THE ART OF DEATH VERSUS THE DEATH OF ART

Damien Hirst Humped The Shark:

“The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (1991)

The arts are undergoing a crisis of relevance. People have been so alienated by the weird dysfunctions of the establishment art world for so long, there is little awareness of what is being advanced as the visual representations of our culture.

This stuff matters more than people know. Art shows us who we are, and it shows us how to be. Right now the arts are dominated by destructive nihilists. Look at what they do, to understand what the elites are trying to program as our way to live.

There is a longstanding artistic tradition of the momento mori: “remember you must die.”

The reality of our own mortality, and coming to terms with it, is a vital function of traditional art. Making something exquisite out of the way of all flesh is a transcendental act. It has been expressed in many ways. Throughout art history, skulls make appearances in paintings, on jewelry, on clocks and watches. Dutch masters painted beautifully naturalistic oil still lifes referred to as vanitas, which included images of bones, snuffed lamps, and hourglasses. They not only celebrated the refined talents of the painters, they implied pending decay.

Pieter Claesz “Vanitas Still Life” (1630) 

The tradition continued over the centuries. In a more recent example, Modernist American painter Georgia O’Keeffe utilized animal skulls and flowers to similar effect. It’s the kind of universal communication that makes art so powerful.

Georgia O’Keeffe “Summer Days” (1936) 

As Christians, we understand our true life is not limited to this earth, but is life eternal granted by the grace of the Son of God. Still, awareness of the briefness of our time here on earth is a powerful motivator. “I am writing this book because we’re all going to die,” mused Beat author Jack Kerouac. He was determined to deliver his story as a supplication to the Lord. Kerouac wanted to make something holy out of all his striving, opening himself to God before the darkness came.

Contemporary art has a different message for us: death as something awkward, gross, and shameful. This is typified by the richest living artist in the world: Damien Hirst.

Choke Artist: Damian Hirst

Hirst has been well rewarded for making death seem supreme. It’s said this hack is worth $1 billion. What put British artist Hirst on the fast track in the first place could be seen as a momento mori of a kind, but with some important caveats.

Hirst was trying to make that connection in his title. Called The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, the 1991 piece was a fourteen foot long taxidermied tiger shark suspended in a tank of formaldehyde. Since its creation it has changed hands several times, for a price suggested to be as high as $12 million.

Now, Hirst did not catch the shark. He did not stuff the shark. He did not build the tank, or suspend the beast in it. He is a “Conceptual artist.” The idea of Conceptual art is all the artist needs is to have the idea. Others execute it, often by just putting some already existing item like a shark into a new context of a gallery or museum. The artist then acts as a well-networked and “controversial” spokesmodel for their commercialized brand. This business model was most visibly pioneered by Pop artist Andy Warhol, who made some vanitas himself.

Andy Warhol “Skull” (1976)

While Warhol usually sold product placements and celebrity portraits, HIrst’s brand is carcasses. It’s claimed nearly 1 million animals have been processed through his industrial scale artistic abattoir, ranging from butterflies to zebras. He’s advanced from having them merely displayed; they are sliced, diced, contorted and flayed, as per his “vision.” As Hirst has callously stated, he wants to “kill things in order to look at them,” and “Cut us in half, we’re all the fucking same.”

Damien Hirst “Piggy” 

I don’t claim any special virtue for myself. I’m a happy meat eater, and I understand what that means. But what Hirst promotes is far from the traditional momento mori of art. There’s no acknowledgement of the urgency of human experience, the profound significance of life in the face of its certain end. The hands off approach from its originator removes the spiritual resonance of creation in spite of destruction. Hirst implies we are just meat to be manipulated and exploited. It’s an ugly and empty message.

Hirst doesn’t even provide quality in the work he has done in his name. Despite the hype, I’ve seen descriptions of encounters with the shark which say what was once was a magnificent animal looks about as impactful as an overstuffed sofa, lost in the white void of the museum. The original shark rotted away in its tank, and had to be replaced. The contemporary art market is place of such cognitive dissonance there is a hearty debate on whether swapping the shark out meant the artwork was now worthless.

My take? It was worthless in the first place.

Hirst seems to have gotten into the carrion business because he lacks real artistic talent or discernment. After Hirst became a brand name, when he wanted to come up with a mass production way to cash in, he produced the inane spot paintings. I can’t picture a bigger failure in imagination or interest than these generic Twister rip offs. Still, thousands of these have been cranked out by hired help, selling for tens of thousands of dollars each. It’s a way for tasteless but wealthy patrons to partake in Hirst’s rotten prestige in a sterile way, without worrying about formaldehyde leaks.

Some People Actually Pay For This: A Hirst Spot Painting

Hirst is still flogging dead horses and more to maintain his top tier art market status. His latest gimmick is ironically putting paint onto a canvas himself, though I wouldn’t go so far as to grace the efforts with the status of paintings.

Spotty Accomplishments: Hirst Cherry Blossoms

Ultimately elites celebrate artists like Hirst because they have a death wish: they wish the rest of us would die, or at least be as passive as corpses while the powerful abuse and pillage our society. The establishment contributes to our destruction by replacing art with icons of physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual deterioration.

A previous version of this article appeared in The Masculinist.

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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. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

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WE LOST A CENTURY OF CULTURE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT ART WORLD’S FAILURES AND MANIPULATIONS. THE NEXT CENTURY CAN BE OURS.

Norman Rockwell “The Connoisseur”

The American attorney and art collector John Quinn (April 14, 1870 – July 28, 1924) had a great insight about the avant-garde works he supported in the early decades of the twentieth century. He described his times as “an age of experiment rather than accomplishment.”

Quinn was describing the rise of Modern art. As early as the late 1700s, it was clear Classical art, reiterations of the ancient achievements of the Greeks, Romans, and Renaissance, did not adequately reflect the temper of the times. But what could? Modern artists bravely tried to find out.

It’s the nature of honest experimentation that failure is more common than success. In science a theory is proposed, tests are conducted, and the results are measured and analyzed, compared to the predicted outcome. But how can novel artistic experiences be rated?

Perhaps there is a fundamental test for art. Ultimately, art is a form of spiritual communication. Does the art deliver a sense of communion, connection, the eternal fellowship of humanity in a recognizable form? That would be successful art.

Much of Modern art’s attempts failed to reach those standards. Yet extreme experiments persisted, even as the appreciation dwindled. Like Spinal Tap, Modern art’s appeal became more selective. For some powerful people, that fulfilled an important non-artistic need: a new means for status signaling.

