The launch of a new series of Remodern America videos. Number one is a video about British Conceptual artist Damien Hirst, memento mori, and vanitas paintings. Unlike the inspirational art of the past, the current establishment contributes to our destruction by replacing art with icons of physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual deterioration.
Please like, subscribe, and share, thanks!
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Sit Down John: A Portrait of John Adams by Gilbert Stuart
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Founding father John Adams had personal priorities he was able to extrapolate into a vision of progress for the United States.
In a letter to his wife, Adams explained, “I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”
Adams believed an emphasis on art had to come after at least two generations worth of work on practical matters before we, as a people, earned the right to luxuriate in matters of beauty and taste. It seems like good advice on the surface. Societies do need stability and peace before artistic efforts can thrive.
However, what Adams unfortunately did not realize is art too can be a weapon of war, and a means of politics. Even more concerning, those who miss how subliminally influential art is to the way society works are vulnerable to having the power of art used against them.
The bad news is, the damage of corrupted art already happened here.
Over the last century or so, the captured art world was used by our enemies to sever our cultural roots. Western values were undermined by the stealthy conquest and transformation of art from a timeless human practice and communal celebration into a Cultural Marxist scorched earth hellhole.
Our way of life followed the direction this corrupted art led us, because like it or not, acknowledge it or not, a culture’s art shows the people who they are, and informs them on how to live. It’s not the only factor shaping our principles, but it is a powerful one.
That is why we need to look at and consider art’s ramifications even as practical matters degenerate all around us. Historically, establishment forces have always used lies to further their interests. However, before we had the current massive global scale of fake news, fake elections, fake pandemics and more, our elites trained us to accept falsehood by pushing fake versions of art.
Art will not be the only solution to the crises we face, but it is a vital resource that must be addressed in order to stabilize the situation and stop the bleeding.
Where to begin? First, defining the problems. Most people are alienated from art. However, when people complain about the poor quality of Modern art, they do not understand technically Modernism is now a bygone era which was only the thin end of the wedge of the artistic assault.
Modernism was a mixed bag of both successful innovations and failed experiments, which in art gained prominence in the 1800s and was spent as a cultural force by the 1960s.
The idea that began to take form for nineteenth century intellectuals that most of humanity suddenly lost the capacity for art is a cruel lie and an insult against the spiritual nature we all share, the spiritual nature traditional art appealed to.
The conceit that art is only accessible to an elite few, takes special esoteric knowledge to enjoy, or can be discarded from the human condition, is absurd in the course of global human history. Even agriculture, a cornerstone of civilization, is tens of thousands of years more recent than the production of art. Art is a legacy for us all.
Not all Modern art was bad. Many artists considered in their day as outrageous examples of Modernist degeneracy actually participated in the enduring values of art, albeit in new, and therefore poorly understood, ways. We can know them by seeing those who have survived the test of time, and are now recognized and beloved by the masses. Van Gogh, Monet, Chagall, Dali, Magritte, O’Keeffe, Kahlo, Klimt, Munch, and more, all were Modern in their own ways. They fulfilled the Modernist doctrine to use an individual vision to express universal truths about life, and they did not follow the demands of the church, state, or aristocracy. Posterity has rewarded them with generalized popularity.
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Van Gogh, Magritte, Kahlo, Dali, and Munch: Modern Art Enduring the Test of Time
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The failures of Modernism, and why it is and was so unsatisfactory to so many, comes from those notorious creatives who withdrew their art practices so far into abstraction they became non-objective, severing art from the natural world. The general audience recognized these as inadequate attempts at art because extreme abstraction robs art of two of its most vital elements: the display of masterful skills, and the ability to communicate. The works of players like Pollock, Rothko, De Kooning, Twombly and Stella embodied the reputation of fine art as both pretentious and something a toddler could produce.
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Pollock, Rothko, De Kooning, Twombly, Stella: How To Alienate An Audience
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The Modernist sequestration of art from the masses, which abstract and non-objective art accomplished, was coordinated by leftist operatives who rushed into the vacuum left by America’s initially benign indifference towards art. The push to make abstraction the pinnacle of art was the work of materialist Marxists such as critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. In retrospect it is not surprising this undermining of art also received assists from the villainous conspirators of the CIA.
