Richard Bledsoe “Squidgate” Oil on Canvas 36″ x 48″
In music, a greatest hits collection puts together the popular songs of a group or performer into one convenient package. Sometimes a new offering or a rarity is added as a bonus, or the selection is out padded out with not-quite-a-hit tracks.
After 8 years of serious blogging, I realize some of my more significant posts get lost in the shuffle. They won’t come up in the Top Posts sidebar unless they get rediscovered and receive a large number of views in a short time period.
To share some highlights, I’ve added a Greatest Hits widget to the side bar of the Remodern Review.
Instead of going strictly just by the articles with the biggest numbers of clicks, this collection is curated with the articles which mean the most to me, in addition to having large numbers of views.
I will periodically update the list to rotate through my favorites. The first list includes:
Marcel Duchamp was the precursor of today’s useless, corrupt art world. This article exposes his chicanery and the possible fate of the most infamous work attributed to him.
I’ve heard the authorship of the Postmodern manifesto is disputed. It doesn’t matter who wrote it; it is a deadly accurate description of the enemy’s mentality. Beyond Jordan Peterson’s devastating video takedown of Postmodern immorality, I have not found a better summary of the toxic philosophy which is destroying the world.
My interview with the cofounder of the Remodern movement. Thomson’s ideas and art are a great influence on me, it was an honor to get him to share some insights.
art
I hope you enjoy some of my greatest hits!
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
In this document, I provided a summary of what is wrong with the contemporary art establishment, proposed new solutions, and defended why art still matters.
The first part of the manifesto defined the problems.
The second part describes the crisis point reached and what the turning of the tide will mean: a shift of our civilization from the Postmodern to the Remodern mode.
The third part describes the shared motivations of Remodernists, and what such a consciousness means in the United States. Although art is an international activity, Americans, with our freedoms and resources, should be leading the way.
Remodernism is the open source arts movement for the twenty-first century. Remodernism began in London in 1999, first codified by painters Billy Childish and Charles Thomson as an alternative to the corrupt and out-of-touch establishment art scene. Remodernism recognizes artmaking as an inclusive, spiritual activity, and encourages a DIY mentality. Remodernism synchronizes with reverenced American values of equality, faith, action and initiative.
Remodernism is the latest iteration of the American character: ordinary people working as explorers and inventors, optimistic, self-reliant and productive. The Remodernist artist formulates expressions of personal liberty in pursuit of higher meaning and significance. Remodernism is the pursuit of excellence. We don’t grovel before the current cultural gatekeepers, we want to interact with everyone. We are story tellers. We make a complex art for complex times. We are the swing of the pendulum.
Remodernism is appropriate for America, a young nation in an ancient land. Remodernist artists wander through the ruins of fossilized civilization. With our own hands, we assemble from the debris affectionate homages to the human condition, works afflicted with humor and humbled by grace. We love where we’ve come from, and we preserve that love for the future to see. We invoke a respectful reverence for the past, for we accept we will be joining that infinite regression. We understand art is about the eternal.
Remodernism is the return of art as a revelation. We are showing particular things about ourselves that can also be universally recognized. Our art symbolically represents flawed, searching humanity participating in birth, existence, growth, and death. It is mysterious and moving, comic and tragic, clumsy and elegant.Remodernism is a celebration of the beauty and weirdness of the life God has granted us.
This is our moment in the mighty continuum of art and life. Real art knows no boundaries; it communicates across all times, across all cultures. Art is as much an aspect of our species as the opposable thumb, and just as prevalent. The art world can be as big as all of humankind, if we do it right. Remodernism accepts responsibility for the art of our times, conveying the wisdom of tradition into the opportunities of the future. Remodernism is love made visible.
Many cultural critics discuss problems, but solutions are rare. The great thing about Remodernism, which encourages a DIY attitude, the power to make a difference goes back into the hands of people: artists and patrons alike.
