Post modern anti-reductionism
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Date
1978
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture
Abstract
I believe that the particular forms art takes are the products of individual sensibilities in various times and places. I do not believe that art progresses, only that it changes. Consequently, I don't concern myself with any ideas about what I should be doing, but only with making something that will excite me and give me pleasure, feeling that if I can keep the thing alive for myself, the work will both find and deserve a larger audience. I do this by expanding the painting's significance through purposeful ambiguity, making references to subjects people care about (people, places, sex, objects, etc.), overloading content to confuse preconceptions, by using art historical techniques and themes, and occasional borrowing from the masters and conventions from the past and present. Finally, I seek to reconcile both form and content in an aesthetically 'complete' but slightly absurd way. ThusIy, the psychological tension is set up. My work is my work. It contains no moral lessons nor is it the expression of a specific artistic creed. I do not try to be either tasteful or tasteless, but rather attempt to make art that alters existence, however slightly, instead of being an already overly familiar and redundant backdrop to it.