Cultblender: New Abstraction

Wordart - various artists

NA gerwald rockenschaub

 

NA daniel buren

 

NA Gunter Umberg

 

NA john armleder

 

NA gerwald rockenschaub 2

 

NA daniel buren 02

 

What about New Abstractionism

New abstractionist paintings... what the bleep are they about?
Classical modernism was a typical response to figuration; a new way of looking at the world and art itself. But still; this stream was deeply rooted in 'real life'. New abstraction seems to mainly be a response to the classical modernists. An attempt to show how they (you know... Mondriaan, Kandinsky, Malevistj etc) failed to bring about their desired utopia. Are these new abstractionist artists (i'm thinking Armleder, Rockenschaub, Buren) going to do any better?

The postmodern abstract painter does not paint what the biological eye sees, instead they focus on what our minds eye sees. In fact they try to open that proverbial eye with their art. They want to to make the viewer aware of themselves with images from esoterical, non-existing worlds and sub-conscious feelings. Paintings some of us would like to describe as 'useless rubbish'.

It's not that I am too much of a beta-minded person to be interested in things that my eyes can't see, it's just that I think that there is no medium so incapable of communicating those messages as a painters' canvas. If your wish is to convey your philosophies of other better worlds, the mysteries of the universe, the power of the mind or whatever; write a book, make a film.... or do a dance... don't paint it. That sucks dude.

A lot of autonomous artists may look down at artdirectors and copywriters at advertising agencies, regarding them untalented corporate sellouts, there is one important lesson that artists could learn from them. Any medium you make should have enough power to able to communicate its message on its own, without explanation. If you need to read a book to be able to appreciate a painting, you should just have written a book.