Once the Marxist infiltrators had completed their march through the institutions, they proceeded to shape the art world in ways leftists always do: abusing their authority to manipulate language and change the meanings of words, throttling accessibility of resources, curtailing dissent, and cultivating an us-against-them mentality.
In the isolated, overlooked fiefdoms of fine art, these cultural influencers bred a monster: the soul crushing totalitarianism of Postmodernism. This is the world we are living in today. Postmodernism emerged as a culture force in 1960s, and now is the operating model for the globalist elite.
Postmodernists claims the preferences of the powerful overrule reality, and they expect us all to support their delusions of mastery.
“Postmodernism started off by redefining art into anti-art. It’s now spread. Like a virus, Postmodernism converted every institution it infested into a factory for producing more of the Postmodern disease. Postmodernism makes every worthy cause betray its rightful mission.”
Koons, Hirst, Emin, Banksy, Wiley: The Highs Costs Of Making Fake Art
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Postmodern art reflects and advances this corruption. The major artists pushed today by the corrupt art world offer irrelevance, carrion, excrement, pornography, debris, and propaganda.
The works of Koons, Hirst, Emin, Banksy, Abramovic and Wiley are examples catering to elite decadence with divisive, ludicrously pricy non-art.
In the years I’ve participated in the arts, I’ve watched the blue chip artists most emphasized by the Postmodernized cultural institutions gradually mutate from the abstract, to ridiculous Conceptual artists in 1990s, to now promoting identity ideology, all the time.
The mask is finally off, establishment art is just another cog in the Maoist Cultural Revolution our elites are fomenting.
Call Postmodernsim what it really is: a euphemism for a communist power grab, which is itself ultimately thinly veiled Satanism.
However, even as the captured art world subtly spreads toxicity throughout society, few are actually engaged with current art practices. I don’t have firm numbers to support this, but I would not be surprised if a good 90 percent of the population is not buying what elitist culture is selling.
The people do not understand though ignoring the bad art is not enough, because the fake art still taints public life.
So how do we fight back in the arts, the culture, and the downstream politics?
In a way, it will be easy. Art is up for grabs.
Art has been so mismanaged, next to no one is engaged with it. The arts are in a crisis of relevance, not because there is anything wrong with art itself, but because the powerful have committed a bait and switch. So much of what is offered up by museums, galleries, the media and academia does not earn the status of real art.
Properly situated, art is a powerful resource. So we fight back by making art great again.
We don’t want to try to beat Postmodern propaganda with propaganda of our own. We beat propaganda with real art, displaying the skill, meaning, beauty, and significance our culture has been denied by the compromised cultural institutions.
We out evolve those who’ve betrayed humanity by abusing art while pursuing their own personal power.
We show them the traditions of the West unleashed will trample the kingdom of deceit they’ve built.
I was inspired to take on this challenge by two British artists, Billy Childish and Charles Thomson. In 2000 they identified the fraud of Postmodernism as the enemy of human potential. They proposed Remodernism, a cultural reboot, an open source art movement for the 21st century. The experimental individualism of the Modern age must continue and regenerate society, but it can only do so enhanced with the holy revelation that in art and life, God is central.
Now that Postmodernism rules the world, the stakes are even higher.
The left does not expect a counterattack from the arts. They assume the arts are thoroughly conquered territory. But once again, Postmodernists have mistaken their own usurped authority as the only reality which matters.
A counterattack from the arts, made by real artists making art for the people, would devastate the Narrative the globalists push. It would expose them as the frauds they are, with implications far beyond art.
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Culture at the Crossroads
Richard Bledsoe “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″
Update: Welcome Instapundit Readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Richard Bledsoe “Squidgate” Oil on Canvas 36″ x 48″
In music, a greatest hits collection puts together the popular songs of a group or performer into one convenient package. Sometimes a new offering or a rarity is added as a bonus, or the selection is out padded out with not-quite-a-hit tracks.
After 8 years of serious blogging, I realize some of my more significant posts get lost in the shuffle. They won’t come up in the Top Posts sidebar unless they get rediscovered and receive a large number of views in a short time period.
To share some highlights, I’ve added a Greatest Hits widget to the side bar of the Remodern Review.
Instead of going strictly just by the articles with the biggest numbers of clicks, this collection is curated with the articles which mean the most to me, in addition to having large numbers of views.
