SACRIFICING ART-AND EVERYTHING ELSE-TO THE CLIMATE CHANGE CULT

The Climate Change Hoax:

Banksy Contributes Yet Another Piece of Establishment Agitprop 

 

“The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science

Remove them or Degrade them & the Empire is No More…”

-William Blake (1757 – 1827)

 

There’s a common saying across the internet these days: “Get woke, go broke.” The phrase acknowledges when a business emphasizes Social Justice Virtue Signalling instead of producing quality results, the bottom line will suffer.

Joining the Orwellian flock of conforming sheep, bleating out allegiance to the latest leftist trends, leads to annoyed audiences and alienated consumers. No healthy business actively seeks to piss off big parts of its customer base, but it’s been happening with increasing frequency for years. It’s gotten so bad even major corporations are serving notice they will no longer run their operations with efficiency and competence, but will squander resources chasing the ever moving goalposts of social engineering. Blame our Postmodern establishment, which has degenerated into acting as enablers and enforcers for the totalitarian left. Their abuses have warped many professions, especially the arts.

Art is not about money. Or at least real art isn’t, despite the manipulations and miseducation practiced by our current corrupt arts institutions. They exterminated ideals of quality and skill from art, so price tags act as a stand-in for measuring achievement. But a shady and inflated purchase price doesn’t add integrity to a work of art; it definitely can’t change non-art into an actual artistic accomplishment.

Postmodern partisans control the mass communication purse strings. They make sure only the ideologically pure get funding and exposure. Support is possible as long as an artist parrots the approved talking points, or fits into the favored diversity check boxes.

So assuming the money aspect gets covered by submitting to political expectations, are compliant artists then able to create meaningful, evocative artwork?

No. Even with a monopoly over cultural expression, the skewed messages favored by our self-appointed creative class censors are failing to connect, even with sympathetic audiences.

Take the relentless Climate Change Hoax, and how a 2015 art show bent the knee to it.

I’m 50 years old, and for my entire life I’ve been hearing we are teetering on the brink of an environmental catastrophe which never actually arrives. As supposedly urgent climate deadlines go whizzing by, the nature and timing of the threat constantly mutates, but the remedy is always the same: the people must sacrifice comforts, wealth and freedom so the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected can keep living the high life. ,

The graphic timeline below charts more than my whole existence, and lists just some of the erroneous claims made by the Mean Greens:

 

Seriously people. Looking at these 50+ years of fail, it can’t be any clearer. The predictions aren’t accurate. The models don’t work. The fears are unfounded.

It’s a plot to grab money, attention, and power. These schemers hate any part of humanity they don’t see when they look into their own mirrors. They are indifferent to the suffering they would unleash, as long as they get to be in control. Get a load of this poor brainwashed thug-in-the-making:.

 

Doomsday Addams Wants You to Stop Breathing Right Now. For the Children. 

 

Does this look like someone manifesting long term planning, reason and compassion? Or is the face of someone who can’t wait to segregate us into our assigned cattle cars?

“Climate Change” isn’t science. It is mass hysteria and rent-seeking disguised as an emergency. The Progressives intend to progress us right back into the Dark Ages.

Art got recruited to be part of this charade in 2015, at the United Nations affiliated ArtCOP 21 event in Paris. “Climate is culture!” the bureaucratically  engaged creatives cried, instead of recognizing that culture is culture, and climate is weather.

A Horse Is a Horse, of Course, of Course? 

Take the example of this participant, performance artist Marion Laval-Jeantet. Her “art”  is described as:

Marion Laval-Jeantet allowed herself to be injected with horse blood plasma containing the entire spectrum of foreign immunoglobulins (following several months of precautions to build up her immune system). after the transfusion, the artist performed a communication ritual with a horse while wearing prosthetic horse-like stilts before her hybrid blood was extracted and freeze-dried…

“I had the feeling of being extra-human, I was not in my usual body. I was hyper-powerful, hyper-sensitive, hyper-nervous and very diffident. the emotionalism of an herbivore. I could not sleep. I probably felt a bit like a horse.”

Doctor Moreau, call your office. Thank goodness we have such paragons of science hyper-involved in the arts! What this actually has to do with climate, I couldn’t tell you, but surely she got paid to make this madness happen. Horse-like stilts are probably very expensive.

What is interesting is that a study was done of how the various artworks at the climate change carnival influenced the viewers. Not too much, it seems. Artnet explains:

 

Can Art Change Minds About Climate Change? New Research Says It Can—But Only If It’s a Very Specific Kind of Art

Only three works out of 37 left viewers feeling inspired to take action.

Researchers have found that art on show in Paris during the 2015 United Nations climate change summit did change people’s feelings about the environmental crisis, but only if it contained a hopeful message.

In a new paper published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, Laura Kim Sommer and Christian A. Klöckner of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have identified a narrow set of parameters for what makes activist art effective in altering public opinion.

The study surveyed 874 visitors’ reactions to works on view at the ArtCOP21 climate change festival, which saw artworks scattered throughout the city of Paris to coincide with the World Climate Change Conference. It looked at their emotional reactions, the relevance of each work of art to their daily lives, and how much the works inspired personal reflection or action, according to Pacific Standard. Based on the results, researchers were able to divide the show into four categories: “the comforting utopia,” “the challenging dystopia,” “the mediocre mythology,” and “the awesome solution.”

