Hertz Tower - a landmark of My Private Alphaville! (Photography by Peter Carstens…Danke!) - - - Here’s a little poetry for you. It is based on Marcel Duchamp’s idea of the readymade as well as on the Dada movement’s concept of the objet trouvé. Found art gains significance from the designation assigned to it by the artist. The objet trouvé was one of the mainstays of Dada artistry, alongside with other heuristic inventions, such as the readymade, the collage, the cadavre exquis, and automatic writing.

…

Basically, these poems consist of CTFA declarations I found on cosmetics. Well - they are CTFA declarations, you know. Ingredients. CTFA - that’s the Cosmetics, Toiletry and Fragrance Association. Here you have a striking sample of the Real in Lacan’s theory - by now you should hopefully know what I’m talking about, if not, go back to The Blank Space of Reality, Part Three… Now! (http://blog.artdoxa.com/?p=46). Take those CTFA declarations as an attempt to inscribe the intangible Real into symbolic order via scientific terminology. Which I feel is just beautiful. Scientists know it’s impossible to make any statements about the true nature of reality. About what reality is… About what the hell is going on. Their job is to describe nature and to find possible approximations towards the true nature of reality. Which can be found in - chemical terms.

These terms denote things that smell good.

Things which are meant to deodorize.

Or to cleanse.

You may not think it’s poetry - but once you’ve broken a piece of prose into line and verse, anything written may pose as poetry.

Even your bank account.

For some, this might well be the ultimate form of poetry.

Chemical terminology is very sensuous and fragrant.

It is derived from Greek and Latin roots mostly.

But we ought not be bothered with meaning and content.

Here it is looks and sound that count.

So read and enjoy.

Let the fragile beauty of a word like dimethicone work its magic on you.

Let the mysterious power of etidronic acid unfold its subtle effects on your subconscious.

After reading my poems, I swear you’ll look with different eyes at those words in small print on the back of your bottle of shampoo.

A tube of toothpaste will never be the same again for you.

You see, a little shift in perception is all that’s needed, a little fine-tuning…

To raise awareness to another level.

To discover art where before there was only technical specifications.

To find emotion where before there was only… engineering? (I give you a little blank space here…)

It’s just a matter of selective perception.

You all know that.

To find mystery, magic, even transcendence in everyday objects, you just have to pretend you know what you’re looking for - and instantaneously forget it.

That way you are bound to succeed.

Just like this cute li’ l mutant feller…

Peter Bies - Mutant mit Herz, 2081 (540 x 540 cm)

And here’s - the poetrah…!

Head and Shoulders

Aqua,

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate,

Cocamide MEA,

Zinc Pyrithione,

Dimethicone, Cetyl Alcohol,

Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Sodium Diethylenetriamine Pentaethylene Phosphonate,

Magnesium Carbonate Hydroxide,

Benzyl Alcohol, Etidronic Acid,

Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde,

Limonene, Citronellol, Sodium Polynaphtalenesulfonate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, DMDM Hydantoin, Disodium EDTA

***

Here’s a short one:

MERIDOL

Aqua,

Xylitol,

PEG 40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil,

Olaflur,

Aroma,

Stannous Fluoride,

Sodium Saccharin,

Cl 42051.

What do you think? What do you make of this?

Ciao!

Peter

10 August 2008… Berlin, Karl Marx avenue, but it’s 1998… this time, you have to scroll down a whole lot to get to Part Three of this piece…
I’ll be getting to the point for once… at least I’m trying to, hopefully… to explain those blank spaces of reality… the Lacanian concept of the Real and stuff… and how it possibly pertains to art and self and reality…

Part One… 21 July 2008

Hi… it’s been some time ever since I posted my last entry… sorry for that! In fact, this piece doesn’t deserve to be called a “blog” really…That’s a little preposterous for something as random as this… yes, I know… I’d be much happier if this could go maybe under the name of editorial or so, rather. Or maybe poetry… prose lab… test range… whatever… But the Artdoxa honcho, he would have none of it - Artdoxa ought to sport a “blog”.

