PARTICIPATING in THE PRESENT , being
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
— Pablo Picasso
By saying this, Picasso has made quite an observation. In directly, he is saying there is genius in naivety . A child is capable of making genius observation as much as great masters. Per the time, quite the observation. And even today, quite the observation. Subject for another essay!
When you say Poblo Picasso,
What are you saying?
Just what do > “you” < say?
He’s a great artist !
He’s a genius !
He’s a great master.
Some arrogant Spain painter.
The list goes on and on and on.
This list, is a statement in itself .
Look at Picasso’s work,
he goes from realistic painting,
Cubism, surrealism , pure Picasso, and then to writing cheeks where in his signature is worth more than the actual cheek.
There isn’t much he didn’t do.
He had so many different faces, so many different angle,
he’s both a Renaissance man and the first modern artist.
Don’t under estimate this little man.
Picasso is to the world of art as
Einstein was to the world of physics .
Before Einstein and Picasso,
the western art was very much about, as Picasso put it,
transforming the sun into a yellow spot.
"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun"
It was about taking some thing very three diminutional and dynamic and making it stagnant and two diminutional .
After Einstein and Picasso, western art went back beyond it’s beginning were the world was very three diminutional and dynamic.
What am I saying here?
When you look at Picasso’s work or the others I mention, it looks crazy and so much not like reality, but it is!
What you conscious mind picks up, the mere appearances of things, the realistic painting, it’s only a small fraction, tip of the ice berg of that is going on. Your brain and subconscious mind are picking up vastly more than meets they eye; and how do you illustrate that?
To being, when you paint some one are they frozen in time?
Does the earth stop spinning?
Does the light stay the same?
Does the mood not change?
What doesn’t change?
Well, by the appearances of things,
painting don’t change and often our stubborn , limited minds.
One of the first things you realize as an artist, if you have half a brain and can live a moment or two out side your traditional mind,
is art is art,
it’s a lie.
Your a good, and often real good faker .
You had so many screw ups it’s embarrassing .
You better not let your client catch on.
Western art has been like the Pope and cardinals .
Sin, tell a lie, even have the vaguest notion of primitive drives, that’s a good one. John Candy angst laugh.
Whose holier than holly anyone?
It’s a revolving bullshit festival.
It’s fine art!
Picasso was Frued’s poster boy with a serious attitude . He was like a porn star who barred it all over and over gain, head on like a bull fighter.
He ran right over the critics and conventions.
Say what you want,
but he was real!
If western art before Picasso was a train,
it not only fully stoped,
reversed it self,
but became an entirely different vehicle.
It became a helicopter that completely left the tracks.
Picasso was on a different planet than his contemporaries who stayed on the train and tracks.
But he was on the same planet as those who made.
primitive art, the art of the insane and child art is to western art. There really isn’t rules, no limits, other than pure experience .
It’s all “ relative gang “
Sound familiar,
yup,
Just Like Einstein’s theory of relativity .
Art is no longer about the hurd of bulls,
its about the bulls, and even further,
the individual bulls and their unique personalities, which you can never fully capture;
only impressions,
sound familiar,
yup, the essence of Impressionism .
Now, lets throw in Zen and Da Vinci,
its all about being there,
in the moment,
the power of being present ,
pure perception.
Like the zen masters, and the great bull fighters,
it all about mono a mono,
performing right here, right now,
no erasers.
pure artistry.
Live performance,
sink or swim.
No going back to the studio and contriving reality. Primping, putting on make up,
dreaming up sells pitches.
You are what you do, and you’re only as good as your last painting.
Hey, you are your painting and your painting is you.
Picasso put a spin on everything!
He was the ultimate trickster . He was art.
There is a story where in a lady passed him a paper and asked for a drawing of her then and their. He did it, but asked full price. She said it only took you five minutes, and he replied,
it took me an entire life to get to were I can draw like that.
Further funny, and into this jagged , and turning road,
Picasso was much to do about Psychoanalysis , Freud and Jung.
Primitive art, child art, and the art of the insane have everything to do with the unconscious mind; also, the collective unconscious.
When you look at at primitive art and such,
what’s really going on?
Is it about Lord King Philip on his tan pony galavanting in front of his kingdom while every one kissed his ass and powered his butt?
No, it’s about the true inner nature of life. The spirit of living, the nature of things.
And as they say,
reality is stranger than fiction.
As per what Picasso said,
“All that can be imagined is real.”
Picasso went from the world of doing art at the top of the ice berg / conscious mind to the ice berg / unconscious mind.
The final frontier, the land of the Right brain / holistic / non linear reality.
By the way,
there are no strait lines in nature or universe.
The world isn’t not flat,
and the sun doesn’t set,
earth revolves away from the sun.
We are very much in motion in amongst a universe that is in constant motion, change with in change.
man is not the center of the universe,
he is universe.
People speak of game changers, Paradigm shifts, both Picasso and Einstein turned their worlds up side down, twisted and folded them.
Picasso, reached the pinnacle of western art in style and content ( he was a prodigy ) and went back to scratch , arts origins.
He did exactly what Einstien said ,
“the most important form of thinking is unthinking, unlearning things.”
This took balls, king size balls, think Spanish matador.
the ultimate rebel, the individualist , par exultance !
He became bored with western art so he looked deeply into Primitive art, Child art, and the art of the insane and found the genius in it.
A precursor to Maddana,
constantly reinventing himself , his world , his reality and ours.
His art.
It’s real.
It is present.
It is engaging.
It has vitality.
It’s a question.
It is questioning.
It’s funny in that he switches the table,
you become the teacher. You’re the one who will have to find the answers. Draw the conclusions and do the thinking.
He gets to be the naive child.
The pure, creative observer,
and this is powerful.
It is a notion of art that has been lingering for along time in the shadows,
From the zen masters, Da Vinci to the Impressionist. The value of pure contact with perception and imagination. They are the driving force of art. And in the greater context,
us as a species.
Say what you want,
but Picasso wasn’t only a revolutionary,
he was a liberator.
He liberated the artist from dogma. The art has to be about this, that, everything other than itself.
Everything has been about content over form,
but with Picasso,
form, style and process are everything. It’s almost like music were you listen to the elements and posed to the message.
Yes, with Picasso, there is content , but like the subconscious mind, it’s only the tip of the ice berg.
There are countless ways to interpret things. Like one of his cubist paintings, infinite angles and ways to interpret.
Picasso was a great questioner.
His paintings are questions, and it’s more about your thought, feeling and reactions than a message.
Another way of saying it,
it’s not what you say,
it’s how you say it,
in other words,
the painting is not about the bull,
it’s about how the bull was portrayed at that time and place.
Picasso’s message wasn’t like a bill board saying eat at sloppy Joes, no the medium, the process was the message.
If you get Picasso,
you just get him,
you pick up what he’s about by osmosis .
If this is not happening,
you’re not with it,
dig?
5 pm
5.16.11
KR
