Something Else / Asger Carlsen

"You're (really) something!" in Polish is "Ty to jesteś!"*, meaning literally "You are the one that is!".

This seems more logical than the English expression - your existence is more, your [way of] being is the right one.
Yet there is, hidden within this phrase, a sense of hierarchy that verges on arrogance - a value judgment on being. I prefer the English version - it sounds more modest, the paradox (you-thing) gives it the feel of a good fetish - you are [my] fetish.
We can also see it as edifying: I can see you objectively and that sight is grand.


You are something else: you are fundamentally unattainable.

All the photos are by Asger Carlsen, from the series Wrong, 0 and Detour.**

* The Polish expression, however, has a rather pejorative connation, while the English one usually means we are impressed with the other person. Still, both have the basic meaning of awe and amazement, and both can in some circumstances be positive or negative.
** The first two pictures are not, as someone suggested, photos of real handicapped people. See the entire Wrong series for more.

Something Else / Asger Carlsen

"You're (really) something!" in Polish is "Ty to jesteś!"*, meaning literally "You are the one that is!".

This seems more logical than the English expression - your existence is more, your [way of] being is the right one.
Yet there is, hidden within this phrase, a sense of hierarchy that verges on arrogance - a value judgment on being. I prefer the English version - it sounds more modest, the paradox (you-thing) gives it the feel of a good fetish - you are [my] fetish.
We can also see it as edifying: I can see you objectively and that sight is grand.


You are something else: you are fundamentally unattainable.

All the photos are by Asger Carlsen, from the series Wrong, 0 and Detour.**

* The Polish expression, however, has a rather pejorative connation, while the English one usually means we are impressed with the other person. Still, both have the basic meaning of awe and amazement, and both can in some circumstances be positive or negative.
** The first two pictures are not, as someone suggested, photos of real handicapped people. See the entire Wrong series for more.

DRAWING WITHOUT ELECTRICITY

The painter Margaret Keane married a real jerk.

Early in her career, Keane created a popular style of painting children with huge, sad eyes. Although artistically dreadful, the paintings became wildly popular in the 1950s and 60s.



Keane's domineering husband Walter boasted that he painted the pictures, and he persuaded her to go along with his lie. For twelve long years, Walter took credit for Margaret's work. When their marriage dissolved and his meal ticket seemed about to disappear, Walter insisted that he owned the rights to the art, and even challenged Margaret's legal right to continue painting using the now famous "Keane" name. In court, it was his word against hers.

Then the judge came up with the ultimate test: he asked both Margaret and Walter to paint in front of the jury. Margaret successfully painted one of her trademark portraits. Walter claimed he was unable to paint due to a sore shoulder so they kicked his ass out of court.

There is no test of an artist more unambiguous than what he or she can do all alone with a pencil or brush. Again and again, people have returned to this standard as the measure of an artist.

After World War II, Han Van Meegeren was prosecuted for having sold an important cultural treasure, a Vermeer painting, to the Nazi occupiers . Faced with long imprisonment, Van Meegeren objected that he was not guilty because he personally forged the "Vermeer" he sold.



Scholars and art experts ridiculed his claim, but the court put him to the test by demanding that he paint another Vermeer in prison under observation. The testimony of Van Meegeren's brush was more persuasive than all of the art experts and scientists combined. The prosecutor dropped his charges of collaborating with Nazis (and prosecuted him instead for forgery).

Whether an artist is locked in a jail cell or isolated in a courtroom or stranded on a desert island, they always retain the crucial ingredients for their art: their eyes, fingers and mind. These are what the judges were trying to measure by eliminating interference from assistants, collaborators, photoshop, xerox machines, mechanical crutches or other such camouflage.

I sometimes think about the relevance of this test when I am enjoying the extraordinary new fruits of digital art. I have been dazzled by the brilliance of the animation art in Wall-E:



as well as the fabulous garden scene in Coraline.

These works of art are extraordinary and consuming, but they can neither be made nor viewed without the collaboration of utility companies to provide electrical power, financial institutions to provide funding, computer companies to develop software, and hundreds of animators, visual effects experts and other art professionals. None of them as an individual could "prove" their worth the way that Keane or Van Meegeren did for earlier generations. Today the creativity of electrical engineers can be as important as the creativity of the art director.

I sometimes wonder whether in the future this marvelous art form will eclipse more antiquated art forms, such as drawing and painting. And if it does, what will be the ultimate proof of an artist then?

Moving/Making/Growing

Start off with something nice.
Something delicate, subtle, yet not too sharp, just soft enough to create the sensation of closeness. Don't go crazy, don't look for the ambitious project. Focus on this line. This spot. This shape. Something ridiculously precious for the little space it takes, for the easiness with which one can grasp it with one blink of an eye. Like a photo. Like a brand mark. Like, say, a sign announcing a poodle.
Now. Keep it fresh, don't go for the design, don't become too sure of yourself, you've only walked that far, you've only just created a little tiny bit of reality, something enchanting, a walk in the night, maybe, a few pretty words, possibly.
Stay humble.
And if you think you're humble enough, make fun at whatever it is that isn't there quite yet. Look at the silly figure you're making, you artiste you, you and your pretty dress, and your flirtacious smile, and your bright ideas and smiling smiles.

That's it. You're moving you're making you're growing. You're growing on this other you that is not you, and which surprizingly serves you as a filter to bring about the rest. See?
And though you know there is no other self, by now the distance is your best ally, you use it like a magnifying glass, the distance is what you learn to know best, you play with it, you give it true depth, you make it resound, this distant you, like a tolling bell, and then you pretend there is nothing, you get on with your work and all the rest, until, one day, it comes back, the echo, simple and potent and clear.

Andrea Schumacher, Poodle; Belle of the Ball; and Transposed Gesture (the latter, original, gesso and gouache painting is available at the Pierogi Gallery for under $400)