So… let’s get it over with, then… You know, I haven’t been idle. I’ve done a lot of reading. Just recently I’ve been reading a lot of the stuff I was supposed to have read way back in psychology class, but I just couldn’t bring myself to it there and then, because I thought it was a waste of time. Yep. A rebel to the core. Always at loggerheads with authority. Right. The genuine article (Hi Merrill!). In comparison to painting, sex or doing drugs - not to mention playing the electric guitar! the didgeridoo! the Slobovian bagpipe! or turning knobs on a vintage analog synthesizer! - , reading is a frivolous waste of time. Apart from being way too cerebral, I have to blame reading for infecting my innocent, unsuspecting teenage mind with the most dangerous, outlandish ideas. Anti-authoritarian libertine mind-rot straight from utopian never-never land… Deeply and irreversibly corruptive! And right now this is happening all over again. Would you believe it? I’ve become infatuated with something as dated and obsolete as - psychoanalysis!

It all began a couple of weeks ago. My artist friend Vince and I were watching the semi-finals of the Euro 2008… Portugal vs. Sweden. No wait… Spain vs. Russia? Germany vs. Turkey? I don’t remember. So damn long ago… Have to ask Vince about that… When the game was over I started switching away leisurely from channel to channel… All of an instant the image of a middle-aged, bearded intellectual type in a rancid sweater caught my attention. Standing in the middle of what looked like one of the original film sets of Blue Velvet, he kept rambling frantically about “Frank’s phantasma” and his “object of desire” in a heavy East European accent... This was followed by the infamous Frank and Dorothy scene from Blue Velvet, accompanied by more psychological rambling from the academic type… Turned out this was The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, a two-hour documentary by Sophie Fiennes, scripted and presented by Slovenian psychologist Slavoj Zizek, who’s a hell of a performer. It explores a number of films from a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing heavily on categories of Lacanian thought. - My channel-hopping had me landed, of course, on ARTE, the French-German art geek channel which features selected art geek specials only…

It’s 2:16 AM now, I’ll give you the rest tomorrow. Promise! Bear with me - but I’m too tired now to tell you what made me dig into Lacanian thought and why I gave this piece The Blank Space of Reality as a headline. And why I chose to decorate it with the picture above… Later!

Good night!

Peter

Part Two… 27 July 2008

…the amazing Slavoj Zizek!

(So I didn’t keep my promise… severe onslaught of… uh… writer’s block… well.. at least it didn’t take me another two weeks to post this…)

The amazing Slavoj Zizek. Always on the go. He’s some kind of intellectual popstar. I have to admit I was impressed when I saw him in The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. Not so much by the depth of his analysis but by his passionate one-man-show. I used to think psychoanalysis was a thing from the past, as dead as hot type and Marxism. I was wrong. It isn’t. Here’s something for the art geek faction (Hi Merrill!)… The keynote of the ethical life for Zizek is refusing to give in, keeping it stubbornly real! Big deal, huh? So I hope the sorry lot of you art geeks out there is into art not only for the fun of it but for your salvation and redemption proper… - Zizek is a psychoanalyst without clients. He’s not practising. He’s revived PA in a way he’s termed theoretical PA, as a means of social, cultural, and aesthetic analysis. His approach is based on the findings of French psychologist Jaques Lacan. Zizek is fun, Lacan isn’t.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking… Zizek, Lacan… Peter - you’re so September 10… I don’t care. I proudly represent what R.A.Wilson has termed the anti-cyclic intellectual - always ten or twenty years ahead or behind the current intellectual fads… And isn’t that comfortable?

In Lacan’s system, there’s the triad of the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary. Basically, it’s just another elaborate, yet highly speculative attempt to classify and categorize the mysterious machinations of the human mind. In fact, for a number of deeply personal reasons, I’m pretty much fed up with theory, concepts, words. Must have something to do with impending midlife crisis… Okay, words are useful for symbolizing and conceptualizing and stuff. Sometimes they do come in handy, words… Moreover they’re just a pathetic substitute for the real thing - emotion and ecstasy! Or suffering. Sex & drugs & rock’n'roll, so to speak… And the deep existential blues. So leave it to the bards and poets and rock’n'roll singers like Jim Morrison to make proper use of words (Jim Morrison? Jeez… midlife crisis it is, definitely…) But every so often the philosopher - and particularly the self-important philosopher-cum-psychologist is just bound to make a lot of bland words and a nuisance of him or herself by doing so - just like the obnoxious crypto-fascist Sloterdijk, for instance…