Cy Twombly, Leda and the Swan

Sold for $52 million in 2017

Any old sap could like skillfully created, beautiful, and meaningful art. Elitists had to flip the script, and make embracing the failed experiments, the ugly and obscure, the new standard of rarified taste. The establishment cultivated a culture war to preserve their isolating Mandarin authority.

We are all the poorer for it. For over a century now institutional support has been funneled into art meant not to unite, but to divide. Museums, galleries, and wealthy patrons warped the course of artistic evolution towards alienation, transgression, and incompetence, all the better to shock the bourgeois they despised. One hundred plus years of inverted snobbery was inflicted upon us. We’ll never know what might have been, what aesthetic glories the land of the free could have produced, without that interference.

This Is What The Gentry Class Fills Our Museums With. Sad!

It’s even worse now, in the Postmodern era. As I scan the art world’s official organs, I see nothing but partisan propaganda, leftist activism misidentified as art. These feeble efforts are deader than Lenin in his glass coffin, but all those who aspire to belong to the ruling caste must shuffle past and pay homage.

One of Postmodern Art Star Banksy’s Half Assed Editorial Cartoons Masquerading as Art

Those who we trusted as the caretakers of our culture betrayed us. We’ve had no support for art that reflects the true character of the United States, our might, goodness, and freedom. But the times are changing, and art can lead the way.

Cultural thought leaders look stupid propping up the absurdity they’ve made into the status quo. They’ve got no creditability left to squander. Their institutions are beyond reform. It’s time to start over. It’s a good place to be, because an American’s natural habitat is the frontier.

Even as Postmodernism undergoes its death throes, a new understanding is rising in the populace. The people are regaining the powers which have been usurped from them. This is the beginning of the Remodern era, and it’s informed by American principles. As I state in my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

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.

The “art as experiment” analogy really isn’t quite satisfactory, because art is not like science, and conflating the two has been disastrous for our society. Elitists defensively over-intellectualized art, which is most effective as a visceral, soulful experience.

Billy Childish, an English artist who first codified Remodernism with painter Charles Thomson in 1999, described a hands-on strategy for the way forward. “The idea is painting, not having ideas about painting…In many ways I sort of like to look on myself as amateur in everything I do. The amateur does things for love, and belief, not for the mortgage.”

That’s the spirit. Look at what “amateur” politician Donald Trump achieved. He put the experts to shame – or rather, he exposed they were lying about their true goals and intentions.

Just like in our politics, no solutions for art’s crisis of relevance will come out of the corrupted hierarchies of the current professional classes. Fortunately, we don’t need anyone’s permission to create a faithful depiction of who we truly are, in art and politics both. Let’s get on with it.

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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. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

The Invisible Sculpture Sale is Symbolic of the Systematic Shams Elites Expect Us to Swallow

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet:

The $18,000 “Immaterial” Sculpture

The art world is in a crisis of relevance these days. Just about the only time art gets attention outside the culture industry cocoon is when it can exemplify stupidity, envy, or a combination of the two.

Stupidity comes when a PR hungry artist performs a silly stunt, like taping a banana to the wall. Or puts their dirty unmade bed into a gallery. 

Envy is invoked when a stunning sales price is announced. Most understand a high value for rarity and quality, such as a presumed work by a master like Leonardo Di Vinci; the uncertain Salvator Mundi sold for $450 million in 2017. People wonder how anyone could have that much money to spend on something made just to look at, and imagine what they could do those kind of funds.

But usually the art selling for inflated amounts doesn’t have that kind of legendary provenance. It’s in Modern and Contemporary art where foolishness and asset covetousness come together most clearly. It occurs when the general public sees obvious scams lavishly rewarded. The banana sold for $120,000. The unmade bed is valued at over $4 million now. The populace rightly scoffs at the sheer folly on display.

Salvatore Garau, an Italian trickster, produced a recent example of expensive non-art. His “immaterial” sculpture Io Sono (I Am) sold for $18,000. The piece does not exist. What the purchaser received for their money was the artiste’s word salad poor excuse for an explanation and a gen-u-ine “certificate of authenticity.” The patron must keep a 5 foot square space available for the nothing to be on display; fortunately, it does not require any special lighting or climate control. What a bargain.

There’s many unsavory factors festering under the surface in the art market. Money laundering, tax evasion, and insider trading doubtlessly drive the high financing. And yet there is something more sinister at work here than white collar crimes.

The villains aren’t the con artists who produce, or pretend to produce, ridiculous rubbish in the name of art. They’re just bit players. The real source of dangerous and deliberate derangement is the globalist New Aristocracy of the Well Connected. They’ve inherited and/or invented a whole phony world we all are expected to play along with.

The establishment has mislabeled hoaxes as art for at least a century. In 1917, a mentally ill woman submitted a urinal to an exhibit. The French charlatan Marcel Duchamp later took credit for it as a new form of expression; in fact, a higher form of expression, where something which is obviously not art becomes art by relying on elitist acceptance and support to function.

If you don’t accept a urinal – or an invisible sculpture, or a banana, or dirty linens – as art, well, that just proves you are one of those knuckle-dragging mouth breathers with deplorable Neanderthal thinking. The members of the club-they get it. Don’t you want to be a member of the club?

Art was just the thin edge of the wedge. It’s like visionary William Blake tried to warn us, “Empire follows art and not vice versa.” After the establishment weaponized art into an assault on reality itself, and made it a litmus test for social status, they’ve rolled out numerous other deceptive mandates to obey.

It’s so much worse than just having an opinion on an ambiguous situation. Again and again, the actual evidence contradicts the elitist position. Instead of accepting reality, our ruling class assume they can will their preferences into existence just by agreeing amongst themselves, insisting the rest of us go along with them, and blocking any channel for the truth to come out. It’s extra convenient for the in-crowd to advocate for any absurdity that comes along, because as elites they are not held to the standards of behavior they demand of others.

Our Postmodern Progressive overlords have developed a long list of required false beliefs for their followers to conform to: man made climate change is an emergency. Systematic racism exists. Citizens don’t need guns. The problem with the Middle East is Israel. Speech is violence and violence is speech, depending who the speaker is. Men can become women or women can become men just because they want to. Abortion is not infanticide. Defunding the police will lead to safer communities. The Woo Hoo flu is such a danger we must give up our Constitution. That same Woo Hoo flu was not released by the Chi Coms accidently on purpose. We did not just experience the most consequential and blatant election fraud in history. Joe Biden is not a perverted vegetable. Patriots are domestic terrorists. All will be well if we submit to our Postmodern Progressive overlords.