In the end, only three works among the 37 on view made people feel like they were able to do something about climate change. All three, which were categorized under “the awesome solution,” were “beautiful and colorful depictions of sublime nature that are showing solutions to environmental problems,” Klöckner and Sommer wrote…

To the researchers surprise, the participatory works on view did not have much effect on visitors. “It did not make them reflect much on their own role within the climate crisis or the consequences a changing climate would have for them,” Sommer told artnet News in an email. “It just gave them a sense of belonging, which is why we called it the ‘comforting utopia.’ I was expecting that offering people a way to participate would lead to more engagement. But it seems that people want to be made aware of something awe-inspiring by someone that thinks differently, rather than be part of the creative process.” [emphasis mine]

So let me get this straight. People enjoyed the beautiful artwork, which showed them something they judged to be beyond their own skill levels. It made them feel more connected. And that is striking a blow for climate change activism?

Or is what described actually a very traditional experience of art, and the climate change con artists are hijacking the response, claiming it fulfills their agendas?

The Postmodern Establishment is trying to switch off the Enlightenment. The climate change hoax is an attempt to de-industrialize the West, even as our political classes continue to live in luxury. They try to use art as one of their tools of propaganda. Even when their hand-picked artists fail to get the desired result, they co-opt the interpretation, and explain why they win again.

As I state in my book, “Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:” 

 

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.

The real climate change we need is the annihilation of Postmodern corruption. The Remodern Age has already begun.

 

Catering to Postmodern Madness is Thinking the Crocodile Will Eat You Last 

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PAINTINGS: In the Night

Richard Bledsoe “In the Night” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 24″ 

 

From the Remodern America Manifesto:

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.

 

-Excerpt from

Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization

by Richard Bledsoe.

 

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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 a book. Or a painting. Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you! 

 

“Bill Wants To Be The Bad Boy:” A Me-Too’d Art “Maven” and the Postmodern Abuse of Art

Circling The Drain:

Taking Advantage of the Decline of Artistic Expectations 

They say the way you do something is the way you do everything.

Here in Phoenix, Arizona, an all too familiar drama is playing out. An affluent influencer has been accused of sexual aggression towards multiple women. The details offered are lurid, and awful.

No charges have been filed. There is no proof I am aware of, beyond mostly anonymous statements given to journalists. In this country, we are all innocent until proven guilty. This must be a very difficult time for everyone involved. Pray for all of them.

Unlike Joe Biden, I was not there 3,000 years ago, when Isildur took the ring and the strength of men failed. But I was there in 2002, when landscape architect Bill Tonneson took the title of artist, and the integrity of the art world failed. I met Bill Tonneson at one of his first exhibits, at the old Paper Heart Gallery.

It was a poor showing. Mostly patterns of found objects mounted on wall hung canvases. But it turns out, these examples of bland decor were the opening moves of a grand strategy.

Back then, Tonneson had decided he would make himself the world’s third most famous artist in one year. In a Phoenix New Times interview at the time with art critic Robrt Pela, Tonneson explained his gambit. The article is full of telling quotes:

A year ago, architect Bill Tonnesen launched a career in modern art. His 12-month goal: to create 100 significant pieces, and to land a one-man show in a notable gallery. He chronicled his experience in the self-published Tonnesen: 12 Months to Fame and Fortune in the Art World. The book pictures many of his mixed-media assemblages (a frame filled with teacups, another jammed with hundreds of Bic pens) and is full of revelations (“As I surveyed the art world, there seemed to be a lot of paintings. Crazy abstract stuff that looked relatively easy to do.”)…

NT: There’s that old line that you always hear about modern art: “Hey, my kid could do that!” Your career as an artist strikes me as a big riff on that whole notion.

Tonnesen: That’s a subject I love to talk about: understanding art. The notion that one painting deserves a more important place in the history of art. It’s very convenient for uninformed people to think that their opinion is the equal of someone like [deceased MOMA curator] Robert Storr’s. What makes contemporary art so unique that suddenly everybody is an expert? Why can some idiot walk in off the street and think his opinion about a painting has any value?…

NT: …You actually made an A-list of artists in your book. What is that based on?

Tonnesen: Primarily on auction results.

NT: So for you, it’s all about the money artists make, and not what their work is expressing or how it moves you.

Tonnesen: Well, money is a measure of collectibility. So are references in textbooks, a presence in museums, and mentions in publications like Art News, which essentially make the art world. But the common currency is money. It’s the most concise way of determining an artist’s popularity.

NT: That’s a pretty arrogant position to take, to create a list that values artists based on how much money they make.

Tonnesen: The list is the least controversial aspect of what I’ve done. Essentially, it’s unchallenged, partly because if you survey the horizon of thousands upon thousands of artists, people like Jasper Johns and Gerhardt Richter are the ones who rise up, and it’s relatively . . . I can’t think of the word.

NT: You seem torn between saying that the art world is full of shit and wanting to be part of it.

Tonnesen: My goal is to point out that the art industry is a market, like any other. I am a libertarian, laissez faire capitalist. I believe in markets. What I’m interested in doing is studying how the art market works and competing there, but not at a regional level. I have worked now for one year in this regional environment, and now I’m ready to compete on a larger stage…

The interview concludes with this nugget of Tonneson analysis: “I don’t think people really have much insight into what is art and what is not art.”

Bill Tonneson has been relying that disconnect ever since.

In the interview above Tonneson expresses the perspective of a Postmodern partisan. The attitudes are all there: the relativisim. The appeals to authority. The derision towards the little people who dare to have their own opinions. The lust for money, fame and power. Tonneson states the values of the establishment art industry, which are of course the values of the establishment in general. Our elites are corrupt Postmodernists to the core.

