"real" Art Comes In Many Forms

"REAL" ART COMES IN MANY FORMS

To me it seems not so much a matter of "Real Art" vs. "Fake Art" [see AGENDA's Art Issue, July/Aug., 1995, and Letters, Sept., Oct., and Nov., 1995]. It's more a matter of normal, everyday, "run-of-the-mill-art" vs. something that aspires for and/or achieves something magical, powerful and extraordinary. Or, in simpler terms, it's a matter of mainstream art vs. experimental art or safe art vs. dangerous art.

There are those of us who still believe that painting and drawing are more than just pretty pictures on the wall, that music can change your life and doesn't belong just in the background and that the other arts can also be powerful and transforming as well.

There are still those of us who believe that passion/emotion/intense feeling, overactive imagination/dreamlike visions and magic (that which has a "spell" which cannot be explained) are important parts of art.

Those who believe only in empty "beauty for beauty's sake" or in slavishly following the latest "trends" are the opposite of anyone who would dig deep into his or her own soul, spirit, mind, heart and body.

There's a sense of reaching into the unknown. Painter Albert P. Ryder wrote: "Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or twig, and then clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something, to reach something? That's like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have a footing."

Tyree Guyton once told me he was ready to die for his art if it ever came to that. Someone who is not a serious artist themself may have trouble taking such a statement seriously. Yet I can see exactly what he means.

Kenneth Patchen said: "The cult of the mediocre is in everything. ... The only art form that's worth a damn is when a man tries to offer up something out of himself, out of his own head, his own emotions, his own dreams, his own heart, his own guts--the rest is vomit-smeared cardboard; one-dimensional; a made-up fraud."

Pablo Picasso said: " Painting is freedom. If you jump, you might fall on the wrong side of the rope. But if you're not willing to take the risk of breaking your neck, what good is it? You don't jump at all. You have to wake people up. To revolutionize their way of identifying things. You've got to create images they won't accept. Force them to understand that they're living in a pretty queer world. A world that's not reassuring. A world that's not what they think it is."

I could cite many other of this century's best artists. I could go back to other times. But the point is that the most radical, wild, ahead-of-its-time, adventurous, playful, boisterous art always has trouble finding a forum or a champion.

We in the Ann Arbor-Detroit area surely have such a supporter in Jacques Karamanoukian.

I admit to being part of a current three-person show there and I also showed there last year. But I don't think I'm biased or that my vision in this regard is distorted or off-base.

Those who got out to galleries but feel they have progressive tastes would do well to give Galerie Jacques a try.

I personally feel no strong ill will to mainstream galleries. I think there's room for both visions. It's just that typical galleries are many and galleries that take chances are few. I search for those that fall in between the two extremes--hoping to see something I'm looking for. I keep an open mind and open eyes.

As for Dan Moray's text--yes, a cute letter and people do have egos--yet he displays no real understanding of or insight into the situation, from my side of the fence.

Thanks to AGENDA and keep up the good work!

Maurice Greenia, Jr.

DETROIT