I will periodically update the list to rotate through my favorites. The first list includes:
Marcel Duchamp was the precursor of today’s useless, corrupt art world. This article exposes his chicanery and the possible fate of the most infamous work attributed to him.
I’ve heard the authorship of the Postmodern manifesto is disputed. It doesn’t matter who wrote it; it is a deadly accurate description of the enemy’s mentality. Beyond Jordan Peterson’s devastating video takedown of Postmodern immorality, I have not found a better summary of the toxic philosophy which is destroying the world.
My interview with the cofounder of the Remodern movement. Thomson’s ideas and art are a great influence on me, it was an honor to get him to share some insights.
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I hope you enjoy some of my greatest hits!
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
A video produced by Wendover Productions. Their YouTube “About” page says they are “explaining how our world works.”
They sure explain the contemporary art market, as a corrupt, insular money laundering scheme which has nothing to do with art. As the video states, “There isn’t one, blockbuster scam at the center of the art market. Rather, it’s a market composed of scams.”
Our cultural institutions have been co-opted to serve this criminal enterprise instead of providing genuine artistic experiences to society.
Major money visibly changes hands these days at art auctions and art fairs. The whole machinery of these angles of the establishment art racket are the equivalent of the fraud technique called “The Big Store.” The Big Store sets up a controlled environment where everyone except the marks are creating the appearance that they are transacting legitimate business. In the art market version, offering valueless art through once reputable auction houses or in the celebrity soaked version of a swap meet gives a veneer of legitimacy to the proceedings. Everyone the mark might encounter at such events—artists, dealers, journalists, academicians, other patrons—everyone is invested in perpetuating the delusion. There’s careers on the line and billions of dollars at stake in keeping the hype alive, because hype is all that keeps this ridiculous bubble inflated. There are lots of different parts to play in the Big Store. A “Shill” operates to promote the con game without revealing their personal stake in the outcomes. For instance, auction houses like to present themselves as if they were scholarly institutes objectively discussing the amazing importance of the works displayed. The fact they are looking to collect fat commissions from the sale of said objects is discretely overlooked. The “Face” is a glamorous participant intended to distract the mark from thinking clearly. The glut of celebrities and Beautiful People that are drawn to exclusive art happenings guarantee buzz will exceed rationality during such events. The “Roper” is probably the most strategic player in the art market these days. This is a person whose affluence leads to influence, a savvy and powerful individual whose participation gives credibility to the whole enterprise. What is ignored is how much moguls like this manipulate the market to serve personal interests, using insider trading, shady financing and backroom deals to inflate the value of their own collections. In any other industry, common practices of the establishment art market could probably lead to criminal charges. But in the unregulated free-for-all of the art world, it’s very hard to bring these cases of potential white-collar crime to justice, and the victims here are less than sympathetic. After all, the buyers are people who have so much money it’s meaningless to them. Who cares if a bunch of billionaires are getting ripped off? It’s not really the suckered patrons who are the biggest victims here. Our society as a whole is being debased. By taking art, the manifestation of the soul of our culture, and replacing it with a cynical system that exists only to enhance egos and bank accounts, we’re undermining the quality of everyone’s shared existence. These self-indulgent poseurs are subsidizing Postmodernism’s attempt to destroy Western civilization. The self-serving attitude of big money art world participants is a public disgrace, and it’s about time they were made to feel it. As a society, we need to speak out, and strip the prestige away from the nihilistic, expensive hackwork our institutions promote.
As bleak as this situation is, I see it as an opportunity. As the current elites crash the culture in a desperate attempt to maintain their grip on power, their phony art world will collapse with them.
We can rebuild art to serve as spiritual communion for society again, which was its traditional and valid function.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
For some reason environmental cultists have decided art vandalism is a nifty PR stunt for their hoax of an emergency.
The Washington Post covered the most recent revolting action in London where two “activists” from Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup on a Van Gogh sunflowers painting, and then glued their hands to the wall.
The painting was safely behind glass, and was not damaged.
Newsweek notes there have been about dozen of these attacks. So far no art has been damaged, but it seems like only a matter of time before these assholes escalate and maim something irreplaceable.
Being the darkness that makes democracy die, the Washington Post of course accepts the protesters’ wild climate premises.
