Robbin Murphy reminds us of LeWitt’s warning…

New materials are one of the great afflictions of contemporary art. Some artists confuse new materials with new ideas. There is nothing worse than seeing art that wallows in gaudy baubles. By and large most artists who are attracted to these materials are the ones who lack the stringency of mind that would enable them to use the materials well. It takes a good artist to use new materials and make them into a work of art. The danger is, I think, in making the physicality of the materials so important that it becomes the idea of the work (another kind of expressionism).
Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art”

I remember taking a photography class in college (I was a painter at the time). I liked it quite a bit and considered changing my focus. But I realized that I was infatuated with the tech, I knew that I would simply follow the tech down a hole. It was the non-tech of painting, I thought, that would help me focus on the ‘art.’

So it’s ironic to me that I ended up working as a new media artist for so long… perhaps this is why we feel part of the ‘new media ghetto.’ It’s a good thing that MTAA has M.River, who, on many levels, doesn’t give a shit about the tech.

M.River adds: Wow. I just found out interweb is not about “trucks”. It’s about “tubes”. Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things? Luckily the government is on top of all of this. permanent link to this post