version of the Gospel of John, translating it afresh from Greek and Aramaic, with several hundred pages of textual history and commentary.

That was (Im)Maturity in Art.

Thanks for listening. Podcast number 57. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings!

I take viewers inside visual art and art history. Entertainingly, yet educationally and aesthetically, I analyze, underline, and discuss the reasons why a work of art is remarkable, or I go through entire eras, or indeed through the entirety of art history, or look at your desired theme through the lens of art history. The lectures often take place with painted background screens and even in my painting-installations.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.

Dr Great Art Podcast Episode 56: Academicism in Art

Dr Great Art podcast, Episode 56: Academicism in Art. An 'academicist' in the arts is someone who over-idealizes the art academy; one who follows the precepts taught there and insists others do so as well. Here is a short history of academicism and thoughts about the problem now.
http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-56-academicism-in-art
#arthistory #academicism #postmodernism

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Academicism in Art

Hi this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 56th "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one.

Today my Artecdote concerns Academicism in Art.

Since the pejorative use of the words 'academy' and 'academicism' have and will continuously pop up in my discussions and podcasts, I would like to lay the source of this clearly out in the open, since it has come to my attention in recent discussions with other artists that many weren't certain of what the words referred to. Pedagogic Dr Great Art presents here a work of history. Any resemblance to persons dead or living is purely intentional.

First, let me separate the words 'academic' from 'academicist'! At least at their best, an academic is simply someone who has studied a subject deeply. A person who holds advanced degrees, such as a PhD, and often works as a professor or researcher at a university or other scholarly institution. A scholar.

An 'academicist,' on the other hand, in the arts, is someone who over-idealizes, worships, the art academy. Someone who follows the precepts taught there and insists others --- artists, critics, etc. --- do so as well. Thus, they are conformists or conventionalists in art, literature, etc., usually pedantic in relationship to form and content, generally while proclaiming themselves to be precisely the opposite. The added '-ist' suffix makes a huge difference.

This is a major problem right now once again in Postmodernism, as in most weak, transition periods.

A little history. The first Academy of Art, called The Accademia del Disegno, was founded in Florence in Italy in 1562 by Giorgio Vasari. Vasari is the founding father of art history due to his monumental and eminently readable book Lives of the the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. It is a gossipy, rambling collection of anecdotes concerning creators. Vasari himself was a very good architect, draughtsman and more, yet an exceedingly uneven painter, very much in the heart of Mannerism with his attempts to glean the "best" devices from each of the Renaissance masters and combine them into an artificial whole, with the heaviest weight of his hero-worship resting on Michelangelo. At this academy students studied the "arti del disegno", a term coined by Vasari. This included lectures on anatomy, geometry and an emphasis on piecing together derivative aspects of technique. Disegno originally meant drawing, but came to include the concept of plan or composition, as the idea the artist had in mind before beginning to carve or paint a work. It later offered the source for our modern term design.

Another academy, the Accademia di San Luca, named after the patron saint of artists, St. Luke, was founded somewhat later in Rome. The Accademia di San Luca was mostly concerned with art theory, perhaps the first such institution in the world. It, and many later academies, were founded in an effort to make, or create, a position for artists as "men" (sic, yes this is historical sexism) "who were gentlemen practicing a liberal art" from "mere" craftsmen, who were engaged in manual labor. This began the historical antagonism academies have had to autodidactic creators and their accompanying disdain for technique and preference for verbal validation.

As an intellectual myself, I am thankful to Michelangelo and most of all Leonardo who made room for artists such as me. HOWEVER, not ALL artists need be so and it cannot be forced.

The Accademia di San Luca later served as the model for the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture founded in France in 1648. The French Academy used their own notion of the term "arti del disegno," calling it the "beaux arts" (boʊˈzɑːr), from which is derived the English term "fine arts."

The painter Charles Le Brun (le bron) (1619-1690) is the most (in)famous Academician. He was the director of the French Academy. Le Brun saw himself as painter, theorist, arbiter of taste and school director. He was the dominant artist in 17th century France, due to his position of power, not to any inventiveness of his art, which it thoroughly lacked. ALL that was done in the royal palaces, all important public commissions, were directed and controlled by Le Brun. He was the virtual dictator of the arts in France. From this situation comes the standard pejorative use of the term 'academicist' in modern art and art history. When one wishes to compliment a knowledgeable academic, a scholastic researcher or professor nowadays, the replacement term is usually that of 'scholar.'