Since the pandemic failed to crush society into a decimated docile serf class, now the elites have had to replace one overblown crisis with another. They’re trotting out the exhausted old climate change tropes again, but this time the kamikaze Marxists occupying the governments of the West are flying into action. They intend to catastrophically starve their populations of food and energy now to prevent imaginary problems in the future.
Astroturfed entities like Just Stop Oil and state run media like the Washington Post are sleeper cells that have been activated to reinforce the top down message of assumed doom. The hype generated provides a fig leaf for the disastrous deindustrialization the WEF insists on.
Columnist Philip Kennicot spouts the propaganda:
“When I see activists attack art, I feel the same revulsion most people do — and the sense of revulsion seems to be general and widespread. After two young supporters of the climate-change advocacy group Just Stop Oil threw cans of tomato soup Friday on a painting by Van Gogh in London’s National Gallery, social media accounts erupted in outrage. Much of this was from people who are no less committed to stopping global warming, including much of the art world, where the climate emergency is at the top of the agenda for many artists, curators and critics.
“But while I can’t defend the acts of Just Stop Oil, I can defend the anger of its supporters, who will experience the effects of global collapse further into the future than I will. They must grapple with existential decisions unprecedented even during some of the worst crises in human history, including whether to have children and continue the species, or to forgo offspring whose lives may be short and miserable.”
Kennicott’s big problem with the assaults on artistic masterpieces is that the vandals are preaching to the choir. The Postmodern art world already enforces adherence to leftist dogma as a prerequisite for participation. He protests that establishment art enthusiasts and cultural institution apparatchiks most likely embrace the climate alarmist narrative, and don’t need their opinions and actions tweaked by threats.
“Art attacks seem to be increasing. In July, the Italian group Ultimate Generazione (or Last Generation) directed its ire against Botticelli’s “Primavera” at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and in August activists from the same group glued their hands to the base of an ancient statue at the Vatican. All this is misdirected and counterproductive. It makes the urgency of the crisis seem ridiculous to people who are already disinclined to give credence to the science of global warming. And they create a false moral choice for those who love both art and the environment.
“As 21-year-old Phoebe Plummer, one of the two activists in London, asked during Friday’s incident, ‘Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?’ The premise of her question, and the people whom she was addressing, are both poorly chosen. Very likely, given the self-selecting audience that visits the National Gallery, most of the onlookers would say: ‘Both.’
But the most disgusting part of the article is when Kennicott claims the defilers are attacking art because they just care about it so much. It’s classic abuser gaslighting.
“And if you look more closely at how these attacks are executed, it’s clear they express more a desperate love of art than mere rage or contempt for it.”
A twitter post summed up the reckless delusions of these masterpiece menacing guerillas.
The clueless crusaders don’t realize stopping oil without any effective, scalable replacement technologies means the death of millions and even civilization itself.
Radicals coined the term “useful idiots” to describe the dolts they tricked into advancing their agendas. I think we can remove the useful part.
The Modern age was the greatest liberation of humanity in history. As we became more efficient in providing the necessities of existence, we had more freedom to determine what kind of lives we wanted to live. As Modernism rose to highlight the potentials of individual initiative, leftist political movements counterattacked. Their goal was to squash humanity back into undifferentiated, subservient masses. The elitists understood to maintain power, they had to undermine resistance. That’s why the top down cultural forces have made Postmodernism so prevalent. Using mass media to communicate their sickening message, the establishment made dispiriting Postmodernism the terrain we all must navigate, the atmosphere we all must breathe, the environment we all must adapt to. But this effort at control loses its presumptive prestige once its mechanics and motivations are exposed. How can the spell of Postmodernism best be broken? You can’t beat something with nothing, even if the something is as stupid and unfulfilling as Postmodernism. A credible alternative must be established. Remodernism is the recognition that Western civilization is still mighty. Remodernism knows we can still use our talents to create unprecedented growth. Remodernism is understanding our best days are still ahead of us, if we make the right choices, and do the needed work. We will demonstrate this in art, to begin with. Imagine a new, decentralized creative class not invested in trashing our culture, but in celebrating it. What a choice to present to our citizens. Uplifting, honest artistry will change the tone of our entire society. Where we go one, we go all. Renew the arts, and renew the civilization.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
The Gift of Art: A Pop-Up Gallery Experience at SEEDs for Autism is a special one night only art exhibit featuring the work of local community artists and adults on the autism spectrum, on Friday, October 14, 2022, 6pm to 8pm.