This renewal is disruptive innovation applied to the corrupt and insular art market. and because empire follows art, as the visionary William Blake knew, when we renew the arts, we will renew our civilzation.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
In this document, I provided a summary of what is wrong with the contemporary art establishment, proposed new solutions, and defended why art still matters.
The first part of the manifesto defined the problems.
The second part describes the crisis point reached and what the turning of the tide will mean: a shift of our civilization from the Postmodern to the Remodern mode.
Art is a more enduring and vital human experience than the power games of a greedy and fraudulent ruling class. The managers crashed the culture in pursuit of their agenda. They defend their usurped authority and privileges with doublethink, misdirection, and intimidation. Their time has run out. Reality is crashing back through their carefully constructed facades, and a time of reckoning has come. Enduring changes start in the arts. Remodernism defeats Postmodern desecration.
Remodernism reboots the culture. Remodernism is not a style of art, it is a form of motivation. We express the universal language of inspired humanity. We do not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We are strengthened by drawing on traditions thousands of years old. We integrate the bold, visionary efforts of the Modern era into a holistic, meaningful expression of contemporary life. Remodernism seeks a humble maturity which heals the fragmentation and contradictions of Modernism, and obliterates the narcissistic lies of Postmodernism. Remoderism is disruptive innovation applied to the moribund art world.
Many cultural critics discuss problems, but solutions are rare. The great thing about Remodernism, which encourages a DIY attitude, the power to make a difference goes back into the hands of people: artists and patrons alike.
This is an especially promising development for the United States, which the people will make back into the land of the free. The next stage of the manifesto, to be featured in an upcoming post, discusses change in America.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
In this document, I provided a summary of what is wrong with the contemporary art establishment, proposed new solutions, and defended why art still matters.
It is said the first stage in addressing any problem is first admitting there is a problem. Theses are the three points which describe the current sorry state of the arts.
THE REMODERN AMERICA MANIFESTO
The Reconstruction of an Art of the People, by the People, for the People
1. Art is undergoing a crisis of relevance. Elitist malfeasance has marginalized the visual arts in popular culture. In doing so, the New Aristocracy of the Well-Connected block access to powerful resources. They deny our society the inspiration to live up to ideals, the encouragement to think and feel deeply, the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. As a result, the mass audience has turned away. People instinctually reject the superficial and nihilistic contemporary art championed by an imperious would be ruling class.
2. Ruling class totalitarians use Postmodern art as a tool of oppression. Elitists have weaponized art into an assault on the foundations of Western civilization. This deceitful cabal seeks to destroy any principled perspective on the lies, manipulations, and abuses they commit. The scourge of Postmodern relativism as a cultural force is no accident; it’s a top-down driven campaign. Hyping soulless, unskilled art has a toxic, weakening effect on society as a whole.
Many cultural critics discuss problems, but solutions are rare. The great thing about Reomdernism, which encourages a DIY attitude, the power to make a difference goes back into the hands of people: artists and patrons alike.
The next stage of the manifesto, to be featured in an upcoming post, discusses those ideas.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Richard Bledsoe “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″2022
In 2022 the major painting I worked on was a return to a subject explored in an earlier piece. While the story was the same, my approach to it and my experience in creating it were completely new.
I’ve loved blues music since I was a teenager in the 1980s; the first purchase I ever made in the genre was a cassette of the Robert Johnson compilation “King of the Delta Blues Singers.” I’d read about the legend of how Johnson went to a crossroad and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for worldly glory. The tale resonated with my interests in both spirituality and weirdness.
Those same fascinations drive my art.
I’d painted the scene “At the Crossroad” in 2013, shortly after I switched from oil paints to acrylics. The title was a quote from Johnson’s song “Cross Road Blues.”
Richard Bledsoe “At the Crossroad” acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″ 2013
I did not have the painting in my possession long. It sold the first time I exhibited it, to a nice young couple I’d never met before. I do not know its present whereabouts.
I’m not sure of the exact dates, but in early 2020 I began a new major work, based on another aspect of the Robert Johnson legend and another song lyric: “Hellhound on My Trail.”
