At the core of any Art practice there is a hard kernel of mysticism. An ineffable and irreducible something. It is inscrutable to logic and words. This “thing” is implied (and not a thing at all), but not grasped, by ideas like: gestalt, nous, and the apeiron.
That “thing” is both irrational, and the source of order. Therein lies my claim for mysticism. There are no other means to study – to be a student of – the process by which the two contradicting principles (order/randomness) can be understood to work together to produce a coherent whole. By coherent whole I mean the full scope of the cosmos, including the human experience.
Think of it – one process, leading to both the astounding regularity and rationality of our mathematics and science, as well as the unfathomable origins of what passes as the full range of human experience. Is it possible to imagine resolving those two universes of knowledge into one? I cannot. To me, it seems like the exercise of visualizing a “red round square”. Do it. See a red, round, square in your mind. When you succeed, please get in touch with me.
Until then, be in awe.
Be in awe of the regularity and the profoundly unfathomable which is found all around us, the two jumbled and encrusted together like the structures of a christmas cake, a colloid.
So it occurred to me that I still find it impossible to both practice (study) my understanding of art, (that is – a mystical process enacted) and simultaneously produce something that is supposed to fit into the contemporary art market’s dialectic of “What is Art”.
In short – I don’t know (yet?) how to both perform something which is totally unpredictable and ineffable in such a way that it will neatly conform to the dictum of contemporary art markets.
So I don’t try.
I am willing to entertain the multiple notions (none are mutually exclusive) that I either need to hone my practice, or learn more about the marketing of art, or that the above are mute points because of the impossibility of bending a an unknown quantity to a precise end.
And here I will tell you something, then I will contradict it (twice) – and I’m perfectly alright with that:
I don’t know that it is possible to be a Student of the Arts, a devotee of its mystical roots, while simultaneously producing works that fit into the ongoing dialectic that defines contemporary art practice. In other words – I don’t know how to bend the irresolvable and irrational to a rational end.
I believe that the two seemingly disparate worlds – of creating works of art, and placing them within a rational framework where they can be understood as a further advancement of the Project of Contemporary Art – should be accessible to any artist who is fully “turned on”. By that I mean that the practitioner of Art who is effecting and effective on a very high level should be able to embrace the contradictory nature of these two “worlds”. Being able to both grasp irrationality of art making and the rationality of placing it within the body of Art as historically understood in the realms of the market, museums, and academia.
I believe that once the Art dialectic arrives at the understanding of Art as an enactment of the fundamental nature of Being – when it becomes understood as the reflection of stable principles – the current pursuit of the “hot new thing” (in academia and museums) will stall out. The discussion will finally be seen for what it is: the re-articulation of a surface and material that has always been there. Like waves on the surface of the ocean, or clouds in the sky. There will be no “further” destination, only an infinite progression, like snowflakes, or fractals, each unique and marvelous, and yet subsumed in the understanding of the principles which give them shape.