Art, the case for imagination.

Age of innocence/Sky is dirty, self-portrait using tripod and timer, 2001

To imagine, how do we do it and what happens in visual deserts we inhabit to imagination? It is a buzzword, imagine with lots of positive vibes and commercial potential, holding massive value and the word imagine is used to engage to think for yourself in worst cases when there is visually nothing much of interest, which word imagination itself is a blank to be filled or something full to be found. Artworks that are said to be about nothing, of nothingness, we look at them and are told to imagine or is it such an emotional event to gaze art that rationally thinking is misguided? Do we need instructions on how to see art, what to think? Sometimes we need to be told something is art, curiously. Everybody does it their own way, some are not bothered with such nonsense as conceptual art. What do we imagine if the thing is nothing and its catch is the emptiness, whiteness, the place where it is at and the conceptual nature of the work wouldn’t possibly work anywhere else than within the art world frame and how it is managed in the commercially set frame? What do we imagine inside the white cube, in the city centre built of glass and chrome, slick, visit-and-go environment where we come by things that are called art and are placed art-like? How do we use our imagination today and what does it mean when we are in context of contemporary art ’to be inspired’ or instructed to use our imagination? Is the art world using its imagination and all the possibilities art can offer fully, because I’m not so sure: too many people are scared of the new, stepping over boundaries, rules and the social media mobs. Especially today it is getting strange what gets accepted and is offence the thing to avoid at any cost? Winnings and earnings lost mean losing one’s job.

What if imagination stops working and mind is just blank in that particular moment? People have various degrees of capabilities what comes to imagination which is in test daily and why should conceptual art make anyone imagine anything? Does advertising, entertainment and built environment do the imagining for us and we have become lazy to imagine for ourselves? Is our environment and art today so ripped of from details that it is hollow and empty and it relies on us to create the content ourselves, the meaning and what should we do about this choreographed world with geometrical shapes that echo style and trends? It is all to make one think, everything is to make one think but it is also to make everything easier. The frame where we move is the structure given and is like a guide or a map to an idea of what to think and how to move. We pay attention to the price of art and houses, that draws the headlines, not what there is to imagine. I try to think the words imagine and imagination in today’s world. We are constantly inspired or entertained and content or nothing of the sort. Anxious and tense is what we are. Enjoyment is the aim, one can have an attempt at thinking, why are we doing what we do, are we made just to think or just to feel powerless and poor? What am I in comparison to this conceptual art? What is this rectangle shape to me, something to stand in?

Imagining is a difficult thing in many ways. It needs practice, but we do it all the time in terms of visualisation and thinking of what everything is and means adding contents in our minds to the seen to comprehend and continue the thought. To measure it what is seen and experienced, imagined or fed, just to describe what one imagines waking up in the morning or walking by an artwork, results are maybe expected, all the same everyday? What do we notice in the end or pay attention to? Try to describe in some way your thoughts on paper and in a way that it is understandable to others as well or maybe it is interesting that art is not immediately easily comprehensible which frustrates many, not adding explanations may do it, probably will. That is great practice and using of one’s brain with hand and a pen or whatever, which conceptual art attempts to do, activate our intellect, see connections if there are any. We do live in the middle of concepts, defining anything is equally as hard as trying to draw anything. Always some detail is left out, forgotten and added, tried again and so on. Try defining an art piece or describing it or a house or the situation the world is in right now. It was a mess 2001.

2001: Age of innocence

Sky is dirty, 2001, BOOm! Age of innocence.

Who is afraid of ass? Nobody nowadays, question only is what size it is and how it was made. Body needs work as it is looked at and certain parts are looked at. Naturalness which we appreciate cannot be anything but a result of hard work. Still nudity is scary even in art, which has led me thinking what does it mean, the fear, scandalising body, seeing something that cannot be looked at because it reveals something of the viewer, especially female body and showing of it, looking at bodies is telling. The fear is to be ridiculed, seen, judged, losing opportunities because of the shame of being seen, what else? Female body in art is on display but is it for the shock value, beauty the value, for artistic value (what makes artistic value?), difference in how body is displayed and what is desired from this show, exploration of human form, what happens in time to human body and how we perceive it and receive it, how we accept it or not, what else? Menstruation the word and sight is too much to take, is nudity any less? We are judged by what we reveal, what we watch, how we want ourselves to be seen, how others expect we must be seen and how not.

Sky is dirty 2001