This painting took until April 2022 to complete, incorporating long fallow periods when the work went untouched for months, as I focused on other paintings.
Richard Bledsoe “Hellhound On My Trail” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″ 2022
It was the biggest painting I worked on during the whole plandemic scare, always hovering incomplete in the background as I cranked through numerous smaller pieces.
When I finally posted the completed version of “Hellhound” on my blog, it also sold shortly after its public debut.
Not only that, but the patron who purchased it had a request for a prequel and a sequel for the image created. He wanted depictions of both the initial crossroad meeting and the ultimate consequences, when the devil comes to collect.
“I have visions. They come at the most random times. I could be washing the dishes, or driving to work, and suddenly the picture is there. It usually arrives now with a title, dimensions and suggestions for technique.”
I was fortunate that I was given a vision to fulfill the patron’s request. My original “Crossroad” painting was for me a depiction of the musician as universal man realizing the power and disaster of the bargain already made. The new version would be that moment where the man had to make that choice, hesitating right on the threshold of destiny and damnation, all taking place as some eerie moonlit blues.
The devil is grinning of course because he already knows how this story ends.
Once I saw the drama of these two figures coming together, I know I could make the piece.
I obtained another 30″ x 40″ canvas so the series of paintings would match in size. I began working on it in early June 2022, and completed it December 10, 2022.
The painting went through many stages of development.
This has been a very hard year in so many ways. Throughout it all working on this painting, finding the beauty in it, was a source of joy to me.
I hope we will proceed with the third one, which I also have a vision for. The title is another Robert Johnson lyric: “I Believe I’m Sinking Down.”
In my reading, I came across Psalms 1, which I feel encapsulates the story told in these three paintings:
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
“At the Crossroad” is walking into the counsel of the ungodly.
“Hellhound On My Trail” is the restless wanderings of guilt and sin, like the chaff driven by the wind.
“I Believe I’m Sinking Down” is the perishing of the ungodly way.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
“Yet because art allows humanity to relay complex concepts that are hard to put into words, spirituality and art are naturally linked. Their affinity remains powerful, despite over one hundred years of ideological efforts to sever or redefine their common bonds.”
Richard Bledsoe “Fugue” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 16″
art
“Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul. All souls are sacred, the soul of all the bipeds in every quarter of the globe.”
-Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall “Self Portrait with Muse” oil on canvas approximately 62″ x 55″
art
“I paint because the spirits whisper madly inside my head.”
-El Greco
El Greco “Laocoön” oil on canvas 33″ x 44″
art
“My work embodies little visions of the great intangible… …Some will say he’s gone mad – others will look and say he’s looked in at the lattices of Heaven and come back with the madness of splendor on him.”
-Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley “Himmel” Oil on canvas with artist-painted wood frame 49″ x 49″
art spirituality
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
ART IS FOR EVERYONE: A POP UP GALLERY EXPERIENCE AT SEEDS FOR AUTISM
Seeds For Autism Hosts Group Art Exhibit
PHOENIX, AZ – Local artists present a pop up gallery experience at Seeds for Autism. Community artists and the talented participants at Seeds for Autism present a special one night show on Friday, May 27, 2022, 6pm to 8pm.
A pop up gallery is a temporary art show held in a non-tradtional location. Local artist Richard Bledsoe described how Seeds for Autism is an ideal venue for an art exhibit. “I’ve seen lives transformed by the programs at Seeds for Autism. One of the biggest factors I see in this progress is the hands-on work Seeds emphasizes. As a painter, I understand the personal growth which happens when you engage with the material world. The making and viewing of art inspires kinship for all participants. We are grateful to Seeds for providing this opportunity to bring the community together.”
SEEDs for Autism is a unique vocational training program in Phoenix, AZ dedicated to providing adults across the spectrum with hands-on experience as they learn a variety of life skills, social skills and job skills in a real-life work environment. Through the production and sale of their hand-crafted home and garden items, adults on the autism spectrum build self-confidence as they step outside of their comfort zone and GROW.