His take-over-the-art-world book is still available (Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,664,166 in Books). Needless to say, that initial scheme failed. But the marketing blitz made Tonneson a player in the lively Phoenix arts scene.

British artist Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Remodern art movement, has attributed the crisis of relevance in the contemporary arts to “…a Postmodern ethos that puts celebrity, cynicism and commerce above any spiritual or deeper human values.”I would add a fourth C to that list: controversy. Since 2002, Tonneson has worked those unappealing angles to keep himself as an artistic presence.

Like in 2012, when he plunked this beauty down in front of his house, so the nearby pre-school and church could take a gander at it:

 

“Arizona Man Feuds with Neighbors Over Statue of Obese Naked Woman,” reported the New York Daily News.

“I love it,” Tonnesen said. “I’m crazy about it.”…he wishes his neighbors could see it as a work of art, and not just a nude woman. His neighbors aren’t alone — Torrenson said his wife doesn’t like the statue’s placement and made him cover with a sheet.

“Until I can work something out with my wife, we’re going to leave it covered,” he told KNXV.

That poor long suffering lady. I read a later article which said Tonneson had added a bikini made out of money to the piece, but I couldn’t find an image of it.

He was at it again in Tucson in 2013: “Artist Hopes Nude Statues Cause a Bit of Outrage:”

Tonnesen has created a pair of statues — torsos of nude women jutting out of a tower of truck tires — that sit in front of an apartment building at 2230 E. Fort Lowell Road.

In Phoenix, Tonnesen is a bit of a bad boy. Some of his large-scale pieces, often in prominent spots at apartment buildings, are in-your-face nudes. One, an obese nude woman sitting on a wall, faces a church. Another nude — it looks to be of the same large model — holding a urinal at her crotch (presumably an homage to Duchamp) is on display at the front of an apartment building not far from the Phoenix Art Museum. Protests to the works were loud.

Tonnesen, who solicits publicity, loves the controversy his art creates…Tonnesen calls the works, molded from a live model and made primarily of plaster and epoxy with a steel frame, “Domestic Totems.”

Two female torsos sit on top of 11 gleaming black tires, raising the works up to about 16 feet, nearly reaching the top of the second story of the two-story building.

The torsos are white. Each has large, exposed breasts.

The figures are draped with a shawl and have headpieces made of pots, pans, dishes and other accouterments of domesticity. One has an electric hand beater as a necklace, a mop covering her eyes as though they are long bangs, a baby sitting on top of the headpiece, and a mouselike figurine on top of that. The woman’s mouth is opened in a sort of shocked “O.”

The other is blindfolded and gagged, has an egg beater necklace, a toaster balancing on her head, and on top of that a lamp, and on top of that, another mouse-like figurine.

…“My grandson doesn’t like them; he thinks they’re nasty,” says Marybeth Davis, who lives there with him. She, on the other hand, has no problem with the bare breasts. It’s the works themselves that bother her.

“I don’t call them art,” she says. “I call them gaudy.”

So. These creations were “molded from a live model.” Were these excuses for art made as an excuse to get a little hands-on experience? One wonders.

There’s nothing wrong with nudity in art. “Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed,” advised the visionary artist William Blake. Michelangelo’s David, one of the greatest artistic achievements of all time, lets it all hang out. But nudity aside, Tonneson’s figurative sculptures aren’t good. They’re awkward and graceless. The nakedness functions as a crutch, generating a response that the stiff, lifeless manikins can’t achieve by manifesting skill or dynamism.

Tonneson’s controversies aren’t limited to art. Even before the recent allegations, in his landscape architecture business there have been some very vocal dissatisfied customers, and neighbors. His plans for a Phoenix Holocaust Memorial spiraled out of control (Illusions of Grandeur, New Times March 2005).  The project was not completed. And then there was the time he convinced the former mayor of Tempe to convert a local landmark into a Bill Tonneson theme park. (Bill Tonnesen, Contentious Tempe Developer, Aims for Immortality, New Times November 2012)The city council didn’t go along with that one.

Quotes from the linked articles paint an evocative picture:

On renovations:

…At first, the pair enjoyed getting to know the charismatic designer and his workers. They even bought a few pieces of his artwork, including one with orderly rows of coffee cups featured in Tonnesen. He assured them it would only grow in value as his art career took off.

But the piece hasn’t aged well; one of the coffee cups has fallen off its backing, and in its place, Dacquisto has stuck a movie stub from Kill Bill Vol. 1. Like the artwork, his relationship with Tonnesen also deteriorated precipitously, after the project dragged on for nearly a year…Worst of all, when the partners went to talk to a lawyer, the lawyer gave them a piece of information that caught them totally off guard: Tonnesen Inc. didn’t have a license to do electrical work, which it had done. Or a mechanical license. Or a plumbing license. Or a residential contractor’s license. Tonnesen never should have been allowed to redo their kitchen in the first place, their lawyer explained….

The Holocaust Memorial:

Tonnesen claims, repeatedly, that Phoenix’s memorial will be the only one in the world to show six million objects. It’s a contentious claim: After all, schoolchildren in rural Tennessee recently collected more than six million paper clips to display in an old German cattle car. It was an improvised effort, without a master plan or a visionary architect, but the exhibit now draws thousands of kids from all over the Southeast….

But that doesn’t count, Tonnesen says, not under his criteria. Sitting in a big pile, the paper clips aren’t visually distinct.

