In answer to Cheerskep (below) I can say that my work fits a rather deep channel of mainstream modernist art. First I am making paintings. Any painting at all has a relationship with a long heritage of paintings of various styles. Second, my abstraction is related most easily to illusionist abstract painting of the earlier 20C (up to the mature Mondrian, for instance). This is not because I am interested in going backwards but because I think abstraction as a term is too limited in its common use. Any image at all evokes reference -- anything at all can be said to look like something else -- and we are compelled to adopt or invent those references (or narratives). I think my abstraction centers on the 'big idea' of subjective interpretation. Put another way, I want to rescue painting from the false concreteness of formalism and reopen it to broad, metaphorical, poetic, allusive interpretations, those that are built on the evocation of memory and feeling. I regard art history as a category of memory, too. I think we can pretend that painting has its memory. Any painting invites an interpretation of art memory and thus painting's memory. I reject the simplistic view that abstract painting is simply about 'significant form' or an aesthetic arrangement. I reject the view that painting is about anything at all. It is meaningless but can evoke our own identities through interpretations and those interpretations can be regarded as-if the memory of painting. See my website and look under reviews where I've recently posted the brochure for my current show at the Cedarhurst Mitchell Museum. There, the curator, R. Freeman, discusses my work in a good essay. wc www.williamconger.com
----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, September 17, 2012 10:54:34 AM Subject: Re: b Deaf to proclamations and manifestos of the international avant-garde, Fortuny did not have any problem with, or any fear o In a message dated 9/17/12 9:34:41 AM, [email protected] writes: > big ideas that require the efforts of > many or even several artists. > William, I mean this as a genuine inquiry, not a challenge. The way you describe your career, it sounds like the road of an artist determined to go his own way. Is there any "big idea" you'd like to be part of?