Lacan striking a pose…

It’s Lacan’s concept of the Real that got me and which I found deeply disturbing. It struck a chord with me, somehow, yes. I got it probably all wrong, but… Have you ever experienced the metaphysical horror inherent in an everyday object? When you’re glancing at it sideways? Out of the corner of your eye? The overwhelming, fear-inducing strangeness in electrical appliances? Or take, for example, the interior of an empty late-night subway train… The seats, the light, the smell… Can you sense the overpowering, all-invading feel of isolation and disconnection? You gotta listen to the Joy Division - and not just because Corbijn did that film on Ian Curtis… The painful vibe of incoherence and dissociation bordering on the psychotic… No, I’m not talking about the effects of dextromethorphan or bipolar disorder… I’m talking about things falling out of their symbolic order… It is here that Lacan’s concept of the Real enters the picture… “a mysterious je ne sais quoi, the unfathomable something that makes an ordinary object sublime…” (S. Zizek). Or ghastly, horrific, one might add… the unfamiliarity and hostility in physical objects…

“But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.” - Roquentin on physical objects in Sartre’s Nausea…

Sartre’s Nausea is devastating… And while I’m at it - you gotta read The Stranger by Camus again. And all of the Beat poets. Will give you a new zest for life, if your jaded and over-saturated from too much electronic media input. Read! Read! - On reading, I recommend the most sublime and erudite treatment of the subject - a cartoon… http://southparkstudios.com/episodes/, episode 201 “chickenlover”. - You won’t need any links to Zizek or Lacan, there’s loads of info about them in the matrix… Next time I’ll fill you in on the secrets of Karl Marx avenue. There’s more to the picture than meets the eye… well, sometimes.

Peace!

Peter

Part Three… 10 August 2008

In my studio… can you feel the Real closing in… ?

I’m afraid the following is not very original and rather tiresome… But I’ve promised to elucidate… I’ve ripped off most of it from various articles. I’m no cultural anthropologist or philosopher. Much less an original thinker. I’d just like to find possible ways to answer a question most fascinating and most difficult to answer - what is reality? Looking for answers, I stumbled upon Zizek and Lacan.

The Lacanian concept of the Real is not to be confused with reality. Reality, in the Lacanian sense, is a highly symbolic construct, a collectively executed fiction - a collective, fictitious mise-en-scene. Within symbolic order, the Real is the core, the essence;

- that which cannot be totally understood by description;

- that which one cannot fictionalize or put into words;

- that which resists symbolic codification;

- that which has no positive existence, existing only ex negativo as something excluded, visible only at the borderlines of everyday reality - the blank spaces of reality…

The Real manifests itself in certain nodes concerning life, death, emotions and sexuality - it is imponderable and unrepresentable in its totality and it is not tangible in a logic, rational way. The Real has a traumatic quality as it is always asking too much of the subject, confusing, unsettling, alienating.

The Real is not a deeper reality, it is not behind or beyond reality.

It consists of blank spaces, which make reality inconsistent.

Bugged. Faulty. Defective. Inchoate. Fragmentary.

In terms of psychoanalysis, reality is not just another narrative or myth. In fact, anyone undergoing PA has to get to the heart of the matter, the core of his or her neurotic maladjustment, and face it - acknowledge and re-narrate the traumatic dimension of one’s inner space.

Here’s the nexus - the traumatic quality of both the Real and one’s inner space.

The Real reflects - or rather, it represents - no, it mimicks - on the outside certain properties of the traumatic content of inner space, the Id-world. Could be, of course, that it’s just the other way around… I’m not sure…

The blank spaces of reality open and condense when you perceive there is a gap separating yourself from your identity, from your carefully edited autobiographical narrative - it’s a sense of deviation from your identity… cognitive dissonance, misalignment… a shift in perspective… incongruency… disarray… dissociation… The individual experiences reality as a meaningfully structured totality, a sphere of coherence - the Real resists and defies full absorption into symbolic order.

Zizek argues that reality is fundamentally open and contingent, and the blank space that shows in reality between a materialist’s description of physical reality and one’s personal experience of existence - that’s the very essence of human life and the “crucial domain” and focus of art. For Zizek, the Real is not a thing which is understood in different ways depending on how you decide to look at it, it is in fact a movement - a shift from one perspective to another. The Real is a gap, a difference, a dislocation - in my experience a free-fall sense of the utterly strange and hostile* in familiar disguise. A foreboding, dualistic sense of being cut off.

