My thoughts on some of my favorite artists

Renoir: His style is so beautiful. Life is utterly beautiful and delicate and lighthearted and fun in his paintings. Sexuality is playful. The human being is playful and sincere.

Pissarro: There is a bold melancholy in all of his paintings. The compositions are perfect and the lyricism and love in his paintings are the balance to their melancholy.  He is sincere and true and honest to the moment. The toil and love of life are in his work.

Van Gogh: His work is of a naive loneliness. So honest and pure. There is no art, it’s just a true and naked moment.

Picasso: He is a true artistic genius. His works combine raw beauty with raw ugliness. Or none. His work is structure. It’s the sobering tale of a moment. Impossibly beautiful and impossibly stark.  

Monet: It’s a touch of sadness in his lyricism. It’s so beautiful, it’s a tearful beauty.

Rothko: His is a dark soul. His work is a horror. It can be so touching and beautiful but there is a horror, a violence in his work, a terror.

Degas: I dont know if ive seen enough of his work to really give a good estimation. There is a charm and a quirk to his paintings. They’re beautiful, elegant and playful. There is a straightforwardness.

Kirshner: What an interesting fellow. His paintings are so sexual and dirty. Lusty and vibrant. I love his stuff.

How TV affects the brain

Well, TV seems to be a big culprit for so many of my issues. I feel it and see it so simply when I go from not watching a lot to watching some. The brain turns off, it’s incredible. The self goes away into this abyss of what you’re seeing. It’s tragic. It really is. It’s not healthy, pretty much no matter the content, maybe like 2 percent of the content out there is worth it. What a tragedy it has been in my life. Just time wasted. The brain is throbbing after. It overstimulates. Life seems less interesting, less potent. But it removes the will, it removes most drives. It smashes your feeling for decision making, for feeling empowered, for taking control. It is truly tragic. The winning move is to live life, not watch it through a screen or read it in a book. Time goes away.

The second thing is will and necessity. When you artificially simulate the needs of the mind/body etc, it stops desiring them because they have been “met”. Even though they really havent been met. To not watch porn you immediately feel that you have to grow and do anything it takes to be desirable, to get what you want and need. It becomes clear the path. But with porn, those needs are artificially met, its a lesser version. But feels substantial even though it is not, especially over time. Life is your clay and tv gives you the false sense that you are molding it.

Fucking Modern Art

Everyone has said this and everyone feels this way. God damn mother fucking modern art. Or at least the trash they have in some of the best galleries in the world. Trash that has no business being anywhere except in a dumpster. The aesthetic is randomization. They argue for minimalism or a “condensation” or “essential components” but it’s trash. Why are you boiling it down to essential components, that’s fine but to just do it for its own sake is again, fine but jesus, not really art all that much. What does it express? Who are you? What are you trying to say. “I CAN BOIL THESE SHAPES DOWN INTO THIS ONE SHAPE” omg genius genius genius……. And that it has found its way to the highest levels is astounding. There is no love in these works. There is only a little anxious shell of a human being who makes these things. I wonder if it is all a scam in a way. That these artists know what the big curators are looking for and put forth a product that will fulfill these requirements. That it is an ecosystem of manipulation. They grow up in these academic environments and learn the system, then create garbage to manipulate the overeducated curators, looking for that next big thing. It’s garbage. It’s a culture built around style, not content.

I mean the examples are just too numerous. And of course there are incredible works of art coming out now that are undeniably profound and worthy of our generation’s love and praise and money and time. There are interesting people out there doing interesting things with real talent. I belive in it. It’s the trash, the free rides that I lose my mind over. Again, just too many to cite. I mean the absurdity of it. I saw an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago. They had an exhibit on modern art in the 80’s and 90’s. I mean it was all so bad, and my interest was peaked at this set of really cool drawings. They were so dirty and emotional and expressive. They had so much fire and imagination behind them. Turns out they were PICTURES someone had taken of Schiele paintings….  Jesus fucking christ. HOW IS THIS ALLOWED??  YOU CAN TAKE PICTURES OF OTHER PEOPLES WORKS AND GET IN AN ART MUSEUM????? Holy fucking fuck. There is more and more of this insanity in almost infinite galleries. It’s sad. Why do I care? Ahh damn, who knows, I dont I guess. It just makes me sad and upset. And man, the system is just goofy. It’s just goofy. I wish the art that was valued came from the heart. From work and from talent. Bansky said it best, how all the talented artists work in advertising and the art world is left with the paralyzed rejects.