Typical for any academy, in the French Academy works of art were examined according to established, systematized categories which students had to memorize. Famous painters were even "graded" from 0 to 80 according to how well they "performed" in composition, drawing, color, and expression. Drawing was held to be superior to color; color was seen as simply an addition to drawing. Drawing, it was claimed, appealed to the mind, color appealed to the "inferior senses." A frequent illness of every academy has been the disdain of sensuality in favor of a rather middlebrow conception of intellectuality.

Artists NEED to learn. From one another and from great teachers. Ones who help them discover themselves, not memorized rules or styles. Thinking only of success, not content or value or truth, is called sophistry. A real desire to learn is the opposite of that. Thus I support and applaud innovative art schools and programs and teachers, as well as the teaching of the basics of technique, creative thought processes, art history and philosophy. But not sophistry or rules.

In the academies, certain so-called "classical" art models were identified and enforced as prototypes artists had to study and emulate if they wished to succeed. A successful showing at the salon, the huge, florid exhibitions organized by the academy, was a seal of approval for an artist, making his work saleable to collectors and giving the artist the chance to be considered for public commissions. (Think: art fair.) William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Léon Gérôme were the leading figures of this academic art world. Style, and ideology, thereby became closely associated with the ruling academicist elite, with patronage and even with the state.

Academicist art, in whatever form, has thus inevitably come to be linked with the power-structure and the power-relations of society and its artworld(s). Academicist art contains a hardly veiled regulation of values, usually having some relation to the maintenance and reproduction of social power, even if only within the artworld, yet this may even reach into the educational system and government, especially as younger academicians are usually recruited from the ruling classes.

French academic art enforced the production of large paintings called "grande machines" which were manufactured of mock emotion through collaged, patchworks of memorized clichés, contrivances and strategies, all derived from a prescribed list of possibilities.

During the 1840s -1860s, the Impressionists, Realists and a few other artists concluded that academicist art was formulaic and artificial. The Modernists, as they came to be called, were innovative in their subject matter and painting techniques, often using forms and choosing subject matter which were considered trivial or degenerate by the Academy. Juries, dominated by Academicians, inevitably rejected the artists' paintings and sculpture. These artists thought that if their work was exhibited well, it would gain acceptance. They sought favorable viewing conditions by creating their own exhibitions, seeking out their own critics, in short creating their own alternative to the academicist artworld, over which they eventually triumphed. It goes without saying that women were largely ignored by all, but Academicists most of all.

How does this apply to us now? I discussed this somewhat way back in Dr Great Art podcast number 9, "Mannerism is Now." Yes, we are in a manneristic, academicist, transitional cultural period, in Postmodernism. I could also have called that podcast "Academicism is Now." Most artists now come from Art Academies, Universities or Hochschulen., where they are taught to disrespect ability and technique and over-respect elaborate explanations. Yet only a tiny percent are actually intellectuals. Most become "Schwätzer" / "blatherers" and eventually give up art altogether after producing bodies of Late Minimalist Neo-Conceptual or Bad Painting clichés.

Academicism was overthrown by Modernism. The Modernists rejected memorized rules, sought an aggressive purposefulness, a vigorous independence. Artists made works that were more individual, less abstruse, more corporeal, even more playful. And they did it by uniting into mutually supportive groups, and by taking themselves and their creations seriously, NOT just their "careers." At least until the end of Modernism as the hegemonic notion, circa 1979. Shortly before that, Late Modernism had become an "almost Academy." Postmodernism after 1985 fully reified this, becoming INDEED a New Academicism. Thus, we now need to rethink — and openly discuss — the invention of fresh artistic techniques, to re-examine the "problems of the artist" with critical eyes and minds: composition, context, presentation, subject matter, content, surface, facture, most of all perhaps societal connection — in short every element of artistic creation.

That was Academicism in Art.

Thanks for listening. Podcast number 56. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings!

I take viewers inside visual art and art history. Entertainingly, yet educationally and aesthetically, I analyze, underline, and discuss the reasons why a work of art is remarkable, or I go through entire eras, or indeed through the entirety of art history, or look at your desired theme through the lens of art history. The lectures often take place with painted background screens and even in my painting-installations.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.