Jochen - you wrote that the “all-invading feel of isolation and disconnection” has surrounded you since you were fourteen. I hope you can relate to these explanations and ramifications. If not - try dextromethorphan… then read it again… No, seriously… you wanted to know what’s the point…

The point is that Zizek aims to “re-actualize German idealism” (you know… Kant, Fichte, Hegel… the lot…). Fancy that! For Zizek, the basic insight of Kant, Hegel etc. is that the truth of something is always outside of it.

So the truth of our experience is to be found outside of ourselves, in the Symbolic and the Real, rather than to be found within our inner space. We cannot look into our souls and find out who we truly are, because who we truly are is always elsewhere, says Zizek. The Real lies beyond symbolic order. The Real is that which is outside language: “It is that which resists symbolization absolutely” (Lacan - mind, he was friends with André Breton and Salvador Dali…!), because it is impossible to integrate into symbolic order that which originates from the pre-verbal and the pre-conceptual. That lends the Real its traumatic quality… Especially in the shape of the “real Real” - it’s getting really weird here -, a “horrific thing”, that which conveys the sense of horror…

(www.sci-fi-forum.de)

Zizek detects an obsession with the Real in postmodern art, a desire of “filling in the gaps”, a way of avoiding the void, the void of subjectivity, the horror vacui...

(Jochen Hein, “Tree Trunk”)

The Real is “always in its place” (Lacan).

The Real is in itself undifferentiated - “it is without fissure” (Lacan), a non-dualistic sphere, similar to certain Hindu concepts. Or is it? Oh, enough - I need a break… The mysteries of Karl Marx avenue have to wait… in any case, have a close look at the picture! It was taken, of course, in what was formerly known as East Berlin… Hauptstadt der DDR… Chemie in Heim und Bad - chemicals at home and in the bathroom… chemical industry was a mainstay of East German economy… they were proud of it… so let’s have loads of Chemie at home and in the bathroom…!

Toodle-oo! You’re a great audience!

Peter

(* Greek “xénos” - alien, hostile)

Behold the art geek!

Look at the hat… the glasses… the poster on the wall of my room - pretty artsy, huh?

That’s me again - some twenty, twenty-five years ago.

When I listened to a lot of Synthpop and Industrial.

When I was heavily into Philip K.Dick and William S.Burroughs.

When I used to take art much more serious.

When art and music and poetry and all that used to be something like the meat of my soul.

So vital in my emotional economy.

So significant.

And so painful at times…

Emotionally, I’m a little more detached nowadays.

Maybe that’s the advantage of the… uh… mature age.

Though I don’t feel much wiser now that I’m pushing fifty…

It’s only that you don’t have to try to be cool any longer all the time.

And isn’t that a blessing?

When this picture was taken I was trying to become a professional artist.

Well - it didn’t come about.

For several reasons.

For instance, I am an art school reject.

Just like Adolf Hitler.

So I’ve remained an amateur. An art lover in the purest sense of the word. A true privilege.

Well, sort of.

But whether amateur or professional - in any case, you have to maintain a certain attitude.

A matter of faith. A sense of transcendency.

It’s the opposite of materialism.

And a certain reflectiveness towards the human condition.

Plus awareness of your own mortality.

Then again - what’s it worth, my faith in art’s transcendency, when our sun is about to turn nova* in only half a million years?

Just kidding!

Or - are you thinking in terms of… posterity?

What’s it to you?

If art is your way of making a living it can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

If not - well, then it’s not much of a challenge, is it?

But it’s bound to be quality time.

In either case.

Always.

Here’s a heartfelt evaluation by member Merrill Kazanjian:

“All the other “life” stuff got in the way and I didn’t have time until late in the day to work… Which of course is the problem with being an artist. Due to needs (paying the rent, food etc.) art becomes a second responsibility… which sucks when you’re motivated to do art!”

When you’re motivated to do art.

Right.

And here’s what Albert Einstein had to say about the nature of art.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

So… take good care of your sense of wonder!

*A nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion of a white dwarf star.

Hi there!

This picture was taken two years ago.

