Herminia Haro • So, I didn’t understand what you mean Renee.

Renée Sigel • Peter, Herminia, I refer to the power of ideas, not merely artistic expression. Back in 09 and 2011, I had an exchange online about art saving the world and this was my reply.

Can art save the world?

Is it so much the actual art that might salvage the world or is it more the intellectual gardening that fearlessly explores innovative ways by which to capture the essences in all that we till and toss in order to define the landscape of our supposed humanity – in questioning the very aesthetics we propose?

In the cinematic homage to Picasso, PICASSO A THOUSAND LOVING LIES, Guillaume Appolinaire’s ‘creative’ principles were applied, with the kind of textural adoration that made the imagery, Dali-esque, in its liquidity of truth versus illusion: documentation lost its representative edge to a celebratory depiction of the “Lie by which art reveals all… “ an idea to which Picasso dedicated his life.

I warrant it is more than just an artistic distillation of the world…

Cézanne so too believed in the revelation of the ‘lie’, only art historians have misread his openness for fear and in doing so reflect more of Anaïs Nin’s dictum that ‘we don’t see things as they are, but as we are’…rendering thereby,not only our own perceptions, but that of our age, a moving target in the charge of our era to obliterate memory.

Don’t we, particularly in this day and age, live in a world where art is no longer relevant, for as Ocatvio Paz writes in his history of the Soul, THE DOUBLE FLAME, we live in the first Soulless century in human history: not even at its worst did the persecutors of the Spanish Inquisition, hold up disrespectfully, the Soul’s right to an afterlife, whereas, in an age where leashing someone for torture is permissible and leashing oneself for sexual pleasure is not, we have inherently sanctioned something of which art is incapable… ie..nurturing a society in which the notion of a ‘blameless torturer can thrive.

Art not a dictum, nor an antidote. and it does not and cannot exist nor thrive in a vacuum… relevance is rooted in reciprocity and in an age of media, instant access, overnight celebrity where a diamond studded cell phone can be auctioned off the same block as a diamond studded skull, parading as fine art….what soul is there left for Art…if not a requisite to become the voice of its Absence… the Munchian scream of its increasing silent irrelevance?

Stalin was ‘the engineer of souls’ and look what it cost Shostakovitch?

Mediocrity is the creative opiate of the masses and Stalin, like many was a mediocre man with power… And Youtube is the contemporary breeding ground, as are others… Some major art dealers leveraging instant access… are notoriously complicit in this magnification of mediocrity as self proclaimed excellence producing millions of miniature creative Stalins across the globe.

Intrinsically, Art is not what can save the world… it does not have that power. What it does have is intellectual thought and it is ideas and its intrinsic independence from history which have the true influence and is the reason why those with the real minds have always been the first to be rounded up and shot.

part two follows…

Renée Sigel • Speaking of calibre, appreciation for true apprenticeship, skill, technique and perhaps above and beyond everything, that intrinsic passion which binds marrow and breath, thought and action to explore seek and uncover the inexplicable within the artistry which holds mastery over every second of one’s life…then the current contemporary love affair with instantaneous celebrity is something of a societal ‘lava lamp of E-Entertainment type Wannabe’s for Warhol’s famous ”fifteen minutes of fame” and has lit up the aspirational generation’s desire for stuff rather than knowledge….

Self expression does not an artist make yet, in an environment where Access is the new kind of currency and ‘T&A’ are trademark avenues of achievement – unfortunately never anywhere close to the sparkling performance acuity of Ms Bernadette Peters in singing the stage rendition in All That Jazz – the ‘bare all on Big Brother will make you famous’ slogan is not just a sleazy’s producer’s teaser-banner for herding ‘new talent’ to Babeville: it has become the Fast Food staple diet of a Paris Hiltonite studded version of contemporary culture.
It is downed with ‘Chill’ & Chinese imitation Perrier Water, along with as many parties you can muster sleepless in a week.. and in a world of branding where Pitt or Jolie could be an underwear line – art is forced through the hybrid marketing machinery; no longer be seen and sold, collected or hung as art, but hedged about or hammered down to record pricing on the auction block. It proffers the kind of milieu where the art Patron has in turn has become enslaved to seasonal taste, which continues budding with exponential ignorance, for spending millions on half a shark in formaldehyde sold as ‘art’ – when it cannot be art, for being nothing more than, half a shark in formaldehyde…

Between the subservience of pandering ‘creative’ and the subversiveness of real ideas lies the Deathknell of true artistry: The Marketing Department. Where once Iconography, Symbolism, Rhetoric, Metaphor and Meaning were the expressive pantheon of technical excellence, these days, robotic applications offer Mastery for $49.99 per month: Automate Genius and all you need for inspiration is a tin can of Red Bull, a pair of artificial wings, a pause button and a street parade. The World for all they care, will find a way to save itself…

Initially published by Decayenne in 2009
Published on a LinkedIn forum March 2011

Peter Filzmaier • I applaud you Rennee for reaching the heat of the matter in such few precise and revealing points. Your logic is as masterful as a great work of art. I have much to learn and digest from my daily experiences and humbly say that This is a world of probability and possibility and I believe an artist, an intellectual innovator, an inventor, all create the possible from the probable, realizing new innovative solutions to our problems. All the dumbing down and mental decay will still leave some standing and the pendulum will swing in the other direction. I am optimistic that we evolve as nature intended and will come to understand and appreciate the lessons of the past.