"Artists That HAVE Lost The CREATIVE PLOT."

Not actually my title but a group conversation on the artreview website. I love what a lot of the people are saying in this group.
One thing that really got my attention and put things into perspective in a way that I could never put so clearly is this:

"The way contemporary art has developed makes it difficult to have an open and free debate within it.
You cannot object to any work without the risk of excluding yourself further and further from the art circle.
If we point fingers at what we think is silly art etc. we actually become part of the audience for the work, part of its reception, part of its effect. Likewise if we support the work.
There is no genuine dialogue space for communication. We are being giving socially forced alternatives of support/object.
I think we should object to the power relationships, unfreedom and lack of open debate that make these recurrence 'controversies' such a routine part of the our cultural landscape.
Ultimately, we need is a sense that art and artists can have a real role in the world making things better.
At the moment art just seems to be one sideshow amongst many (as in Kafka's micro story The Hunger Artist)." -Rob Van Beek

It could be said, with or without irony, that the viewers/critics are being censored by the art world. If someone has an opinion that does not agree with their opinion than the argument of relativism is brought up; when someone agrees with them it is no longer relativity that is brought up but Truth!
I'd love to see this period in the art world survive without artists statements. I think many critics base their reviews on the statements more than the art, and many artists focus more on the clarity of their words more than the images and ideas conveyed in their art. It's preposterous!

"Poor" Chuck Connelly

On Sunday I watched the documentary about the painter Chuck Connelly, The Art Of Failure on HBO. There are three thing I learned about him- he loves to paint, he has rage about the unfairness of life, and he has a drinking problem.
From my perspective Connelly comes off as a once earnest puppy putting complete trust in his master only to be entirely abused and mistreated to become a dog who bites anyone who comes near him. It's fucked up how they cheated him and used him but the art world seems to operate that way, so why expect anything different? There's not a single artist on this earth who would want to sell they're work at $500 to a gallery only to find out that the gallery turned around and sold it for $10,000, but you either learn a lesson from it or you mark it as another notch of reasons why the world sucks.
Where Chuck Connelly is now in his life, few people return from; he thinks he's realized how awful the world is so he lives his life in deterioration, and his paintings suffer for it. He thinks that Van Gogh was some rage-aholic and alcoholic who painted beautiful paintings when he was not screaming, cutting his ear off and drinking too much absinthe and or alcohol. Now Connelly is Vincent reincarnate. But when you read "Letters To Theo" there is a clearness of mind and a desire to be loving that few people like to portray when they talk about Vincent Van Gogh.
So now Chuck Connelly's paintings are no longer a celebration of creativity and a search for identity, many of them look like paintings you might find at an art fair, and when he does stretch out on his creative limb he didn't seem all that excited to go there, they actually look like muddy Van Gogh's.
Judge for yourself, check out his website-
http://www.chuckconnelly.com

Does todays’ modern art ever go beyond the surface and aesthetic?

So many artists that I come across seems very focused on the "conceptual" and/or design aspect of the objects they create. Philosophically that seems to be the goal, which often enough leaves an impersonal stamp and not much thoughtfulness even if that is the objective of the art. Much of the art openly tackles serious life issues (which is the trend), but rarely goes beyond the surface of the subject manner, giving it an exploitative nature rather than an investigative or truth nature. There are very few artists today that I come across in magazines, galleries, and museums that seem to take their work to that next level of thoughtfulness that really stirs the viewers mind, which to me is the ultimate goal of their work in the first place.

Below are five questions that come to mind when I think about this topic...

1. Could the work be as aesthetically appealing if artists went deeper into their subject matter, and gave less regard to the "look"?

2. Could todays' art appear less modern if "style" wasn't regarded so much as a trend but a self-expression?

3. In general do you think that shock provokes thought, or does it only insight reaction? Or both?

4. What makes modern art modern???

5. Is there anything that is not subjective but rather objective in modern art? Size and color aren't subjective; what about quality or motive?

My biggest issue in many discussions today about art is that there isn't really one. It seems as soon as a reasonable question is brought to the table that argues quality, motive, or depth the "subjectivity" argument comes out. Personally, I'm not arguing the theory of relativity- I believe it whole heartedly, but I think it has been abused by people who don't get the big picture. There are two great things about the theory of relativity- it's a theory, and if it is true, than it existed before it was theorized meaning that the experience of viewing art was always based on the perspective of each individual who looked at it. That makes me wonder why it's become so important to argue the theory of "looking" at art today, when it never was before. Is this the art world simply "thinking too much"? Who gains the most by this "thought"?