I bet if you believe one of these delusions, you believe them all. Congratulations, you’ve been successfully indoctrinated!

We’ve gotten to the point where there is such a disconnect between elitist desires and reality, it is a threat. The danger comes from just how far the establishment will go to maintain the illusionary world they’ve schemed into existence. The elitists believe they have power because they are just that much better than everyone else, not because they are willing participants in a consolidated combine of lies and cronyism. It will hurt to lose their prestige. They will defend it viciously.

Art is good place to start, to help ease the establishment out of their attitude of omnipotence. Hans Christian Anderson nailed the situation when he wrote “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” We all need to be the little boy speaking truth to power.

The Emperors are naked. There is no invisible sculpture. And the whole Marxist program is based on lies.

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RICHARD BLEDSOE is a visual story teller; a painter of fables and parables. He received his BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Richard has been an exhibiting artist for over 25 years, in both the United States and internationally. He lives and paints happily in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Michele and cat Motorhead. He is the author of Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

“Remodernism is not a style of art, it is a form of motivation. We express the universal language of inspired humanity.

“We do not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We are strengthened by drawing on traditions thousands of years old.

“We integrate the bold, visionary efforts of the Modern era into a holistic, meaningful expression of contemporary life. Remodernism seeks a humble maturity which heals the fragmentation and contradictions of Modernism, and obliterates the narcissistic lies of Postmodernism.

“Remodernism is the return of art as a revelation.”

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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. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

DAILY ART FIX: Books – We Go to the Gallery by Miriam Elia

An earlier version of this article was posted June 3, 2015

Miriam Elia illustrates a point

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In America, older generations than mine grew up with “Dick and Jane” books. The simple words and clean cut imagery of these works were meant as a teaching tool for young readers.

It seems the British version was “Peter and Jane.”  The names might have been different, but the intent was the same: an educational experience for kids, presented in an easily assimilated,  non-threatening format.

As society grew more cynical, succinct statements  like “Look Jane, see Dick” took on an unwholesome, ironic taint. The images now evoke a whole vanished era, a time of earnest naivete and lost innocence.

UK artist and writer Miriam Elia took full advantage of this gentle nostalgic vibe in 2014.  She released “We Go To The Gallery,” appropriating the traditional format associated with Ladybird, the British publisher of children’s  easy reader books. But in Elia’s version, the kids are being subjected to the soul crushing ordeal of viewing contemporary establishment art.

In panel after panel, Elia skewers the nasty nihilistic productions of the decadent cultural elitists.

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Along the way many recognizable conceptual art works are referenced, with the Mummy character spewing the stale turpitude so essential to post modern poseurs. The corruption and presumptions of culture industry hacks make them ripe targets for such mockery.

On her site Elia used to advertise a lecture on “learning principles”:

-Helping children understand there is nothing to understand

-Ensuring the child’s own opinions match those of the arts elite

-Preparing young people for a lifetime of crippling uncertainty

She’s presenting this as a joke. But when I realize that is exactly what our institutions are actively doing for real, I find it less amusing.

When I first discovered this book in 2015, it was unavailable. It seems the traditional publisher didn’t appreciate the mockery and some legal shenanigans ensued. In some of the images on the internet the character names were changed to John and Susan, and I wonder if that wasn’t an effort to bypass some of the copyright concerns. Now, in 2021, We Go the Gallery is back at Amazon; the site explains: “The 2014 limited edition of We Go to the Gallery was threatened with a lawsuit by Penguin UK (owners of the Ladybird imprint), which was withdrawn following a recent change in UK copyright law allowing for parody and satire.”

There is an extreme disconnect between the feebleness of contemporary art and the attitude of sophisticated superiority the elitists display. Irony was once their weapon. Now it is their shield. Soon it will be their tomb.

A generation’s worth of careers, reputations and investments have been built in a dead end, a pitfall of decadence and power lust. Outside of their carefully screened zones of consensus they are meaningless. But we can’t cede the custodianship of our civilization to these perpetrators. It’s time we start invading their enclaves and confronting their failures both as artists and as human beings.

Concise observations like Elia’s, presented with inescapable deadpan humor, will be the death of the current art bubble. Smart people are looking for the exits already.

 

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RICHARD BLEDSOE is a visual story teller; a painter of fables and parables. He received his BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Richard has been an exhibiting artist for over 25 years, in both the United States and internationally. He lives and paints happily in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Michele and cat Motorhead. He is the author of Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western 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. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

DAILY ART FIX: Video – From Batman (1967) In the Art World, the Joke’s On Us

Art world links which caught my eye…

From the old Batman TV show-the Joker goes conceptual.

An interesting take on a change that was actually occurring in the arts during the 1960s. It can be seen as a prophetic pop culture reflection of the shift from Modernism (the punny abstract painters) to Postmodernism. The Joker’s appropriated blank canvas, hailed as a work symbolic of “the emptiness of modern life,” could have come straight out of a contemporary art gallery.

Here we have the evidence. Conceptual Art is a tool of super-villainy, promoted by establishment useful idiots. Funny because it is so true.

Holy minimalism Batman!

PS – Cesar Romero was the best Joker, outperforming Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Joaquin Phoenix. 

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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. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

INTERVIEW: Chris Muir’s Shadowbanned Webcomic “Day By Day” Illustrates Free Speech

DAY BY DAY Brings the Pain to Elitist Culture

Winston Churchill’s masterful summary of the totalitarian blockade around captive cultures as an Iron Curtain has received a Twenty-first century revision.

Thanks to Big Tech, the repressive dynamic being enforced now is a Silicon Curtain. It’s no longer limited to Eastern Europe. We have a worldwide will to power attempting to throttle the greatest source of information and communication in history: the internet. Early innovators grew into citadels of monopoly. Being smart with computers gave these would-be overlords conceits of their own omnipotence. Look at that nasty Bill Gates, eager to inject the world’s population with his own special blend of God knows what, in a response to a manufactured Scamdemic he sure seemed to be planning for. With a creepy scheme like that, Gates is one volcano headquarters away from being a James Bond villain-and who knows? He may have one already.

Big Tech has partnered with authoritarian regimes to beta test techniques of tyranny they have every intent of inflicting upon us all. Have no trust in these trusts, which are sorely in need of busting.

