Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
FILOSOFEE...
OMNIISM contends that the world is too multifarious a place to be reduced artistically into one or two marketable ideas or a so-called "style". Omniism abhors "artistic" assembly lines, complacency ,and self-censorship, whereas it joyously celebrates experimentation, risk-taking, and fearlessness as essential parts of the process of creation. Omniism promotes the use of unusual materials in the works, such as building supplies, industrial materials, discarded items, found objects, and things unique to this time and place. It features texture and 3-dimensionality, though it is not limited to this. It is fueled by improvisation, as the Muse does not wish to be constrained by the limited imagination or parochial intention of the artist.
Art is dangerous
it takes risks
it stops you in your tracks
it's not an accessory to a well-appointed
living room
it's not something that goes with the
new sofa
and for God's sake
it's not an investment!
The rich have ruined art and made it
into commerce
They've turned artists into assembly lines
and galleries into glorified Seven-Elevens.
ART IS DANGEROUS
Provocative Unpredictable
Unconstrained Beautiful Ugly
Volatile and Unsettling
It's the bomb that blows the shit out of
complacency
It's the feeling in the pit of the stomach
that makes you get off your ass and
DO something!
It's not about playing it safe because
art in the best sense is freedom itself
and this is what both attracts and repels.
It's not about money
And in a capitalist society
this notion is
downright unfathomable.
LOOK LOOK LOOK
Yeah you, motherfucker
can I have your attention please
your attention
YOUR ATTENTION
is what I want (but TENSION is what I get)
Do you know the average person spends
less than 3 seconds glancing at a painting in a
gallery or museum (now museum now you don't)
But Hey, there's lotsa stuff on the walls and
the average person is
BUSY BUSY BUSY
those 3 seconds add up
Too bad you can't do TEVO for art and
look at 'em later
but not really cuz to be honest
this modern stuff is a bit
hard to understand
I mean, give me a nice P. Buckley Moss
so I can do my bit for culture and then
move onto more important things
I got news for you shit-for-brains
Art IS the more important thing
Granted this piece isn't much to look at,
being all white and shit,
but hey, it goes with everything
(and white worked for Robert Ryman)
but this is mental graffiti
the shit that goes on inside this artist's
fucked-up medicated
crazy-addled brain
Celexa 20 mg
perhaps I should
up the dose
Entrenched academics
distill it all to some kind of
patent-pending copyrighted shtick
These tunnel-visionaries
don’t make much art
in the hallowed halls
but they do crank out
the labels
peel-n-stick
there’s one with your name on it
“You’re the guy who uses duct tape…” they wanna say
and they can rest easy,
like an entomologist categorizing a
new kind of bug.
Open your eyes
there’s a great big world out there
not everyone wants to be a compartment in a box
with a universal bar code stuck to the corner
slide it over the scanner
to hear that all-embracing
beep
another sale
major credit cards are accepted
here at Walm-Art
“Do you have that guy who does the circles?”
Aisle Five
“That woman who does the squiggly lines?”
Aisle Fifteen
And then there’s me
with that big
Parental Advisory sticker attached
“That guy’s dangerous,” they say.
“A boat-rocker.
Self-taught, of course.
He doesn’t play well with others.
No résumé.
He doesn’t know how the game is played.”
Well yes I do
And you can shove the game up your ass!
Open your fucking eyes
before it’s too late and you realize
you spent your whole fucking life
making 500 paintings all of little squares.
And then there’s the art store owners
Sorry, I mean gallery owners
Funny how a lot of ‘em don’t seem to
like art very much and know
even less about it
but they know what sells
goddammit
and the artists out there
instead of saying
“Fuck you!” scratch their heads and say,
“How can I come up with something like that guy who
did the little squares…”
Let’s all try to put our
enormous wooden pegs
into that tiny little hole.
We’ll whittle ‘em down
until they fit.
(Just don’t drown in the sawdust.)
It’s time to give ‘em all
the collective finger
Put on our own shows
like the Impressionists
the Secessionists before us
show ‘em all what
artists are made of--
That we’re giants
taking bold steps forward,
instead of meek supplicants
begging for a scrap
from the master’s table.
