categoria ~ aesthetiks

for [adolf] loos the ornate design of art noveau is erotic and degenerate, a reversal of the proper path of civilization to sublimate, to distinguish and to purify: thus his notorious formula - "the evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objetcs" - and his infamous association with ornament and crime. (...)

a pointed attack comes in 1900, in the form of an allegorical skit about "a poor little rich man" who comissioned an art noveau designer to put "art in each and every thing":

each room formed a symphony of colors, complete in itself. walls, wall coverings, furniture and materials were made to harmonize in the most artful ways. each household item had its own specific place and was integrated with the others in the most wonderful combinations. the architect has forgotten nothing, absolutely nothing. cigar ashtrays, cutlery, light switches - everything, everything was made by him.

this gesamtkunstwerk does more than combine architecture, art and craft; it commingles the subject and the object: "the individuality of the owner was expressed in every ornament, every form, every nail". for the art noveau designer this is perfection: "you are complete!", he exults to the owner. but the owner is not so sure: "this completion takes [his] brain" (...)

"the happy man suddenly felt deeply, deeply unhappy... he was precluded from all future living and striving, developing and desiring. he thought, this is what it means to go about life with one´s own corpse. yes indeed. he is finished. he is complete!"

for the art noveau designer this completion reunites art and life, and all signs of death are banished. for loos, on the other hand, this triumphant overcoming of limits is a catastrophic loss of the same - the loss of the objective constrains required to define any "future living and striving, developing and desiring". far from a transcendence of death, this loss of finitude is a dead-in-life, as figured in the ultimate trope of indistinction, living with "one´s own corpse"

talvez por isso nos sintamos repletos de vida - mas sem perspectivas - numa sala superopulenta tipo sig bergamin. por outro lado, ambientes limpos, minimalistas, mesmo austeros, sopram mais perspectiva: são como um caderno em branco, repletos de espaço para novas histórias. mas não dá. não saberia escolher entre um e outro; apesar do brilhantismo de loos, não acredito que o homem estaria melhor sem um secessionismo austríaco na história da arte.

via luiz paulo no facebook, que indicou este "design and crime".

é quase a mesma coisa que valorizar a tristeza em detrimento da alegria. sim, o sofrimento tem um agente transformador que a alegria não possui; sim, o sofrimento sonda profundidades. mas quero ver, meu jovem, você sobreviver a isso sem ser resgatado pelas intensidades inerentes apenas à alegria; quero ver você fazer a sua existência valer a pena vivendo uma vida bunda, deprimida, resmungona, sem a salvação da leveza, da beleza sem a menor utilidade, do riso sem o menor significado, do bem-estar sem o menor compromisso. a superficialidade pode não primar pela elaboração de grandes problemas, pela realização de grandes feitos; mas seu caráter gratuito aceita, enfeita, perdoa, alivia, e isso pra mim é a mesma coisa que amar.

o escocês kevin harman quebrou, com uma barra de ferro, a vitrine de uma galeria em nome da arte. aparentemente, o projeto foi visto com bons olhos pelo pessoal do edinburgh college of art, do qual é mestrando:

it is understood that several of his tutors had been supportive of the project, which was initially labelled brick. the scaffolding pole was substituted as a safer option (...) "they should have shaken his hand and bought him a drink," declared royal academician michael sandle.

harman precisou desembolsar $350 pelo vidro quebrado e está sendo processado pela galeria atacada. no entanto a publicidade que o happening conseguiu para sua próxima exposição - uma instalação com os cacos da vitrine e a papelada relacionada ao caso - não tem preço.

mais detalhes e vídeo da destruição no the guardian.

entrevistinha sensação com o autor do art news blog sobre arte. trechitos worth reading:

do you think art institutions should have the freedom to display boundary-pushing art that may offend certain members of the public? why?

i think it's their job to push the boundaries. people that are easily offended shouldn't visit galleries. they should stay home in their safe, comfortable home and drink tea quietly. art is either going to look good hanging on your wall or is trying to tell you something. both forms are equally valid for me.

what do you think is the social role of art?

i believe there are two kinds of art: an art that should hang well on the wall and an art that has something to say. the latter should use any means possible to speak its message.

what do you think are the major changes in the public's attitude towards art? do you think our modern society is quick at judging and finding offence in everything?

(...) i don't think art is really that important to the general public. nobody really takes much notice of art unless an artist is doing something outrageous. being an artist or being involved in the art industry tricks you into thinking that art is everything and everyone must appreciate it as it's so important to you, but the average guy on the street couldn't care less about art.

do you think that by challenging conventional views art can truly make a change in the public's perception?

no, i don't think art has the fire power to affect change in any meaningful way. it will always touch the minority that actually takes notice of art, but art won't change society unless you include movies, the internet, and music. things like painting, sculpture, installations, prints, and video art will never change much of society.

siso cariado com circuito eletrônico sobre tela não é conceitual. exposição de artes plásticas no escuro é conceitual.

onze quadros da série athletes de andy warhol, incluindo um retrato de pelé, entraram para a lista dos top roubos da arte: eles desapareceram da casa do colecionador richard l. weisman, em los angeles, na semana passada.

estão oferecendo um milhão de doletas para quem fornecer pistas que levem às pinturas (aliás, um milhão é o valor mínimo estimado de cada peça). mas há um fator complicador: existem outras séries athletes originais onde os mesmos atletas foram pintados por warhol com uma simples diferença na palheta de cores.

weisman is thought to own several of the sets himself, police said. hrycyk said police are working to identify the other sets in an effort to avoid confusion over which portraits are missing.

veja os quadros roubados no animal ny.

um delicioso apanhado desde 1883. meus trechos favoritos:

manifesto futurista (itália, 1909)

"we intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness"

"except in struggle, there is no more beauty. no work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece"

