2022, I am deep diving into how art creates freedom, how to escape and let art - work for itself. My fascination goes to POP art, fashion ideas and philosophy of ever evolving. In the end I find that the limits I impose on myself are limits I can get rid of – by my own imagination.
POP ART
Pop Art It is a sound of a tiny explosion.
Or more like bubbles?
It is a philosophy to some. It is a movement of mass media past 1950. It is NOT all USA. It is certainly NOT academia. So how do I become more 'POP' ? How do I take this fascination to..any..form of Art?
My first step. I use the 'go Andy Warhol' Portrait generator.
Quotes
People who know me, know I love quotes. They can be inspirational. Witty. And Andy Warhol his quotes are both.
About its 'ABOUTNESS'
This thing called ‘POP ART’ has a problem.
It may not exist.
There is no ‘what’ to it. And if you cannot define a ‘what’ how can you make anything
meaningful out of it?
Also, it refuses to be distinguished!
The whole point is, that it is for the masses. Mediocre. Average.
As Andy Warhol describes it:
“A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it... and you know it.”
So there is no all-so-important-meaning. It is all plain. And that is not a convention I had to crack earlier. I just worked with exaggeration, accentuations of things I find important. I made it more funny, more ugly, more whatever. And then I made ‘Art’.
Did I?
I used the ‘what’. I always brought up a certain theme with it, along with a story with
some sort of plot. It was ‘about’ something.
So how do I start a story that does not have a ‘what’? Should it have?
Should the context always be clear if you start a scene on stage - for instance? I
would argue no. Just because you cannot define the WHAT it may still be interesting
to watch.
My technical term for any art that fails is ‘BORING’.
As long as it fascinates and captures attention – you're good.
So undefined moods and tones…material that would work is MUSIC. Definitely.
And I think for POP ART a great material to use are COSTUMES.
Do’s
MUSIC
COSTUMES
Don’ts
This is not going to be ‘ABOUT’ anything.
It must not be boring
FASHION
So I am into ‘Fashion’ and reading stuff of Baudelaire and the beauty of Art.*
'fashion' is interesting, as costumes being part of the story world of characters on stage is an endless topic. Everything on stage has meaning, so clothing of actors is a
BIG thing. Standing out, or rather not. Is the character dressed by texture/ colour as part of 'the environment' this usually evokes the emotion of he or she 'feeling
comfortable' as message to the audience.
I find the 'novel' aspect intriguing, as it is about conformity as well as novelty. Fashion is setting a code. And then it changes deliberately - upturn things for a new and
perhaps even opposing way -
It is an ever-evolving process. Again! Something I recognize
This asks for creativity.
* In his essay “The Painter of Modern Life”, published in Le Figaro in 1863, the
French Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire says there is a duality in fashion of both
setting the norm as well as renewing it. There is a process he calls ‘composite
beauty’ where he makes a distinction between the IDEAL beauty and the reality.
The process at work between these two he calls ”the transitory” to the Platonic
concept of beauty per se, which main characteristics are both timelessness and abstraction. Baudelaire’s theory of beauty in art, meaning that fashion itself is the archetypal system in which one can observe the phenomenon of modernity, through the constant renewal of the common fashion taste.
A can of soup. POP philosophy
Gilles Deleuze says, “I dream of a philosophy capable of producing the
same intense effect as a rock concert."
He suggests that deep down, he was trying to break free from philosophy
through philosophy.
It is not about the quality or potential value of an object.
It is always about what we do with that object.
The birth of the universe, the realness of reality, what is a human being,
the truth of life, scientific reality or truth and political justice. Philosophy
has provided the tools to address all these colossal subjects. But it has
confined us to these subjects as if they were the only possible subjects.
Pop philosophy grounds itself.
However important these questions may be, however important these
instruments may be, they actually make us more stupid than intelligent.
And especially in the current context, which is obviously very complex,
delicate, dangerous and urgent, we need to think outside the box, to turn
away from erudition, moralism, and standard academic analysis, the triad
of enemies which make up what Deleuze calls “the box”. Thinking
outside the box, getting out of box, including Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box.
Thinking outside the box is urgently necessary if we don’t want to die
inside the box.