Read this feature article on one of new favorite blogs.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
WHATS NEW IN NEW MEDIA.....Monumental works that fit in a pocket.....
“It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.” Thoreau
Life and work have obstructed my blogging for some time but Raphael Rozendaal has sounded the wake up call. Last fall fine art collector, Benjamin Palmer purchased a work of art (a URL) at Phillips de Pury auction. That's correct, he walked out of the auction house with nothing tangible - just a web address on his smart phone and an paperwork documenting the rights and the sale. Palmer doesn't need to invite his friends in for a viewing and he and his artwork are literally "joined at the hip"! He has nothing to hang up with exception of an iPad with internet an connection. This defines virtuality and reality converging in art and commerce. Rozendaal has made 85 works and nearly a third have sold. Raphael envisions his art and accessibility to it as a huge shift in making art available everyone and not only the elite. Collectors are contractually obligated to keep the URL live on the world wide web for everyone's access. They are custodians for the work with an invoice and certificate to prove ownership but the material remains accessible to the mainstream. It sounds like fodder for a Jim Kempner "Madness of Art" episode.
Rozendaal has been brutally criticized in on-line commentary by those claiming this is not art or about as much about art as excrement which is testament to the ignorance of art in today's society. Wake up and smell the 21st century people...this is art whether you respond personally to the aesthetic or not and it has an auction record to prove it. All we seem to need these days to validate art (good or bad as it may be) is validation from the right people acknowledging it as art and the best way to achieve this is with the collector glitterati and auction records being made. So bravo Rozandaal, that's a win for you.
The Artist's writing on the creative process:
"Over the years my work became more abstract. I have no idea why. I have no idea because I have no idea what I’m doing in general. The heart wants what it wants.
An abstract work is a thing, not a picture of a thing. I like both things and pictures of things. Lately I have been making more things than pictures. But it might change in the future. Who knows?
A change of direction is a change of emphasis. There are no absolute directions. There’s always some figuration and there’s always some abstraction.
I follow my interests. I do whatever is most interesting to me at that moment. I don’t have a plan. I’m wandering. I am not in control of my interests. Just think about it… what interests you? Why are you interested in something? Why not something else? I can’t decide where my mind wanders. It would not be wandering if I decided where to go. Wandering is wonderful. You’re just moving around. Not moving to get anywhere, just moving to be in motion.
I like it when I’m somewhere and I’m not thinking too much. Just observing, not making any decisions. Kind of bored and staring at something, looking around, until something presents itself. These moments are the starting points of my work. Whether the work is abstract or figurative, they come from the same “state-of-mind”.
I’m interested in the space between Almost Nothing and Hardly Anything. Something non verbal, sub conscious, non intelligent, not-thinking-too-much. The ideas have no intention other than wanting to exist. Something that exists just because it wants to exist."
NPR interview
USA dealer: Steve Turner Contemorary
Tokyo Dealer: Takuro Someya Contemporary Art
Artist's Site: Raphael Rozendaal
Linticular works on canvas: Postmasters Art, NY
Museum installation: Kawasaki City Museum, Japan
Seoul Square (Korea) - world's largest LED screen VIEW HERE
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