joel morrison, steven gontarski, thomas helbig..

...are three sculptors I'm very interested in lately. Thomas Helbig's current show at China Art Objects reminded me of the other two artists. The show felt thin..I'm not a fan of his 2-d work..but his sculpture is great. I thought I was the only type of person who appreciated this variety of grotesque fantasy so it's a pleasure to see it in places other than my own imagination. I think the paintings I made last year are a type of analog to the formal concepts all three of these artists are playing with. It has to do with post-figural mutation. It's like the scene in "Aliens" when Sigourney Weaver discovers all the mutated alien fetuses. Or maybe some kind of curio cabinet in a dark dusty Eastern European museum with a 2 headed cow floating in fromaldahyde..well you get what I mean. Only Morrison and Gontarski are a bit slick..and maybe Helbig's biomorphism has a textural verism that brings it closer to the sickly unsettling organic presence that I'm after.

my paintings circa 2006

Steven Gontarski

Thomas Helbig

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Dennis Hollingsworth

Dennis Hollingsworth
Web 2.0 is an exciting place. A number of artists are taking the reins and creating their own dialogues..I suspect that this trend will continue as the spotlight becomes more and more diffuse. It's funny how young artists are so impressionable..well at least I can speak for myself. It comes as a fantastic revelation when one realizes that ideas flow through many channels..not just sanctioned bureaucratic administrative entities. There is no such thing as "authority" in art. "Prestige" is a chimera that exists only in the imagination of consumers. It occupies the microscopic space between greed and fear. In reality there are only ideas and images..and the opportunity to participate in their negotiation and production. I feel like that's a big part of my project here in cyberworld..and I'd say Dennis us up to roughly the same thing. Hopefully the list will continue to grow...

Dennis Hollingsworth

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U.G. Krishnamurti- The Anti-Guru

There are 2 "Krishnamurti's"..U.G and Jiddu. U.G. is the flipside of Jiddu, and pretty much reminds me of Schopenhauer. He's extremely critical of Jiddu's belief that consciousness can be mutated and that human beings are capable of altering society into a better system. The thing to do is accept the limitations of humaness..like the limitations of mortality. I wonder if this is a more accurate, if seemingly darker, understanding of the human animal. If you do not see death as a collapse or tragic loss..then you can take the good with the bad. Society must be violent in order to continue. Conflict is a "necessary" evil. The problem is that dogmatists will apply and misrepresent this seemingly realist approach in order to justify all sorts of self serving systems such as Objectivism or even the politics of American Neo-Conservatives. If it remains purely theoretical and bereft of praxis I think it works just fine..but what good is a theory that cannot be applied?

more video at Professor Jacques

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Eris

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la vie est un jeu

"I can only conclude that I am indeed like a visitor from
non-Euclidean dimensions whose outlines are perplexing to
the Euclidean inhabitants of various dogmatic Flatlands. Or
else, Lichtenstein was right when he said a book "is a
mirror. When a monkey looks in, no philosopher looks out."
Of course, we are living in curved space (as noted by
Einstein); that should warn us that Euclidean metaphors are
always misleading. Science has also discovered that the
Universe can count above two, which should make us leery of
either/or choices. There are eight--count 'em,
eight--theories or models in quantum mechanics, all of which
use the same equations but have radically different
philosophical meanings; physicists have accepted the
multi-model approach (or "model agnosticism") for over 60
years now. In modern mathematics and logic, in addition to
the two-valued (yes/no) logic of Aristotle and Boole, there
are several three-valued logics (e.g. the yes, no and maybe
Quantum Logic of von Neumann; the yes, no and po of
psychologist Edward de Bono; etc.), at least one four-valued
logic (the true, false, indeterminate and meaningless of
Rapoport), and an infinite-valued logic (Korzybski). I
myself have presented a multi-valued logic in my
neuroscience seminars; the bare bones of this system will be
found in my book, _The New Inquisition_. Two-valued
Euclidean choices--left or right of an imaginary line--do
not seem very "real" to me, in comparison to the versatility
of modem science and mathematics. "
Robert Anton Wilson

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protrude, flow

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Extreme Instability

Awe inspiring and sublime photos of super-cell storms across the midwest by a guy named "Mike". Remind me of John Martin paintings..but without the cowering biblical figures and crumbling cities..

Extreme Instability

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