Similarly, he doesn’t count the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, which shows six million numbers etched on six glass towers. “That’s different,” he says.

He can’t seem to acknowledge that any previous effort has hit the nail on the head. This, after all, is a guy who dismisses the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: “Beautiful idea, but immaturely executed.”

There goes the neighborhood, and the Tempe Flour Mill:

…And always, Tonnesen’s sculptures — many of them life-size statues of Tonnesen himself, in various guises: holding an umbrella, pointing at a giant thermometer, perched atop an air-conditioning unit. But his accolades…often are drowned out by the moaning of people who’ve had dealings with Tonnesen.

Like the employees worried that he talks too much about working without proper permitting. And the city officials who felt he was forcing his public art onto the Tempe Flour Mill site, after he sneaked two of his sculptures onto the site on the evening of its grand opening…

“The problem with Bill isn’t a lack of talent,” says a colleague of Tonnesen’s who refused to be named because, he says, any public commentary on Tonnesen leads to days and days of e-mails and phone calls and recriminations.

“It’s that he doesn’t listen, and he wants everything his way. So you ask him for a glass of water, and he brings you a swimming pool. And you say, ‘Put the swimming pool in my backyard, then,’ and he mounts it on your roof and plants 70 trees around it and then encases it in a big metal box made out of recycled refrigerator shelving, because it’s what he wants.”

…”His houses are ridiculous, and they don’t fit in on our street,” says one of Tonnesen’s Tempe neighbors, who won’t go on-record because she’s heard other neighbors complaining about Tonnesen screaming at them. “I got yelled at by people on the block, because I had seven wind chimes on my front porch. But this guy can have a giant metal box and a hundred trees in the front yard, and everyone’s thrilled!”

****

“I’m hard to work with,” Tonnesen admits. “When I hire someone, the chances of it working out are tiny. I only care about two people’s opinions — my wife’s and my assistant’s. Everyone else is just workers, and I’m hoping they won’t screw everything up.”

“Bill does things first and asks permission later,” that ever-vigilant assistant, Samantha Staiger, says. “That bothers people.”

“You gotta make your own opportunity!” Tonnesen yells excitedly. He’s an imposing presence: 6 1/2 feet tall, wearing his signature uniform of pressed blue jeans and a white Oxford shirt with his last name stitched above the pocket. His smooth hairstyle recalls the blunt bob worn by Gloria Vanderbilt in the ’60s and ’70s. “I’m not sitting around waiting for permission. I try to be proactive and to make things happen…”

***

“I had some grandiose ideas,” Tonnesen admits of his Flour Mill plans. “I want to do the unexpected. I want people to be curious and confused by the art things we put in. So I drew up an elevated walkway with a hole in it, and we would have someone sitting by the hole, and maybe spraying water on people or videotaping them as they walked by.”…the Tempe City Council wouldn’t go for a walkway with a built-in hooligan, so Tonnesen came up with a second plan: a giant Advent calendar-like cabinet filled with his own custom statuary.

“I had it dripping with my sculptures!” he bellows gleefully. “And of course no one had any money to do this. I would have done it for free! When it’s an iconic structure in my own town, I’m on board!”

To rehabilitate his reputation, Tonneson worked with Alison King, a web designer and co-founder of Modern Phoenix.

Shining up Tonnesen’s public image was no easy task, King admits. “It was among the hardest jobs I’ve taken on,” she says. “Bill wants to be a bad boy. He can’t help it. It’s who he is. He would rather ask for forgiveness later than ask permission first.”

But then, in his most ambitious art move yet, Tonneson got his theme park. Thwarted by short sighted city bureaucrats, he installed his monument to himself, himself. Bill Tonneson went to the Lavatory.

The Lavatory is the name of Tonneson’s solo act art museum. Seriously, what is it with these elitists and their juvenile caca fixations? 

“Big Fun Art’ Spreads to Phoenix” City Lab December 2018

Illuminated by floor-recessed lighting, the bottom half of a 1,500 square-foot subterranean room is suffused in pink, slow-curling fog. By one wall is a life-sized plaster-cast statue of a bare-chested woman, head concealed in cloth, holding a naked infant upside-down. A gaunt female model with an alabaster face saunters languidly through the space, like a mute witness to some macabre ritual. The 50 or so patrons, who each paid a $30 entrance fee, tentatively explore the room’s perimeter, wading through the puffy fuchsia tide, when a baritone voice registers through speakers:

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to be buried alive.”

Following a New Year’s Eve-style countdown, a huge net tethered to the ceiling releases 120,000 three-inch plastic iridescent balls, eliciting instantaneous glee from the crowd. They now occupy the largest, most bizarre, adult ball pit playpen in the world.The “wizard” behind the curtain is 63 year-old Bill Tonnesen, who serves as MC at the Lavatory, a risqué, if not outright scatological, art exhibition housed in a 16,000 square-foot, two-story commercial building just north of downtown Phoenix…in addition to the “pit,” [it} includes other themed rooms (one requires a non-disclosure agreement to enter). Also featured are two claymation cyclorama booths with professional portrait quality lighting conditions; a claustrophobic ten-by-eight foot room filled floor-to-ceiling with 18 functioning toilets; and many, many pieces of artwork by Tonnesen himself.

The immersive art phenomenon is recognizable in any number of fantastical—often food-oriented—iterations appearing on the urban landscape.

“A traditional experience at a gallery or museum is to look at a painting on a wall,” the artist told CityLab. “We’re working on a mechanism to make that painting fall if you get too close. My goal is to confuse.”