It’s my old studio at Therapeutische Gemeinschaft, Hamburg-Jenfeld.

No, that’s not a group of artists.

It’s an institution.

Looks quite artsy and romantic, though, doesn’t it?

Imagine l’artiste! - all alone in his studio!

Left to his own devices.

Fighting the crucial battle.

Eye to eye with his enemies.

Failure.

Frustration.

Foster’s.

(Or whatever your substance of choice…)

You see the piece on my easel?

I had been messing around with it for months, painting it over again and again.

Then I took a jigsaw and cut it in two.

And you know what?

That worked out just fine.

The result was two small pieces I had to work on just a little further to get… well… acceptable results.

Sometimes, when you’re stuck, only drastic measures can save the day, not to mention your self-respect!

Well, you all know that…

Now you may ask yourselves - only acceptable results? What do you mean?

And what kind of artist are you anyway?

Aren’t you going for the big hit? Le chef-d’oeuvre? The magnum opus? Das Jahrhundertwerk?

No.

Because there’s a risk.

Perfectionism.

And I don’t want to give in to that kind of delusion.

I feel that perfectionism is just one big, alluring trap.

A cognitive fallacy of morbid dimensions and a hazard to your mental health.

Believe me - I know what I’m talking about. I’ve read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…

So I say:

Leave perfection to the mathematicians and their equations!

To the crystal structure of a diamond!

Or to God, if you must!

But when it comes to art, you just have to allow for a little chaos and non-linearity.

For a little imperfection and laissez-faire, if not downright sloppiness…

So… be kind to yourselves! And keep your fanaticism at bay!

Excellence?

Why, yes… !

Perfection?

Why bother… ?

St. Jerome wrote: “Perfectio vera in coelestibus” - true perfection is only to be found in heaven.

And so be it.

Toodle-oo!

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Wait a minute…

Aristotle distinguishes three different concepts.That is perfect,

1. which is complete - which contains all the requisite parts; 2. which is so good that nothing of the kind could be better; and 3. which has attained its purpose.
Leibniz wrote: “Perfection, I call any simple quality, if it is positive and absolute, such that, if it expresses something, it does so without limits.”

To express something without limits…

Now what do you make of this?

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” — Edgar Allan Poe

***

The kook in the picture… that’s me.

When I was a little younger.

A would-be artist with delusions of grandeur.

I was absolutely clueless.

Nice stupid haircut, though.

And the geekish glasses weren’t bad, either.

Mind the Otto Grotewohl memorial plaque!

He was the first president of East Germany.

Makes a nice pertinent background, doesn’t it?

Being clueless didn’t keep me from thinking that I had a lot of significant things to say.

And the world better listen.

And there you have it.

The essential prerequisite: A big, inflated ego.

A deep, heartfelt conviction: I’m significant.

You just can’t do without.

You can do without a lot of talent. But not without your big, fat ego.

And not only that - an artist friend of mine recommended to act outright insane.

To cultivate an eccentric and/or freakish persona.

To live up to the stereotype.

My attempts in that direction looked like this.

1. Big ego.

2. Silly glasses.

That’s mandatory.

Moreover, you have to be convinced, that the world owes you a living.

Only then you may deign to dabble occasionally in painting… prose… poetry…

You lack the inspiration? No problem.

Artists of all times have always sought the help of les paradis artificiels…

A drug habit will only boost your credibility. As well as any kind of mental disorder.

I am not being cynical.

This is more or less based on… uh… empirical data.

This was my frame of mind back then.

I was a hopeless romantic.

And I’m afraid I still am.

Hamburg, 30.05.2008 

It was a special friday night in Hamburg. The early and uncommon heat, the upcoming weekend and all the sharp - dressed ladies and men spread through the maze of architectural excellence in the Phoenix Halls made the visitors forget where they were: Hamburg, not New York. 

The Event that attracted hundreds or even thousands of invited guests from all over Germany and even from abroad, was the opening of an exhibition of the american artist Paul Thek (1933 - 1988). According to the Thek is considered an artist with cult status. The hitherto most comprehensive retrospective of his oeuvre focused on the effect of his work on contemporary art and established Thek’s historical significance, from legendary outsider to the founder and center of an art movement. It has been possible to bring together more than 300 of Thek’s works, which are largely in private ownership and therefore only seldom publicly shown.  On 6000 square meters art and artcrowd met over rissoles, white wine and beer while nosing a hint of the international art-scene’s flair in hamburg. 

