Can the medium and the modernism of a 21st century nature be the 'only designated medium to showcase Modernism and its primary visual agenda specifically for today, and offer further rich virgin territory ready for development in contemporary Britain, whilst attesting to the now 3rd century of the 'modernist school' that is living proof of a non linear sequence but as a selective visual manifestation that takes-on the status quo and resists it by visual impact ?
Painting isn't achronological and methodical process by self-definition ! But our time Modernism and Painting seem symbiotic that has transcended 19th and 20th centuries' versions! It doesn't try to 'deep fake' or industrialize or promote a production line that snowballs into a monopoly.. But its predecessor of Cold War ideological brutalism imposed from a centralized state versus absurd and arbitrary relativist deconstruction that both emerged by nature and nurture of the Art top table's influence is only partly over. Terms such as 'trending' and 'meme', however, was weaned from the detritus of the Post Cold War that has failed to advance culture in Britain since the YBA's ! So is it any surprise that intellectual and artistic private property has been required to provide at least an aesthetic alternative even as an unhelpful comparison?!! Talk of Modernism again and as an upgrade from its 19th century origins? Which other 19th century philosophy needed to be finite by the end of the 20th century ? Let me ponder...????
So the difference about the end of Marxism and the re-emergence of Modernism for the 21st century proves that a post-Marxist cultural manifestation can be a revisionism that doesn't cling-on to the past. Indeed, it is reluctant to impose and self-impose 'margins, invisibility points, form extremes, visual instruction by the clamour to be Art rat-racers and not original visual image-makers who want to be the first, (and as we witnessed in the 1980's the last) to offend,uglify, promote or subvert and make controversy the life-blood of Modernism. So class,race, ethnicity, gender and sexual politics have greatly changed and transformed to greet these issues within the visual Arts especially, and advocate new skill-sets from different demographics to the visual inform as well as to review non 21st centuries modernist impositions that didn't either have the imagination or the awareness after the cultural detritus of the Post Cold War world. These visual creators must flourish if visual drama on a canvas by Paint can truly open the 3rd decade of the 21st century !Social hedonism requires supply and demand too, but doesn't need the Bohemianism of the past to emerge. It does require diversity and not division, Artistic investment and commitment to augment and expand or become more accessible !
Crisis in Gallery status
It was Land Art of the 1960's and 70's that cut-out galleries, that led to a scale/size issue that demanded and encouraged (the exclusion of Land Art) a technological investment in Digital and high tech Art -the smaller the better, the more advanced the better, and the more saleable and the higher premium galleries could charge ! Controversy gave way to novelty of Tech Art and included interactive Art that could not be replicated outside of the Art stable ! 'Sewer or Bible Art' wasn't new but new tech to be able to be made both obsolete and replaceable with something even more advanced and popular , and have a permanent invention resource allowed Art security and Art confidence! Soon, upscaling and upsizing didn't mean bigger and better but more advanced and more portable and more interactive that you could fit into your own pocket ! But crucially, Painting got the boot too !??
Was Painting seen as too ancestral, or was it that high tech Art couldn't be mixed with low tech canvasses? Or tech could control and predict or stack the Art world and the Art market? Or was it that galleries wanted to ditch public perceptions of Art as Painting by encouraging the young to persuade their elders by Art tech being the same as 'the internet' - necessary and accessible? Or was it that Painting centricity was seen as a contrast with the 'new superior model' 'that has made Paint stuck-on canvas' 'medieval' ! Or was it that the galleries invented a new mortality for an Art medium stuck in a finite space, bought by individuals who were just making a financial investment and who had little interest in Art and culture! Indeed, Painting became a relic from the dinosaur era so it could be pariahacized and stigmatised ? But perhaps it was that the mainstream Art market wanted a piece of history, not just for status butas proof of historicizing Painting, until longer term it would be avant garde again and that investors would be in a prime position to monopolize the Painting market of the past to augment and not just influence any re-emergence of the medium back as the major player of Art. Indeed, the tension of Painting being both obsolete and potentially being a player that runs Art would also work the satire value of Tech Art not being aesthetic but mechanical ! Remember, the medium of Painting has proved a very clear precedent of how to both reject and yet be the front runner of Art interest , and whilst tech wants to perfect new tech forever and ensure a well established never ending longevity, it may be too influential by deciding tech to put in a Museum and tech to put in a gallery !!
But it may be the introduction not of mobile phones etc that hasn't put the skids on the status of Painting but the invention of Poster Art as a poor man's version of a rich man's secret vault ! This historicizing and vulgarizing by mass production of the cheap replica also made Art a Warholian consumerist industry that degraded the Painter of yesterday, today and crucially probably tomorrow! Paintings were devalued and also sold for millions for the 'right price to freeze the value of more contemporary Painting! But throw us in the mud and we'll still find brass ! Today we are not victims of business or victims of Art tech in your grasp ! Numbers of Painter's who are valuable independent practitioners of today, are escalating and relieving those who have stood guard over the medium for decades ! We offer coexistence, trust and honest hard work ! We're not Idololizers or ideological masters, and we're not power brokers either ! We are stewards and servants to our gene pool of modernism for today ! We are the imperfection and foibles, the indiscretions and mutations and the originators of Art and social change, and we fought our battles against 20th century dictators and 19th century philosophical extremists and was punished for any excesses against them. We were also the catalyst for Soviet self-destruction because of its dictat to Painter's in the last embers of the Soviet perspective of the Cold War, as well as playing the role of being the pariah's of the Western cultural brutalizing by relativism and its play thing ( deconstruction), all to emerge as a potential bonding of cultural alliance between those who in eastern Europe who don't want to be bullied by Russia and who may not jump at the chance to be another forgotten part of the EU in the 3rd decade of the 21st century ! But we may still be slow-rolled by galleries and not have to worry about public prestige when the public themselves are becoming Painter's in their own right in huge numbers ! Moreover,the sheer scale of these increases may tip the balance without any contact with the Art Top table !!?!!
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