There is some confusion going on here all right. Clarity can be reached by looking at the broader, top down goals being inflicted on our culture.

The Postmodern establishment is trying to exterminate the experience of art. As I state in my book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization: 

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.

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.

There’s more than one way the elites have attacked art. The really prevalent one right now is to turn art into just another form of leftist activism. 

But the more insidious one is to replace art with the fleeting, tacky thrills and tawdry spectacles of a carnival midway and sideshow.  This is why you now get things like giant slides in art museums.

The Tate Museum’s Downward Slide 

Sure, that looks like fun, but is it art? No, it is not.

Depsite Postmodernism’s efforts to redefine words to suit the vast agendas of control, real art is the very opposite of the whirl and swirl of the county fair. Real art freezes a particular moment and makes it reverberate with timelessness and deep meaning. It doesn’t immerse us in sensations which drive us to distraction. Real art moves slowly in us, but with massive force. It is an enduring and abiding experience. Real art inspires  awe regarding human potentials, and takes us out of ourselves.

The elites don’t want us to have those profound moments. Too much risk of uplifting, transformative wisdom occurring. The ideologically driven artifice they favor can’t provide the moving qualities actual art delivers. So, using their hold over our cultural institutions, they are doing a massive bait and switch. Call something art, but then deliver cheap, lewd variations of Chuck E. Cheese attractions. They substitute the intensity of traditional art with an empty buzz of quick hit one-liners.  That will keep the ignorant proles in their place!

The Future of Art? 

The Lavatory fails the achieve art. It might pass as a fun house, but it doesn’t really look like much fun. It’s over burdened, trying to prove its art cred by dragging in stale Duchamp references. The images from it suggest a sinister, sleazy vibe, which recent reports only amplify.

Scenes From the Lavatory. Ick.

After the Me-Too style allegations surfaced, the Lavatory has gone dark. Tonneson shut down his Instagram account, and from the vicious commentary left showing on his Facebook page, it seems to be untended as well. Venues have started removing his works from display.

Tonneson’s come back before from scandal. He may be back again. If so, we can hope he will be able to deliver an authentic artistic experience, rather than just another tacky destination for selfies.

Bill Tonneson: Say Cheesecake 

 

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the State of the Arts from a Remodern perspective. 

ART QUOTES: Virgo Artists

Louise Nevelson “Night Flight #1”

“Creation is always kind of innocent and refreshing… always virginal to me… and it’s always a surprise. “

-Louise Nevelson (Born September 23, 1899)

x

I don’t believe the stars control our fates, or can be used to tell our fortunes. But life has proven to me again and again the time of year a person is born does seem to influence their personalities.

Why would this be the case? I have no idea. But my observations show me the universe is full of patterns, cycles, all evidence of the great underlying order beyond our limited human perceptions. The pseudo-science of astrology is the result of centuries of study on human behavior. Somehow we find echos of our souls projected out into a cosmic scale; around and around we all go, playing our variations of the 12 eternal roles manifested in symbols of animals, mythical beasts, and human archetypes.

 

We are now in the time of Virgo (August 23-September 23). They are symbolized by a maiden gathering wheat, a summation of their temperament: a reserved, industrious gleaner and organizer.

Virgo  Traits

• Analytical
• Organized
• Modest
• High Strung
• Critical
• Perfectionist

Can you see the Virgo personality reflected in the work and words of these artists?

x

 

Margaret Keane “The Stray” 

“I’d rather be home alone, painting.”

-Margaret Keane  (Born September 15, 1927)

x

x

Jacob Lawrence “The Seamstress”

“When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.”

-Jaconb Lawrence (Born September 7, 1917)

x

 

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres “Grande Odalisque”

“The chief consideration for a good painter is to think out the whole of his picture, to have it in his head as a whole… so that he may then execute it with warmth and as if the entire thing were done at the same time.”

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Born August 29, 1780)

 

Jean Arp “Man, Mustache, Navel”

“Ever since my childhood, I was haunted by the search for perfection. An imperfectly cut paper literally made me ill. I would guillotine it.”

-Jean Arp (Born September 16, 1886) 

\

Maurice Quentin de La Tour “Self Portrait” 

“It is maintained the painters see the same object differently, for example in respect to color, and that due to this variation in their vision one can immediately recognize their works, even from a distance.”

-Maurice Quentin de La Tour (Born September 5, 1704) 

 

Previous Zodiac Art Quotes:

Taurus Artists

Sagittarius Artists 

 

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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 a book. Or a painting. Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thanks! 

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8 Times Trashy Postmodern Art Got Thrown into the Garbage

 

Literally Litter:

The Postmodern Party is Over 

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Here’s a simple proposition: real art and rubbish are mutually exclusive.

Postmodern artists don’t understand this.

Lots of people call the bizarre and off-putting art displayed in contemporary galleries and museums “Modern Art.” However, we’ve left the ideas that drove the Modern age behind us. We are living through the death throes of  the Postmodern era, a much more troubling time.

Postmodernism is the camouflage outfit for Cultural Marxism, a 100 year project to destroy Western Civilization. The New Aristocracy of the Well Connected intended to launch a new Dark Age, where elitists wielded unaccountable power over a vast dispirited serfdom. They use mass media psychological manipulation to undermine us all. Their strategy was to manipulate language, and corrupt our institutions, in order to make us all submit.

This top-down project has finally started meeting serious resistance; their kingdom of sophistry and social pressures is crumbling. Postmodernism has failed, but the routing of the enemies within, and the massive work of reconstruction, will be a long and challenging process.