And there was more to see: The exhibition included many other renowned artists such as Works by Franz Ackermann, Kai Althoff / Robert Elfgen, Cosima von Bonin, Björn Dahlem, Sebastian Hammwöhner / Dani Jakob / Gabriel Vormstein, Rachel Harrison, Axel Heil / John Isaacs, Thomas Hirschhorn, Andreas Hofer, Mike Kelley, Jon Kessler, Suchan Kinoshita, Martin Kippenberger, Jonathan Meese, John Miller, William Pope.L, Gregor Schneider, Zeger Reyers / Lee Ranaldo, Bob & Roberta Smith and a special contribution by Peter Hujar and Edwin Klein. 

There’s a reason we have chosen Maria Schoof’s “Schmolli” as today’s Artwork of the Day.

Maria’s art show opens today, Thursday 5 June 2008, 7:00 PM at Galerie SKAM,
1 Reeperbahn, Hamburg (6 - 8 June 2008, 4:00-8:00PM). To mark the occasion, Maria’s answered a few questions for Artdoxa…

“Let go. Don’t judge.”

Q: Maria - I’m especially interested in your pictorial inventions. How do you work on your imagery?

A: It varies. Sometimes there’s a precise picture in my mind. Sometimes I see something… certain things I can respond to, things I can translate into my language. It’s a matter of working on it.

Q: Sounds not so much premeditated but more like improvisation. Is that so?

A: It’s a process. I abstract from my design. Some things come as a surprise and might turn into a tangible image.

Q: Sometimes your visualizations exhibit a dreamy, fail-safe elegance, as in “Freiflug” (Free Flight). Sometimes they appear stubborn and restive, as in “Sphinx”. “Sphinx”, as I see it, is kept from disintegrating only by its strong, luminous center. Am I wrong?

A: Painting is always a matter of the instant, of the here and now. Tomorrow I’m in a different mood from today. This is reflected in my work. You can sense the difference.

Q: Members Heather Accurso and Jochen Hein once tagged this quality as ‘undecided’ - in its positive as well as in its critical sense. Would you agree?

A: I wouldn’t say so. Painting always means process and development. Nothing is decided beforehand.

Q: Your paintings strike me as quite emotional and spontaneous. Like “Knubbel3″. And that’s a pretty cuddly title! Where do you find your speaking titles?

A: Those titles come to me at the end of my work. I don’t like to think too much about it. It’s spontaneous.

Q: On the one hand, your work is often quite eccentric, verging on the bizarre, e.g. “Nachbarn” (Neighbors). On the other hand, your images betray a dreamlike, introspective quality, like “Luzer”. They do this in a very direct manner of addressing your audience. Very authentic, but never forced. They convey the image of a woman who’s in touch with her feelings. And thus able to translate these very closely into her private symbolism. Right?

A: I just paint. I can’t explain any further.

Q: Your work seems to circle around certain figures and topics. You seem to be so familiar with your private mythology and your cast of characters - “Blaukopf” (Blue Head), “Sleeper”…

A: Sure. Some topics appear again and again. That’s the way it is when you’re an artist. When you’re grappling with the subject of your interest.

Q: What is the subject of your interest?

A: I’m interested in religion. Symbols. Cultural memory. Questions of humanity. Psychology.

Q: Your signs and characters seem to emerge from the depths of some dreamlike, symbolic, preconscious realm. There’s something floating, flowing to your images. Something natural, organic, somatic. I always feel at ease with your pictures. They’re not academic, but analytical in their own special way. Your works have a truth of their own, a mysterious, cryptic truth. Like the highly emotional, visceral thinker - the “Denker”. Well… I feel that maybe you don’t want too much interpretation… ?

A: I am amazed what my work is doing to you. But I don’t want to communicate any “truth”. It just doesn’t occur to me. I paint. Things happen they just want to happen. That’s what creative work is for me: Let go. Don’t judge.

Q: There’s this embryonic figure in “Feuerwerk” (Fireworks). I associate many of your works with motherly qualities, like sheltering and nursing, care and protection. And there’s also the feel of intimacy and vulnerability. As in “Engeloffenbarung” (Angel Epiphany). As in your impressive “Sleeper”.