But in the meantime, freedom still manages to break through the controls. Officially condemned Wrongthink can still be found online, if you know where to look. That’s why I was so glad to rediscover Day by Day, a daily political webcomic by Chris Muir.

I used to follow Day by Day in my early days of internet political obsessing in the early 2000s. It was the glory days of the Blogosphere, before so much of online engagement was squashed into filtered social media silos. The strip was featured on various sites I compulsively visited. DBD’s combination of sharp, insightful commentary and expressive drawing was very compelling.

Day by Day in 2008

Through the years, as my browsing habits changed, I lost touch with comic. But when I recently rediscovered it, I observed it had undergone an upgrade. The Alinsky-style weapons of satire and sarcasm directed at leftist tropes was as powerful as ever, but the art was richer, more elaborate.

Muir has great skill at figurative work, especially when depicting lovely ladies. As Muir’s dialogues are often set in intimate domestic situations, he frequently draws his characters nude. Any criticism directed at him for celebrating the female form, coming from cultural thought leaders who promote Cardi B, is rank hypocrisy. To me, Muir’s frank depictions prove his commitment to honestly sharing his free expressions. The salty politics are leavened with some sweet beauty.

Day by Day Bares Arms and More 

Chris Muir is participating in Remodernism, the spirit of liberty which is persisting around the globe, despite the Postmodern establishment’s best efforts to smother it.  As I state in my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

“Remodernism acknowledges artists as individuals responsible for their own actions. Artists have the duty to honestly express the spirit of the age filtered through their unique perspective and skills. Remodern artists use their art to show the enduring triumph of the human spirit over any negative circumstances.

“We must overcome the Postmodern efforts to censor and subvert the culture by suppressing free expression. We don’t need anyone’s approval or permission to create.”

I recently conducted an email interview with Chris Muir, discussing the past, present and future of his creative endeavors.

Question: How did you begin Day by Day? How is it going currently?

Chris Muir: In 1996, I became frustrated at the bias I saw in media-all media. I always had a thing for American history, and to see how warped the presentation of it was in ‘News’ and comics-like Doonesbury and many other syndicated toons-I thought ‘I can do better than this’, and set out to do so. I did practice toons from 1996 to 2002 (unreleased) to see if I could do this as a night job (my day job for 30 years was as an Industrial Design consultant). I also did a single panel/day non-political strip for FL Today called ‘Altered States’ as additional practice to ensure I could meet a daily deadline.

Q: Your draftsmanship is part of what keeps Day by Day so interesting. What’s your artistic background?

CM: I’m self taught, much practice at Photoshop and Illustrator inasmuch as I did renderings of designs for various clients over the years-boats, electronic products, etc. This set me up well for the inevitable time when comics would be all digital.

I was one of the first to do an all digital comic strip, and being versed in Production techniques, I was able to do it all with one person-me! Today there are hundreds of cartoonists and artists who are all digital (Like Deviant Art), though I chose this method primarily because my day job took 80% of my time, and I had to be fast and accurate, as daily strips must be daily without fail. One has to get on readers’ short list of daily reads, especially now (unlike back in 2002 when I launched) because of thousands of content choices. One must become a habit for that reader(s) for they are your income(and shared values).

Q: Were there any notable influences on your art or content?

CM: Richard Corben, Vargas, Milton Caniff, Dean Yeagle, Wallace Wood, Gil Evgren, Bruce Timm.

Q; What’s been your most controversial strip?

CM: I had Hillary in blackface, pandering to the black vote, back in 2003? That was notable back then, but in today’s political climate, Americans don’t debate much with the Left as they have truly gone off the reservation.

Q: When did the censorship begin? Were you surprised, or did you see it coming? How have you been censored?

CM: First Facebook, then Google, around…10 years ago, I think. I was not surprised, saw that coming from the start, having gone through the Cold War with the Left’s Idol, the USSR. I would guess I have been shadow banned to some extent, but inasmuch as I have always decided to be direct to readers, it doesn’t affect me that much. I was lucky to have been a slightly large frog in the Blogosphere Pond when it bloomed, and that set the readership pretty much from there.

Q: What’s your new project?

CM: A SciFi project based on today’s Red vs Blue conflict but set on a different world. www.HolyTera.com should be up November-December this year.

Q: What appeals to you about the science fiction genre?

CM: I suppose the invention of Worlds, what might be, and especially Men and Women-not Xis or Zirs- in such settings.

Q: What do you want your fans to take away from your comics?

CM: A desire to fund me! Well, mostly I aim to be a 15 second read on the day’s political/cultural/MenWomen news in comic format. In today’s attention span deficit era-and I include myself on this-it is a powerful way to entertain and inform in a multiverse of endless online content. So, readers get a summary, in a fun form, of what’s going on.

Q: In this technologically advanced but fragmented age, what future do you see for comics?

CM: A good one, actually-there’s never been a better time for any content provider or artist, as the ‘net delivers for free to unlimited readers-no gateway, editor, middleman, or social justice idiots to drag one back down into the crab bucket. But I would suggest whatever you do, make it constant, for once you lose a reader, you are lost to them in the noise of Many Choices!

Q: How can people find your works?

www.daybydaycartoon.com , www.holytera.com  – or just Google my name! I still seem to be on the first page of results.

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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. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART 

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

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

George W. Bush’s New Immigrant Paintings Show His True Colors

 

“There’s Always Something I Could Do To Improve…” 

George W Bush Paints

 

2020 is an appropriate year to indulge in hindsight. I must admit now, when looking back, I got played.

I profoundly misunderestimated the true intentions and agenda of a man I once respected. I suspect I was not alone in buying into the delusion. We all can’t blame ourselves too much for being fooled. We were up against a massive psyop of enormous subtlety and resources, and the alternatives we had presented at the time were outright monstrous.

No, the only way we could be at fault would be to deny the reality of what we underwent, now that it’s been revealed.

I now thoroughly distrust George W. Bush. Not for the same reasons that the deranged Leftists who loved to hate him during his presidency did. They were fooled too. They shouldn’t have been melting down over this guy, they should have been celebrating him.

I distrust W because, in many important ways, he advanced Anti-American globalist interests, carrying on his father’s work. In this, Bush was on the same side as the Leftists all along.

