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first annual remodernist exhibition now online - check blogMood: energetic energeticPosted at 7:12 PM Jan 9 view more

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  • Matt Bray

  • 34 / Male
  • UK
  • Last Login: 6/11/2009

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  • General

    REMODERNIST ARTISTS:

    Billy Childish
    Matt Bray
    Ella Guru
    Sexton Ming
    Paddywan
    Adam Bray
    Wolf Howard
    Carson Collins
    Joanne Marie Shaw
    Susan Grissom
    John Douglas
    Lindabob
    Mare
    Karl James
    Chris Carter
    Fab Kelly
    Ellen Zaks
    Robert Barrere
    N Kumar Bellani
    Darkest Artist
    Mike Center>br> Linda J Armstrong
    Anett Kilen Kennedy
    Carrie Glenn
    Marion Chapman
    Avalyn Doyle
    Lynda Nexus
    Mechelle Schloss
    Julianne Goepfert
    Frank Christopher Schroeder
    Jennifer Anderson
    REMODERNIST FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY
    The STUCKISTS
    The DEFAESTENISTS

    (if you would like to be added to this list, please contact me)


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    ESSENTIAL BILLY CHILDISH INTERVIEW

  • Movies

    D e a t r i c k -- G a l l e r y

    Remodernism: observations by Jeffrey Scott Holland


    Remodernism is a concept initially conceived by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson as the 20th century came to a close. Read their original manifesto here. If I were to boil Remodernism to a very simplistic bottom line (as is my tendency), it is this: The so-called "post-modern" era is a fallacy, created by the bored and blase who are always looking for "the next big thing", no matter how absurd.

    The modern era in art began with much promise and potential, but that potential was barely mined - the surface barely scratched - when suddenly the "powers that be" in the art world discarded it as a jaded pervert would a briefly-used porn magazine. Suddenly it was declared that we were in the "post-modern" era, a random and meaningless landscape where anything goes.

    Anything except painting, that is. Time and time again we read that "painting is dead". The reason given is invariably that "all that can be done in paint has already been done", as if the only valid art is that which breaks new ground. Can you imagine the second guy who painted a still life of a bowl of fruit being told "sorry, it's already been done" while the first guy goes down in history as a master of "fruitism"? Modern Art, and each of the many subsets within its first 50 years, need at least another century (or more) to plumb its depths.

    Ironically, this stifling mindset is a direct result of the same permissiveness that enabled modern art to emerge; the only problem is that being dadaistic is no longer just permitted, it's mandatory. We are now engulfed in a sea of would-be Duchamps, who all want to experience for themselves his thrill of presenting Anti-art as Art. At least Duchamp had a sense of humor.

    Postmodernism has reached such heights of absurdity that it can no longer be parodied. Doonesbury attempted to satirize over-the-top performance art in a memorable run of strips, but everything presented in the comic would actually have made a perfectly accepted performance piece. Daniel Clowes hit the nail on the head with his comic "Art School Confidential" (soon to be a major motion picture), depicting the horror of burned-out professors teaching kids that it's perfectly valid to present one's toothbrush as an installation making "a statement against consumerism".

    What's next? An artist who exhibits an empty gallery and distributes a leaflet listing the art he thought about doing but was too lazy? It's probably already happened.

    Even post-modern painting, when one can find it, tends to be lacking in soul and enthusiasm. Andy Warhol's last art show before Basquiat brought him back to his roots was an exhibit of silk-screened "paintings" of dollar signs. Other modern painters ply their trade for illustrations, graphics, and commercial art - which I applaud - but they often choose not to play the "fine art" game with it. There is definitely a mindset that an artist who does art for album covers and greeting cards can never be the same kind of artist who reaches "master" stature. Fortunately, deep cracks are forming in that wall, as underground cartoonists like Robert Crumb are finally beginning to get their due from the establishment art world.

    Unlike some, I do not actively oppose such fields as performance art, found art, video art, and computer generated art, even though I do think most of it is sheer garbage. My concern is that these peripheral forms of craft have been falsely elevated for no other reason than their newness. And humanity literally suffers from it. I firmly believe this. Artists were once as respected as authors or musicians, but no longer.

    Now that the 20th century has finally ended, it is more imperative than ever to get back to finishing what we started in the first half of it. Remodernism seeks to restore, even if only for its participants, the original objectives of Modernism before it became so cataclysmically unbalanced."

