Flatties....sort of.

[rika]

Originally Posted by evaldart

We sculptors just call it space, or air, or nothing - but in keeping with my recent obsession about the nature of the void, I am caused to give exactly as much attention and priority to the "negative" as to the "positive" (and you may extend that metaphor out as far as it will reach).

This is why a coin cannot be art...

You're right, a coin cannot be art because a coin is the canvas or base. What you put on it is the art...but only if you have the nerve to deal with TINY, MINUSCULE and PETIT -- because nerve it takes alright. The void is not measured by size but the positive-negative relationship that a coin size also has. Just make the damn coin sized portrait or figure with the above mentioned attention and priority! and it doesn't have to be realistic either.

[evaldart]

Right Rika, its not about the size at all...and a properly composed (rendering of portrait or memorial or whatever) could indeed permit some little round flattish thing to become an aesthetically worthy thing to execute. But it predestination of becoming a coin will not get you that experience (not to mention the mass production thereafter). It will become a chore, an assignment, a commission or the likes....a thing less that JUST aesthetic rigor.

Oh, and just so everyone knows, a stamp cant be art either.

[rika]

Does it matter what it does become after the "throes" of your process? you're contradicting yourself...all this time the artifact, the product didn't matter, and now it does?

[evaldart]

Of course it matters, if those "throes" have been poisoned from the start by the meddling directions and dictatorial choreographies of an eventual function. So you see, the THROES are the FIRST thing to get ruined when the artifact matters.

Oh, and if you ever catch me "contradicting" myself, no worries, it only means I am new again, not the same as yesterday. Changed some more...better, stronger, faster; just like Colonel Steve Austin.

[rika]

Ok, so there is hope that one day you will separate the concept of a coin-sized artwork from the coin. It doesn't have to be one.

[GlennT]

Originally Posted by evaldart

the sludge of function, gobbings of tradition, the jammings of history and and the goop of craft are constantly harnessing the flow of significance.

For you these are things limitations. For others they can be springboards or inspiration. It is a matter of perspective. The significance occurs when one utilizes their arsenal of tools to communicate something of value. If one eliminates past wisdom from their arsenal, they are the poorer for it. I know you don't do so, but only advocate doing so, just as the best of the impressionists decried the academy from whence they received their training, and those who followed the preachment but not the practise, eliminating the solid background from which to rebel, had weaker means to express their profound (?) ideas.

Taking your next thought in response to Rika ( who you should listen to)...

"Of course it matters, if those "throes" have been poisoned from the start by the meddling directions and dictatorial choreographies of an eventual function"

I would like to ask you if you were commissioned to create art on a circular format, would you start and finish the work feeling oppressed by a dictatorial circumstance and therefore create weak work, or would you take the bull by the horns and "show them" how they cannot limit your genius, problem solving skills, and artistic nature just because of the format?

The works of ART that happen to be on coins or medals are so because true artists created them, and approached the work as opportunity, not as stiffled limitation constricting their expression.

[evaldart]

I do plenty of commissioned things. And I am fortunate to be able to apply my connections-to-material and and my singular abilities within the sacredness of my own studio to make my contribution to the collective (who, in turn, provide me with that necessary thing called a "living") So no, I am not able to shun commissioned work, and I DO indeed try to let them be challenges and they might cause me to "practice" or employ some new technical undertaking . But they are, those exterior-promted efforts, markedly, very different experiences than those that are NOT set forth by needs, wants, or tasks-to-be-accomplished (and I busy myself far more with the latter)[/i].

I would woulld certainly consider it a proper challenge to exert a maximum effort wthin the constraints of the circle - and I would do it just because you raised the issue; and I would take that bull for sure and enter into the making of something that nobody asked for, I'M not even asking for it...but it will get the best I have to offer (the effort, not the object). And I'll thank YOU for that piece of my improvement. THIS is how we make each other better...not by hammering-out spoons or gaudy baubles.

