The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. ~ Oscar Wilde

Communication whose style and content is dictated by constraints imposed by the rules of a scene is more creative, even more joyful, even if the realities of the life that produces the thought is very difficult.

Jean Baudrillard did some of this work in bemoaning the loss of the scene itself, which is the stage for the distinction between good and evil that we all navigate. Without the binary antipodes of cultural constraint, do we really find motivation to do anything of importance?

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. ~ Oscar Wilde

Art communicates what cannot be expressed by other means. There is more truth in fiction and in art than in any amount of moralizing speech.

When homosexuality could not be spoken, thinkers and artists – and even politicians – discovered ways to indicate what was already known, and to do it without speaking it. We love to bust these out into the open, but the art was all about indications and play.

It made great art. Plays, paintings, poetry, speeches, philosophies…

Oppressed people can create the most amazing stuff – amazing music, amazing fiction. Think of Russian novelists. Think of black gospel music compared to the dirge-like church music of privileged white colonizers. It’s true that abject poverty can also denigrate people below any ability to create, too, but among them… always a genius, a prophet.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s not at least part of what is meant by not being “of this world.” The rewards of this world – money, power, and so on – are rewards in themselves. They are rewards for now, to be enjoyed now. But that’s all.

The rewards of those who are censored and constrained and even oppressed are, by their very structure and nature, more complex – more insightful – more subtle – more deeply real. When you care enough to work around tough rules of expression, you find a way – like life itself always finds a way.

It will be a marvelous thing – the true personality of man – when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flower-like, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet, while it will not meddle with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child. In its development it will be assisted by Christianity, if men desire that; but if men do not desire that, it will develop none the less surely. For it will not worry itself about the past, nor care whether things happened or did not happen. Nor will it admit any laws but its own laws; nor any authority but its own authority. Yet it will love those who sought to intensify it, and speak often of them. And of these Christ was one. “Know Thyself” was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, “Be Thyself” shall be written. And the message of Christ to man was simply “Be Thyself.” That is the secret of Christ. ~ Oscar Wilde

The traditions of men serve to stabilize communities, but they also create boundaries that are made to be flirted with – deconstructed. As you toe the line, you doodle all around that line. Without a line, you can’t… doodle.

It’s not brazen. It’s not open. It’s not honest. And yet – isn’t it more truthful to experience? Doesn’t it really address you all the more forcefully?

It does me.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind— ~ Emily Dickinson

“…music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. This, also, is the explanation of the value of limitations in art. The sculptor gladly surrenders imitative colour, and the painter the actual dimensions of form, because by such renunciations they are able to avoid too definite a presentation of the Real, which would be mere imitation, and too definite a realisation of the Ideal, which would be too purely intellectual. It is through its very incompleteness that art becomes complete in beauty, and so addresses itself, not to the faculty of recognition nor to the faculty of reason, but to the aesthetic sense alone, which, while accepting both reason and recognition as stages of apprehension, subordinates them both to a pure synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole, and, taking whatever alien emotional elements the work may possess, uses their very complexity as a means by which a richer unity may be added to the ultimate impression itself.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Women in Art

Click to view video

(Thanks Jacque)

Women in Film

Click to view video

Catchin’ up with a few friend-blogs for a semi-random roundup…

Richard Shining Thunder has a new radio show in Cincinnati called High Spirits. Listen in at 1530AM WCKY, Cincinnati or online Sat 8-9 PM. I’ll personally vouch for him. He’s one of the good guys. Call in from 8-9 PM EST with spiritual questions and concerns – 877-345-3779.

Grateful Bear posts on a Pentacostal scholar who argues for the idea of the Holy Spirit moving like a wind through all the world’s religions. Great post! Call me to catch up when you’ve got a chance.

Etherealfire has a wonderful blessing for the day.

Just-Rambling thinks a surrender box is good idea. For an astonishing variety of reasons, I think so too.

