It's comical that people prefer my early works I made when I was seventeen and uninformed, above the work I made post-education. But the compliments keep coming. Someone recently told me they disliked me, until they saw my art and their opinion of me changed. That's powerful.
Granted, these people know less about art than I did at seventeen. My harshest critics were deprived of contemporary art in the Soviet Union, where art ceased a century ago, and was defined at an early age to mean only nationalistic landscape paintings in gilded frames. Who could blame them? But with them I regret that sometimes it's easier to just discuss the weather, where a cloud is just a cloud.
I understand that many people like things they can easily recognize without exercising too much brain power. They dislike metaphor. They just want a pretty girl to put over their mantle to match the drapes.
Maybe I'm just ornery. I like pretty girls, but I want them scandalous. And sure I love simple art, but I want so much simplicity that "a six year old could paint it" as an unsaavy observer might say. (What happens between age 6 and 17 that destroys our ability to paint with our minds instead of our vanity?)
Komar and Melamid feel me on this one with their 'Most Wanted' series. I'm not alone among creatives and anyone possessing a vague awareness of culture. I just wish the rest would get a fucking education before they condemn the entire right side of their brain to starve for eternity.
4:02 p.m. - 2009-07-15