Dr Great Art Podcast Episode 55: Epistemology in Art

Dr Great Art podcast episode 55: Epistemology in Art. The philosophical analysis of the search for knowledge. Does it exist in art? How and what can we know? Will it replace the ubiquitous ontological expressions in Postmodernism? The Podcast link: http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-55-epistemology-in-art


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Dr Great Art Podcast 55

Epistemology in Art

Hi this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 55th "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one.

Today my Artecdote concerns epistemology in art. Not as dry or as obtuse as it first sounds, I hope. The question of knowledge in art.

Since have been tossing philosophy terms around in these podcasts, I think a slightly "teacherly" presentation is in order here, to make certain that we are all on the same page. Most artist and artworld denizens have little reason to deal with the terminology of aesthetics regularly, so probably have forgotten what a few key terms I love to bandy about actually concern. The two main ones that will pop up time and again, are ontology and epistemology.

First ontology. It is "the study of being or existence. It seeks to describe or posit the basic categories and relationships of being or existence to define entities and types of entities within its framework." In short, it concerns definition, what makes a thing be what it is, or what makes us call it thusly, or recognize it. How do we define 'bird' or 'toy' or anything else. Often this is most usefully discussed in terms of what characteristics are necessary and sufficient to establishing what a thing is. Ye Olde "Is that art" thing.

One result of the discovery of using ontology to inspire art is the "Danto-Dickie Institutional Theory of Art." The assertion is that an object becomes art through being accepted by those with power in the artworld. Arthur Danto views the entire history of western art as a evolution in this direction, roughly. This structurally mimics Clement Greenberg’s view of the history of art as a progressive reduction to genre-specific elements, yet refines it intellectually. Danto feels that fine art peaked with Duchamp and his followers, especially Andy Warhol. In these artists’ works, art has become its own philosophy, actually its own ontology, finally merging with everyday objects.

One great problem I see in the ontology of art (which I, however, find exciting) is that art as now experienced, since about the Renaissance at least, appears to be THE category or concept which includes in its characteristics the desire to always expand, or at least alter or question, its very definition. This is seldom addressed in current Neo-Conceptual artworks based in ontological concerns.

HOWEVER, Probably more important for the future is What is epistemology?:
Epistemology is the "investigation into the grounds and nature of knowledge itself." Epistemological studies are usually focused upon our means for acquiring knowledge and, as a consequence, modern epistemology generally involves a debate between rationalism and empiricism, or the question of whether knowledge can be acquired a priori or a posteriori.

Empiricism: those following that believe knowledge is obtained through experience.

Rationalism: those following that assert that knowledge can be acquired through the use of reason.

Others feel that this is a false, or at least futile dichotomy, and are beginning to raise new issues of knowledge, and of interpretation and understanding as knowledge-seeking. Note that epistemology concerns "knowledge" and NOT "learning."

And we Philosophical Pragmatists seek to replace the quest for certain knowledge of eternal, unchanging objects with a realistic account of fallible, experimental, empirical inquiry.

William James made an important pragmatist observation that "when … we give up the doctrine of objective certitude, we do not thereby give up the quest or hope of truth itself."

What are Some of the Big Questions in Epistemology:
What can we know?
How can we know it?
Why do we know some things, but not others?
How do we acquire knowledge?
Is knowledge possible?
Can knowledge be certain?

Are their various or multiple "knowledges"?

Does the experience of artworks (novels, paintings, films, etc.) supply knowledge, or the opportunity for knowledge? And of what kind(s)?

Epistemology is important because it is an essential form of probing into the way in which we come-to-understand, not just think. It is the attempt to grasp how we acquire knowledge, --- not just the phenomenology of our thoughts, and not just how we are "trained" or how we memorize facts (hence not behaviorism nor any other form of the psychology of learning) ---; it is the attempt to understand how we rely upon our senses, and how we construct concepts in our minds. A firm epistemology is an aid to grounding sound thinking and reasoning — this is why so much philosophical literature in this field can involve seemingly abstruse discussions about the nature of knowledge. Questions of epistemology have seldom been directly addressed in visual art, but then, until Duchamp's beatification in the 60s, neither were questions of ontology much addressed.

Epistemological questions about art have recently resurfaced, probably due to the changed attitude to arts funding, arts situation in the academy, and certain Late-Neo-Conceptual practices, e.g., much now revolves around considering art practice as 'research'. This presents both a new prospect and a peril – an opportunity to reframe art practice as an enquiry (or at least to make more explicit the questioning nature of art), and a danger of falling into a pseudo-scientific mode of investigation.