No no no! It can’t be!!! Virtual Pus is gone! “2002-2006 – Killed by hackers”!?!? Come back!!!

Mr. H.K. skipped church today and instead went to the Museum of Modern Art’s opening of “Without boundaries: seventeen ways of looking,” featuring work by artists who come from the Islamic world. I’d better not link to his naughty naughty Easter graphic (heh -heh).

The philosofairy at Mermaid Tavern tells us why Arizona is the smartest state.

Rosei is planning her wedding as the rain pelts down in Brazil. I have fallen behind on the Photomeme posts, but not to worry, Rosei! John and Ben got me a digital camera for my birthday and it should arrive this week. I’ll catch up.

Raven, embroiled in activities with the boys, wishes everyone a Happy Easter/Ostara.

Lovebevvy is getting ready for a big move and new beginnings. Good luck Bev!

Mystical Grrl really has her hands full, as usual! Deep breaths Sara! Sending thoughts of warmth and calmness, and wishing you the very best of all news on the pregnancy. And I agree with you about the dog-sitting.

Dolphin and Leena have great feline Easter pics.

And keep your eyes out for the latest Progressive Faith Carnival Roundup!

Go see!
Joseph Nechvatal: Contaminations

Or if you happen to be in Youngstown, Ohio:
The Beecher Center for Technology in the Arts
Butler Institute of American Arts
524 Wick Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502
tel# 330-743-1711

While you’re visiting his website, be sure to see the new nOOlOgy : guilt of a nation. Here is his introduction:

In art, pleasure is a most legitimate aspiration. Still one may not ignore that people all over the world today bend-over painfully and act in accordance with seemingly normal systems of control: noological systems (*) that may seem at the time logically inevitable.

My current chain of history paintings called “the new nOOlOlogy” are based on a fraction of the infamous digital photos from the Abu Graib abuse scandal. As such, they present embedded images of American torture. Here American detainees are punished and humiliated and then adorned through an a-life process of viral attack laden with the latent content of ambiguous bioterror. These digital (computer-robotic) acrylic paintings link together systems of exposed nerves with the torture at Abu Graib – now festooned with miniature hermaphrodites infected by viral attacks that undermine them.

For me they are an attempt at expressing America’s deep demoralization. They are moral acts then, free with the truth of our penchant for desire. As such, these paintings contribute slightly to the downfall of the present reality in that they bury visual memory at the outset.

To those that persist in the amorality of Abu Graib, I shit on you. You have discredited me by creating a rotting nation. Although I have opposed you at every turn, never-the-less, you have made me feel guilty and dirty too, as only a single officer has been reprimanded for this disgraceful display thus far.

This artistic activity, in tribute to Leon Golub, is a conscious response to the world of irrational conventions in which I can find even myself.

Joseph Nechvatal

(*) Noology is the science of intellectual phenomena. n. study of intuition and reason. nooscopic, a. pertaining to examination of mind.

And as if all that weren’t enough, he has a brilliant article (”Jean Baudrillard and a Counter-Mannerist Art of Latent Excess“) in the latest issue of the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies (Volume 3, Number 2 – July 2006).

Intellectual acumen, creative artistry, ethics and tech – this guy stuns me, always. Keep it going Joseph! You are an oasis in the desert.

The sarcophagus is 2500 years old, and its ornate illustrations are painted in red, black, and blue on a white background.

Experts believe that some of the illustrations depict scenes from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. These and other scenes suggest that this was the resting place of a great warrior.

This kind of thing makes my day.

Check out the photos.

There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

Nothing can be love or hated unless it is first known.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence he is just using his memory.

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.

BEING IS DIFFERENCE

and the new series

back tO Order

<>:-.,_,.-:*’“’*:-.,_,.-:*’“’*:-.,_,.-:*’“’*:-.,_,.-:*:-.,*:-.,_,.-:*’“’ *:-.,_

Also stumbled across this site this morning – compelling ideas and performance in these works at 6168.

http://www.6168.org/