Its on my list now Glenn, and Rika. And you know ol' E always does what he says he will do.

[rika]

Hah, THE LIST. It has many floors: basement, lobby, upper floor, penthouse. It all depends on WHERE on the list future projects are placed. Anything below the upper floor has a low chance of ever making it. The basement is the most populous one, if you ever venture down there, you trip on them pariah-s, ghosts of things that will never exist.

[Aaron Schroeder]

Matt.....might I suggest....while you're grappling with the notion of art in a circle....that you skip the art and just focus on the frame.

So many dismiss the edge of the art, so focused on the center.

[evaldart]

I agree, and I have approached that in sculpture...remember "Portal". But the nature of Glenn and Rikas challenge has more to do with the priorities put upon the filling of a circular format (in this case in relief). And while it IS important to make every pure creative experience as difficult and taxing as possible, I really dont think that adding difficulty by making things impossibly small (or large) helps the artmaking...so I'll make it the size of the idea (whatever that will be). And as the cogs are already turning I'm thinking this one will be representation...perhaps even "coin-esque" to boot. It will be on this thread sooner than you think.

[GlennT]

This is great. evaldart off to prove an evaldart rule no longer valid by transcending it. There is hope, and a great learning experience in the making!

[Aaron Schroeder]

Don't be lazy......there are two sides to every coin !

[evaldart]

No back, front - and some squashed sides.......this is the "relief" thread. 2.5 baby!

[Aaron Schroeder]

Oh, I know. Just figured you could get 2 in 1. Put that whole coin thing to rest.

One side is always like the universal side. Coat of arms, what not, then the other side is more particular, the art.

Every flattie has a back side. People wonder about that. 2.3/4

[evaldart]

Every flattie has a back side. People wonder about that.

A painter friend who was hopelessly distraught and irrepairably mortified by a suddenly perceived catastrophic failure over the recent work he was going to have to exhibit, decided , at the last moment, that he would have to convince the gallerist (quite NYC, downtown 1990) that the show had taken a "conceptual" turn. And "turn" is exactly what happened during the installation. I arrived at his opening, found the wine, dunked a carrot stick into some ranch dressing and began to survey the show. There were eleven large canvases, averaging six to eight feet in either dimension, distributed about the space. Everyone around me was wandering pensively up to them, peering with (feigned) determination. I ambled up-close to one of them shook my head and went for another wine. There were lavish titles, hefty price tags and a lengthy statement. My friend was primped and tidy, cleaner than I'd ever seen him, and his dealer was wearing red heels, a black dress and a huge smile. He had indeed mentioned a few days before that he had completely resolved ALL the problems he was having with his recent work. But I couldn't tell because EVERY CANVAS WAS HANGING WITH THE PAINTED SIDE FACING THE WALL. He had so effectively sold himself on his recent conceptual epiphany that his eyes were ablaze. He eventually asked me what I thought and I told him that I was quite baffled by them, but that he should always glue the stretcher bars before driving in the drywall screws. He was delighted that I was baffled looking at the BACK of his paintings and I didnt have the heart to tell him, that night, that I was ACTUALLY baffled because I there seemed to be no visible method, apparatus or hardware that fastened them to the wall. There were no brackets, no screws, no nails, no pins, tacks or wires...what a puzzle.

A month or so later the show was down; no sales, no reviews, just another show, put it with the others, another line on the resume, another postcard on the wall of shame. He called me for a visit. In his Brooklyn studio saw all the paintings in a big stack leaned against the wall. We opened a beer. And since it had indeed been nagging at me since, I asked him just how he had hung the damned things up. He said that since the painted side of the paintings was never going to be seen that it shouldnt matter if there were significant blobs of LIQUID NAILS applied gratuitously. He said the gallerist was pissed at the de-install but that it didnt matter because she was no longer his dealer anymore. I told him that no artist had EVER hung their work in such a manner. He smiled proudly. We got another beer.

