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 FELLOWSHIP OF ART features the work of local community artists, SEEDs Instructors and students. Please join us on March 31st and be a part of this exciting one-night-only art show at SEEDs for Autism.
Fellowship can be defined as a friendly association between people with shared interests. Artists of all kinds form a fellowship, one that delights in communicating in the universal language of art. “The Fellowship of Art” is a pop up gallery experience that brings together local artists to show with the talented participants of Seeds for Autism for a special one night event.
Richard Bledsoe of Remodern America, one of the organizers of the show, said, “Artists show us who they are with their creations. By hosting this art show, Seeds for Autism is providing opportunity for a diverse group of creatives to come together and share with the community. It truly is a fellowship of art, where everyone makes their own unique contribution.”
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.
50% of all Art Sales will be donated to support the life-changing program at SEEDs for Autism.
Richard Bledsoe “The Pop Star” 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.
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.
In this document, I provided a summary of what is wrong with the contemporary art establishment, proposed new solutions, and defended why art still matters.
The first part of the manifesto defined the problems.
The second part describes the crisis point reached and what the turning of the tide will mean: a shift of our civilization from the Postmodern to the Remodern mode.
The third part describes the shared motivations of Remodernists, and what such a consciousness means in the United States. Although art is an international activity, Americans, with our freedoms and resources, should be leading the way.
Remodernism is the open source arts movement for the twenty-first century. Remodernism began in London in 1999, first codified by painters Billy Childish and Charles Thomson as an alternative to the corrupt and out-of-touch establishment art scene. Remodernism recognizes artmaking as an inclusive, spiritual activity, and encourages a DIY mentality. Remodernism synchronizes with reverenced American values of equality, faith, action and initiative.
Remodernism is the latest iteration of the American character: ordinary people working as explorers and inventors, optimistic, self-reliant and productive. The Remodernist artist formulates expressions of personal liberty in pursuit of higher meaning and significance. Remodernism is the pursuit of excellence. We don’t grovel before the current cultural gatekeepers, we want to interact with everyone. We are story tellers. We make a complex art for complex times. We are the swing of the pendulum.
Remodernism is appropriate for America, a young nation in an ancient land. Remodernist artists wander through the ruins of fossilized civilization. With our own hands, we assemble from the debris affectionate homages to the human condition, works afflicted with humor and humbled by grace. We love where we’ve come from, and we preserve that love for the future to see. We invoke a respectful reverence for the past, for we accept we will be joining that infinite regression. We understand art is about the eternal.
Remodernism is the return of art as a revelation. We are showing particular things about ourselves that can also be universally recognized. Our art symbolically represents flawed, searching humanity participating in birth, existence, growth, and death. It is mysterious and moving, comic and tragic, clumsy and elegant.Remodernism is a celebration of the beauty and weirdness of the life God has granted us.
This is our moment in the mighty continuum of art and life. Real art knows no boundaries; it communicates across all times, across all cultures. Art is as much an aspect of our species as the opposable thumb, and just as prevalent. The art world can be as big as all of humankind, if we do it right. Remodernism accepts responsibility for the art of our times, conveying the wisdom of tradition into the opportunities of the future. Remodernism is love made visible.
Many cultural critics discuss problems, but solutions are rare. The great thing about Remodernism, which encourages a DIY attitude, the power to make a difference goes back into the hands of people: artists and patrons alike.
This renewal is disruptive innovation applied to the corrupt and insular art market. and because empire follows art, as the visionary William Blake knew, when we renew the arts, we will renew our civilzation.
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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.
In this document, I provided a summary of what is wrong with the contemporary art establishment, proposed new solutions, and defended why art still matters.
The first part of the manifesto defined the problems.
The second part describes the crisis point reached and what the turning of the tide will mean: a shift of our civilization from the Postmodern to the Remodern mode.
Art is a more enduring and vital human experience than the power games of a greedy and fraudulent ruling class. The managers crashed the culture in pursuit of their agenda. They defend their usurped authority and privileges with doublethink, misdirection, and intimidation. Their time has run out. Reality is crashing back through their carefully constructed facades, and a time of reckoning has come. Enduring changes start in the arts. Remodernism defeats Postmodern desecration.
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. Remoderism is disruptive innovation applied to the moribund art world.
Many cultural critics discuss problems, but solutions are rare. The great thing about Remodernism, which encourages a DIY attitude, the power to make a difference goes back into the hands of people: artists and patrons alike.
This is an especially promising development for the United States, which the people will make back into the land of the free. The next stage of the manifesto, to be featured in an upcoming post, discusses change in America.
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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.
In this document, I provided a summary of what is wrong with the contemporary art establishment, proposed new solutions, and defended why art still matters.
It is said the first stage in addressing any problem is first admitting there is a problem. Theses are the three points which describe the current sorry state of the arts.