W was taking an active part in the same Postmodern schemes that have brought Western Civilization to the brink of collapse. Bush was both controlled and colluding “opposition,” enabling the illusion of choice in the direction of our Republic. He invoked the authentic goodness and power of the USA, and used that as cover while he and all his Uniparty political cronies continued to arrange for our destruction.

It’s hard to reconcile this with my long term impressions of George W Bush, of a flawed but ultimately decent man in a very difficult role. I believed he loved America. Could he really be that good of an actor? Or has he just been able to persuade himself of the inevitability of the totalitarian cabal’s domination, and he was trying to manage our decline as gently as possible?

As we continue to undergo the illuminating unmaskings of the Trump era, Bush has exposed himself. The motivations of all his actions and inactions, his talking points and silences, all need to be examined in a new light. We see what he is willing to do, and who he is really aligned with.

 

It’s a Big Club, and We Ain’t In It 

Now, in another sad move, George W Bush is taking his sincerely felt art, and applying it as a backhanded propaganda ploy.

I’d written before on Bush’s paintings of veterans he’s come to know. In his interviews regarding the book, Bush described his authentic engagement with painting, speaking a language that I recognized through my own experiences as an intuitive painter:

“The thing about painting is you never finish a painting. I mean, there’s always something, at least in my case, there’s always something I could do to improve, and so at some point in time, you had to have the discipline to say I’m moving onto another portrait.”

“…I don’t think the quest to develop a style that you can express yourself as fully as you want ever ends.”

Bush has a new book coming out now. Given the moment we find ourselves in, I believe this offering does capture Bush’s true style: Take something positive, and give the appearance of revering it, while simultaneously delivering a Deep State Parseltongue-bath twist which taints the whole enterprise.

Bush’s latest book is Out of Many, One. He evokes the motto of the United States to present 43 portraits of immigrants. So far so good. The melting pot was the traditional American immigrant experience. These immigrants loved the idea of freedom so much, they worked hard on a difficult process to come to our nation of laws. They left their old lives behind to start again, taking on all the risks and benefits of liberty; it is the essence of the American dream. Those are exactly the kind of people we should be welcome here.

As I state in my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

We are the only country ever founded on the idea that the people tell the government what to do, and not the other way around. We are the only country that acknowledges our rights and equality come from God, and are not granted to us by any earthly authority.

American is not a race, or an ethnicity, or a class. American is a set of principles, and appreciation for the opportunities those principles provide. That’s why the United States was called a melting pot for so long: despite all of our varied origins and circumstances, America gives a fresh start. We were forming a new civilization together, making many into a new dynamic Unum, the likes of which the world had never seen.

The world didn’t like this.

But Out of Many, One, being by George W Bush, we have to scrape off the appearances and get to the implied implications. After all, W’s beholden to that world that hates the USA so much, and he’s doing his part against us.

Our Postmodern administrative class fractured the Melting Pot long ago. Arrivals are no longer encouraged to unify as part of our great national efforts. Now they are encouraged to hyphenate and separate, and above all, to despise the very land which has offered its hospitality. Look no further than the growing Mogadishu in Minneapolis for the results of those efforts. You can take the war lords out of the ruins, but you can’t take the ruin out of the war lords.

Another pose struck here is the relentless conflation of immigration with illegal invasion. “Act of love,” droned the feckless Bush brother Jeb! Wrong. Illegal immigrants by definition have blown their side of the deal right off the bat, by disregarding the same system of laws that made our country thrive. You can’t cheat your way into being an American. Yet the elites lump the criminals in with the promising citizens, and accuse anyone who knows the difference of being a racist.

This, of course, segues right in the real point of George Bush’s book: Orangemanbad, and you’re bad too, if you support him. End of story.

Sorry George W Bush, I’m not buying your propaganda any more. I’m sorry that I now have to look at your paintings knowing what you’ve done, and why.

I’m much more interested in another tale: just what was in that envelope you received in the National Cathedral?

 

*************

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. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

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

Elitist Artist Marina Abramovic and Postmodernism’s Diabolical Agenda

Definitely Not a Satanist:

Marina Abramovic

 

“I’m only interested in an art which can change the ideology of society….”

-Marina Abramovic

 

Part of what I want this blog to do is highlight certain notable figures of the commercialized contemporary art world to a new audience.

I’d like to help educate all those good people who, up until now, have been uninterested, alienated, or even hostile to the efforts of today’s educated creative classes and their deep-pocketed supporters. From what I see, this potential audience of the disengaged is practically everyone in entire world.

What I want this newly attentive audience to appreciate is how correct they were to reject this garbage all along. This involves exposing the corruption festering away in the greedy and debased hearts of the institutions who have forced these toxins on an unwilling culture.

I also like to talk about inspirational figures and exciting new paths I see developing, but that’s for another post. I do see this as a time of renewal and opportunities. The future will be what we make of it, and I see a gathering of forces that ultimately will change the course of civilization. It’s part of what artists do; on an archetypal level we get the news before others, and help spread the word. Big changes are coming.

But the first step of recovery is to admit we have a problem, and the art world is a serious problem indeed.

Postmodernism rejects the combination of disciplined skills and inherent talent that made traditional art such a powerful human achievement. Postmodernism believes reality is shaped by manipulation and control of communications. It’s a form of magical thinking by the elites. They think they can break the endless chains of cause and effect, action and consequences, by stubbornly insisting on getting their way, always.

Marina Abramovic wanted to be an artist. In the 1970s she decided to become an artist not by making art, but by being a “performance artist.” This is when an artiste enacts some kind of public display, usually without the talent, coherence, or skills the traditional performing arts require.

Abramovic’s shtick was stupid rituals: playing with knives,  cavorting around flaming pentagrams, and publicly undergoing drug intoxications. Many later pieces feature feats of endurance, sort of like the one-time trend of flag-pole sitting, but with the added cache of pretentiousness and snobbery. Her risky yet pointless acts took her far in in the debased art world. She made good connections in the years since.

How good? How about right to the pinnacles of political power?

Wikileaked  2015 “Spirit Cooking” Invite for the Podesta Brothers 

 

That’s right, this celebrity artist was intertwined with the super-creepos Tony Podesta, and Hillary Clinton handler John “Skippy” Podesta. Tony Podesta’s “art collection” in particular is such a combination of unwitting confession and blatant horror show, I’ve never been able to finish the piece I started writing describing it.