“At SEEDs for Autism we understand that art is a powerful form of communication. Art encourages creativity and self-expression. Art stirs the imagination and helps us grow as we engage with other artists, improve our skills and create beautiful pictures to share with the world. THE GIFT OF ART features the work of local community artists, SEEDs Instructors and students. Please join us on October 14th and be a part of this exciting one-night-only art show at SEEDs for Autism.”
A pop up gallery is a temporary art show held in a non-traditional location. Local artist Richard Bledsoe described how Seeds for Autism is an ideal venue for an art exhibit. “I’ve seen lives transformed by the programs at Seeds for Autism. One of the biggest factors I see in this progress is the hands-on work Seeds emphasizes. As a painter, I understand the personal growth which happens when you engage with the material world. The making and viewing of art inspires kinship for all participants. We are grateful to Seeds for providing this opportunity to bring the community together.”
SEEDs for Autism is a unique vocational training program in Phoenix, AZ dedicated to providing adults across the spectrum with hands-on experience as they learn a variety of life skills, social skills and job skills in a real-life work environment. Through the production and sale of their hand-crafted home and garden items, adults on the autism spectrum build self-confidence as they step outside of their comfort zone and GROW.
Featured Community Artists: Richard Bledsoe, Michele Bledsoe, Jeff Falk, Shelley Whiting
50% of all Art Sales will be donated to support the life-changing program at SEEDs for Autism.
ADMISSION is FREE
Richard Bledsoe “Rex” acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
“A few years after our time at Citywide, Michele and I helped found and run Deus ex Machina, a cooperative art gallery in downtown Phoenix. It was a very active space. In addition to being my oil painting studio, we held monthly art exhibits, special performances, poetry readings and gaming nights. It was a wonderful experience for the five years it was open.
“We took part in the free art walks held each First Friday and Third Friday of the month. As Phoenix has one of the largest art walks in the country, we could have hundreds of visitors on the busiest nights. Many were other artists and scenesters, who attended consistently for gossip and free wine. But I was excited by the numerous guests we had from outside the art bubble.
“These regular folks were out for an entertaining evening, and perhaps something even more significant. It confirmed for me there was still an interest in art.
“At our exhibits I’d get into conversations with these people. Unlike my social network, these visitors didn’t treat art as a vocation. They had different priorities in their lives, different interests, other passions and skills. But they turned out for an art show. These patrons were curious and receptive; they were there to see what art had to offer them. I was happy to engage with them. I wanted to give them a warm, positive experience of art.
“While discussing the gallery and the art on display, I’d do a little experiment with my guests. I would ask this type of visitor a simple question: ‘Who is your favorite living American artist?’
“No one who wasn’t already part of the art scene ever had an answer to that question.”
I’ve written before on how art, a practice literally as old as humanity itself, became irrelevant.
But while it’s easy to criticize the failures of art in the 21st century-which are really failures and sabotage committed by agenda riddled Postmodern administrators-it’s harder to cite positive examples. Who are my favorite living American artists?
My favorite is my wife, Michele Bledsoe. Her work just continues to get more amazing.
Michele Bledsoe “Messenger” acrylic on canvas 6″ x 6″
It’s been hard for me to get excited about many other artists I’ve heard about recently. But currently there is a contender for the number 2 spot.
I’ve known about musician/actor/artist John Lurie for many years. If you want the details and some very interesting stories, a great review of his life and career can heard in this YouTube podcast post: WTF with Marc Maron – John Lurie Interview
Due to health issues, Lurie now pours most of his creative output into paintings. I get so excited by their freedom and complexity, it occurred to me Lurie may be my second favorite living American painter right now.
As an intuitive artist, I believe artworks need to speak for themselves. Here are some John Lurie images from his website.
See if you see the same magic I do.
“I play music, I paint – these things come from your depths.”
-John Lurie
John Lurie “Purple panther, with brick head, exploding with speed” watercolor and gouache 22”x30”
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John Lurie “Two dancers. Antiques. Some suitcases. A parrot. And a blue mess” watercolor and gouache on paper 24″ x 18″
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John Lurie “There are things you don’t know about” watercolor on paper, 20″ x 14″
John Lurie “Skeleton in my closet, at home in the garden.”