Concerning questions of epistemology in (not about) art: its importance could lie in subsuming and opposing the above mentioned absorption in ontology. This was a rich new area for art, but has outlived its usefulness, now most often generating rather vacuous art illustrating truisms (supposedly) derived from Duchamp --- a total about-face of his spirit, I firmly believe. David Carrier, one of my favorite philosophers in aesthetics, in his battles with the Institutional Theory of Ontology is indeed inventing a controversial "superior epistemology" which could replace the mannerist concept of the "endless endgame of art" which the academic infatuation with ontology has brought us. (I say controversial because Carrier has been 'accused' of this; and I think this is true --- yet laudable, whereas his critic who claimed that meant it as an objection.)

What could epistemology bring to art? Some intriguing questions, as a starter. Ones that might stimulate exciting art in philosophically-minded artists (like me), and subsume the questions of ontology. One praiseworthy aspect of philosophy is that one cannot just ignore an opponent, or appeal to mystical insight, or make claims to be "newer" or more "fashionable," as is often the case in the artworld. In philosophy, one has to counter an argument with a better argument, and best of all one which "takes over," absorbs, ones opponents' views while "improving" or redirecting them.

Some quick notes on epistemological questions in art:

Where is the locus of meaning in art?

What constitutes artistic understanding?

Can art be "true"?

Does it matter if art is "true" or not?

Is sincerity a form of knowledge?

Is irony a form of knowledge, or a disavowal of knowledge?

Can art offer knowledge of the world?

What world?

How does the artist's interaction/dialectic of intent and technique (material) offer knowledge, or even perhaps "better" knowledge than simple theorizing?

Are our beliefs that art gives us some kind of insight justified?

How does each new artwork throw our expectations of what we know off balance?

Does art most clearly embody Gadamer's hermeneutic circle of understanding (/interpretation/knowledge) of experience?

How does arts continual dialogue with its past (art history) and its present affect claims to knowledge?

What is the process whereby the artist attempts to posit and test, thereby seek, knowledge in his or her art?

And many more.

Whew, that was a whole lotta lecturing. I hope I was clear and didn't bore you too much. But I think this is very important and could offer an important doorway out of the closed pedantic circle of thought now hegemonic.

That was Epistemology in Art.

Thanks for listening. Podcast number 55. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings!

I take viewers inside visual art and art history. Entertainingly, yet educationally and aesthetically, I analyze, underline, and discuss the reasons why a work of art is remarkable, or I go through entire eras, or indeed through the entirety of art history, or look at your desired theme through the lens of art history. The lectures often take place with painted background screens and even in my painting-installations. Most recently I did "Petr Jan Brandl, Baroque Art, Prague and Me" in Prague at the Festival Brandl.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.

Dr Great Art Podcast Episode 54: Grief in Art

Dr Great Art podcast, Episode 54: Grief in Art. A short, yet gloomy, podcast for summer. My mother Ruth Staff Brandl passed away very recently at the age of 87. In this tough, sad time, my mind still approaches the world through art, yet I find it hard to find any comfort therein. In our artworld nowadays, it seems almost ridiculous. Grief, though, like most important and complex human emotions, has been the subject or inspiration for many great works of art. The Podcast link: http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-54-grief-in-art

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Dr Great Art Podcast 54

Grief in Art

Hi, this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 54th "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one.

Today my Artecdote is a short, yet gloomy, one for summer.

My mother Ruth Staff Brandl passed away very recently at the age of 87, just short of 3 weeks ago, after having done a heroic job of battling MDS, myelodysplastic syndrome, and its mutation acute myeloid leukemia, for over 5 years, supported emotionally, physically and medicinally by my wonderful sister Marcia. In this tough, sad time, my mind still approaches the world through art, yet I find it hard to find any comfort therein. Our societies nowadays have very little room and few structures for grief. It helps immensely that my wife and I were able to fly in and be together with my sister and my brother-in-law Ron, and that our mother met the challenge, and the end itself, with her renowned, life-long positivity, sense of humor and wit. But grief still dominates and casts shadows of true value on my perceptions. By the way, I posted her obituary on my article archive blog, http://brandl-art-articles.blogspot.com/.

But how can one turn to art in this? In our artworld nowadays, it seems almost ridiculous.

As remarkable art critic and artist Matthew Collings wrote a year ago,

"I'm not trying to understand the mysteries of the artworld system, but saying it's a boring system, with simple-minded objects, and I'm advising that such a system could be altered and previous systems with their different objects and mediations are where clues about how to do the altering are to be found."