The referenced “spirit cooking” seems to refer to an earlier piece by Abramovic which features a litany of nasty behaviors. The website Artsy was quick to explain away how any concerns raised over such ideas passing as art in the ruling class must be due to alt-right-nutsy-tinfoil-hatter-hater-fascists:

The email, which referenced Abramović’s 1996 performance piece Spirit Cooking, set off a false conspiracy theory concocted by the alt-right. It grossly misrepresented the email, distorted Abramović’s work, and drew the unsupported conclusion that Abramović, the brothers Podesta, and even Hillary Clinton were in cahoots as Satan-worshipping occultists…

It seems innocent enough: a dinner prepared by a controversial but influential artist whose work has been honored by prominent institutions the world over with large-scale exhibitions, honorary degrees, and more. (Her 2010 mid-career retrospective at MoMA, “The Artist is Present,” was one of the most popular shows the museum has ever mounted.) But members of the alt-right community decided to focus on selective facts about the performance, and in turn make massive “logical” (if that word even applies) jumps…

The ensuing bogus conclusions were inspired in large part by fairly buried documentation of a previously rather unknown 1996 Abramović performance and book of the same name. Unknown, not because Abramović had anything to hide, but because, in the grand scheme of her daring oeuvre, it wasn’t the strongest or by any means the most shocking piece she created. In it, a bespectacled, calm Abramović wrote absurdist phrases that resemble discombobulated, dark self-help mantras on the walls of an entire gallery in pigs blood.

Several of the phrases read:

“Fresh morning urine. Sprinkle over nightmare dreams.”

“With a sharp knife, cut deeply into the middle finger of your left hand. Eat the pain.”

“Mix fresh breast milk with fresh sperm milk. Drink on earthquake nights.”

“Sitting on a copper chair. Comb your hair with a clear quartz crystal brush, until your memory is released.”

Yes, the phrases resemble incantations or recipes for storybook potions. And true, they make little sense. But that’s precisely Abramović’s point. Across her career, she’s tapped into and simultaneously questioned the influence of ritual and religion, highlighting both their potency and, occasionally, their absurdity. Spirit Cooking isn’t a ritual meant to conjure spirits or worship devils—it’s a comment on humanity’s reliance on ritual to organize and legitimize our lives and contain our bodies.

John Podesta Overlaid On Spirit Cooking Instructions

Did He Eat the Pain? 

There’s more upper crust shenanigans Abramovic has been  mixed up in, like the entirely-not-Satanic-at-all mock cannibalism soiree at the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art in 2011. Punk icon Debbie Harry assisted in butchering a life-size cake replica of herself to serve the A List guests.

Say it Ain’t So Blondie:

Marina Abromovic and Debbie Harry Stab It With their Steely Knives 

Doubts about Abramovic’s infernal intentions have cost her. She has stated despite her denials of serving Lucifer, she fears some nut will do her harm. She even lost a gig with another super-rich creepo, Bill Gates. Microsoft had to pull an ad for her “mixed reality” holographic projection due to her controversial reputation. What a loss. Who wouldn’t want to strap secretive technology onto your head to summon a sinister crone into your presence? It’s like a variation of the plot of Halloween III.

I would never presume to judge the state of someone’s soul. The nature of Abramovic’s beliefs are between her and the Lord. I too am familiar with the often dark places the pursuit of art can lead. It’s something of an occupational hazard for creatives.

However, I can speak plainly on Postmodernism, the destructive deconstructive philosophy had enables cultural institutional support for absurdities and abuses like Abramovic’s body of work. In my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, I wrote of the revolting relativism which drives the Postmodern ideology:

Where the Modern age formed a mandate to question everything, the Postmodern age demanded we accept anything. At least that’s what the rhetoric advertises. Like most Postmodern assertions, the claims of impartiality do not stand up to scrutiny; it’s just more camouflage for self-serving attitudes.

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. Objectivity meant comprehending reality, which existed beyond our personal preferences. We held these truths to be self-evident.

Postmodernists understand such objective standards are an obstacle to their desire for unaccountable power. Where Modernist skepticism was believed to be a tool to gain deeper understanding, Postmodernists project the notion that all the questioning and differing conclusions means there are no underlying truths.

To the Postmodernist, the cosmos is subjective. There is no reality to know, no morality, no way to gauge effective behavior; there are only opinions. These opinions aren’t even our own, but are determined by whichever group identity we subscribe to. We have no individual responsibility. It’s impossible to judge the quality of anything.

To the Postmodernist, because feelings exist, there can be no such thing as facts.

For people who claim it’s impossible to judge anything, Postmodernists are very judgmental. No culture is better than another, they propose, unless it’s the traditions and accomplishments of Western civilization. The West, which has given rise to the most prosperous and liberated societies in world history, is automatically bad, and needs to be destroyed.

Here the mask comes off. It’s those same old Cultural Marxists at work, lusting after the social control the freedoms of the West denies them.

Postmodernism is a ridiculous conceit. It cannot make anything new, it only creates pale imitations of the achievements of the past. It could only be embraced by pampered people who’ve never really experienced the uncompromising roughness of life. And even then, while advancing this phony philosophy, the Postmodernists have to overlook the glaring hypocrisy of their own behavior versus their words. They are seething with cognitive dissonance.

I have no problem in saying Postmodernism is evil. It’s whole purpose is to switch off the Enlightenment, so the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected can rule over a new dark age. Fortunately, the new force of Remodernism is rising as the spirit of the reconstruction we greatly need.

As far as Marina Abramovic goes, I’ll be praying for her-and for us all, as we endure the chaotic death throes of Postmodernism.

Marina Abramovic

Why Would Anyone Think She Was a Satanist? 

 

*************

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. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

Countering a Culture Programmed by Traitorous Hacks

On the Turning Away

Richard Bledsoe “Fugue” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 16″ 

 

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.”

-George Orwell, 1984

art

That quote, and many others from the same seminal work, are frequently cited on the internet these days. Orwell’s prophetic concepts are being enacted in real time right now, all around us. It’s frustrating because it’s all so contrived, and choreographed; nevertheless, actual damage is being done.

But the great unmaking is not a new phenomenon. The long-planned destruction of Western Civilization has been going on for decades, hidden in plain sight. The corrosion was gradually implemented by the imitation of improvements, so-called updates and upgrades enacted under the camouflage of compassion, done in the sacred name of “progress.”

Across our nation, the sleeper cells have been activated. The Democrat Party is openly fomenting crime and treason. The Republican shtick of acting like feckless nincompoops has been exposed as just another aspect of the racketeering. The GOPe isn’t really the Stupid Party; they are in on the plot, and are knowingly betraying us.