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
“Yet because art allows humanity to relay complex concepts that are hard to put into words, spirituality and art are naturally linked. Their affinity remains powerful, despite over one hundred years of ideological efforts to sever or redefine their common bonds.”
Richard Bledsoe “Fugue” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 16″
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“Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul. All souls are sacred, the soul of all the bipeds in every quarter of the globe.”
-Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall “Self Portrait with Muse” oil on canvas approximately 62″ x 55″
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“I paint because the spirits whisper madly inside my head.”
-El Greco
El Greco “Laocoön” oil on canvas 33″ x 44″
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“My work embodies little visions of the great intangible… …Some will say he’s gone mad – others will look and say he’s looked in at the lattices of Heaven and come back with the madness of splendor on him.”
-Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley “Himmel” Oil on canvas with artist-painted wood frame 49″ x 49″
art spirituality
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Robert Henri “Snow in New York” oil on canvas 32″ x 25 13/16″ 1902
“Do whatever you do intensely. The artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life.”
-Robert Henri
When I was a teenage punk, I was just having fun.
Only later did I understand I was participating in the messy but vital process of cultural renewal.
It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I was sixteen years old in 1986, living near Washington, DC. My geeky group of friends and I were performing the young male ritual of rebellion right next to an epicenter of an aggressive, controversial youth movement.
Only about a decade old at that point, the music and fashion sensation of punk had mutated into what was called hardcore. DC was the home of now legendary bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat, and the excitement they generated spilled out into the suburbs.
I got a bad haircut and started wearing a black leather jacket and combat boots. On weekends my buddies and I left behind VHS movies and Dungeons and Dragons marathons and ventured into the big city, prowling the hip enclave of Georgetown.
We had a routine route, visiting the Exorcist stairs, Smash Records, and the Commander Salamander boutique. Mainly we walked the streets, feeling a thrill of immediate kinship whenever we encountered another band of promenading punks. We finally had something in common with some girls, too.
In time we started to visit the seedy clubs featuring shows with loud, fast songs and shouted vocals, while the audience danced by jumping around and bouncing off of each other. It was exhilarating.
Punk began when a bunch of self-starting kids, often working class, got bored with the bland, predictable culture being offered by the establishment. At the time there was no internet, and only sensationalized, derogatory mainstream media coverage. Hardcore punk was all underground and word of mouth, shared mix tapes and Xeroxed fliers. It felt like a conspiracy, like being initiated into something mysterious and special. We created our own alternative, and it spread.
Punk’s anti-establishment outlook put it on the radical side of things, but I never got how advocates of a movement that emphasized individuality and independence could turn to a politically leftist worldview. In the 1980s the Cold War was still raging, and a lot of the major figures of the punk world openly sided with the communists. But looking at actions instead of rhetoric, it was clear to me leftists were the most vicious enforcers of the establishment in history. Around the world, their whole political system as practiced demanded an individual’s submission to centralized power, the exact opposite of punk’s message. It made no sense to me how any free thinker would ally themselves with brutal regimes who used constant surveillance, intimidation and violence to keep entire populations captive. The problems of America, how we fell short of our high ideals, how we were easily distracted by crass consumerism, seemed minor compared to the literally murderous systematic oppression coordinated by greedy and aggressive totalitarians elsewhere in the world. I did not understand I had been recruited into a covert war which had been brewing for decades. The Cold War was being fought unacknowledged right in the midst of our placid existences, in the classrooms, on the television. Postmodernism co-opted the potentials of punk. If I’d had more perspective then I could have seen the double standards in play, and understood their origins. But I was just a kid, lacking experience and insight. It was easier just to ignore the contradictions. If punk meant being a nonconformist, I would follow my own conscience. I could reject materialism and unthinking obedience to authority without buying into audaciously misguided leftist dogma. To me punk went beyond the music that sounded a certain way, a gaudy aesthetic, lapses into lazy nihilism, and a juvenile reflex towards sardonic defensiveness. Punk advanced quintessentially traditional American viewpoints: no respect for the unjustified hierarchies the powerful attempt to impose; emphasis on action and energy; commitment to justice and progress; and the desire for the liberty to pursue individual happiness.
When I look around today, at all the people with the dyed hair, tattoos, and facial piercings, I still remember how shocking such trappings were when my peers were doing it back in the day. It makes me reflect how art is a leading indicator for society-for good or ill. All the once-startling punk displays are bland and predictable.