Boring system with simple-minded objects. Indeed. The Postmodernist and Late Modernist artworld seems so empty in the face of death and neo-fascism.

Let me illustrate this: a local, much rewarded, conceptual art duo that has done several good and several silly works, has recently once again shown its "World's Biggest Picnic Blanket" heralded as social art. Yes, that is what it is. That is laughable kitsch. And they ask why so few people take us seriously. With such, they should not.

However, back to the main point of grief. It, like most important and complex human emotions, has been the subject or inspiration for many great works of art. Art has expressed the complex feelings of which grief consists and tried to produce emotional healing in potent images of human woe. "Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it," says Joan Didion. And it is an unfamiliar, terrible place each and every time anew.

What are some artworks that have successfully dealt with grief, at least as far as any human endeavor can? The Pieta sculptures and Lamentation of Christ paintings throughout history, such as that oddly perspectivally-distorted one by Andrea Mantegna. So MANY paintings by Rembrandt, who knew so much familial sorrow in his life, having both his wives and all his children pass away before him. The scumbled, grittily haptic surfaces of his paint, especially on faces and self-portraits, reveal the soul of humans battered by the comet impacts of life. Titian has that too. Tintoretto's fleeting brushstrokes evoke the transitoriness of life. Goya's mature works evoke the horror of grief for all human inhumanity.

Before I Die is a contemporary artwork by Candy Chang. She created a public work centered on the passing of life, after the death of a friend, by painting the words "Before I die I want to" with a blank "_____" on the wall of an abandoned New Orleans building. Within hours, "the wall was filled with personal aspirations, hopes and goals — everything from 'be myself completely' to 'see equality for all.' " As Priscilla Frank records.

The desire to hold on to some form of future hope even when the future is over for someone you loved. I myself was pleased to hear from my sister Marcia that our mother had written a short book of her thoughts when she sat in the library contemplating life, while my sister was in a continuing education class for one semester. I intend to turn it into a published work. Our Mom was artistic, worked originally in visual merchandizing display art, in her rich and varied job life, but most of all loved learning and was a voracious reader; she passed her love of this on to us for which she ever-enriched our lives. One of her goals was to author a book, but as in the lives of many women of her generation, she received little encouragement, in fact active discouragement, in this. We will make it come true as it becomes a collaborative book with me, one way I have of hanging on to her hope and presence

Her obituary is online here: http://brandl-art-articles.blogspot.com/2019/07/ruth-staff-brandl-obituary.html

That was Grief in Art.


Thanks for listening. Podcast number 54. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.

Ruth Staff Brandl obituary

 

Ruth Staff Brandl

Ruth Staff Brandl, age 87, passed away Sunday morning June 30, 2019 in Alabama. Ruth was born September 14, 1931 in Maywood, Illinois to the late Andrew and Dorothy (Baerns) Staff. She was raised by mother Dorothy and step-father Anton Brandt in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She attended Sheboygan area schools and graduated from North High School in 1950. Ruth married Earl B. Brandl, also of Sheboygan, on January 24, 1953 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Sheboygan. The married couple relocated to Central Illinois, where they lived in Pekin, Illinois for many years. Earl passed away in 1980. In 1997, Ruth moved to Indianapolis, Indiana and then Spanish Fort, Alabama with her daughter Marcia Brandl Willhite and son-in-law Ronald W. Willhite, with whom she enjoyed great friendship as well as being related. Marcia was her caregiver in her battle against MDS and Leukemia, which Ruth met with her renowned, life-long positivity, sense of humor and wit.

Ruth had a rich and varied professional life as well as being a dedicated and inspirational mother. She began her work life in visual merchandizing display art for department stores. Later in life she worked in the X-Ray department at Pekin Memorial Hospital and as a Dental Assistant for Dr Joseph Aimone of Pekin.

Her life outside of employment was full and wide-ranging. In addition to remaining artistic, Ruth was a member of several Lutheran Churches, where she was active in choir, with a beautiful soprano voice, leading her to frequently be a featured soloist. She taught Sunday school, was an award-winning director of many plays with the Youth Group, and a member and officer of the Women’s Guild. She loved swimming, golfing and was also committed to dog and cat rescue. Most of all, she loved learning and was a voracious reader; she passed her love of this on to her children for which she ever-enriched their lives.