Give us a brief narrative account of your career, describing your previous accomplishments. This account should include mention of prizes, honors, and postdoctoral (or equivalent) grants or fellowships that you have held or now hold, showing the grantor and the inclusive dates of each award. (Does the 4H-Club blue ribbon for the macaroni painting I did in Kindergarten count?)
If you are an artist include a chronological list of shows, citing dates and places, and a list of collections in which your work is represented. Forthcoming shows should also be mentioned. (No mention yet of the actual artwork itself—and this is becoming suspiciously like a “it’s who ya know” kind of thing).
List the positions that you have held (professional, teaching, administrative, and business), beginning with your current position and working backwards. (Still no sign of the actual art, as the hegemony of academia rears its ugly head. So all you self-taught outsider-artists are SOL).
References are most important. List the names and postal mailing addresses of four persons who are familiar with your work and to whom the Foundation may write for expert judgment concerning your abilities (what, can’t the Foundation with a capital F afford their own goddamn experts? Who’s judging this, Joe Shmoe? Can’t they make up their own minds? Why do they need to rely on the opinions of others? I mean, this would only make sense if this were an “it’s who ya know” kind of…Oh, I get it!), especially in relation to your proposal for the use of a Fellowship. (My proposal is to use the dough to pay bills, buy canvasses and paint, take my wife out to dinner, and get a top-renter at Blockbuster—is that proposal highbrow enough for you?)
Oh, and be sure to include no more than 18 slides of previous work. (Wow! I almost forgot that this Fellowship was actually about art! I’m solid on the paintings, but the rest of this stuff might take some time…)
BULLSHITBULLSHITBULLSHITBULLSHIT
"I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels most would choose none. For most artists have expended a great deal of energy in scrambling out of classes and categories and pigeon-holes, aspiring toward some state of perfect freedom which unfortunately neither human limitations nor the law allows--not to mention critics.*"
--Ben Shahn, The Shape of Content
*(see what KRONOS has to say about critics in KRONOS PROPAGANDA's "GFY"!)
“We must not subject him who creates to the
desires of the multitude. It is, rather, his creation
that must become the multitude’s desire.”
--Saint-Exupéry
"We're going to ask the most of ourselves regardless of the audience, regardless of the public."
--Clement Greenberg
“High, serious, uncompromising art has a disturbing effect, often distressing and torturing; popular art, on the other hand, wants to soothe, distract us from the painful problems of existence, and instead of inspiring us to activity and exertion, criticism and self-examination, moves us on the contrary to passivity and self-satisfaction… The chances of success of important works are lessened by the fact that the new, the unusual, and the difficult have of themselves a disturbing effect upon an uneducated and not especially artistically experienced audience and move them to take up a negative position.”
--Arnold Hauser, The Sociology of Art (1983)
"Don't let any of those fuckers in my headspace."
--Velvet Revolver
“The inferno of the living is already here, where we live everyday. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many; accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”
--Italo Calvino
Malcolm X on "House Negroes vs. Field Negroes" (You can substitute "artists" for "negroes" to better understand the contemporary art scene)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ
"But if a man thinks, and if there's any vigor or originality in his remarks, you call him a cynic."
--Stendahl, The Red and the Black
If there be righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there be beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there be harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation.
If there be order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
--Confucius
“Major art--the all-out try--opens the future to the continuing production of high art. And it is the sense of the try--the all-out try in the sense of high seriousness--that seems to be a necessity. One could say that the best new art of this time (the only major art we have) does not reach the level of the best art of the past four or five hundred years. But there is still a sense of a try at that level. A sense of the courage and a sense of the ambition necessary to try for that level. And as I see it, regardless of how the best art of our time shapes up against the best of the past, art is moving nonetheless.”
--Clement Greenberg
"First they steal your mind and then they steal your soul."
--Soundgarden
"It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospect of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a good many devoted art lovers to rout."
--Ben Shahn, The Shape of Content
"Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery."
--Zen saying
"You accepted their bullshit long ago. You forgot you're on your knees."
--Killradio, Raised on Whipped Cream
"Who's driving this bus, well I want off now."
--Killradio, Raised on Whipped Cream
"What was that shit you tried to say? It doesn't matter to me, so fuck you anyway!"
