i think this has been very well written and deserves to be looked at properly.
please let me know what you all think….
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if you hated postmodernism
Does that automatically make you a remodernist
and just what the f*k is a remodernist?
Let’s address our terminology: postmodernism and remodernism. On the basic metaphysical level they are complete opposites. Post means “after” and re means “back.” Much has been made of merely the word ‘postmodernism’ as it suggests a future-present state paradox. In the other direction ‘remodernism’ suggests a past-present state paradox.
The problems I find with both titles are this:
a.) they present inescapable fractures in time
b.) they assume time is linear
c.) they seem to ignore the relevance of their opposites
a.) I mean that the very dissection of post/remodernism creates a metaphysical fracture. Modernism, in a semiotic sense, is the belief in the present. The nature of history prevents me from going into the origin of Modernism more deeply, but I’d like to paraphrase it by saying it is the existential crisis brought on by transcendental idealism and the hope that scientific rationalism could provide a balm to this fissure in identity.
It is important to remember the epistemological evolution of the soul through history. Ever since any kind of transcendent reality (we can trace this back to the Greeks, the bastards!) has been purported the importance of the present has been suppressed. One is often judged for the crimes of the fathers (especially Adam) and then condemned/redeemed to an eternity where Salvation, not humanity, is the key. In other words, we relied on this diffuse “future eternity” to divorce ourselves from the importance of Now. I believe this came to a head in Modernism, with the more secular culture.
Modernism represented the hope that we could make some kind of, dare I say, monistic view of reality possible again. A Utopia. However it was this assumption that a monistic view of reality would be Utopian that came to be Modernism’s death. This was foreshadowed well by Nietzche’s rather Eastern interpretation of human reality, of nature, being cyclical—desire to desire, into forever…or at least until death! But on the wider scale people assumed this diffuse future Heaven that Christianity purported could be translated onto Earth using science.
(Apparently they never read the tower of Babel story!)
b.) Both postmodernists and remodernists assume that though the present (Modernism) is a failed ideal (Utopia turned into World War 1 & 2) by connecting to either the past or the future they can redeem Modernism. This assumes that time is linear, and that only one direction could possibly be edifying or practical.
—Note: It also tends to identify itself with certain philosophies. Postmodernism identifies through futurism into a sort of Fascist identity. This may sound totally ridiculous to anyone who has encountered the disruptive, rebellious nature of postmodern conceptual work. I hate to go Foucault on your asses, but it is just this act of disruption which acknowledges Fascism as a concrete end of a spectrum. Edit: I totally forgot to finish my point there: much of postmodern art relies on culture directly; cultural influence, pop art, and the mentality of large groups/scale/scope. It is not mythic (is Beuys postmodern? a whole other essay… I say not!) but rather monolithic.
On the other side the remodernists identify themselves more with pre-modern mystical, sprititual, and moral elements. (Fascism, I argue, is by its nature immoral due to lack of consent.) While the upside to the pre-modern ideal is that it identifies with the preverbal elements of art (thus the importance of painting in the Stuckist manifesto+) it also suppresses the elementally prophetic nature of art. It is proscriptive instead, and this I consider a failing.
c.) More to the nature of art I propose a cyclical view of time is more important. I do not say this in the sense that it can not be linear but that we recognize it as part of a larger cyclical metanarrative. While art is ‘artificial’ it is also organic in the sense that it springs from organic forms, an organic reality, organic mediums, and a homogenous cosmos. I fear I will receive the largest amount of criticism for the italicized portion. I mean this in the sense that art can not create another physical dimension, it can not change the innate properties of the universe though it may represent such a thing. Art in this sense is both natural and organic. Nature operates on, as far as we can tell, a cyclical basis. While we think the universe had a definite “starting point” there is also evidence and controversy that it may be only a new universe from a previous universe. (And/or one of a multiverse held in higher dimensions.) This is yet to be proven or disproven in any sense, so my argument must be admitted to be one of observation and belief. My basis being: Nothing in nature is a straight line. Even the horizon is an illusion: it is actually a curve.