Survivors include her children Dr. Mark (Cornelia) Staff Brandl of Trogen, Switzerland; Marcia (Ronald) Brandl Willhite of Spanish Fort, Alabama; brother, LeRoy (Sylvia) Staff of Two Rivers, Wisconsin; niece Julie (Brian) Staff Swetlik, of Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin; nephew and godson Mitchell Staff of Manitowoc, Wisconsin; as well as many other relatives and friends, including her 4 treasured dogs.

A private family memorial service will be held.

Family and friends may contact Marcia Brandl Willhite or Mark Staff Brandl by mail, email, or Facebook.

In lieu of flowers please donate to and be active in animal rescue.

Dr Great Art Podcast Episode 53: Dictatorship of the Consensoriat

Dr Great Art podcast Episode 53: Dictatorship of the Consensoriat

The creation of a term for one of the problems in the artworld, one very obvious usually around June each year when we all go to the Basel Art Fair, often the Venice Biennale, documenta etc. A phrase for the convenient conformity of (small) minds to have identical tastes in order to achieve hegemony.
http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-53-dictatorship-of-the-consensoriat

#arthistory #consensus #drgreatart #markstaffbrandl #postmodernart

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Dr Great Art Podcast 53

Dictatorship of the Consensoriat

Hi this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 53rd "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one.

Today my Artecdote concerns the creation of a term for one of the positions we find ourselves in within the artworld. One of our larger problems, one very obvious usually around June each year when we all go to the Basel Art Fair, often the Venice Biennale, documenta etc.

Thinking about this, way back in 2007 I created a phrase and word within it, which I have used regularly. I would like to draw attention to it here once again, with the hope that ever more people in the artworld use it.

The phrase is "Dictatorship of the Consensoriat:"

I wish to re-introduce this word and phrase into the international artworld dialogue. Please assist me by using it every chance you get. Forming neologisms is one of my favorite diversions, especially since I learned Latin. It may be a slightly arcane hobby, but I enjoy it, and terminology can control far more of ones thought processes than we are often happy to admit — therefore, why not grab the bull by the horns and begin to develop our own phrases for what we feel it is necessary to discuss or critique. Shakespeare created words like amazement and radiance, which have become commonplace. These made-up words have stood the test of time because they expressed notions people wanted to articulate, and because they were understandable. Let's hope I can do something similar, if less inspired. In fact, Shakespeare, in his plays, sonnets, and poems, used approximately 17,677 different words —and of those 17,677 words, 1,700 were brand-new, coined by him.

While immersed in various local struggles with the regional outpost of the "consensus clans" in first Chicago then Switzerland and elsewhere, I began to see that I needed a few new terms.

My contributions usually nit-pick one or two professions unnecessarily, for the drive to the herd mentality manifests itself in all the sub-layers of the artworld currently. Therefore I began to play with Latin (rather freely and not always correctly, thus making what is known as "ML," or Modern Latin). I needed a term for the international cabal of consensus-thinkers, and I needed a phrase containing that word to express the power-control situation of the artworld since about 1987. I played with consensus, primarily, as that expresses the problem concisely. I tried to find a word expressing "those who seek only consensus" or something similar. I remembered the old Communist sententious saw, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Mixing that with censor, and utilizing the similar and appropriate ending –iat, I had my term and phrase. (-at, or –ate, or –iat, is a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin. In English the use as a verbal suffix has been extended to stems of non-Latin origin, and by way of French into the formation of certain nouns.)

I suspect I need not exactly define the group to whom I am referring, as most of us deal with them on a daily basis.

I often call them, them the "Consensus Clique." That is, a few people gathered together, who actively exclude as many others as possible (particularly artists) and tacitly agree to agree on everything. They check in with each other regularly and only promote the lowest common denominator of what they concur on. This is not a conspiracy, they say, just a very convenient conformity of (small) minds to have identical tastes in order to achieve hegemony. You can envision what I mean. The small group: including international curators who show all exactly the same few artists, no matter what the supposed theme of the show is; art bureaucrats who give all awards to the exact same people; supposed theorists who all borrow from exactly the same few recent fad thinkers (whether Lacan or Derrida or whoever is "in" now); artists who unquestioningly do boringly almost identical Late Minimalistic Neo-Concept Art; art professors who teach and force that style; everybody who bootlicks this group, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

However, now my improved terminology. Let them be called the Consensoriat (when they have positions of power), and let this sub-period of time at the close of Postmodernism be designated as "the Dictatorship of the Consensoriat." And let us now work on this Late Corporate Capitalist form of Academicism to bring its demise to a hasty conclusion.

