Advice

Andy, ensure your work is not a masturbation process!!

Masturbation? This is one of those many memorable advice i got when i was uni.I got this from my faculty Dean..i figured out soon enough. When people dont understand your work, you required to explain - its a freaking tiresome and painstaking effort seriously...hell i was in the degree of visual communications. So when people dont understand what they are seeing - then something wrong with the visual. 

why is there a need to explain? Its simply a frustating and meaningless act. Do we need to explain why we fall in LOVE? Why we need to sleep?

Audience can come from many degrees of separation but when certain works that requires 100 pages long to explain it - then there is something wrong. This advice made me go to an extra mile and most importantly practice self criticism. Seeing it in a 360 angles. Thoughtfulness comes unto play. So most of the time - when i attend any exhibitions, i will go and READ rather than SEE the works. Flipping the catalog exhibition comes later.

Jackson Pollock

now below is a Jackson Pollock's Blue Pole.....how to appreciate them? There can be many categories of interpretations, its all about automatic process ( the zen moment ) where you shut off your mind and let your hands do all the talking, hell we have hundreds of books about how to appreciate Abstract Expressionists.

can it be a masturbation process? Here's the thing - Clement Greenberg and the rest of the galleries ( with the help of the CIA ) are trying to arm US a cultural weapon. Before the second World War, Paris and other European countries are the one that kept on devising new ways on driving culture. So when the flux of immigrants ( mind you - the intellectual giants, architects and etc ) flocking unto USA, America got an Adrenalin shot.

a cultural Adrenalin shot.

In the early 50's and 60's - US need to show the world that they are doing something on the cultural front....poof, soon Pollock, De Kooning and the rest of the Ab-Ex artists turned to superstars. All the galleries joined to promote it. Magazines, publications, academicians soon join in to create a mythology. 

a cultural mythology. 

A masturbation process is akin to doing something and screaming for attention. There are no thoughts whatsoever and it can be insulting. When people dont get it, they can be frustrated and blaming others for not understanding them. 

To be fair enough, tell me who on earth wants to spend time in a gallery - figuring out, reading all those writings that requires a dictionary....these are the hobbies of the elites...the one that let money who do the real work. Reading,  understanding, appreciating or buying artworks are separate mechanisms....here in this country, people are struggling to get food on the table, too tired/stressed in their day jobs/rushing in to get their kids to tuitions and so-on and forth.....

so what they need is a temporary escape to comedy land.

so who cares about exhibition?

Drawings

The artists themselves also can be disillusioned folks too, few are skilled linguists but most of them can be pretty pretentious for their own good. Its all based on the artist IQ and EQ. How to see it, let's break it down to basics...an artist requires a good visual vocabs.....for example, lets see this brilliant drawing by WC Sin.

Simple, neat and clean. What strikes me is that his drawing is honest and is very clear of what his thoughts are. A Brain that requires a jump start.....I totally can relate to this as way too many people brain is in sleep mode. 

His work doesnt need to have an thousand words essay or wordy justification to tell it to any audience. If i show this to 30 people, i bet at least 25 of them will give me the same interpretations. 

Here a second one which i love.

Its like his soul is finally (break) free from his body, maybe his soul saying " OI.... enough la of this pretentious egoistical material body....." Most of the time, we can be in denial, kept on doing the things we dont like.

our hearts always rebel against our utilitarian mind.

that is why we need to find a balance between heart and mind. Be One. If you guys dont trust your silly mind, then ask your heart as the heart are the first organ formed and the first to go off when we DIE.

Masturbation process are the ones which visuals doesnt make any sense at all - hence the term art for art sake. 

art for art's sake

phrase of art

1. 1.

   used to convey the idea that the chief or only aim of a work of art is the self-expression of the individual artist who creates it.

Few wanted to be later day Picasso ( mind you his formal drawings is equivalent to Michaelangelo before he turn to Cubists ok. ) plus most artists dont have his intellectual prowess too. The Cubists devise ways to flatten the three dimensional. That is why all modern works are flat. 

Picasso's early work - Matador

his brilliant subtle Bull's Head.

I totally - totally avoid this at all cost. For god sake, let's see the cave paintings from Lauscaux....these cavemen dont have any formal, college art education - yet their drawings tell a brilliant story. We can see the size of the animals, the proportions and dynamism displayed.........its simply amazing right? 

any justification, essays or curatorial notes needed? Does the artist stand beside you and explain how tasty the meat was? How fast they run?

You already know the answer.