My friend Ryan and I graduated from the same school of painting.  We share a similar belief in the power of individual creativity but differing views of the importance of painting in contemporary society.  I tend to go with its marginalization to other forms of media while he’s a devout believer in its importance as a visual medium.  I don’t doubt that it is but I feel that its importance in society has diminished.  We have been having an ongoing debate about this and I asked him if it were ok if I were to broadcast it to the wider public and see if we got any feedback.  So, I’ll be putting up parts of our conversation in future posts and see what comes back to us from the wider world; a world probably caught up in more important matters than whether painting is relevant or not.  Thanks again for reading.

“Anyway, it’s nice to think about art sometimes as a diversion from reality.  I think we’re talking around two different issues.  The idea that painting can be relevant and the idea that painting can be outdated.  I think both could be true in the future. Innovation in painting has historically been a leading driver of moving art forward (changing our ideas of what a painting could be or giving us an alternate vision of the world).  Innovation in technology seems to be what’s driving art now (in scale, medium, accessibility, etc).  You’re right that art and painting particularly is still about individual vision and I agree.  What I’m saying is that there are other factors now that are driving art forward innovatively like painting once did (the abstract expressionists, Frank Stella, etc) and they are from outside the art world. 

 

Julia went to the Harvard museum and saw these glass model plants that were done in the early 1900s by a pair of German craftsmen.  They were exact replicas of different  plants used for scientific study.  She was amazed at their beauty and how seamless the transition from science to art was.  It was almost that you didn’t care that they were used for biology students because they were works of art but at the same time they were totally conducive to the scientific study of plants.  I bring it up because I think we’re seeing a revolution in terms of mediums – where engineering and computer modeling is enabling the creation of art ideas on a scale and complexity that was not previously available and that’s exciting.  I’m not saying that painting ideas cannot be complex.  It’s just that modern material accessibility and technology is something everyone is familiar with and so these works like Serra’s and Kapoor’s are getting lots of study – they are driving art ideas somewhere else and fast.  They don’t have the baggage of history to hold onto which painting has.  Painting is a much slower learning curve both in terms of making one and viewing one.  And I’m talking about one that is genre changing or art changing like Demoiselles d’Avignon.  My guess is that innovation in the visual arts will come less from painting and more from other mediums for form building. Then again – that’s a rat race maybe painting doesn’t need – I’m not sure.”

Take care buddy,

Joel

(September 2007)

***I’m still searching for the email of the lead in to this debate.  I’ll post it as soon as I find it.