Perhaps no field displays Postmodern excesses and absurdity more that the arts. Modern art had already introduced alienation and fragmentation into the artistic experience. Art, the communal expression of beauty and order, had been undermined by reckless ideologues. They valued experimentation as an end in itself, and lost sight of being able to produce meaningful results. Above all else, art is a form of communication. Modernist partisans, fixated on art’s technical properties, often ended up irrelevant and incoherent.

When Postmodernism began to rise in the 1960s, it shifted artistic emphasis towards relativism, political proselytizing, and nihilism. Postmodernism is a clumsy power grab. It works on the doubtful premise “whatever the art scene asserts is art, is art.” We are all expected to bow before their insider status and so-called expertise.

So what do Postmodern scenesters advance as art? They thrive on “appropriation.” This means artists don’t actually make what they claim is their artwork; it’s made by hired skilled craftsmen, or already existing objects are merely collected and displayed. Often, these found objects are literally trash.

Here are eight times when cleaning crews showed more wisdom than the arts establishment, and put Postmodern garbage exactly where it belonged.

 

1. Damien Hirst “Painting by Numbers” (2001)

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.One of the kingpins of Postmodern non-art is the no-longer-so-young Young British Artist Damien Hirst. Before he was involved in a price manipulation scandal where he bought his own art to jack up the reported sales price, in 2001 Hirst tried to pass off some other trash as his own artistic production.

.Instead of cleaning up after the Eyestorm Gallery’s opening party for his installation “Painting By Numbers,” he proclaimed the remaining debris was now part of the show. However, the janitors didn’t see “the piles of full ashtrays, half-filled coffee cups, empty beer bottles and newspapers strewn across the gallery” as  adding anything to the ambiance. They chucked it all, although we are assured it was”…an impromptu installation, which increased its value by thousands.”

Fortunately, a counterpoint of common sense was articulated by artist Charles Thomson:

Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckist art movement, which favours the traditional skills of drawing and painting, praised Mr Asare’s action.

“The cleaner obviously ought to be promoted to an art critic of a national newspaper. He clearly has a fine critical eye and can spot rubbish, just as the child could see that the emperor wasn’t wearing any new clothes,” he said.

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2. Gustav Metzger “Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art” (2004)

The Tate Britain was not ashamed to show garbage as art, but they were embarrassed when it got thrown into the crusher.  They described it as “an artwork by Gustav Metzgerin…made up of several elements, one of which is a rubbish bag included by the artist as an integral part of the installation.”

Even though the bag was retrieved, the artist declared the trash was now ruined and could not be used. Thanks goodness he came up with some additional waste to take its place.

The museum spokesperson  declared “The new rubbish bag is now put in a box overnight for safe keeping,” without a whiff of irony.

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3. Leslie Rech “Anna Dropped Her Basket” (2004)

This poor artist was only trying to bring some culture to the mean streets of Columbia, South Carolina. Instead, she found out just how mean those streets could be.

A sanitation worker disposed of her offering for an installation art show, which “consisted of about 300 eggshells and a handmade dress,” in an alleyway.

Matt Kennell, executive director of the organization which hosted the event, acknowledged the misunderstanding involved. “What he saw was a dress on top of eggshells, so he cleaned it up,” Kennell said. “That’s his job, to clean stuff out of alleys.”

Apparently, Kennell’s job is to facilitate placing stuff into alleys, instead of taking it out.

 

4. Paul Branca “Mediating Landscape” (2014)

This Italian installation at Sala Murat featured newspapers, cardboard and cookie crumbs scattered across the floor. After the cleaning lady swept up, the damage to the artwork was estimated  to be 10,000 euros (over $15,000 in American dollars at the time).

They must have been some very expensive cookies indeed.

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5. Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari “Where Shall We Go Dancing Tonight?” (2015)

2015

Italy again. It took two Postmodern artistes to think this one up.

Described as an art installation of “empty champagne bottles and spent party poppers,’ this masterpiece was successfully retrieved from the dumpster by the cleaners who threw it out., and reinstalled. Letizia Ragaglia, director of the Museion Bozen-Bolzano, stated “It all goes to show how contemporary art is capable of arousing great interest, or even annoying people.” Mostly the latter.

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6. Pepa Chan “Resurfacing” (2015)

In the city of St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, a local artist had her outdoor installation hauled away.  Pepe Chan had created what looks like some kind of creepy attempt to lure kids into a homeless encampment. Of course, it was meant to “invoke the forgotten identities and traumas of aboriginal children using found toys and aboriginal poetry.”

What Chan didn’t invoke was the needed permission to actually use city property as her display space.  She didn’t pursue getting a permit “because of the large amount of work and red tape that goes into doing so.”

She grimly noted, “It’s like what I was trying to explore with my work, their answer to it was so violent.”

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7. Will Kurtz “Keep America Great Again” 2016

No collection of contemporary art would complete without some OrangeManBad in it. Will Kurtz made this contribution. It’s a play on a certain campaign slogan, and it’s an overflowing garbage can! Get it?

The janitors didn’t get it. They emptied the trash can. The raccoon was spared.

In a strange twist of fate, curator Brooke Shields went dumpster diving to find the missing waste.

Hopefully that saved Art Southampton gallery from having to cough up the $8,000.00 price tag for the loss.

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8. Carol May “Unhappy Meal” (2018)

 

Hong Kong has its troubles today, but they are nothing compared to what this poor artist experienced in 2018. Her art, a negative knockoff of an emblematic fast food design, got tossed from the Harbour Art Fair.

