“I like living, breathing better than working,” Marcel Duchamp famously declared. “My art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral; it’s a sort of constant euphoria.”
Andrew Gallix, editor of 3AM Magazine, founder of the boutique publishing imprint 3AM Press and lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris wrote an article for the Guardian, reproduced at his blog, titled "Can Artists Create Art By Doing Nothing?"
My thought is: Absolutely. Some artists should not create at all, thus leaving us with - and I can express this better in Spanish - una sabrosa de la herencia incumplida. To be an artist and yet to produce nothing is the exquisite state-of-being for the true aesthete. And the audacious. Life takes precedence over canvas and parchment. Live. To produce nothing requires endless resources of self-discipline. It is the practice of not creating a work that is anything less than exceptional. To position oneself at such a point is not, in my opinion, a form of supreme laziness - it is an act of love and of homage. You might compare it to being forever on the verge of orgasm without ever consummating it because the arc of release will not be magnificent enough.
Of course, there is a superb vanity in actually promoting works which one has not yet begun to realise - and which may never be realised. But then titles, ideas and the execution of a prècis may captivate an audience in a way that its accomplishment might always disappoint. It is salon cock-teasing; enigma.
Andrew Gallix, editor of 3AM Magazine, founder of the boutique publishing imprint 3AM Press and lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris wrote an article for the Guardian, reproduced at his blog, titled "Can Artists Create Art By Doing Nothing?"
My thought is: Absolutely. Some artists should not create at all, thus leaving us with - and I can express this better in Spanish - una sabrosa de la herencia incumplida. To be an artist and yet to produce nothing is the exquisite state-of-being for the true aesthete. And the audacious. Life takes precedence over canvas and parchment. Live. To produce nothing requires endless resources of self-discipline. It is the practice of not creating a work that is anything less than exceptional. To position oneself at such a point is not, in my opinion, a form of supreme laziness - it is an act of love and of homage. You might compare it to being forever on the verge of orgasm without ever consummating it because the arc of release will not be magnificent enough.
Of course, there is a superb vanity in actually promoting works which one has not yet begun to realise - and which may never be realised. But then titles, ideas and the execution of a prècis may captivate an audience in a way that its accomplishment might always disappoint. It is salon cock-teasing; enigma.
I would argue that, as awards are given out to people who have exemplified themselves in the field of creative arts, there should be a category for those who have not produced any works that year - in acknowledgement of an aesthetic humanitarianism towards their readership or supporters. Discretion. This might seem chimerical, but if you have ever laboured through the leaden syntax of alcoholic prose crafted by a writer in the throes of domestic crisis and sentimentality, you might reconsider. Tracey Emin, the British artist of Deptford fame was less relevant - overnight - once she became comfortable with Egyptian cotton and never again had to worry about her council tax bills. That is what success does. It can separate the artist from his or her work.
2 comments:
Very nice.
What is the second book you shall be releasing?
Blogs that generate essays and perhaps short stories. It's a discipline that keeps one writing and fosters ideas.
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