A: “Sleeper” was a commissioned work for an osteopath’s medical practice. It’s about healing with your hands. Someone is being treated, “behandelt” (literally “handled” in German), being diagnosed by feeling, probing hands. I wanted to emphasize the focussing, the concentration. “Engeloffenbarung” (Angel Epiphany) is part of a cycle dealing with the Apocryphal Book of Tobit.

Q: I find your work amniotic. I don’t know any better word to describe the precious, magic quality in your paintings. The warm and tender radiance. Do you find that odd?

A: I don’t find anything odd. I’m pleased to see how my work is working on you.

Q: Do you have children? And does this have any influence on your work?

A: Yes, I have a son. And I think all of my life has an influence on my work.

Q: I’m just asking because I see so many child-like forms in your work, reflecting child-like emotions. Like the stunning “Schmolli” from “Gruppenbild” (Group Image) and his or her pals… How did those come into being?

A: I just wanted to try out something. To try and go three-dimensional.

Q: The result is just irresistible… “Schmolli” is one of my all-time favourites. And here’s a little room left to list some of your favourites. Who do you admire?

A: Richard Diebenkorn. David Hockney. Philip Taaffe. Frida Kahlo. Neo Rauch. Peter Doig. Matisse. Hieronymus Bosch. Jeff Soto. Jen-Michel Basquiat. Os Gemeos. Paul Gauguin… und und und…

Q: Frau Schoof - thank you for this interview!

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From the Editor: Enhance your chance…
… the chance of your artwork to be chosen as Artwork of the Day!

It’s just a question of uploading.

You have to upload a large hi-rez version of your work in order to increase the chance of your piece to be shown on our homepage.

Because BIG pictures is what we want to show there.

You see? BIG is what we want! BIG is beautiful!

Every so often we come across the perfect image among our new uploads.

But then - it’s barely 5×5cm in size! A puny little stamp of a picture…! Pathetic!

An image that small doesn’t have much impact, no matter how good it might be.

But we want everybody to go WOW at the sight of our Artwork of the Day!

So please…!

Think BIG!

Size does matter!

Danke! Thank you! Merci! Mycket tack! Mille grazie! Bedankt! Gracias! Spassibo!

Xièxie! Obregado! Mange tak! Arigato gozaimasu! etc…

Peace & Love,
Peter

Peter Bies: Donald Duck on PCP (1994)Aw… I’m supposed to come up yet with another piece of biased, resentful rant for the sake of simulating some kind of intellectual discourse. I don’t want to! I don’t have to! All I want right now is to be outright anti-intellectual.Because I’m devastated! Germany’s got pounded at the Grand Prix d’Eurovision… Schluchz! Heul!Well, serves her right. Who wants to listen to a couple of stuck-up tarts and their Ibiza disco crap anyway?Right now, my mind is a blank. You see? I’m desperate. And I’m making a complete fool of myself, acting like a whining drama queen. I’m freaking out…!To tell you the truth, I’m just a little disappointed because I haven’t had much of a response to my painting last week. “Olaf & his Electrik Nazis”, remember? The first and only work of art I’ve ever shown on Artdoxa so far… Now that was intended to be some kind of event… I expected at least one or two members to gladly tear my Machwerk to pieces. Yeah… right. I’m so vain. And I’m a glutton for punishment… Well - you probably didn’t take me serious. Or my art. Is that so? Fine. I couldn’t care less. I could resent that ignorance. I could resent that indifference. But I don’t. In fact, art doesn’t mean that much to me. There. I’ve said it.Are you aware that, as a rule, our precious art is an abysmally elitist affair with hardly any intellectual significance and no social impact whatsoever? There’s exceptions to the rule. True. Look at Ana Alvarez-Errecalde’s decidedly radical feminist attitude. But most of us are busily devoting all of our strength and effort to a - to a Minderheitenprogramm. Minority business. A cultural niche for specialists and solipsists, for an educated and highly discriminating bourgeois minority. You see - I feel that art is basically… well… a geek thing. There’s only one thing more obsolete and obscure than art - and that’s poetry…And being an artist sounds just as absurd as being a poet. Oh well… I guess it’s a way of life. I like to sleep late, you know. I suppose my pretensions of being an artist might have something to do with that.But pop music and architecture are so much more important. I need pop music as a reference system to file away my memories.Architecture? You can get a hundred years old and die happily without ever having been to a museum. Or to an art show. You can do without art. But you’re a user of architecture. In any case. Everybody is. And was. Throughout history. Exposed to architecture. That’s what I call significance. That’s what I call impact.To reconcile those who find my attitude offensive or too simplifying, here’s a vintage specimen of my very own variety of l’art brut. You see, I take the highest risks to achieve social significance. So… sue me, Disney Corp.!Anyone of you ready to denounce this? Anybody? No?Oh well… I guess the majority of you is simply too nice to be as mean and revengeful and opinionated as I want you to be.I won’t hold this against you.Alles Liebe,Peter