Even though the piece was later found, “…it was battered beyond repair.”

“Initially I didn’t find it funny at all,” May said. “But later I realized it meant my imitation had been a success.”

This is some definition of success I am not familiar with.

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Why is there this persistent effort to rename garbage as art? In many ways, these misleading misnomers reflect the core values of the collapsing Postmodern project; the abuse of authority. Word games and rationalizations. Efforts to divide, and confuse, and suppress. It’s the Postmodern mindset itself which is rubbish.

But something is rising to take the place of this outmoded, half baked totalitarianism. Art is actually a great weakness for the elites, because they have so obviously trashed it. As I write in my book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, the tide is turning:

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 a book. Or a painting. Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. 

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts from a Remodern perspective.

 

COMMENTARY: The Art of Bigfoot and Painting as Philosophy

Richard Bledsoe “Along the Allegheny 1767″ oil on canvas 30″ x 24”  

 

Even though I write a blog about art, I do not believe art should reply upon words to be effective.

Excessive explanation is one of the worst traits of the corrupted Postmodern art world. Lots of hackwork gets propped up by commentary, both by artists themselves and the institutions which support them. These days most of the extraneous chatter consists of appeals to grievance groupthink or other politicized posing. This trend follows academia’s current status: deep in the septic tank of Cultural Marxism.   It’s predictable that those best at spouting the party line aren’t really the creative ones.

No virtue signalling propaganda will ever fulfill that crucial human need for art. Great art speaks for itself, no explanation or justifications needed. It uses a language without words, which speaks directly to our souls.

Nevertheless, being of an analytical nature, I can’t help thinking about painting, and describing my observations.

First, painting is philosophy. Not in the pedantic sense, where insular scholars endlessly split hairs, and quibble over nuances. Painting is philosophy in action. Painting is translation, changing esoteric thoughts into comprehensible forms. Painting is consciousness harnessed by a physical process, which creates evidence of an individual’s world view. Show me what you paint, and you show me who you are.

Second, what do my paintings say about me?

I have come to identify two great currents which run through my art. I’m always a story teller, a painter of fables and parables. But I see the nature of the stories told come at me from both on high and down low.

I call this dichotomy the Canon and the Tall Tales.

The Canon reflects my impulse towards the stately achievements of  Western Civilization. As I state in my book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, “The expansion of Western civilization had been nurtured by belief in objective standards, which originated from an underlying order. Whether this order was divine or merely natural was debated, but the acceptance of universal laws was pretty universal.”

We of the West have an amazing legacy to draw on. Our forefathers bequeathed us great traditions of faith, science, art, literature, and law. Part of my art is part of that continuum of grand accomplishments. To recognize the structures. To uphold the harmony of reason, grace, and beauty.

Where some of my artistic practice drifts down from the cosmos, other parts of it pushes out of the earth like toadstools.

The Tall Tales are the grotesque gargoyles on the soaring cathedral. The ghost story told around the campfire. The frightening fairy tale told by a beloved grandmother with a big wart on her nose. It’s the spooky and the strange and the dark places. These things are just as much a part of humanity as the decisiveness and compassion of our better angels. They  are also as American as Edgar Allen Poe, and Robert Johnson.

I realized both aspects of my artistic viewpoint came together in the painting above, Along the Allegheny 1767. It depicts what happens when the representatives of the uniformed hierarchies of the Old World encounter the mysterious weirdness of the American wilderness. Magical things occur.

Currently our tainted elitists are ruthlessly attempting to suppress and destroy our heritage so they can rule over us unopposed by any notions of quality. The rise of the Remodern era shows they have failed in their cultural suicide mission.

 

 

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 a book. Or a painting; Along the Allegheny 1767 is available, along with many others. Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. 

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts from a Remodern perspective.

 

 

 

When Politicized “Ventriloquising” Replaces Art, Who Are the Dummies?

Helen Cammock: Poet?

“From Brutality to Livelihood to Discarded Cumbersome Noncompetitive Capital Investment…”

Cumbersome Indeed

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“Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.”

-Ambrose Bierce

 

The UK’s Tate Museum holds an annual awards ceremony, the Turner Prize. It’s supposed to be about art, but it isn’t. This spectacle is meant to lavish funds and attention on whoever is judged to be Britain’s best exemplar of the Postmodern establishment’s efforts to undermine Western civilization.

The elites are on a relentless quest to eliminate genuine art from the culture. The long march through the institutions has resulted in our social foundations being riddled with radical hacks. Since colluding Cultural Marxists maintain monopolistic control over society’s mass communications, including the arts, these partisans set the agenda. It’s now painfully clear the program is to reduce art to just another vehicle for social justice activism.

The excesses and absurdity of the Turner Prize are nothing new. It’s been retreating from recognizing actual artistic achievement since its inception in 1984. The Stuckists, the first Remodern art movement, organized protests against the inane non-art of the Turner shortlists for years.

But a shift is happening in the art world. Emphasis is moving away from trends which dominated the art market since the 1990s: obviously silly anti-art.

Not Woke Enough 

This junk was political in the sense it was an assault on traditional expectations of artistic excellence. Now even that mask is off, and nothing but pure propaganda will be advanced and rewarded.

Case in point: Turner Prize nominee Helen Cammock. She makes dull videos while reciting derivative observations and slogans. It’s a poor substitute for creativity and skill.