Almost one hundred years earlier, there was another aggressive, controversial cultural phenomena going on in the United States, in painting. We’ve come to call it the Ashcan School.
Artist Robert Henri (June 24, 1865-July 12, 1929) was an inspirational artist and teacher initially based in Philadelphia; he later relocated to New York City. Henri (pronounced Hen-rye) was bored with the bland, predictable art being produced in the American art establishment at the time: either gentle, pale Impressionist imitations, or flattering Gilded Age portraits of wealthy patrons.
Henri mentored a group of journalist illustrators which included notables such as William Glackens, John Sloan, and George Luks. In an era before common photographic reproduction, newspapers used artists to create the pictures for their stories. These men were used to depicting the grime and grimness of newsworthy city life. Henri encouraged them to bring that real world engagement into fine art.
Like punk many years later, the Ashcan School was an alliance of freethinking individuals each following their own artistic vision, rather than an organized, regimented movement. The artists shared a Modernist urban sensibility, dark palette, gritty realist subject matter, and an appreciation for the common people. They made sketchy yet accurate depictions how life was lived at the time, instead of polite, idealized fantasies. As Henri put it, “There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.”
This was considered to be bad taste. Like many other art movements like Impressionism or Fauvism, the title of Ashcan started as an insult. A reviewer sneered about the “pictures of ashcans and girls hitching up their skirts on Horatio Street.” The artists embraced the derision as a badge of honor.
The Ashcan School artists were also referred to as “The Apostles of Ugliness,” much as the punks were called “foul mouthed yobs.”
But the critics are missing something important: the ugliness isn’t the point. It’s the willingness to undergo the rough journey needed to renew the energy of life.
Something too constrained stagnates, even dies. There’s always something a little wild and scary about real growth.
There’s a difference between pretty and beautiful. Prettiness is a surface. Beauty is the substance. Pretty is an outside appearance; beauty is from within. Pretty is agreeable. Beauty is truthful, and as we know, the truth isn’t always pleasing.
Accepting yet refining the harshness of truth through creative expression is a transcendental experience. The joyous human offering of art can add significance to mundane squalor.
Right now, Postmodern establishment mismanagement has created a culture which is neither pretty nor beautiful. They need us to believe the squalor is the point, after all. Artists are needed as the pioneers which carry out the idea that life is wonderful and surprising, even if elitists call us trashy. Cultural renewal will be a little wild and scary.
The latest cycle of real change in the arts actually started decades ago, although the cultural institution-controlling elites do their best to suppress the news.
In 2000, two British artists, Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, were tired of transgressive yet still bland and predictable Postmodern art. They were brave enough to tell the truth: the galleries and museum were filled with objects that weren’t really art at all. They described a new cultural understanding called Remodernism, rising to take the place of failed Postmodern artifice. Their manifesto included this key proposition: “The making of true art is man’s desire to communicate with himself, his fellows and his God. Art that fails to address these issues is not art.”
Childish soon struck off on his own, and continues as a celebrated painter, musician, and writer. Thomson remained committed to cultivating Remodernism as a movement. Guided by his inspirational example, grassroots art groups were founded around the world.
I was inspired. In my own Remodern America manifesto, I wrote my take on what is happening now:
Remodernism reboots the culture. Remodernism is not a style of art, it is a form of motivation. We express the universal language of inspired humanity. We do not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We are strengthened by drawing on traditions thousands of years old. We integrate the bold, visionary efforts of the Modern era into a holistic, meaningful expression of contemporary life. Remodernism seeks a humble maturity which heals the fragmentation and contradictions of Modernism, and obliterates the narcissistic lies of Postmodernism. Remodernism is disruptive innovation applied to the moribund art world.
As for Robert Henri, his wisdom was captured in a great book called The Art Spirit. It encourages us to understand how important the role of the artist is.
As for me, I still pull out my Bad Brains and Minor Threat albums when the mood strikes me. It’s good music to paint to.
A version of this article originally appeared on The Masculinist, now on Substack
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.
7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
Henry Ossawa Tanner “The Three Wise Men”1925
Albrecht Dürer, “Adoration of the Magi” 1504
Hieronymus Bosch, “Adoration of the Magi” 1485
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
THE REMODERN REVIEW 