China 6

I am going to digress here and talk about abstract expressionism in America and East Asia. Abstract Expressionism ideally has no boundaries and no perspective. Despite the anti-religious feelings of the artists and the art critiques, abstract expressionists are really non-religious fundamentalists and deeply narrow minded people. A painting consists of a line, color, and form. But a line is form so a painting can be a line. A color is a form also. In Jackson Pollock, there is definitely an immediate zen feel to the painting. No boundaries, in the present moment, chaotic, reckless, gestural, meaningless. Very little content, all style. But look closely. Do you sometimes see a painting of Picasso? Do you see the paintings of Monet? Are you sure that Jackson Pollock may not have mimicked the lines he saw in the subtext of these paintings?

Mark Rothko is often considered a color-field painter. I often see the formal color set up of Rembrandt behind Rothko.

Look at the automatic line drawings of modern artists. This bypasses censorship of the superego. What do these lines say to you? Is it really meaningless, formal, and do we really need to go against interpretation? Aren't they graffiti?

Anyway, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese artists have followed this Protestant, anti-icon mode of paintings and very few are recognized. Why? Abstract Expressionism and even Media art is incredibly easy to reproduce. An imitation is death. Of course, even a Da Vinci can be reproduced, but the reproducer has some respect for Da Vinci. Modern Abstract Expressionists, they couldn't care less about. Graffiti artists imitated them and they were given no credit until later.

The primacy of the idea is asserted in various artistic endeavors after abstract expressionism. The idea is overvalued. An idea is sometimes nothing but a fixation. Does this remind you of Fascism?

To get back to my point, it is a certain interpretation of Zen Buddhism I am against, not Zen Buddhism as a totality. I know, it's kind of frustrating. Nothing good can come out of Nazareth. Nothing good can come out of California. Nothing good can come out of S. Korea, China, Japan.

I hear that in Africa, people set up the Marlboro Man vs. a local Shaman. Who's going to win? I bet on the Shaman.

To conclude, modern non-representational art acts like a totem and taboo object that stylizes all things and takes away content as an aesthetic. At the same time, these art critiques negate rap, hiphop, etc which also has very little content or style and yet has more aesthetic value than these artworks. Therefore, I can only see the subtext of modern art as "We are purists. We don't like multiculturalism. Get the fuck out of this country. If you imitate us, your value will be dramatically lowered. If you try to acculturate, your value with be lowered. So don't acculturate. Screw You, etc." At the same time, formalism is appropriating all kinds of things from minority cultures and making it "white." Criticism does not stop these people until they hit a brick wall.

Totem and taboo objects also work in a certain way. The Mother culture must not synthesize with a child (minority) culture. The Father culture constructs a totem tole to represent all the horrible gods or animals that are going to eat and feast and burn and kill you if you break that taboo.