That was The Dictatorship of the Consensoriat.

Thanks for listening. Podcast number 53. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings!

I take viewers inside visual art and art history. Entertainingly, yet educationally and aesthetically, I analyze, underline, and discuss the reasons why a work of art is remarkable, or I go through entire eras, or indeed through the entirety of art history, or look at your desired theme through the lens of art history. The lectures often take place with painted background screens and even in my painting-installations. Most recently I did "Petr Jan Brandl, Baroque Art, Prague and Me" in Prague at the Festival Brandl.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.

Dr Great Art Podcast Episode 52: Julia Kristeva, Metaphor as Resistance

Dr Great Art Podcast, Episode 52: Julia Kristeva, Metaphor as Resistance.

Julia Kristeva, the a Bulgarian-French philosopher, offers in her theorization hope for resistance against ruling ideologies within artworks themselves. Artists can produce "openings" by creating metaphors through serious play, turning rules upside down, displaying pleasure, laughter and poetry which include thoughtful critique --- delightful, anarchistic, alternative visions that are embodiments of and empower other forms of resistance.



http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-52-julia-kristeva-metaphor-as-resistance

#arthistory #arttheory #metaphor #resistance #markstaffbrandl #drgreatart

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Dr Great Art Podcast 52

Julia Kristeva, Metaphor as Resistance

Hi this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 52nd "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one.

Today my Artecdote concerns another significant theorist whose work I find can be very inspirational to working artists. Julia Kristeva.

I have already presented Bakhtin, Feminism, Th. Emil Homerin, Cornel West, George Lakoff and others. I find Kristeva also to be very important as well as stirring.

Julia Kristeva, Metaphor as Resistance.

Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and even novelist. She has lived in France since the mid-1960s. In art, she is most widely discussed in connection to the "abject," or in her battle against the Bulgarian government's accusations against her. I consider the accusations spurious and a conscious attempt by rightwingers to discredit her. The "abject" is a unique insight concerning "nasty" materials and things we find repulsive. It is somewhat abused by trendy artists and critics, but less important than her considerations concerning the possibility of resistance AT ALL to dominant ideologies.

Kristeva became influential in international critical analysis, cultural studies and feminism after publishing her first book in 1969. Her sizeable body of work includes books and essays which address intertextuality, the semiotic, and abjection, in the fields of linguistics, literary theory and criticism, psychoanalysis, biography and autobiography, political and cultural analysis, art and art history.

The effect Julia Kristeva has had on my deliberation in art theory can be summed up in four words: the possibility of resistance. As I searched the field, it appeared to me that the (then and still) dominant forms of contemporary theorizing such as Deconstructionism et al. were pathographic, seeing art as simply a symptom, forever doomed to morbidly mirror the diseases of the society surrounding it. It had not perhaps been originally so conceived, but in art critical practice, that is what the followers of Jacques Derrida in the artworld and literary world had made of his theories and those close to him. The artworld as of about 2014 noticed that the "Derrida" name has been too present and began to avoid the word --- yet they still cling to their (I would purport mis-) readings of his thought in deed if not name.

Reading Kristeva's works encouraged me in my search for a location in the creative practice itself where an "opening" could occur, where dominant tropes might be disrupted as well as expressed. This effort was an integral engine behind the origination of my exploration of theory and has become quite central to my theory of metaphor(m) and to my own artwork.

In Kristeva I saw and see the first glimmer of hope. Her form of feminism privileges opposition through a "dispersed" subject/speaker. The inherent contradiction of the process of likening one thing to another in tropes is central to my thinking.

Creators may thus be seen as those who anarchistically answer the domineering assertion of rules as the Other, as the perennial foreigner. Kristeva's philosophy can be used in this way to supplement the Bakhtinian notion of liberating alternative voices: What would those voices say? Within the often fatalistic confines of poststructuralist theory, she contrarily traces the necessity of an outlet.

John Lechte describes Kristeva's rich estimation of poetics. "It is precisely one of the features of poetic language, for example, that it embodies contradiction."

Syntax, order and rules of form are turned topsy-turvy by pleasure, laughter and poetry. In this aspect of Kristeva's thought one can see that type of incorrigible play which occurs in metaphor-making — especially in those creative tropes which question, invert or criticize metaphors which are taken for granted in our culture. There is much we can learn from Kristeva, but most of all that the individual creation of tropes is a potential avenue of great resistance.