"why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the impossible? time and space died yesterday. we already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed"

manifesto da arquitetura futurista (itália, 1914)

"that futurist architecture is the architecture of calculation, of audacious temerity and of simplicity; the architecture of reinforced concrete, of steel, glass, cardboard, textile fiber, and of all those substitutes for wood, stone and brick that enable us to obtain maximum elasticity and lightness"

"that by the term architecture is meant the endeavor to harmonize the environment with man with freedom and great audacity, that is to transform the world of things into a direct projection of the world of the spirit"

manifesto bauhaus (alemanha, 1919)

"architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! for there is no such thing as "professional art". there is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. the artist is an exalted craftsman"

topography of tipography (alemanha, 1923)

"the words on the printed surface are taken in by seeing, not by hearing (...) economy of expression: optics, not phonetics"

"the hygiene of the optical, the health of the visible is slowly filtering through"

good design manifesto (alemanha, 1987)

"good design is as little design as possible: back to purity, back to simplicity"

people´s communication charter (unesco, 1998)

"all people have a right to universal access to and equitable use of cyberspace. their rights to free and open communities in cyberspace, their freedom of electronic expression, and their freedom from electronic surveillance and intrusion, should be protected"

designers agains monoculture (eua, 2001)

"we refuse to create design that furthers the creation of a global corporate monoculture"

manifesto for agile software development (eua, 2001)

"individuals and interactions over processes and tools
working software over comprehensive documentation
customer collaboration over contract negotiation
responding to change over following a plan"

white night before a manifesto (eua, 2008)

"communicative (active) surface, or screen, is classified by its capacity to reveal and open up doorways to virtual worlds. in the absence of message, it maintains a system of placeholders and default images. mobile phones - which physically resemble minimalist jewellery - are inhabited by complex worlds appearing on the surface of their screens. in fact a phone is no longer a phone, as it performs the functions of an email tool, a web browser, an agenda, a calculator, an alarm clock, a video player, a camera and a game console. there is no principal difference between the 'phone-as-surface' with its inherent capacities to organize information and social relations, and the 'credit card-as-surface' with its capacity to order concierges and butlers"

"active surfaces are inhabited by worlds in worlds. this is a matter of calculus and inner complexity; mobile phones have surpassed the threshold between a dedicated machine (designed to perform a single task or series of tasks) and a machine which appropriates the functions and tasks previously assigned to other machines, resulting in the emptying out of the objects that were formerly machines (like the wristwatch). the system which inhabits the object with the most active surface - the more informational, complex, all-inclusive one - has surpassed a degree of complexity, so that the tasks it performs can no longer be related to its size, its form or its weight"

manifesto of the future of attention (eua, 2009)

"in 1971, the oft-quoted political scientist herbert simon predicted that in an information age, cultural producers (that's designers, but also filmmakers, theater types, musicians, artists) would quickly face a shortage of attention. 'what information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients,' he wrote. the more information, the less attention, and 'the need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.' (...) making something 'free' is obviously an allocation strategy. 'free' attracts attention. making things brief is an allocation strategy as well. the problem is that free isn't sustainable, and that brief is underpriced."

agora que voltamos a operar à cores, convém revelar minhas angústias para com o degradé.

desde muito pequena sou completamente fascinada pelo efeito formado pelo posicionamento de uma cor que leva a outra que leva a outra. como o vermelho/ laranja/ amarelo/ verde/ anil/ azul/ violeta do arco-íris. é um drive leonino.

tal efeito é amplamente explorado pela indústria da papelaria, com suas caixas de lápis-de-cor, pilot e aquarelas; e pelo mundinho da moda, cujas lojas insistem em arrumar camisas pólo e biquínis por ordem de cor.

a questão é que, a menos que um só item contenha todas as cores (o que na moda é de um perigo sem igual), é impossível capturar o sempre enfeitiçante efeito degradé*. mais do que a caneta ou a camisa em si, é ele que, nesses casos, impulsiona o consumo.

donde se conclui que, assim como o arco-íris, uma arrumação em degradé é uma ilusão. uma fraude. mesmo que você compre todas as camisas pólo da loja e as arrume igualzinhas no próprio armário, jamais será possível desfilar aquele efeito cromático completo no batizado do seu sobrinho.

ainda lembro da minha frustração quando saí para comprar biquíni aos dezesseis anos. os biquínis estavam expostos em degradé e eu tinha que optar dentre as cores. senti uma imensa sensação de frustração: na época eu não conseguia entender mas, olhando em perspectiva, fica claro que o que eu queria mesmo era desfilar aquela arrumação por ordem de cor na praia, e não um biquíni isolado.

para tentar equacionar o conflito, escolhi as duas corem que acreditei serem as tônicas: verde-água e amarelão. levei-os para casa com alguma satisfação, como se tivesse sido possível roubar um pedaço do arco-íris de lycra que a loja armara. nada: na hora de ir para a praia era sempre aquela dissonância cognitiva violenta.

o degradé no campo das artes é um pouco menos cruel, mas ainda assim faceiro. meus desenhos de infância eram supercoloridos - ao menos no papel era possível executar versões da deslumbrante arrumação original de minhas caixas de crayola. menos mal. no entanto eu perdia em elegância e sobriedade. na infância, elegância e sobriedade nada significam, mas já adulta foram traços que tratei de garantir. pelo menos no campo da expressão artística: minhas produções acrílico sobre tela trazem nada além de tintas branco titânio e branco iridescente.

que no final dá no mesmo. cogumelos me mordam, mas um dia eu tive certeza de que branco é um degradé borrado de todas as cores. ;)

*degradé completo, ou seja, aquele que contém matizes de todas as principais cores. degradé parcial, aquele que envolve menos do que isso, não me interessa.