Once again 'words' I would like to ponder over.
Credit :Art Blog in absolute arts.com 12/16/2005: "THE WRITING ON THE WALL" by Walter King.
Tom Wolf was only a little off in suggesting in his famous book “The Painted Word” that painting would become an illustration to the text on the wall explaining what it meant. In fact by the mid 80’sThe text on the wall had often become the work itself. In fact painting (or sculpture- remember Robert Indiana’s famous sculpture of the word “LOVE” of the 60‘s?) has disappeared altogether in some instances as artists take their cues from art magazines and art professors who were not trained to draw or paint or sculpt themselves who had developed ways to circumvent those traditional disciplines. It has become a laughable joke inside some artist circles. The problem is that art as text, at least a large amount of it, is neither very visual nor verbally very elegant in any significant way. Most of it is cliché with little depth, open ended platitude and innuendo fit for any occasion or circumstance, the Hallmark Greeting Card of the art world in many cases. It often does with words what painters and sculptors are accused of doing with images in that it is little more than free floating word association. Some of it reminds me of those old books of quotes that can be so inspiring to a young mind beginning to grapple with the world of ideas. Some simply reeks of propaganda.

I remember when I was a small boy telling my mother I would clean my room tomorrow. She smiled and sweetly said “honey, tomorrow never comes…“ a phrase that I played like a loop for weeks in my mind as I began to understand the philosophical and temporal aspects of the saying. “Tomorrow never comes…” why I asked myself? Because it becomes today! What an epiphany for a 5 year old! An epiphany for a 16 year old interested in art cam when I first read the Picasso quote that “art is a lie that explains the truth” or Voltaires statement that “those who think absurdities eventually commit atrocities.“ I heard the Voltaire quote for the first time only a few days ago. I may be giving more credit to many word artists than they deserve when I suggest that some have discovered that the general audience is at about the same intellectual level as I was when my mother told me that tomorrow ceases to be when it becomes today. The fundamental use of oppositions, something one learns early on in any good creative writing class or even in a good illustration course lesson on visual metaphor is assumed to be the end rather than the beginning of a much deeper and richer formal language. At best this kind of work would not belong in the visual category at all but rather in the world of literature or publishing. It comes from a modern poetic tradition with lots of precedents. Yet I perceive that being published in a book would not help the context any more than being printed on a gallery wall. Any quote will accomplish the same kind of conceptual connections when the quote is taken out of one context and placed in another. And every good speaker has a book of quotes to help them fill their time limits. Every good writer learns early on how to take a suggestive phrase and turn it into a title for a book or an essay.

Much of this supposedly conceptual genre is deeply anti-visual in that it simply assumes the form of existing commercial screens or monitors and other media most often connected to advertising. Of course the artists often argue precisely that point… that it comments on or uses the same methods as advertising graphics and other forms of propaganda to make its statement. Generally there is little done in the way of type design or color as this would require some visual discipline. And this stripped down dependence on given templates, typefaces, letter and line spacing is called minimal to hide the lack of skill with typography.

Most of what is said in our so called word art is so generic that it usually misses the point anyway. Much of it can be compared to the 9 second sound bite that does more to obscure the truth than reveal it. (Maybe it is a comment on the current length of our attention span shortened by the kind of technology we embrace.) The result is we get more text, recorded tours and curatorial lectures to explain the work of the text itself. This is an even more interesting and convoluted twist on Wolf’s premise. An entire economy of arts writers has evolved from these circumstances. Artists often do more to build the economy by creating all these jobs then any politician ever has. Hell we’re one of the biggest industries in the country when you get right down to it. Without our creative and inventive intellectual property where would publishers, gallerists, museums, arts writers, copyright lawyers, judges who try intellectual property cases, professors of art and law and arts administrators draw down a paycheck? Not to mention the fact that everything manufactured by a human is touched at some point in its development by at least one or more artists…so we could actually include every single industry in the country if all they do is hire an artist to design their logo-- Ah, but I diverge…I often get buggy during this holiday season of consumerism. I often imagine the Christ child blessing us from the manger saying “For those who have ears to hear and those who have dollars to spend you will have me with you always in the meantime thou shalt buy, buy, buy!”