This event was created to raise awareness and support for the life-changing program at SEEDs for Autism. Participating artists will be donating 50% of all sales to SEEDs.
ADMISSION IS FREE!
SEEDs for Autism 3420 S. 7th St. Phoenix, AZ 85040
Richard Bledsoe “That’s A Moray” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 20″
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
Robert Henri “Snow in New York” oil on canvas 32″ x 25 13/16″ 1902
“Do whatever you do intensely. The artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life.”
-Robert Henri
When I was a teenage punk, I was just having fun.
Only later did I understand I was participating in the messy but vital process of cultural renewal.
It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I was sixteen years old in 1986, living near Washington, DC. My geeky group of friends and I were performing the young male ritual of rebellion right next to an epicenter of an aggressive, controversial youth movement.
Only about a decade old at that point, the music and fashion sensation of punk had mutated into what was called hardcore. DC was the home of now legendary bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat, and the excitement they generated spilled out into the suburbs.
I got a bad haircut and started wearing a black leather jacket and combat boots. On weekends my buddies and I left behind VHS movies and Dungeons and Dragons marathons and ventured into the big city, prowling the hip enclave of Georgetown.
We had a routine route, visiting the Exorcist stairs, Smash Records, and the Commander Salamander boutique. Mainly we walked the streets, feeling a thrill of immediate kinship whenever we encountered another band of promenading punks. We finally had something in common with some girls, too.
In time we started to visit the seedy clubs featuring shows with loud, fast songs and shouted vocals, while the audience danced by jumping around and bouncing off of each other. It was exhilarating.
Punk began when a bunch of self-starting kids, often working class, got bored with the bland, predictable culture being offered by the establishment. At the time there was no internet, and only sensationalized, derogatory mainstream media coverage. Hardcore punk was all underground and word of mouth, shared mix tapes and Xeroxed fliers. It felt like a conspiracy, like being initiated into something mysterious and special. We created our own alternative, and it spread.
Punk’s anti-establishment outlook put it on the radical side of things, but I never got how advocates of a movement that emphasized individuality and independence could turn to a politically leftist worldview. In the 1980s the Cold War was still raging, and a lot of the major figures of the punk world openly sided with the communists. But looking at actions instead of rhetoric, it was clear to me leftists were the most vicious enforcers of the establishment in history. Around the world, their whole political system as practiced demanded an individual’s submission to centralized power, the exact opposite of punk’s message. It made no sense to me how any free thinker would ally themselves with brutal regimes who used constant surveillance, intimidation and violence to keep entire populations captive. The problems of America, how we fell short of our high ideals, how we were easily distracted by crass consumerism, seemed minor compared to the literally murderous systematic oppression coordinated by greedy and aggressive totalitarians elsewhere in the world. I did not understand I had been recruited into a covert war which had been brewing for decades. The Cold War was being fought unacknowledged right in the midst of our placid existences, in the classrooms, on the television. Postmodernism co-opted the potentials of punk. If I’d had more perspective then I could have seen the double standards in play, and understood their origins. But I was just a kid, lacking experience and insight. It was easier just to ignore the contradictions. If punk meant being a nonconformist, I would follow my own conscience. I could reject materialism and unthinking obedience to authority without buying into audaciously misguided leftist dogma. To me punk went beyond the music that sounded a certain way, a gaudy aesthetic, lapses into lazy nihilism, and a juvenile reflex towards sardonic defensiveness. Punk advanced quintessentially traditional American viewpoints: no respect for the unjustified hierarchies the powerful attempt to impose; emphasis on action and energy; commitment to justice and progress; and the desire for the liberty to pursue individual happiness.
When I look around today, at all the people with the dyed hair, tattoos, and facial piercings, I still remember how shocking such trappings were when my peers were doing it back in the day. It makes me reflect how art is a leading indicator for society-for good or ill. All the once-startling punk displays are bland and predictable.
Almost one hundred years earlier, there was another aggressive, controversial cultural phenomena going on in the United States, in painting. We’ve come to call it the Ashcan School.