--I.R.A.T.E.
"I am the bullet in the gun. I am the truth from which you run."
--Trent Reznor, NIN
"When the doors of perception are cleansed, we'll see things as they truly are, infinite."
--William Blake
"The artist is the only genuine and profound revolutionist, in the following sense. The world always has, and always will, tend to substitute appearance for reality. The artist, being always alone, being heterodox when everyone else is orthodox, is the perpetual upsetter of conventional values, the restorer of the real... His function is to bring back humanity to the real."
--T.S. Eliot
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WEIRDO MUSICK
You are a musician--a composer and guitarist. You spent ten years playing jazz and original improvisational music (but NOT New Age, for Christsake!). Your influences were Coryell, McLaughlin, Towner & OREGON, Manitas De Plata, flamenco, classical Indian music, Miles, Coltrane, & ECM. You started playing electric but switched to acoustic because you loved the pure unadulterated sound of the acoustic guitar (especially the nylon string). Did some recording, but not near enough to get used to the studio and the fear that what you put down (including mistakes) will remain forever. (And wasn't the absolute best shit you ever played always done at your house at one in the morning when nobody but your dog was listening?!) But then for whatever reason (maybe practicing seven hours a day had something to do with it) your hands started going bad. First the left; sluggish, recalcitrant. Then the right; loss of control, spastic. Then the pain like a voice saying, "ENOUGH!". "NOT carpal tunnel," said the doctors. Then what? Wore a brace for a year or two. ("Perhaps chronic overuse," they said.) The years go by as it gets worse. What a goat fuck! Sell off all your beautiful guitars as you can no longer play. (Write the literary novel "The Serial Killer's Diet Book" --published in 2001--as one career ends another begins.) So here are some songs from the vault of one man's abbreviated career in music (with commentary by said musician, yours truly).
KEVIN POSTUPACK, June 2008
Staunton, Virginia
1. "Fireheart" (3:45)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack
The song I would end solo gigs with; my pseudo-flamenco number. Begins in 17/8 with my index finger used as a pick as my old mentor, Al Romanelli, showed me long ago ("Cuz you may lose your pick but you'll never lose your finger!"). At this point as things were getting bad, my left hand cramps up during the hammer-on part, I grit my teeth and soldier on. Cool, violent strumming part near the end in 10/4--more Soundgarden than traditional flamenco. Nice tremolo. After this recording could never play this song again because hands got too bad.
2. "Song For A Friend" (1:33)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack
Written at the very end of my career, and somehow pulled off a decent recording of it (my last time in the studio). A short jazz ballad with some nice chords (some with killer stretches for those with good hands!). Nice harmonics a la Lenny Breau...
3. "The Power Of Love" (2:16)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Bass recorder, wind chimes--Kevin Postupack
At times a multi-instrumentalist, this piece was a bass recorder improvisation (with some nice over-blowing and humming) to wind chimes from my front porch.
4."The Cloudwatcher" (2:44)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack
Lying in the grass on a hot summer day staring at the billowy clouds overhead inspired this jazz ballad. I got the sense of being above the earth with the clouds below, and all I had to do was let go to float away and land in a giant cumulonimbus. (The noise in the background is me breathing. I could never figure out how to record without breathing. Sometimes I even wore a bandanna around my nose and mouth in the studio to keep the noise down. This one sounds good, but some of the other songs from this session took over 50 takes because of the hands' unpredictability.)
5. "The Consciousness Of A Tree" (5:32)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitars, twelve-string guitar, tamboura, wood flute, percussion--Kevin Postupack
Inspired by a hike in the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana, imagining the life and times of a Ponderosa pine on the edge of a mountain. Raga-like, it begins with the tamboura (the Indian drone instrument made from a gourd) and builds throughout with more instruments added until the climax (with some very cool bowed cymbals & various percussion throughout, and a solo on a wood flute that I bought for a dollar-fifty at an Oriental gift shop).
6. "Badlands" (7:52)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitar, tenor recorder, tin whistle, nylon string guitars--Kevin Postupack
Inspired by a drive out west, the first time I saw the North Dakota badlands appear from out of nowhere! Begins with a super-fast 15/8 picked part, to a fast strum with harmonics, to a slow 13/8 finger-picked pattern and the solos (the tin whistle sounds especially nice).