There are a few word artists who do actually blur the line between verbs and visuals usually joining their cliches with a visual joiner, signifier or qualifier. They were once called illustrators. But the modern tradition of illustration was discounted after the Second World War. The best of them have not been taken seriously for some time as artists. Even now when word art has become all the vogue the illustrator is still given short shrift. They do not often use the language of semiotics to explain their work since it actually needs little explanation. This clarity is seen as a negative as great works shouldn’t be understandable to any but the initiated (God forbid the entire economy could crumble at a moments notice). And this is an illustration of how the apologists of contemporary thinking over the last century never looked back on the history of contemporary art with the same skepticism or deep critical questioning as it has older traditions. Post modernism especially rarely holds itself accountable for its own intellectual dishonesty, folly or short sightedness. It can’t, or rather isn’t allowed because each generation of artists disavows the work of the artists of the previous generation en toto. It is one of the tenets of postmodernism that it keeps no tradition. The whole precept of modern and now so called post modern thinking has to do with the destruction/deconstruction of tradition and the idea of the new. As soon as the new appears on the scene it is cannibalized by the next generation who never even seems to realize it was given to them in the first place by their predecessors. This allows for an avant garde that will not admit that it has an asshole simply because it has never turned around to see it.

This sheds light on the anomaly that we face today. If an artist doesn’t have a sufficient amount of verbiage accompanying his/her work whether it IS the work itself or just on the wall explaining the work on the wall next to it then the general public seems to assume (or has been taught to assume) that it can’t be all that deep. If someone with higher authority from the art gods isn’t there to explain it to them then they don’t get it. I’ve mentioned many times the dynamic in this country for the audience to never venture their own interpretation of a work but to always consult the “wall”…that is to ask the artist or the gallerist or curator what it means. Usually the answer is “Oh”. In Europe and South America the opposite is often true. First the viewer will tell you what they think the work is about then if you the artist don’t agree or want to add to the discussion you can. It certainly leads to more interesting discussions as it is very hard to take “oh” any further.

Younger artists simply are the result of their surroundings and make the leap that “if words are what gets you noticed then that is what we’ll do.” they do not think critically about it as a form unto itself or how to pursue it as a visual or verbal language at any deep level in the beginning of their explorations. Looking back to history whether for a basis or as a criticism is done at the shallowest of levels. They simply practice what is touted and accepted as important and significant. Touted in University art departments who want to be perceived as the most up to date, contemporary and scholarly. Because they have the reputation of a University to support they create reams of paper to follow any visual premise as in a doctoral dissertation. The same model that is used for a scientific treatise is used as a template for a body of art work. This alone is often misguided and has added to the idea that the uneducated couldn‘t possibly understand artistic and visual works. The very idea that visual art is its own language (and our first language long before we learn to speak and spell) seems to escape them. This follow the leader mentality assures that little original thinking will occur and guarantees an audience who has no idea how to read that language.

Ok, so maybe I’m being a bit of a curmudgeon these days and have come down a little hard on those who advocate word art…Word art comes from poetry you know. E.E. Cummings was doing word art in the 20’s. There have been word artists around since before the middle ages and the days of manuscript illumination! The ancient Egyptians predated word art for that matter as heiroglyphs.

I met a very talented poet in NY who specializes in this sort of thing. In fact I would argue that ‘Word Art’ is more appropriately a form of poetry than visual art anyway. We had some very interesting discussions about how word art developed, who is doing it these days in poetry departments and painting departments…who is good and who is bad at it. Word play, contextual positioning, reversals, moot and free floating metaphor, arranged spacing, up and down alignments within a text or verse, alliteration, rhyme, innuendo, these are all games that writers have used for centuries. The fact is I love words. I love the art of putting words together to say something beautiful, something instructive, something silly or funny, something to make you laugh or cry, something to make you think about something bigger than yourself. Word art is a legitimate formal idea and can communicate deep ideas about how we communicate, how we create with both linear and lateral thinking and can be quite beautiful and profound. It can also be a complete waste of time and energy when handled by someone without talent, sensitivity or intelligence who has nothing important to talk about. So just because the writing is on the wall doesn’t mean its worth reading.

I think what I’m really trying to get at is that a few sly fools who ran out of “new” ideas a number of years back began to suggest that because they couldn’t think of anything new to paint somehow painting must be dead. They had their own agenda-- that is to make themselves famous. That isn’t all that bad an ambition in itself. Any artist who doesn’t want people to see their work and give them some credit for it is probably faking humility to some extent. But some time back I got a bit tired of hearing that painting had nothing of importance to say. Visuals are an a priori language. We couldn’t leave it behind if we wanted to. It is the way the brain functions long before we sound out words in our heads. We humans still dream dreams because that is how we think. Then and only then do we put those dreams into words.

(Credits: The Spider image that begins and ends this blog is by Gustave Dore [public domain], the word art samples “Tomorrow never comes“ and “New Paradigms” are mine done in about 20 minutes worth of goofing off), the image with the words that say “Can you say it without words“ is called “Blind Angel“ and is also mine. Blind Angel can be seen in its entirety on my site at:
absolutearts.com/walterking.
The illuminated manuscript with gospel overlaying Christ is from the middle ages and also public domain. )