I have come across an important seed which needs nurture. They have an important point which is gaining ground but not found the “Art Establishment” yet.
The Pre-Picassan Brotherhood by Laura Alport
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We have all been taught in our art history classes that the great subjects have been exhausted, that there is “nothing new under the sun.” That epic or transcendent imagery is not relevant to our situation. The Brotherhood apparently missed that day.
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Yes — if a “pre-Raphelite brotherhood” ever made sense — a pre-Picasso brother would make even more — especially as Miles is distinguishing between Picasso the sensitive young painter, and Picasso the international art-god.
Miles must bear the double burden of being a prophet and a genius — which makes him sometimes appear a bit ridiculous.
But who else rails so eloquently against both of the established, academic artworlds — the high-brow and the middle-brow ?
Miles is indeed an interesting artist. I like a lot of his work. A number of them show serious talent judging from the very “shallow” medium of the small computer image which lacks so much when compared to the real thing in best light. It is dangerous to pontificate further on his work from this distance.
I noticed him however, for the concept of the pre-Picassan brotherhood rather than anything extraordinary in his work.
He is I guess, in a better position to play the Gaugin than so many of us who have responsibilities we can’t or won’t give up for our Art. He has a ferocious need to express opinions that might at first seem controversial and confrontational. His works, the ones we can see in his website, do not express any of them. However it becomes a little clearer from his other pages “just where he might be coming from”!
My son being a scientist, mentioned a couple of weeks ago about the reasons that stars twinkle etc. I accepted his statement without thought or comment. Yesterday, to my surprise I find Miles has had a go at the standard theory on this subject; so my son has now gone back to school with a copy of Miles ideas in his bag! I await with interest what will come of it!
It has certainly been a fascinating exercise communicating with Miles over a variety of subjects but it is unwise to do so unless one has a thick skin! I have enjoyed it though in a sort of masochistic sort of way! One of the difficulties one has is not being able to see the other persons face and so be able to judge whether he is laughing at you from a higher plain or whether he is just ignorant of facts ones has assumed he knows. Has he for instance looked carefully at a painter and made a serious judgement or was it a quick one made after a cursory look? I shall take the English Gentleman’s view and suspect it is the former. So I need a thick skin but as an artist who sees so few people on a day to day basis and rarely talks to people with differing views, I do not regret a good dialogue when opportunity and time permit.
In passing and in my defence however, it would seem a very frightening development to me if we in England had to build a wall or fence along a boarder to keep foreigners out. Asylum seekers and immigration is a serious problem here too which HM government is trying to address rather unsuccessfully. I have on the other side a frightening memory of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain from personal experience. It seems somewhat chilling that the State of Texas and others have to build one now in 2006. Reading about this I wanted to find out more about Mexico. “The magnificent seven” and other movies are the sum total of my knowledge. As an Artist I searched for enlightenment from a contemporary art source. Among many I found Daniel Lezama. His illustrations of his country tell a very vivid story of, well, you can see for yourself, alcohol, sex, poverty, corruption, inequality and a powerful Church with an underlying paganism. The USA has poor areas as we discovered when New Orleans met the “Kat” but Mexico appears to be a third world country with capital letters. If Congo was situated next to us instead of Wales, no doubt we should be building an Iron Curtain too!
We have recently been exposed to William Hogarth on television, perhaps the most interesting artist of the 18th century in England. Some of his paintings are exquisite, often very beautiful, but he also painted and drew the nasty side of England at the time exposing the evils of society. These efforts were rewarded eventually as very gradually things changed for the better as a direct result of his works.
I will have a look when time allows, at the artists of New Orleans to see what if anything has come as a result of the “Kat”. I wonder how well The Republican Party will do along the Mississippi in the Congressional elections this week.
As time continues to sweep down the rivers of the world, I often wonder if things will ever get better. My biggest wish is that mankind will work together to ensure our survival. We have all our eggs in one basket in the earth and we need to build a second one somewhere to insure we do survive in a sustainable environment to watch the stars go on twinkling.
On that note I must get on with surviving this week!