[-empyre-] Modern Antiques

[G.H.Hovagimyan <ghh@thing.net>]

So we’re supposed to riff off whether Modernism is our Classicism.  I 
need to figure out which Modernism we are talking about and from whose 
view point?

As an American I generally think of the modern world as starting with 
the French and American revolutions. Both are Bourgeois revolutions. 
OK, that means the end of Medieval social structures ( you know, kings, 
serfs)  and the establishment of the Bourgeoisie ideals of science and 
business and private property.
Personally I don’t think the Modern world has ended.  If anything, the 
ideals of Science and Business keep spreading.
Anyway , I’m an artist so I think about art, art history and what I’m 
doing as an artist. I believe that Christiane pointed out that there 
are different definitions of Modernity.

Modern Art it seems to me has three main threads that distinguish it 
from earlier forms;
1. Deconstruction or a “Scientistic” approach to art making that 
involves applying scientific principals to art. This includes a 
dissection of the elements of art and the investigation of it’s 
components.
2. The game of art or art as a language game. People often talk about 
this as “art for arts sake” or art that is about other art.  An amusing 
project is to read some of the 10,000 plus manifestos produced by 
artists in the 20th century.  This list is part of that tradition.
3. Perhaps the most interesting thread and the most telling is 
performance art. This is a creative process that is not tied to theater 
and depends on media tools (cameras, recorders, computers) to verify or 
document its’ existence.

Obviously, this may be overly simple but I’d rather discuss art than 
philosophy. I also believe in elevating art rather than debasing it or 
subsuming it to some other discipline such as philosophy or science or 
politics.
As for art and politics, I really believe that being an artist is a 
political act in and of itself. It is an engagement is a high level 
discourse with the political/social arena. It is similar to the 
dialog/discourse between sculpture and archtecture.