James Derriford, 17/04/2019
Hi James, according to The Guardian, “Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population”. https://www.theguardian.com/money/ Are these the buyers who make the UK the second largest art market in the world, at 21% of all sales?
Dorothy Boscaswell 2019/04/11
New Art Examiner
Hi Stephen, Your article really merits reading, as it is not only biographical, but its historical and social context connects so well to what we are witnessing in the art world today, or what we have lost from our near non-existent culture. Our plastic laden brains have lost their creativity with not an ounce of originality coming from them. However, your writing was very inspiring and gives me hope that somewhere there is a writer, a thinker, an artist, a teacher, who can help bring back “aesthetic enthusiasm”. I wonder, don’t you miss England?
Antony Swift, 18/04/2019
Art in Ruins
Hi Lynda, your article is very exciting, I liked it very much. The feeling of empty, absence and lack prevails over everything. What sadness to see the abandoned Ferris wheels! Liviana Martin 15/04/2019 Hi Lynda, You are a very gifted writer! You wrote as though Chernobyl were one very detailed, large canvas. Your article made me recall what it brought to where I was living in Italy at the time. We were told to keep our children indoors, to not eat fresh fruit or vegetables and to use only bottled water. This lasted for around 6 weeks, and then people forgot all about it, but your article has made me remember that period, so tragic for the residents of Chernobyl. It must have been devastating for people there to so suddenly leave their homes forever.
Pendery Weekes, 13/04/2019
RT News in their project section retells the Chernobyl disaster, well worth watching: https://chernobyl30.rt.com/#/en Andy McBride 10/04/2019Hi Lynda, Looking at Chernobyl from a visual arts perspective gave another dimension to this tragedy; you turned it into one very beautiful and unique museum. I appreciated your descriptions and really enjoyed your writing style. Over the years I have seen many photographs of Chernobyl and have had to read numerous scientific papers for my work, but up until now had never read anything as aesthetically moving as what you wrote on such a difficult topic. Your article merits some sort of writing prize.
Roselyne Ashley, 09/04/2019
Penwith improves to one out of six
Hi Maxine, I was unfamiliar with the work of Seamus Moran and was fascinated by his metallic net toilet roll that I found on his website: “A mind that never stops asking questions or looking for new answers” shows geniality and is what a five year old does, something most of us lose as we grow older; apparently he hasn’t lost this ability. But what you wrote at the start of your review was even more revealing, also about your geniality, “I am intrigued to discover how very much I want to be challenged by Art and not just to see something done well that has already been done and is now being done again.” Isn’t this the problem with the art world today? With the world? As our lives are more and more organized and controlled by Mama Google and Daddy Amazon, we are losing our capacity for independent thinking and for creative problem solving, aren’t we?
Kei Saito, 12/04/2019
Good morning from Cornwall. Yes, I am quite surprised to discover how much I want to be challenged by Art and, yes, I agree that our lives are controlled. I usually shock people by telling them that I do not have TV or radio or read newspapers. I’m afraid the lack of other people’s opinions might be leading me to think – oh, dear! And I think that part of the problem is that what are in fact ‘tools’ i.e, phones, laptops, googles, amazon, have become Gods, tiny insinuating Gods, a species of Comfort Blanket God without which people are unable to function. People are, I think more afraid than ever of being different, of standing out from the crowd, of not having and displaying what everyone else has. It’s all about status and googles and amazons have latched onto this idea and will now persuade people how very much they NEED an object. We don’t need all this STUFF! But it, it might seem, does need us. We DO need to ask questions and not just accept what we are told and, worse still, regurgitate it as SOLID FACT without letting it pass through as many areas of our brains as possible while we sift these SOLD FACTS and question them. Challenge them. Throw them out if they are found wanting. OUFF! That’s a bit hefty for a Friday morning with only one coffee under my belt so far. Good morning from Cornwall.
Maxine Symons, 12/04/2019
Maxine … with your abandonment of all waves news and media, have you ever felt “left out”? I am saying navigating through the onslaught is an essential 21st century necessity in and of itself and an experience that is necessary for the intake of contemporary culture and its failure…. or are you with “it” none the less..? Off hand, your deprivation of 21st century reality is rather precious for you know not what your transcendence really means. Or have you other thoughts that are not within the framework of acceptability?….
Joe, 12/04/2019
Comedian at the Hirshorn
Great points, Daniel, and lots that I think we could use as discussion topics at the Writers Group in Penzance. A new painting springs into my head, well, it does, ‘The Celebrity Chained’ some ghastly, vile creature with maimed limbs is held bucking and kicking in chains against a stark cave wall while the public, those who used to stand in awe of him, file by with puzzled looks on their faces – he is gagged, of course. His figure throws ghastly shadows up against the wall of the cave and it is these that we might find truly fascinating – new title ‘The reflection of erstwhile glory. Another new title ‘Look outside, Plato!’ OK, I really need more coffee.
Maxine Symons 09/04/2019
Daniel I once saw a video of Jerry Saltz Talking Saltz lecturing students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He said of course “I love Chicago” and polled the class if they were a dog person or a cat person. All I can say is WOW. Derek Guthrie, 11/04/2019 Maxine, talking about this absurdity won’t make it go away. We seem to think these people, like our politicians, manufacture themselves but they don’t. Just as no one can make any money without the rest of us buying stuff, so idiots like Saltz are the jesters we require, we demand. We know, as a community, the obvious truths – envy is concomitant with creativity, society demands conformity (not just lawful conduct) and most important of all, art takes courage. We know all these things, yet we indulge the faithless like Saltz and I had to watch students go weak at the knees being in his presence. America has lost it.
Daniel Nanavati, 20/04/2019
Patrick Heron
Hi Alexander, I really enjoyed reading your article on Patrick Heron. Your conclusion left much to think about: “Author and art historian Serge Guilbaut has suggested that New York became the centre of Modern art during the 20th century. However, Heron’s body of work throws a wrench into the mechanisms of that claim. No artist in the States painted like Heron did. I was educated and trained as an art historian in the States and Heron’s name was never mentioned. Undoubtedly, this is a result of Heron not being included within the Greenberg domain. I am inspired by this exhibition to lift that veil and pursue and research art beyond that sphere.” I look forward to reading more of your articles in the New Art Examiner in the future.
Karen Danwell 08/04/2019
The relevance of Critical Theory
Editor, Critical theory is nihilistic horseshit blather from non-artists, collecting checks while accomplishing nothing. Dependent on Marx’s failed murderous ideology these parasites need to be expelled from Art institutions. Art transends the feeble graspings of the frauds. Long live Art, death to the talentless theorist.
Cameron, 03/04/2019