Artist Robert Henri (June 24, 1865-July 12, 1929) was an inspirational artist and teacher initially based in Philadelphia; he later relocated to New York City. Henri (pronounced Hen-rye) was bored with the bland, predictable art being produced in the American art establishment at the time: either gentle, pale Impressionist imitations, or flattering Gilded Age portraits of wealthy patrons.
Henri mentored a group of journalist illustrators which included notables such as William Glackens, John Sloan, and George Luks. In an era before common photographic reproduction, newspapers used artists to create the pictures for their stories. These men were used to depicting the grime and grimness of newsworthy city life. Henri encouraged them to bring that real world engagement into fine art.
Like punk many years later, the Ashcan School was an alliance of freethinking individuals each following their own artistic vision, rather than an organized, regimented movement. The artists shared a Modernist urban sensibility, dark palette, gritty realist subject matter, and an appreciation for the common people. They made sketchy yet accurate depictions how life was lived at the time, instead of polite, idealized fantasies. As Henri put it, “There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.”
This was considered to be bad taste. Like many other art movements like Impressionism or Fauvism, the title of Ashcan started as an insult. A reviewer sneered about the “pictures of ashcans and girls hitching up their skirts on Horatio Street.” The artists embraced the derision as a badge of honor.
The Ashcan School artists were also referred to as “The Apostles of Ugliness,” much as the punks were called “foul mouthed yobs.”
But the critics are missing something important: the ugliness isn’t the point. It’s the willingness to undergo the rough journey needed to renew the energy of life.
Something too constrained stagnates, even dies. There’s always something a little wild and scary about real growth.
There’s a difference between pretty and beautiful. Prettiness is a surface. Beauty is the substance. Pretty is an outside appearance; beauty is from within. Pretty is agreeable. Beauty is truthful, and as we know, the truth isn’t always pleasing.
Accepting yet refining the harshness of truth through creative expression is a transcendental experience. The joyous human offering of art can add significance to mundane squalor.
Right now, Postmodern establishment mismanagement has created a culture which is neither pretty nor beautiful. They need us to believe the squalor is the point, after all. Artists are needed as the pioneers which carry out the idea that life is wonderful and surprising, even if elitists call us trashy. Cultural renewal will be a little wild and scary.
The latest cycle of real change in the arts actually started decades ago, although the cultural institution-controlling elites do their best to suppress the news.
In 2000, two British artists, Charles Thomson and Billy Childish, were tired of transgressive yet still bland and predictable Postmodern art. They were brave enough to tell the truth: the galleries and museum were filled with objects that weren’t really art at all. They described a new cultural understanding called Remodernism, rising to take the place of failed Postmodern artifice. Their manifesto included this key proposition: “The making of true art is man’s desire to communicate with himself, his fellows and his God. Art that fails to address these issues is not art.”
Childish soon struck off on his own, and continues as a celebrated painter, musician, and writer. Thomson remained committed to cultivating Remodernism as a movement. Guided by his inspirational example, grassroots art groups were founded around the world.
I was inspired. In my own Remodern America manifesto, I wrote my take on what is happening now:
Remodernism reboots the culture. Remodernism is not a style of art, it is a form of motivation. We express the universal language of inspired humanity. We do not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We are strengthened by drawing on traditions thousands of years old. We integrate the bold, visionary efforts of the Modern era into a holistic, meaningful expression of contemporary life. Remodernism seeks a humble maturity which heals the fragmentation and contradictions of Modernism, and obliterates the narcissistic lies of Postmodernism. Remodernism is disruptive innovation applied to the moribund art world.
As for Robert Henri, his wisdom was captured in a great book called The Art Spirit. It encourages us to understand how important the role of the artist is.
As for me, I still pull out my Bad Brains and Minor Threat albums when the mood strikes me. It’s good music to paint to.
A version of this article originally appeared on The Masculinist, now on Substack
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
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 abook. Or a painting.
My latest completed painting. These sinister characters lurk in the shadows and plot. It is them, and those of their ilk, which have woven the web of delusions that are driving our culture to ruin.