Artists can, Kristeva-influenced, create metaphors, metaphor(m)s, through incorrigibly serious play, turn rules inside-out and upside down, create pleasure, laughter and poetry including thoughtful critique. Delightful, anarchistic, alternative visions that are embodiments of and empower other forms of resistance.

That was Julia Kristeva, Metaphor as Resistance.

Thanks for listening. Podcast number 52. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings!

I take viewers inside visual art and art history. Entertainingly, yet educationally and aesthetically, I analyze, underline, and discuss the reasons why a work of art is remarkable, or I go through entire eras, or indeed through the entirety of art history, or look at your desired theme through the lens of art history. The lectures often take place with painted background screens and even in my painting-installations. Most recently I did "Petr Jan Brandl, Baroque Art, Prague and Me" in Prague at the Festival Brandl.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.

Dr Great Art Podcast Episode 51: Bluesman of Art

Dr Cornel West has described himself as a "Bluesman in the life of the mind, and a Jazzman in the world of ideas." I feel similarly, I am a Bluesman of the mind, a Rock n Roller of painting and installations, a sequential-artist/comic-book penciler of art history.

http://drgreatart.libsyn.com/episode-51-bluesman-of-art
 
#arthistory #drgreatart #markstaffbrandl #blues

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Dr Great Art Podcast 51

Hi this is Mark Staff Brandl, with the 51st "Dr Great Art" brief podcast. I hope you enjoy it and come back for each and every one. Blues Man of Art.

Today my Artecdote concerns identifying oneself as an artist, how I view my self in a kind of motto statement inspired by Dr Cornel West. I discussed him and his important ideas in passing on in various podcasts here, but I will do him more in-depth in a future episode.

First my short bit, based heavily on West's. Then I will let West do his own in his inspiringly inimitable style.

Dr Cornel West has described himself as a "Bluesman in the life of the mind, and a Jazzman in the world of ideas." I feel similarly, I am a Bluesman of the mind, a Rock n Roller of painting and installations, a sequential-artist/comic-book penciler of art history. A little densely-packed, so let me repeat it: , "I am a Bluesman of the mind, a Rock n Roller of painting and installations, a sequential-artist/comic-book penciler of art history."

And now Cornel, one of my heroes:
(recorded bits by Cornel West)

I, Mark Staff Brandl, am probably most well-known for my self-labeled "mongrel art": hybrids of installation and sequential paintings and drawings, which occasionally incorporate lectures as performances. Those being called "Dr Great Art," a part of which, podcasts, you are listening to now.

In all my artworks and even theoretical writings, I reveal and even revel in my inspirational sources, particularly those of my childhood which comprised my initial calling to be an artist. These wellsprings include the billboard sign painting and display-window decoration of my father and mother, as well as naturalistically-drawn comics and their artists, such as my personal mentor, superhero penciler Gene Colan. Furthermore, these works merge inspiration from other sources, currently including Jacopo Tintoretto, Colan, Jim Steranko and Linda Weintraub. I am after an intellectual, yet muscularly, aggressively mongrel art, using blue-collar technical skills to energize and criticize fine art, while also criticizing, honoring, and expanding the vernacular arts which inspire me. This has inherent and emphatic social practice and democratic content. I discussed Mongrel Art more in podcast number 20.

Listen to the Cornel West bits again, and please think about who YOU are as an artist or art-appreciator or art facilitator. And then compose your own sentence!

(recorded bits by Cornel West again, excerpt)

That was "Bluesman of Art."

Thanks for listening. Podcast number 51. If you wish to hear more cool, exciting and hopefully inspiring stuff about art history and art, come back for more. Also I, Dr Mark Staff Brandl, artist and art historian, am available for live custom Performance-Lectures. In English und auf Deutsch, with Performance-Paintings!

I take viewers inside visual art and art history. Entertainingly, yet educationally and aesthetically, I analyze, underline, and discuss the reasons why a work of art is remarkable, or I go through entire eras, or indeed through the entirety of art history, or look at your desired theme through the lens of art history. The lectures often take place with painted background screens and even in my painting-installations. Most recently I did "Petr Jan Brandl, Baroque Art, Prague and Me" in Prague at the Festival Brandl.

You can find or contact me at

www.drgreatart.com/ (spell)

book me at www.mirjamhadorn.com (spell)

or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all as Dr Great Art.