THE REMODERN AMERICA MANIFESTO
The Reconstruction of an Art of the People, by the People, for the People
1. Art is undergoing a crisis of relevance. Elitist malfeasance has marginalized the visual arts in popular culture. In doing so, the New Aristocracy of the Well-Connected block access to powerful resources. They deny our society the inspiration to live up to ideals, the encouragement to think and feel deeply, the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. As a result, the mass audience has turned away. People instinctually reject the superficial and nihilistic contemporary art championed by an imperious would be ruling class.
2. Ruling class totalitarians use Postmodern art as a tool of oppression. Elitists have weaponized art into an assault on the foundations of Western civilization. This deceitful cabal seeks to destroy any principled perspective on the lies, manipulations, and abuses they commit. The scourge of Postmodern relativism as a cultural force is no accident; it’s a top-down driven campaign. Hyping soulless, unskilled art has a toxic, weakening effect on society as a whole.
Many cultural critics discuss problems, but solutions are rare. The great thing about Reomdernism, which encourages a DIY attitude, the power to make a difference goes back into the hands of people: artists and patrons alike.
The next stage of the manifesto, to be featured in an upcoming post, discusses those ideas.
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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 “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″2022
In 2022 the major painting I worked on was a return to a subject explored in an earlier piece. While the story was the same, my approach to it and my experience in creating it were completely new.
I’ve loved blues music since I was a teenager in the 1980s; the first purchase I ever made in the genre was a cassette of the Robert Johnson compilation “King of the Delta Blues Singers.” I’d read about the legend of how Johnson went to a crossroad and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for worldly glory. The tale resonated with my interests in both spirituality and weirdness.
Those same fascinations drive my art.
I’d painted the scene “At the Crossroad” in 2013, shortly after I switched from oil paints to acrylics. The title was a quote from Johnson’s song “Cross Road Blues.”
Richard Bledsoe “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″ 2013
I did not have the painting in my possession long. It sold the first time I exhibited it, to a nice young couple I’d never met before. I do not know its present whereabouts.
I’m not sure of the exact dates, but in early 2020 I began a new major work, based on another aspect of the Robert Johnson legend and another song lyric: “Hellhound on My Trail.”
This painting took until April 2022 to complete, incorporating long fallow periods when the work went untouched for months, as I focused on other paintings.
Richard Bledsoe “Hellhound On My Trail” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″ 2022
It was the biggest painting I worked on during the whole plandemic scare, always hovering incomplete in the background as I cranked through numerous smaller pieces.
When I finally posted the completed version of “Hellhound” on my blog, it also sold shortly after its public debut.
Not only that, but the patron who purchased it had a request for a prequel and a sequel for the image created. He wanted depictions of both the initial crossroad meeting and the ultimate consequences, when the devil comes to collect.
“I have visions. They come at the most random times. I could be washing the dishes, or driving to work, and suddenly the picture is there. It usually arrives now with a title, dimensions and suggestions for technique.”
I was fortunate that I was given a vision to fulfill the patron’s request. My original “Crossroad” painting was for me a depiction of the musician as universal man realizing the power and disaster of the bargain already made. The new version would be that moment where the man had to make that choice, hesitating right on the threshold of destiny and damnation, all taking place as some eerie moonlit blues.
The devil is grinning of course because he already knows how this story ends.
Once I saw the drama of these two figures coming together, I know I could make the piece.
I obtained another 30″ x 40″ canvas so the series of paintings would match in size. I began working on it in early June 2022, and completed it December 10, 2022.
The painting went through many stages of development.
This has been a very hard year in so many ways. Throughout it all working on this painting, finding the beauty in it, was a source of joy to me.
I hope we will proceed with the third one, which I also have a vision for. The title is another Robert Johnson lyric: “I Believe I’m Sinking Down.”
In my reading, I came across Psalms 1, which I feel encapsulates the story told in these three paintings:
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
“At the Crossroad” is walking into the counsel of the ungodly.
“Hellhound On My Trail” is the restless wanderings of guilt and sin, like the chaff driven by the wind.
“I Believe I’m Sinking Down” is the perishing of the ungodly way.
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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.
“Ah ha ha. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
So said John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, as he squatted on the edge of the stage at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom. It was the end of the band’s 1978 tour of America, and the end of the Sex Pistols too. Despite cashing in with member berry reunions in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Sex Pistols were spent as a creative force.
Lydon’s meaning was ambiguous and therefore multifaceted, open to interpretation. Was Johnny mocking the audience for enduring a lackluster performance from the group? Was he talking about himself, and how he had been manipulated by his scheming manager? Or was he still proclaiming the punk wake up call that the powerful are abusing the people?
All three possibilities can be true. In that moment the Pistols were still the unwitting oracles of art, acting as puny transmitters of cultural forces which rocked the world.
Johnny Rotten was a symbol not a just a man. This dead end Irish kid briefly manifested therapist Carl Jung’s comments on the role of the artist:
“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is ‘man’ in a higher sense— he is ‘collective man’— one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of mankind.”
