DRIVING AFRICA

When I first decided to write this blog, I was going to title it Driving Ethiopia, however, after experiencing the exhilaration and thrills of driving in Angola I had to broaden my outlook. One must remember that years ago I lived and therefore drove ini Boston...this at a time when the police gave no moving violation tickets since they had to go to court on their day off and the drivers were aware of this. Boston had a well justified disdain for normal etiquette. I have driven with a U-Haul trailer through Manhattan during rush hour, driven on the Autobahn and Auto Strassa. All of these are tame by my recent experience in Ethiopia, though I was really riding and not driving. Realizing that most roads in Ethiopia do not have lane markers or stop signs/stoplights, etc. and when they do they act as suggestions only. Because of my size I sat in the front passenger seat, the "death seat", so aptly named, while my wife rode in the back seat and was partially protected from the front view sights. I felt as if I were in a Video Game, not playing one but actually in one, a la Tron. The game of course is one of those road races where as a player you must rce and navigate around pedestrians, cars, donkeys, carts, and all sorts of road blocks. (My grandson always laughs when I play with him because I am always crashing into something.) Well, here I'n not playing a video game since I have no control, I'm just along for the ride and thereby seem to be in the game. The game is to go as fast as possible trying to miss the hordes of people walking in the road (no sidewalks), the goats, sheep, pigs, donkey carts, bicycles, all trying to get from one place to another The object seems to be to see how close you can get to the obstacles without actually hitting them. Of course the pedestrians also play the game of refusing t get out of the way, especially the young males as it seems uncool to jump off the road and they try to look nonchalantly as they stroll over to the edge of the road while secretly being terrified of being hit. Two things struck me about this, 1. after a day of riding I was more exhausted then the driver and felt I missed much of the countryside because I was too involved in watching for the impending crash, and 2. Africa walks. Th lives of people walking, in both directions seem endless. Even when no where near a village, the roads are full of people walking in both directions. I keep thinking they need a clearing house, where instead of walking they could just exchange the jobs, tasks, motivations fro going to someplace with someone with the same rationale going the other way. What a massive savings of human energy this would be.

As to driving in Africa, I must confess my delight of driving or in reality again in riding in Angola. The same obstacles but our small group in Angola was facilitated by a motorcycle police escort. Our favorite motorcycle cop with sirens going and lights flashing fled ahead of us, stopped traffic irrespective of any traffic lights so we could speed on. He would ride ahead, pass cars and motion them off the road, stopped cross traffic, etc. Watching through the windshield also became a game. A game to see if he could untangle the next traffic jam with his adroit driving and directing so we could sail through , even if this meant we were often driving on the wrong side of the road, on the shoulder, sidewalk or whatever. It was a very successful game as we never stopped from point of origin to our destination! Exciting and it gave me a little taste of power. This is what it must be so addicting to politicians and how they become so obsessed with power! As we would say at our destination 'what a ride!

POST MODERN ART; WHAT IS IT?

For the last several years, before and after graduate school in art, I have been struggling with the concept of 'Post Modern Art'. What the hell is it? Aren't we modern now, so how can we b e post? Is there a difference between modern and contemporary? Why is that pile of bricks in the art museum art, and why on the street is a similar pile of bricks rubbish?

Well, maybe I'm beginning to get a little handle on it. Thanks to a lot of talking , reading, and especially trying to digest Harrison and Wood's "Art in Theory" (2007). Believe me, none of the ideas herein are original or unique to me, just a compilation of all of the above.

"Modern Art" defined as an evolving art from the mid 18th century to after the Second World War was a dramatic change from prior art of the Renaissance, the Neoclassic, and Romantic art that preceded it. It was a new paradigm. But in order to call something a new paradigm one must define, articulate and demonstrate the old. Similarly to talk about a new paradigm in art as 'Post Modern' one must first define, articulate and demonstrate the paradigm of 'Modern Art'.

The paradigm of modern Art consists of many concepts which evolved over time. But these primarily focused on the concept of spontaneity, expression, and most importantly on three premises. It privileged art as unique and original and the artist as an autonomous genius while differentiating fine art from craft or low art or as Greenberg would say between "Avant Garde and Kitsch" (1939). Further, that changes in art were progressive and had a continuity with that of the past or a so called 'historical narrative'. Proponents of Post Modern as a new paradigm break with these tenets, namely originality, differentiation, and historical narrative.

More recent critiques and theorists have begun to question the originality and uniqueness of art. They vociferously announce that all of the attributes and tendencies, including the philosophical, psychoanalytic and literary or semiologic ideas are converging onto a single point or concept. Thus they negate the idea of the original. So now we not only have 'death of the object' with emphasis on abstraction, nonfigurative and nonrepresentational art, we also have 'death of the author' in that there is no originality or creativity. This follows Baudrillard's concept of the 'hyper-real' as unoriginal with use of experience of signs and simulacra (1976). This probably began with Duchamp and his 'ready mades', which is why he is probably the most influential artist of the second half of the 20th century , while Picasso was of the first half, with his seemingly abstract but in reality representative or figurative art.

With the comodification of art, combined with mass reproductions, mass media, and fusion of art and craft, we have bypassed or surpassed the difference between 'fine' art and craft/kitsch. From Warhol's "factory" of silk screenings, Koon's legions of engineers and craftsman constructing his designs, and kitsch like objects of Judd's industrially constructed boxes and Mirakami's almost mass produced doll like objects, we now have art in a more generic form and definition.

[Aside: Thanks to a dear friend Koji, ( I hope I am not misstating his thoughts) discussing Judd with me recently, I now have a greater understanding, though not necessarily a better personal appreciation, of his work. How Judd shifted the meaning of sculpture from an object with a a delimited mass with finite borders and reflecting light, created, with his stepped lucite boxes, the idea of a non-delimited form, an infinity. They could go on forever, or as Buzz Lightyear would say "to infinity and beyond". Further, Judd allowed light to not only be reflected and surround the sculpture, but through the sculpture, allowing light to penetrate it directly by constructing the boxes of lucite!]

And finally, the historical narrative of Modern Art as a continuity of painting and culture and moral values is negated by the new paradigm of Post Modern Art with its emphasis on discontinuity, disruption, and revolutionary (and sometimes revolting) aspects.

Thus the major articulations of Modern Art are negated and supplanted by those of Post Modern.

Well, I hope this helps explain my take on Post Modern Art, and hopefully it will stimulate your thinking and discussing it with me and others.

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