Jim Wormington

About me:

Before there was Ice Cube or Ice-T or even Rubik's Cube there was Cubism. A century ago, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque conspired to freak the world out by using art to redefine our perceptions of reality. These artists took "ordinary" people and things, disassembled them and rearranged them on the canvas until what was left was barely recognizbale.

What's the point?

Art historian T.J. Clark says the point is,"cubism's annihilation of the world, its gaming with it, its proposal of other, outlandish orders of experience to put in the world's place."

Mm. World annihilation. I like it. Metaphorically, of course; not so much literally.

So, here's to cubism and its magnificent chaos.

"Cubism realizes that all great art demands some generosity on the part of its viewers. Look up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and you know you're not really looking up at God creating Adam--and that it's worth pretending for a minute that you are. Cubism pushes that idea about as far as it could possibly go. It asks you to forget about what pictures can really do and to try on some artist's confounding new notions of art's capacities and goals--'to make the best of that obscurity, and finally to revel in it,' as Clark says. We all know a cubist picture fails to represent the world in anything like useful or coherent ways. But there's something to be gained imagining it could."

Find article about cubsim here: Washington Post Cubism Article