[COPY] THE "THINGNESS" and "NON-THING-NESS" of ART
Before I get into this adventure at Art and the Infinite, I came across this picture of a fabulous Modern Sculpture to share with you
The date of this piece is 3000 B.C.E. Modern, right? Well it reminds me of George Kubler’s book THE SHAPE OF TIME in which he said that Art comes from a much deeper river than the shallow waters separating Artworks with strict chronology. All Artworks and practical objects are unique early or late moments in a larger action taking place over huge spans of time. The role of “time” in Art fascinates me. speaking of time I came across a physicist who had this idea. Time is an analytical left brain tool to register and measure changes and evolution of forms. The deep rooted changes in form, happen outside of time. That “Deep River” I just mentioned is actually an infinite source of possibilities in Art. It’s also the source of the timelessness which Art can embody. As Contemporary Art keeps trying to out Modern itself (a shallow dead end) the timeless is the true “Modern”. That is the territory I prefer to work in. To quote myself..” My studio has no walls. It’s a place where works emerge in which remote Antiquity, the Classical Past, and the Future present live and breath together in the same space and time” It ends up as a kind of living theatre made solid in paint. The viewer or observer very much become players in it. Enter, Quantum Physics again…..
One of the main principles of Quantum Physics is Super Position which means that an object can exist in multiple states simultaneously. An object..like a painting? sure, why not? The state it becomes is determined by the observer. The observer becomes a kind of co-creator. How many states can it exist in simultaneously? In the case of Art I think it can exist in an infinite number of states simultaneously.. if that Artwork is “built” in just the right way. So here is a real case- history of what an observer saw and experienced in a group of my figure paintings. She is an actress and a big supporter of my work . Here is just one of those paintings, and then her comment.
“ A sense of Artistry and movement that draws me into the characters and
makes me think of the life within. I feel at one with the people you portray
like it was me in another lifetime, and that is provocative and inspires me”
So to get quantum physics-ish for a moment, could it be that what she as observer saw was just one of the many states this painting exists in simultaneously? and how many states DOES it exist in simultaneously? Will every viewer who sees it see it in a different state? Some might respond by saying, “ well if an Artwork can be in all of these different states simultaneously, doesn’t that kind of dilute the power of the piece?”My answer to that is a resounding NO! It does just the opposite. It increases the power of the work. And some of that power rubs off on the observer or viewer as they they become a co-creator in the whole thing. Art expands beyond the tight time bound definitions. And we can use lots of THAT at this time!
Thanks for joining me on another Art and the Infinite adventure
Stay tuned!
Ricky