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  • Status: Single
  • Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Blurbs

About me:

first annual remodernist painters exhibition The First Annual Remodernist Painters Exhibition has successfully been put online. It will run for the entire year, during which I hope more and more people will discover the Remodernist manifesto, and feel inspired to do what is in their heart. Many thanks to Carson Collins and Lynda Stevens for organising the exhibition, and congratulations to all the artists selected!

Definition of Remodernism -

Remodernism 'towards a new spirituality in art' Through the course of the 20th century Modernism has progressively lost its way, until finally toppling into the pit of Postmodern balderdash. 1. Remodernism takes the original principles of Modernism and reapplies them, highlighting vision as opposed to formalism. 2. Remodernism is inclusive rather than exclusive and welcomes artists who endeavor to know themselves and find themselves through art processes that strive to connect and include, rather than alienate and exclude. Remodernism upholds the spiritual vision of the founding fathers of Modernism and respects their bravery and integrity in facing and depicting the travails of the human soul through a new art that was no longer subservient to a religious or political dogma and which sought to give voice to the gamut of the human psyche. Definition by hamlet279 -------------------------------------------------------------

THE REMODERNIST MANIFESTO



1. Remodernism takes the original principles of Modernism and reapplies them, highlighting vision as opposed to formalism.

2. Remodernism is inclusive rather than exclusive and welcomes artists who endeavour to know themselves and find themselves through art processes that strive to connect and include, rather than alienate and exclude. Remodernism upholds the spiritual vision of the founding fathers of Modernism and respects their bravery and integrity in facing and depicting the travails of the human soul through a new art that was no longer subservient to a religious or political dogma and which sought to give voice to the gamut of the human psyche.

3. Remodernism discards and replaces Post-Modernism because of its failure to answer or address any important issues of being a human being.

4. Remodernism embodies spiritual depth and meaning and brings to an end an age of scientific materialism, nihilism and spiritual bankruptcy.

5. We don't need more dull, boring, brainless destruction of convention, what we need is not new, but perennial. We need an art that integrates body and soul and recognises enduring and underlying principles which have sustained wisdom and insight throughout humanity's history. This is the proper function of tradition.

6. Modernism has never fulfilled its potential. It is futile to be 'post' something which has not even 'been' properly something in the first place. Remodernism is the rebirth of spiritual art.

7. Spirituality is the journey of the soul on earth. Its first principle is a declaration of intent to face the truth. Truth is what it is, regardless of what we want it to be. Being a spiritual artist means addressing unflinchingly our projections, good and bad, the attractive and the grotesque, our strengths as well as our delusions, in order to know ourselves and thereby our true relationship with others and our connection to the divine.

8. Spiritual art is not about fairyland. It is about taking hold of the rough texture of life. It is about addressing the shadow and making friends with wild dogs. Spirituality is the awareness that everything in life is for a higher purpose.

9. Spiritual art is not religion. Spirituality is humanity's quest to understand itself and finds its symbology through the clarity and integrity of its artists.

10. The making of true art is man's desire to communicate with himself, his fellows and his God. Art that fails to address these issues is not art.

11. It should be noted that technique is dictated by, and only necessary to the extent to which it is commensurate with, the vision of the artist.

12. The Remodernist's job is to bring God back into art but not as God was before. Remodernism is not a religion, but we uphold that it is essential to regain enthusiasm (from the Greek, en theos to be possessed by God).

13. A true art is the visible manifestation, evidence and facilitator of the soul's journey. Spiritual art does not mean the painting of Madonnas or Buddhas. Spiritual art is the painting of things that touch the soul of the artist. Spiritual art does not often look very spiritual, it looks like everything else because spirituality includes everything.

14. Why do we need a new spirituality in art? Because connecting in a meaningful way is what makes people happy. Being understood and understanding each other makes life enjoyable and worth living.

Summary

It is quite clear to anyone of an uncluttered mental disposition that what is now put forward, quite seriously, as art by the ruling elite, is proof that a seemingly rational development of a body of ideas has gone seriously awry. The principles on which Modernism was based are sound, but the conclusions that have now been reached from it are preposterous.

We address this lack of meaning, so that a coherent art can be achieved and this imbalance redressed.

Let there be no doubt, there will be a spiritual renaissance in art because there is nowhere else for art to go. Stuckism's mandate is to initiate that spiritual renaissance now.



Billy Childish

Charles Thomson

1.3.2000

Who I'd like to meet:

The artist, functioning in his "proper" way, is the true seer and prophet of his century, the justifier of life and as such, of course, a revolutionary far more fundamental in his penetration of the social mask of his day than any fanatic idealist spilling blood over the pavement in the name simply of another unnatural mask. From "The Inner Reaches of Outer Space" by Joseph Campbell

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