Peter Bies: “Olaf and his Electric Nazis”, 1980 - wall paint & ball-point on corrugated cardboard

My Private Alphaville©… (#1)

Hi there… our propaganda abteilung wanted to know if I would like to write a few lines for this blog on a regular basis. Well… sure. It’s only that I want you to know that I’m not a professional writer… I am just an active observer. Apart from that I am just… well, full of crap… Do you mind?

My approach to art is basically emotional and biologistic… Does your artwork communicate? Berührt es mich? Does it touch me? Does it affect me? And how does it achieve this?

A matter of glandular response, mostly… Of limbic and cortical interaction. And then there’s the relationship of art and reality. Of reality and its nature… her nature...die Realität (f.) is female, you know. That’s the bottom line. And what about art as objectification of the free will? Oh and then there’s the concept of HYPER-REALITY…

DIGRESSION: Speaking of hyper-reality… I am rather critical of the brave new world of the Internet and I just hate its particular brand of Newspeak… man, it’s unnatural…

The Internet, like TV, video games, cellphones, and the lot, is a means to LOOK AWAY from yourselves in a very efficient manner. So far, it’s in fact the most powerful distraction device known to mankind, with the possible exception of maybe hallucinogenics. Sheer life ersatz… all cortex and no flesh… universally körperfeindlich…

DISCLAIMER: I’d like to point out - as I have done before - that I have no idea what art is…

I am able to carry out merely some kind of positivistic, phenomenological evaluation… at best.

Then there’s always the human drama and the quest for transcendency… much safer grounds… I am oscillating between angst and boredom all the time… How about you? I have suffered from ennui of Baudelairean dimensions. Artdoxa surely is a sweet antidote. As is art in general.

COMING UP: I want to take a close look at what I perceive as the emerging renaissance of Trash Art or whatever you want to call the most recent offspring of Dada, arte povera, Pop Art, nouveau realisme, Heftige Malerei… um… soon… I’m going to feature some of our members arbitrarily… Do some interviews… Take you on a walk through my neighborhood… Aw I wish I was in EuroDisney now… Alphaville… South Park… Kelowna… Tatooine… just take me to any fictitious parallel universe will do…

So these are the things I find of interest. Bear with me - this is going to be a lot of idle chatter. And a lot of stream-of-consciousness, mostly. But I am ready to listen to any suggestions you come up with, liebe members… And you’re welcome to comment on my historic piece shown above… I couldn’t resist to decorate my rant with this impressive vintage chef d’oevre inconnu.

This really takes me back… Painting those haunting eyes was a real challenge. But that’s what Aggressive Retro Iterativism was all about. Challenge. Provocation. Controversy. Based on a sketch by Gilbert Shelton, this is not even original… so… it’s PAYBACK TIME! C’mon! Grill me!

Peace!

Peter

We haven’t been lazy the last couple of days and just have released some more features for you:

1. PUBLIC TAGGING -

We implemented a public tagging system, making this practice even more effective by allowing everyone to add tags to artworks! Simply click the ‘add tags’ symbol next to the tags of an artwork, enter your keywords - that’s it!

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2. UPLOAD / WORK BOX -              

We have expanded the Upload Box into a ‘Work Box’, enabling you to edit information on many images at once - this will save you some valuable time.

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3. VIEWS -          

A new info on all images appears: Next to the comments and number of favourites, the number of views are being displayed for your pictures in the MyDoxa area.

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Enjoy and let us know what you think!

All the best,

Felix