Art Fair

Just visited Amsterdam Art, an international art fair. Once again I saw that quality and content in art defenitely are two different things...

I spoke with one of the artists (Astrid Koeppe) she showed some high-quality and poetic abstract drawings. 
 I mentioned I liked the fact that the interest in agressive and perverse art seemed to have faded, as there was not much of it to be seen anymore. She said: "That's because it was already sold."  Auch. Too bad, I was wrong.
This was a decent gallery, coming all the way from Germany... I hope they'll be back next year.
I spent a long time in this booth, at this wall with small drawings. This artist transforms a perception into a small-scale drawing, using simple means in color and form, in simple media like charcoal, ink, pencils etc.

I guess I liked them so much because it's kind of the same thing I do in my snapshots, but in a totally different form. She alters perception, and when looking at her drawings one can sense the process in which it happened. One sees traces of plants, a whale, a head or face. But one sees what she, or her artistic system, made of it. It's an after-image, a reminiscence. This is what gives the work a true intimacy.
I just liked them so much. Check some older wor of her here:
http://www.astridkoeppe.de/index.php?id=5
The ones I saw were brandnew, and haven't been put up on her site yet. 


There were one or two more artists who made my visit worthwile. But for the rest: I admit there was not very much there that I liked. I even left the catalogue on the table - there wasn't one picture in it worth taking home... Maybe it's me. Still I had the feeling last year was better, and  to me it was as if the promising signs then were overgrown this year, with more of the old. I don't know very well either, what  needs to be done to give art a new purpose. Sometimes I think the developments have been speeded up way too much, and that it only takes time before individual artists will realize the full potential of contemporary art. Sometimes I also think that we're miles behind on the real pace of historic development.
Science and technique has developed lots and lots further than we did as moral creatures. The gap is so big, that it's starting to cause a raise in awareness. But moral development seems to be happening anywhere except the art world. We artists can barely reach up to the technical levels of science and industry, and moral development really is an extra handicap on the way of 'getting there' - that point where an artist has reached a unity in his technique, and the 'thing' he or she has to offer.
But technique on itself is only a shell, it can't give our lives meaning or purpose. Only we can do that. For my own life and work, I more or less know how. But even then I'm unable to tell others. Still I know there's a universal quality to the meaning of life. There has to be. If there isn't, all effort is pointless.

I don't know. If I ever see the light, I'll let you know.

Insight is a tough ***

Yesterday I had one of these flashes, where several important chapters of my life were put together in a whole that's finally consistent. I was told about the four paths of Christian " creation spirituality", from the book of Michael Fox ('Original Blessing'). Today I'm in a funny jumble of ideas, that really don't make sense when I open my mouth to tell about them. But I know I found the cornerstone of my personal mythology, and that it will enroll itself from now on.

I guess it's the last chapter of a long time of being invisible to the outer world. I started this trip some fifteen years ago, and have been searching for the trip much longer. I got things going in artschool, did a postgrad, but once there I found books and ideas that led me straight away from the attitude one needed to be fashionable in the artworld. I found out soon enough, but there wasn't much I could do. I grinded my teeth, and followed the quest.

A lot of other stuff happened, the kids came and I completely lost control over my life, I had a gallery and lost it again, and since it didn't matter I just supported another aritst and very sympathetic guru-like figure whose ideas seemed much more important than my own. On the side, I did my own research. And I worried about integrating my research into regular art. Built two websites - one just to categorize and file my knowledge, the other for reaching a bigger audience. 
Secretly I was postponing that one last step I had to take.


I shouldn't be writing this, because I still haven't taken the step.
Will I ever do it. What will it be good for. How do I make money. It takes time, and time needs to fill itself - with either work, or worrying. Life is greedy and doesn't allow room for much more than daily chores.  But still the plant of insight is growing, imperturbable, like grass from the sidewalk. More content will follow soon...