She lays out her cred in this article:

ARTNET: ‘All Art Is Political’: Meet Artist Helen Cammock, Who Went From Social Worker to Turner Prize Nominee

“I think all art is political,” Cammock says. “Even if you make work that doesn’t speak of politics, if you’re not speaking you’re making a political decision.” But the artist feels her message is wider in scope than just a criticism of Italian politics. “It’s a global statement, and it’s the same statement I would make about this country” she says. “We are also living in the politics of the far right, we are just in a different geographical location.”

“The call to action is to everyone,” Cammock says. “It’s not about identifying Italian politics or Italian culture as any more extreme because I believe we are all in a very dangerous and poisonous moment.”

Fascinating. While Cammock’s fellow travelling leftists dominate not only the arts, but government, media, social media, tech companies, academia, corporate boardrooms, and the globalized upper class, she’s lamenting that the “far right” is shaping the environment. Right.

In a way though, she’s got a point. There are threats to the status quo, which was supposed to be permanent. Even though the Cultural Marxists rule, they have not succeeded is forcing all to bow before their usurped power. The people oppose the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected.

Eruptions are happening around the world. From American Deplorables to French Yellow Vests, from the UK’s own Brexiteers to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Protests, from Italian sovereignism to the Brazilian PSL, there are mass movements against our declining Postmodern masters.

This was foretold in the arts, going back to when the Stuckists dressed like clowns as a condemnation of the beclowning of the Tate Museum. Welcome to the next phase of civilization: the Remodern Age. The story of the 21st century will be the dismantling of centralized power. It’s an exciting time, even though the course ahead will not be easy.

The Helen Cammocks of the art world oppose this developing and promising future. They lash out against it because it threatens their privileged positions as useful tools within the Postmodern hierarchy.

Of course Helen Cammock believes all art is political. Her inferior replacements for art are nothing but realpolitik screeds of victimhood and implied retributions. Helen Cammock is up for the Turner Prize because she checks the correct diversity boxes, not because of the quality of her so-called art.

Watch one of her pieces here, if you can bear it: Helen Cammock Showreel. It may have been the longest 6 minutes of my life. A static camera films uninteresting scenes, or stock footage unspools, while a monotonous voice drones on in buzzwords about economics and exploitation. Truly an art for the ages!

Helen Cammock is cashing in on the passive aggressive stance of the establishment’s preferred mode identity politics. Because once people were mistreated, she must be above criticism. Whatever she churns out must be lauded and praised. She presents her stale monologue travelogues as if appreciation is mandatory due to ethical concerns.

The art world set these expectations for her. She’s come so far without displaying any legitimate artistic chops. Does she realize she gets opportunities not despite the fact she is a 40-year-old-female-of-color-Sociology-major-former-social-worker-without-an-artistic-background-who-spouts-leftist-dogma, but because she is a 40-year-old-female-of-color-Sociology-major-former-social-worker-without-an- artistic-background-who-spouts-leftist-dogma? This quote from the article may reveal some lack of self-awareness:

Her affinity for text was something she discovered while studying for her Master’s degree at the Royal College of Art. She was juggling the coursework while running a photography festival in Brighton, and a sympathetic tutor excused her from having to make work for the remainder of the course if she promised write something every day. “That was the beginning of it,” Cammock says.

Wow, getting preferential treatment from an institute of higher learning. Better check your privilege! I feel sorry for all those saps who had to actually do their coursework to earn their degrees.

Not everything has been easy for Cammock though. She ruefully describes this:

“People can be very suspicious of artists,” she explains. “There’s an idea that it’s really surface or superficial, or that it’s a way of stealing, like cultural thievery. But I want it to be an exchange.”

Maybe if her art was better, she wouldn’t be so sensitive to the charges. Granted, the establishment art industry has been superficial for decades. The griping about cultural appropriation sounds like the wailing of other leftists butthurt they got outmaneuvered in the intersectional grievance identity sweepstakes. Normal people don’t think or act that way. But hurling ideological accusations to drag a rival down is a prime tool for leftist status seeking. We can see it playing out in the increasing frantic Trotskyites versus the Maoists dynamic which is roiling the political classes. Stay tuned to see how that plays out.

As I describe in my book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization: 

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. Remodernism is the correction of this treachery.

 

In another article, Cammock describes her efforts as “ventriloquising.” I’m confused by the analogy. Is she claiming to be the puppet master here, making her subjects mouth her approved tropes? Or is she saying she is the dummy, and supposedly the downtrodden masses are speaking through her? Is she The People’s Poet? Ryk, the original SJW from the cult TV show The Young Ones, shows how it’s done:

The People’s Poet: Don’t You Give A Fig? 

 

Either way, whether she’s claiming to be the mastermind or the mouthpiece, such a method has nothing to do with the intimate explorations that lead to compelling artistic excellence. Just look at her results.

The art of Helen Cammock is a phenomenon of the elite’s totalitarian effort to squeeze every aspect of life into rigid political submission. Her videos are not art, they are indoctrination. Politically correct Postmodern attitudes would demand we ignore the misdirection and failure on display.

Remodernism rejects this conformist approach. It recognizes we the people have the right to self determination, including the right not to accept a biased, uninspired sociology lecture as a valid replacement for the mystery, the grandeur, and beauty that only real art can provide.

 

Helen Cammock: Putting Identity Politics on a Pedestal 

 

 

My previous article on last year’s Turner Prize follies. From May 6, 2018:

ARTICLE: Activist Art Exposed as an Elitist Bait and Switch

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts from a Remodern perspective.