Am I crazy, or ahead of the curve? Time will tell. In the meantime, here are another couple of sinister characters.
Richard and Michele Read the News
A year later, on March 31, 2020, we had just been informed two weeks to flatten the curve was just not good enough. Really. Flatten the curve, or flatten our civilization?
I am convinced the painting I made was a premonition of the Overblown Outbreak. What I did not take into account in the prediction made in my statement is before we reach the Remodern era, we have to survive the death throes of Postmodernism. We’re living that now, and it’s ugly.
The state of the culture is like that quote about the weather attributed to Mark Twain: everybody’s talking about it, but no one does anything about it.
Granted, there’s lots to complain about. Any sensible observer can see the social environment is rotting before our eyes. There’s endless commentary available on the latest outrages, and the hits just keep on coming.
It is important to call out the issues occurring. The first step towards change is recognizing there is a problem. But it’s only the first step. Once the problem is identified, it’s not effective to just keep recognizing it, over and over again. Action is called for.
Unlike the phony climate change hoax, the social environment is manmade. The cultural decay we are experiencing is the result of deliberate behaviors by specific people. They have intentions, and they make decisions. Funds are spent or withheld; access is granted or denied; viewpoints are encouraged or suppressed. The originating perpetrators tend to move stealthily, shielded by bureaucratic haze and patient incrementalism. Accountability is so defused, it is non-existent. This is by design.
Much of the proclaimed Postmodern mindset is based on severing the rational connection between cause and effect. Popular Postmodern positions require accepting delusions like being born a particular sex does not determine what “gender” you are. Or that community crime is caused by too much of a police presence. Or that the most free, prosperous and diverse nation in human history is the most racist and oppressive.
The Postmodern philosophy tends to be a package deal; if you believe any of this junk, odds are you believe all of it. Easily verifiable evidence refutes these assertions, and scores of other crazy notions like them. And yet the evidence is not heard; it’s not even allowed to be presented. This is not an accident, not just chance or misfortune. It’s a carefully managed plan.
We don’t know the names of those who are ultimately driving these schemes. That’s part of the plan as well. What I can see informs me that these persons unknown are very aware of the reality of causation, and the destructive results of the ideas they promote. This isn’t a situation of unintended consequences. The influencers aren’t deluded; they are manipulative liars, living embodiments of Doublethink double standards. They are superspreaders of delusion. They’ve weaponized it to advance their agenda.
Sadly, through covert campaigns, our cultural institutions are inundated by those working towards the death of our culture. Whether the participants are fellow travelers or just useful idiots, the end results will be the same.
Now, enough with the recognizing of the problem, again. Once recognition happens, it’s time to take responsibility.
What are we to do? I have great hope here. This human caused social environment crisis can be countered by other humans. Knowing most of our existing hierarchies are hopelessly compromised at the moment, independent action is called for. Let us be a joyous insurgency, each in our own way.
I have a soft target, in the arts. Establishment art has degenerated into an alienating money laundering racket. The audience for contemporary art is practically nil. Yet the creation and contemplation of art is an instinctual appetite for humanity. We still need it, want it, crave it even.
All you people who ever visited an art gallery or museum and left baffled or upset, I’m speaking to you. You were never the problem. So much of what our compromised cultural institutions present as art isn’t really art at all. It is propaganda meant to prop up the delusion. You knew they were failing to meet the genuine need for art you had.
I make art that comes to me in visions. Like dreams, the visions are full mysterious significance, and affirm the beauty and weirdness of the life God has granted us. My works will not be to all tastes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just know my paintings are the result of a sincere effort to share my particular nature in an attempt to reach universal connection.
Trust your own instincts, and find the art that appeals to you-or even better, try to make it yourself. It’s a rewarding experience, with endless capacity for growth.
Taking free actions, rejecting approved parameters of the officially sanctioned narrative, is how we can make actual climate change happen. It’s the Remodern way.
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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy abook. Or a painting.
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