My conclusion is that both remodernism and postmodernism are matters of egotistical loyalties, and that they can be successfully, fruitfully incorporated (incapitated!) together into an uroborosic reality. (And perhaps an urobororsic art/interpretation of art.)
*We can also split remodernism/postmodernism with these concepts: individualistic/collectivist, spiritual/metaphysical, democratic/elitist, primal/cultivated, expressionistic/abstract, preverbal/abstract (as Shlain defines them), mythic/monolithic etc… A good example of remodernism as perhaps obsessively individualistic is defastenism. It is basically canned Rousseau. Not that I don’t like it (I do!) but it doesn’t seem to convert this honesty into compassion.
+After reading this manifesto you may wonder how I can identify Stuckism (and remodernism at large) as individualistic when their manifesto expressly is anti-ego, anti-hedonist. Stuckism relies on the individual expression in art, that’s why. “Painting pictures” is a very, very personal thing. They say so themselves, the trouts~, “Painting is the medium of self-discovery. It engages the person fully with a process of action, emotion, thought and vision, revealing all of these with intimate and unforgiving breadth and detail.” Basically I’m saying the Stuckists are idiots and have no idea what they’re actually representational of. I hope that’s okay with you!
Carson Collins, 2 months ago
Perhaps you’d like to post this to the Remodernist Painters Forums i.e. ‘General Discussion’ or ‘Why Remodernism?’ for example?
fabKelly, 2 months ago
Ok I had just written a comment here and just as I clicked on “add comment” the bloody connection bugged! Bleeding typical! Some cosmic force doesn’t agree with what I had to say and was probably trying to sensore me! Hé hé, lets see who wins, I’l try and say it again .
Very well written indeed, and I shall not – by all means try and compete on that level, that’s for sure.
To me remodernism is saying a big NO to mental masturbation ie: the nearly close to orgasm some people – lets call them ‘art makers’ or ‘art specialists’ – get in endlessly trying to find a MEANING to art by giving it an intellectual explanation.
Hmmm, not clear enough is it? ok… let me try an be more specific : Finding a deep meaning to a painting exhibition deprived of any paintings called ‘work in progress’, or bowing in front of a canvas called ‘fashion victim’ on which half a dozen make up removing discs where stuck.
Let me put it plainly : philosophers are here to try and find a meaning or an explanation to life, painters are here for various reasons:
They have no choice, they just need to paint.
they express feelings and emotions, immortalise moments.
To me remodernism is a union of artists who refuse to simply begin to imagine art without guts, passion, pain, tears, joy, sweat, work, involvement, truth, sincerity, honnesty.
It is also a union of artists who claim and praise their cultural inheritance and the influence it has on us. We cannot reject and deny what other painters and artists have done before us and we are the result of what they have done before us. Cultural inheritance is what makes us part of a whole, of humanity.
Remodernism is also accepting to work and sweat to achieve a certain technical skill that is essential to have access to freedom of expression. Technic and knowledge is the key to express yourself freely. ( Bleeding hell, i did word that better last time, but that will do… I hope)
We all disappear / die/ turn back into ashes / turn into dust / become angels / rejoin the big cosmic / are reborn under a diferent shape … you name it. But our emotions and fellings are immortal. They survive. The only thing is that they are not experienced and felt by us anylonger but by other people instead.
This is why emotions tranmitted through art are not only immortal but universal.
This is why art cannot be intellectualised, cannot serve any political or propaganda means.
Don’t take me wrong : art can express an emotion driven by a political context though. lets take for example Corneliu Baba, the roumanian painter. You cannot but ignore the significance of his tormented men and women , yet the emotion he engenders is universal suffering. Get my point?
So what if remodernism is not a proper semantically speaking term? Who gives a fuck? (why not write FUCK plainly by the way?)
The main thing is that some painters believe in the same values and can be united in what they believe in.
Come on enough with brain masturbation, lests just get our brushes and lets just feel, and sweat and be true and paint for fuck sake.
:) x Fab
fabKelly, 2 months ago
Hey Matt, fair play to you, you ‘ve started some controversy here! lol! Love you for that too!:)
xx F.