What the last few months have proven is that the elites intend to progress us right back into feudalism. The portion of the general population allowed to survive will be the cowering serfs under the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected.

Who gets to be part of these new overlords? To be part of the ruling establishment, you don’t need to actually be competent, or effective, or creative; you just need to conform to the dogmas, assertively and ostentatiously. That’s where their conceits begin to break down.

Postmodernism is the default globalist position. This rancid philosophical disguise for Marxism denies truth, dismantles rationality, and seeks to create unaccountable power for its acolytes. Virtue signaling and parroting work great for navigating the intricacies of the Postmodern hierarchies. However, outside their invented ecosystem, reality is a ruthless judge of the results the drones of the hive mind produce.

The undermining of our heritage, growth, and potentials didn’t start with the toppling of statues. In my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, I discussed how the establishment drained the vitality out of the culture, to preserve their own privileged status:

Postmodernists often raid from the past and the efforts of actual craftsmen in order to cobble together their disjointed offerings. The elitists presumed an aristocratic privilege to loot and pillage. They justified the misuse by asserting they were doing it ironically, which leads to questioning, and just what is art anyway, blah blah blah.

But now a more insidious tactic has taken form. The Postmodernists want to keep us frozen in this cultural moment, where they call the shots. This involves stifling new developments. They are still stealing like crazy, but are fencing their booty in such a way they are pushing sentimental buttons, not ironic ones. It’s a warmer, cuddlier version of the con.

The clearest cultural examples of this can be seen coming out of Hollywood. The film industry has been devoured by remakes, reimaginings, sequels, prequels, and self-referential “universe” combines. We’ve even had to invent a new term for awkward hybrids of remake and sequel: the requel.

Instead of displaying actual creativity, movies are just hoping to remind the audience of something that was once creative. The 2015 production Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a prime example. I’ve already discussed how George Lucas exposed himself as a haughty Postmodern technocrat in the terrible prequels he released. Those pictures might have made big box office coasting on the reputation of the original Star Wars trilogy, but the money-men were alarmed by the poor quality of the product. The studios don’t really care about quality, but they needed to keep the brand name viable, and they didn’t trust the mind that brought us Jar Jar Binks. To save the franchise, Star Wars was purchased from Lucas and farmed out to hired studio hands.

I enjoyed The Force Awakens as a superficial popcorn movie. But I noticed it was constructed out of self-conscious references and obvious rehashes of elements from the original Star Wars. It was like a washed up band with a couple of its elderly members still on board, playing alongside politically correct diversity hires. They trotted out the golden oldies from decades before. Hey, remember this one— Luke’s Jedi training drone? And so on and so on.

The film and its subsequent followups are full of shout outs like that. It is distracting to keep seeing oblique references to earlier, better movies. Not only that, but these updated versions ruin the legacy of the classic previous films with the addition of nasty, muddled Postmodern philosophizing. These artless attempts to reprogram the archetypes are off-putting, and add another layer of disgraceful failure to the projects.

(Note that I wrote this before the franchise killer The Last Jedi shat upon us all. I won’t be watching The Rise of Skywalker, because it’s pointless at this point. )

Ah, those were the good old days, when the elites were still feeding us soma to keep us passive and distracted. No more lulling for us. Now we are getting the boot to the face, good and hard.  The intimidation, destruction and violence were lurking behind the pleasure dome ambiance all along. It’s the Leftist way.

As our current establishment is seemingly committed to descending from cultural stagnation into outright collapse, what can be done?

Enduring changes start in the arts, because real art gives tangible form to ideas. Art translates concepts into action and influence.

I will continue to use the liberty I have to express my visions. I will encourage art that understands life is a beautiful gift, full of both individual and shared significance.

I’m finding inspiration from outside of the arts, and looking to transmute convictions into communications. For years I’ve been following the persecution prosecution of General Michael Flynn.  To me, this man is potentially the linchpin for undoing the globalist scheme. The Deep State puppet judge is still stalling, but it seems like the conclusion of Flynn’s show trial may be coming.

This impression was reinforced when Flynn recently released a remarkable editorial, “If We Don’t Act, 2% of the People Are About To Control the Other 98%.” In it, Flynn offers encouragement:

Don’t fret. Through smart, positive actions of resolute citizen-patriots, we can prevail. Always keep in mind that our enemy (these dark forces) invariably have difficulties of which we are ignorant.

For most Americans, these forces appear to be strong. I sense they are desperate. I also sense that only a slight push on our part is all that is required to defeat these forces. How should that push come?

Flynn goes on to recommend prayer and support for our beleaguered law enforcement, vital advice. But even more so, he calls on all lovers of freedom to take action. Now. While we still can.

I’m a painter, not a pastor, policeman or a politician. But I get the message. I can do my part of making that slight push, through art. To provide an alternative to the institutional dreck being forced on us. Break the monopoly, and break this evil spell.

I became involved with the international arts movement Remodernism over 10 years ago. Finally I saw people speaking out against Postmodern decay, and providing an alternative.

It was so much more fun to counter the silliness, when the art market was presenting obscenely priced obscenities and folly. Now the art world, like every other aspect of life under our credentialed-but-ignorant elites, is merely another part of the totalitarian combine. Grim and incompetent leftwing propaganda has assimilated the art world.

Our current cultural institutions are run by toadies and apparatchiks, not creatives. They can’t compete in an open exchange of artistic efforts and ideas, because all their training and inclinations consist of spreading ideology, not art. And let me tell you, despite the irrelevance which elitist malfeasance has forced onto art, it remains a potent force of humanity, currently being underutilized.

Real art provides society the inspiration to live up to ideals, the encouragement to think and feel deeply, the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. Real art can tear the wheels off the dehumanizing, corrupt juggernaut that was stealthily constructed to crush us all.

The unexpected tenacity of American citizens has rattled the insiders. They’ve had to make their move too soon, before their battlefield was fully operational. Exposed, they are weakened.

As I share in Remodern America:

We need an art for this era, and we won’t get that by mimicking the outer appearances of works from long ago. Remodernism does not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We do our own work.

As Modernism showed us, genuine art both reflects and shapes the time of its creation. Remodernism is about capturing the spirit of this age in personalized expressions. The Postmodern institutions are working hard to suppress this cultural evolution. They are desperate to maintain their social monopoly, and the stakes are even higher than the art world. The longstanding globalist plot is in real jeopardy.