Those who’d claim the Sex Pistols and punk in general were never a creative force to begin with just needs to look around at the world today. The music still gets played, the stories are retold. It is part of who we are now as “collective man.” It has endured the test of time, the most telling measure of art’s effectiveness.
Vast numbers of people display the tribal garb of artificially colored hair, torn clothes, tattoos and weird piercings that once signaled a determined, tiny subculture of would-be rebels.
The look is a cliché now, pure mainstream. A chuck of the populace is walking around wearing the skinsuits of a few outsiders who got aggressive and defiant about being cast as losers by the status quo, and decided make a visible and noisy issue out of it.
You might not like punk, but it prevailed. We as a people were transformed because it is art that shows us how to be. “Empire follows art, and not vice versa” was the assertion of an earlier rebellious English artist, William Blake. Empire in this quote can be read not as a specific political entity, but as the unifying ideas which direct a civilization. Hegemony is the word academics use for it.
Another Jung quote about art’s power is “All art intuitively apprehends coming changes in the collective unconsciousness.” Unfortunately, for over 100 years, the elites have been showing us through the art they promote their collective unconscious consists of an authoritarian insistence to worship power, enforced by fraud and force.
Galleries and museums are now chock full of off-putting and incomprehensible junk with insane valuations. The only reason it can be recognized as supposed art is because it is in a gallery or museum, placed there by the consensus of corrupted cultural institutions. Some examples of typical Postmodern masterpieces:
We are being told to accept the lie that absurd trash is art because those in charge tell us it is. If we can’t see the validity, that is our problem for not being sophisticated enough to enjoy the emperor’s new clothes.
The establishment ordering us to accept fraud as art can be extrapolated into ordering us to accept the fraud in our elections. Once we capitulated to the first big lie, the rest come easier.
The arrogant ruling class is possessed by Postmodernism. They’re all in on the idea that tearing down the traditions and standards of Western civilization will cement their grasp on unaccountable power.
Once you understand that, the promotion of Postmodern art as the pinnacle of artistic achievement becomes understandable. It explains the Orwellian efforts behind the elevation of mindless attention-seeking as an attempted substitute for values, achievements and principles. Hyping soulless, unskilled art has a toxic, weakening effect on society as a whole.
Postmodern art is a tool of oppression.
Postmodern power relies on the people’s acceptance to dwell in an artificial construct shaped by the preferences of the powerful. This fake world just swallowed up yet another election here in the United States, and we are expected to go along with it.
The country is a mess, everything is going wrong, and in defiance of all historical trends, red tsunami pre-polling, and common sense, we are expected to believe we all voted for more of the same. To add insult to injury, the fake president told us they were doing it again.
I still can’t shake this bizarre feeling about Biden’s closing pitch ahead of the midterms. He said there’s going to be election deniers and that you must accept the results. Why would a President say this about a midterm that by all accounts he’s about to get crushed in? Weird.
Unfortunately, as far as punk versus the corrupt status quo went back in the day, real reform is much harder to transmit than making a fashion choice. But art is once again showing a rising transformation which will rock the world.
In 2000, two English artists, Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, described a principled practical alternative to Postmodernism when they described an artistic philosophy they called Remodernism. Remodernism is a reboot of the culture which will wipe out the virus of Postmodernism. It was the harbinger change is coming to the collective unconscious.
Even those mainstreamers who’ve adopted the punk costume may intuitively know it means defiance. They are just unclear who it is they need to defy.
Our empire will follow art away from lies and back to authenticity.
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.
I originally posted this commentary and link on January 23, 2021. It was a dark time in our country, and I wanted a project to focus on, to add some positive content to the world.
It was the first post of what I called my “Daily Art Fix.” After that first entry, I continued to put up an art themed post every day for over a year, until February 24, 2022. On February 25, we lost our internet connection for 12 days. Thieves had stolen vital equipment that knocked our whole neighborhood out.
By the time the internet was restored I had lost the inclination to produce the Daily Art Fix. I’ve been keeping busy on many other projects: painting, writing, planning.
So here we are on another dark day, when thieves have struck again on a massive scale. It’s time to revisit that story of resilience.
We go on.
‘THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO—IT IS ALL BEGINNING!’
Philip Guston Explains Himself
My favorite painter Philip Guston caused great controversy when he broke with art world dogma to be true to his own vision. In this touching article written by his daughter, she describes how he handled the fallout.
Key quote from the article:”Recalling the Marlborough opening in a 1980 interview, my father said:‘But there were some who understood. When Bill de Kooning saw the show, he said he liked it very much. You know, everybody thought those paintings were about the hooded figures, and the bad conditions in America, and so on, and that was part of it—every artist hopes to give his own interpretation of the world—but they were about something else, too. When de Kooning saw the show, after embracing me, and congratulating me, he said: ‘You know, Philip, what your real subject is? It’s freedom!’’’
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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