And THAT is my story about the BACK of a painting.

[Aaron Schroeder]

As my son and his ilk would say " Cool story bro ". Of course they always say it in a dismissive tone.

But I mean it....that is a cool story. Someone had to do that and you got to see it first hand. Shit like that.. seldom.. if ever...happens in Ohio.

[evaldart]

I should mention that my friend, unperturbed by the lack of success of that show, indeed took the "concept" to yet another level. His next show, in a Long Island City garage (it was an "alternative" venue, he had convinced the avante-gardists), also featured poets, noisemakers and performance-artists. I didnt make that opening, but I heard he was disheveled, doubtful, drunk - pissed that he had been forbidden from gluing his work to the wall (his reputation had preceded him). They had wanted him to simply lean them individually about the perimeter of the space. So, rather than compromise his aesthetic, he gathered them all into a single stack, two-feet thick, and leaned them against a wall in a far corner, (unintentionally) objectifying even further the true nature of what a "painting" actually IS.

I couldnt tell this story on Facebook, he might encounter it (we are not in contact anymore but have mutual friends) and suppose that I am ridiculing him - butI really am NOT. I think about his bouts within and without the "art world" very frequently, and despite the fact that the "plastic" arts were likely not his area of best connection, he was consistently energetically original in his approaches...to everything. Last I heard he was playing the tuba in a Fluxus troup in San Francisco....but that was a long time ago.


From an intellectual angle, there is something very worthwhile about thumbing one's nose at tradition (and the avante garde has always been a tradition too). Because that defiance is the very same defiance that begins every (suitably challenging) creative venture. THAT thumbing is no different than assigning oneself the chore of addressing Sisyphus or Jesus Christ in a sculpted or painted composition. It is another springboard into those throes of (unrequired, undemanded) significance. This is why it cannot be a good thing to allow the hope of "pleasing" anyone permeate and commandeer the motivation and execution of a work of art. Art will always "please" BETTER when kept clean of the fancy of other (outside) consciousnesses. If you really want to help (them) with your art, then, for god's sake, dont let them "help" you. An interior "no thanks" must be administered with great discipline in matters of the "purest" creativity.


And so I've gone on again.....thanks Aaron.

[Aaron Schroeder]

Well said ! And agreed.....it takes great discipline to say " No Thanks "....and then to walk your own way.

[RWJR]

here's an old 2.5

[evaldart]

Dare I call it "repousse"? with DIAMONDPLATE! Only YOU would do such a thing RW. I love it...and in the much-debated circular format to-boot.

[RWJR]

I made it so long ago that I cant remember why I left the arc in it, maybe an eclipse?

[RWJR]

but yes, repousse and deckplate, the eyes are made from a welding puddle

[rika]

One of the most stressing issues for me has been the "border" where 2d and 3d meet and fuse into 2.5d. This TRANSITION is significant whether the work succeeds or not as a 2.5. Traditionally it had been dealt with through a gradual receding/reducing of the reliefed mass and planes into flatness. In contemporary reliefs where often mixed materials and found objects are used an abruptly ending 3d component may interrupt the "flow" as it enters the 2d part of the work. Although in the case of a flatter low relief colour comes to the rescue for smooth transition, it is NOT solving the concerns encountered in assembled reliefs.

Here is the piece that made me think about this angle:



E, I think you addressed the transition in your tire piece well through the use of clever "fasteners".

[suburbanartists]

So here is a question.
What came 1st in ancient history (go back as far as you want) 2.5D or 3D Art?

[evaldart]

What came 1st in ancient history (go back as far as you want) 2.5D or 3D Art?

GREAT question Sub.

I would say this should be answered without going obviously Wikepedia-happy (and wiki'd retorts and reports are ALWAYS obvious). Just THINK, imagine how things happen; create the flow of history (just like the historians do). These answers will be easily more valid than invented "research" and regurgitation.