 

Renew the arts, and renew the civilization. Where we go one, we go all. Envision the opportunities of a Remodern America, represented by art of the people, by the people, and for the people.

 

*************

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. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

 

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

The Postmodern War on America

Is It Really Better to Rule in Hell? 

Richard Bledsoe “Tank” oil on wood panel 30″ x 36″ 

When I was a teen I read some of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. The last book of the series Fleming created, not really completed at the time of his death in 1964, was The Man with the Golden Gun. Considered a weak finale for the legendary spy, the plot had Agent 007 travelling to Jamaica to disrupt an attempted alliance between the Mafia and the expansionist forces of international Communism.

Bond missed the real target here. He should have gone to Chicago.

The crime syndicate dominated Windy City was fertile ground for the plot of world conquest. The Mob was already in the business of brutality, deception, and despotism, the same means Leftists use to achieve their goals. It was a natural partnership. Through the bait and switch tactics of “community organizing,” Frankfurt School corruption of education, and the nurturing of toxic radicals like Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, and Barack Obama, the Illinois spawned alliance of Marxist Crime has now long marched its way into being the political system of Globalism.

It’s not called what it is, of course. Leftists lie and distort; it’s necessary to hide their evil intentions. We’ve come to call this mass cultural subversion Postmodernism. And what we’ve been going through in 2020 is the push to bring Postmodernism to its final solution: the destruction of Western Civilization. Postmodern partisans seek to switch off the Enlightenment, in order to rule over a new Dark Age.

When I started writing this piece just a few short weeks ago, I had plenty to say about how the wacky woo hoo virus hysteria exposed massive corruption and Chinese influence in our traitorous elitists. Arbitrary and needless shutdowns devoured American prosperity, coincidentally right when a new trade agreement undercut Chinese market manipulations, and a tectonic scale spy scandal started emerging regarding the Obama administration and all their cronies.

China’s rigid totalitarian system is the desired outcome of the majority of the world’s administrative classes. They won’t admit this, but look at their actions, instead of listening to their empty words.

Events overtook the essay I was preparing. So now we have divisive race riots being inflamed, on top of the Overblown Outbreak. This is just a continuation of the same war, a new battlefield of the thoroughly planned and prepared Postmodern assault on the United States. It’s being facilitated across our culture by a massive betrayal by the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected, our own countrymen. As they’ve demanded society mask up to pretend to prevent disease, and to facilitate looting, our betters have been unmasked as the deeply embedded enemies within.

This is Postmodern War for the 21st century. It’s not fought openly with bombs and soldiers. It’s combat waged by other means, with biological agents, economics, propaganda, data manipulation, sabotage. President John F. Kennedy warned what was coming in a 1961 speech:

“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence — on infiltration instead of invasion — on subversion instead of elections — on intimidation instead of free choice — on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.

“It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly-knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed”.

Speaking out on these schemes is probably what got JFK killed. The plans continued to advance in all the decades since. We are living through the harvest of the wind which was sown.

How to describe the present moment? Some say it’s a civil war. This time instead of being divided along roughly geographic lines, we are in opposed camps of status: The rich and gentry class have been co-opted into being the enemies of liberty and order. They are all-too-willing accomplices for authoritarianism, as they have been indoctrinated into the Postmodern philosophy for generations now.  Conformity is mandatory for advancement in society; elitists don’t mind though, because in the looming tyranny, they assume they will get to be the tyrants.

We can plainly see the strategy of the Postmodern establishment. In areas under blue dominion, the governing class has ruthlessly oppressed normality, while at the same time stepping back from their duty to prevent chaos and crime, actively encouraging destruction. The goal of these domestic enemy combatants seems to be to collapse stability in the areas they control, and drag the entire country down with them.

Others talk about China’s Cultural Revolution. The dynamics are sure the same, with vicious mobs of no-nothings incited into targeting opponents of the Cause. The moral panics being whipped up let the current stealthy controllers remain discretely in control.

We have something though that the poor oppressed Chinese populace did not have: a choice. We have a clear alternative to the Leftist monolith which has been so carefully constructed for a century or more. An enduring American Nationalism exists, despite all the media, government, academic, and corporate efforts to deny or suppress it.

A new energy has been rising around the world, and the United States is a natural environment for it’s expression. Remodernism is taking the place of failing Postmodernism. Because Postmodernists are losing. They never intended to have to come out into the open like this, and make a stand for their lack of any principles apart from their own lust for power. It’s ugly right now, because they are like wounded beasts, dragged from their safe spaces, the plan for gradual covert conquest thwarted. Exposed, they know they can be smashed.

I knew there would be troubles ahead when I wrote my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization. Little did I know though what forms the transition would take. I wrote:

Instead of the Postmodern takeover of the institutions leading to the conversion of the population, we’ve wound up with an establishment fundamentally at odds with the greater populace.  In America the citizens are the real leaders. We are not willing to surrender our birthright of freedom. The current crop of elitist manager-types need to be reminded of this.

Us against them was not the traditional way in the USA. However, recognizing we are now at war with an infection that will kill the host if not extinguished, it’s going to have to be that way for a while.

It will not be easy. Our country’s domestic enemies implemented their schemes virtually unopposed. Now, after decades of absorbing slow but steady sabotage, the sleeping giant America is stirring.

Remodernism is the wake-up call.

Some call what we are experiencing a Cold Civil War. Let us pray it remains cool. Parasitic Postmodernism will be destroyed, but it will not go quietly. I look to President Abraham Lincoln as an example for the Remodern Reconstruction to come.

Our first Civil War took place in the 1860s, when Democrats resorted to rebellion and violence in an attempt to maintain their political power. It’s estimated over 600,000 died to resolve that conflict.

Once the Union was victorious, Lincoln planned to bring former adversaries back together into a unified national identity. Sadly, he was murdered before he could implement his vision, and the defeated Democrats kept their radical racial injustice in place for another 100 years. They are still playing that race card; it’s an easy tool to use to divide and conquer.

America does not need to waste another century like this. We must heed the better angels of our nature.

The course of a civilization follows where its art leads it. Before the Marxists started working their sorcery on society as a whole, they corrupted the arts first. The coming Remodern renewal first started in the arts as well, in England in 1999.

It may seem art is minor compared to the turmoil of current events. That is only because the true power of art has been stolen from our culture. Art is a mighty weapon that the Leftists made sure they took over before they launched their war. We can take it back, and we have already begun.

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. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

 

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