7. "Mary Had A Little Lamb" (0:32)
Arranged by Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack
My own jazz arrangement of the traditional song, with some cool Coryellesque harmonics at the end! This was played on the very first guitar I ever owned, a beater Ventura classical bought for fifty bucks when I was a teenager (one of the few guitars I had left at this point).
8. "Variations On A Theme By Robert de Visee" (3:26)
Composer main theme--Robert de Visee (1650-1725)
Composer variations--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack
A set of four variations I wrote for my students at the time, on the 17th century composer's original theme. Recorded when my hands were way too unruly for the demands of classical playing (it was a bitch staying in time, especially during the "counterpoint variation"). Although I loved classical guitar I preferred the freedom of jazz, not only to improvise, but to elaborate on and celebrate mistakes (as Miles did) instead of shunning them. The fourth variation is a "jazz variation" on a theme written 300 years before. Truly amazing, that just a few added notes to the original chords and we're heavily into jazz!
9. "Whitewater" (6:36)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitars, percussion--Kevin Postupack
Tabla, percussion--Warren Good
A song originally performed by the progressive jazz group ZERO (of which I was a founding member), it was recorded in Ithaca, NY. The opening guitar part was doubled by me in the studio (which was no simple task for a studio neophyte). Warren Good provides the rhythm on tabla drums, plus some nifty bowed cymbal & various & sundry percussive effects.
10. "Shadows & Light" (7:10)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitars, tenor & alto recorders, percussion--Kevin Postupack
Tabla, percussion--Warren Good
Drums, percussion--Michael Wellen
Acoustic bass--Harry Aceto
Piano--Ron Heerema
Shortly after my father died of cancer this piece was written for him and recorded as part of the Ithaca, NY session. In three parts, the opening section features a tenor recorder solo. Then it goes into the slower middle section in 11/8, with solos from the alto recorder and the guitar. The third section, in a very fast 7/4, features another guitar solo. Percussion highlights include a spaghetti pot partially filled with water, hit and tilted (in the opening few bars), and a discarded piece of a brass lamp (found in the studio's closet) which has a marvelously crisp bell tone (as the first section moves into the second). Having a traditional jazz drummer along with an Indian tabla player gives a nice rhythmic texture to play against (not to mention the warmth and timbre of the upright bass, and the lovely sound of the Steinway acoustic piano).
11. "Voice of Silence" (8:22)
Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitars, sound sculpture--Kevin Postupack
Tabla--Warren Good
Recorded as part of the Ithaca, NY session, "Voice of Silence" is a raga-like improvisation. The background drone is unique. I knew of these "sound sculptures" by the artist Harry Bertoia, which were parallel copper and beryllium rods of varying lengths on a sounding-board base. When vibrated (usually outside by the wind) they give off a beautiful, haunting, otherworldly sound. So I went to the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY and recorded myself manipulating them (since they were inside the museum), and this was used as the background to improvise to on "Voice of Silence". The extended guitar solo is followed by a tabla solo, and the piece ends with an upbeat strumming part in 5/4. (The occasional pops and scratches are because this was originally recorded onto vinyl back in the day.)
SPEW...
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[An uncensored one-man show in eight parts written and performed by K-Pac, with social and political commentary, guerrilla poetry, and humorous satire, filmed before a live audience.]
1. "VOICES"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcQd0IBiuTI
2. "The IVY LEAGUE & the PENIS"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLaM71M9kOs
3. "FEMINISM & CYBER-42nd St."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCTevR2ToY0
4. "M is for MORON"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_fO2jd59S8
5. "FETUS FIRST & the BIBLE"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiYj4DIV6dY
6. "CATHOLICS, F***ING, & the HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hG0CATCA3M
7. "FACEBOOK, DOPRAH, & NEW AGERS"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqO1qR2-kZE
8. "BILLIONAIRES & OTHER OBSCENITIES"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO4XG0qzRgk
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"WORD OF GOD"
Latest anarchistic statement from K-PAC...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTa-EWlcgo
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(poster for RANT 1...)
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(click on image to enlarge)
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Buy it today or perish in flames!
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