I have been looking at and seeing so much wonderful new painting. As a pretty much complete left/right brain mix, I have been trying to put a loose container around what I have been seeing, for myself as a painter and as a curator. Rubenstein and Butler raised the dialogue with the terms, Provisional, Casual and Crapstraction...and now I have come across a term I really like, Rhizomatic Painting. It seems to be elastic enough to be inclusive but seems to capture some of the moments zeitgest. Why do I even care about terms - not sure - but maybe its cause I love painting so much and love to talk about it. So heres some food for thought (thanks Wikipedia). As a model for culture, the rhizome resists the organizational structure of the root-tree system which charts causality along chronological lines and looks for the original source of things- towards the pinnacle or conclusion of those things. A rhizome, on the other hand, is characterized by ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles. Rather than narrativize history and culture, the rhizome presents history and culture as a map or wide array of attractions and influences, with no specific origin or genesis, for a rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The planar movement of the rhizome resists chronology and organization, instead favoring a nomadic system of growth and propagation. In this model, culture spreads like the surface of a body of water, spreading towards available spaces or trickling downwards towards new spaces through fissures and gaps, eroding what is in its way. The surface can be interrupted and moved, but these disturbances leave no trace, as the water is charged with pressure and potential to always seek its equilibrium, and thereby establish smooth space. This is kinda what Im trying to understand about this post- Post-Modern painting Ive been seeing, in which all things seem relative, and mashups of prior traditions; high, low, abstract, figurative, outside, inside - are happening organically. What do you think? Hope to see you all Saturday night! Michael
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 15:14:36 +0000
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