ZIOMAX

The repercussions of World War II lead to a modernistic crisis of post-human identity and a hypocritical obsession with human suffering.

The elitist nationalist that feed off humanity with war machines and cause wars are no different than the elitists posthuman modernists utopia freaks that oppose it, they both create a separatism state of class no matter how hard they try to idealistically achieve the opposite.

After 1850, the growth of industries driven by nationalist interests (which believe there is always a threat) lead to World War II. After the disillusionment of World War II smacked everyone on earth in the face with a dose of industrial actuality, there were many anti war movements coming up with all these reasons the war was bad but too cowardly to face the actual causes and actually do anything to stop it. The rise of modernism, supposedly to renounce war and unite the poor and rich classes, has done little more than create a “high modernism” elitist group of their own. The posthuman modernized elitists do not seek to control the body with the war machine, but to control the mind with images, sounds, and justifications. This highly modern elitist group, not only lead to supposedly beneficial movements like abstract expressionism and Fluxus, it also lead to the mass media, and is now the mind behind the latest war, the war for art. Artistic modernism has come full circle with its archenemy of industrial nationalism.

War makes art:

War makes art because war depicts what art is shown and what art is destroyed. The victorious culture of a war gets to go down in history as, not only the good guy, but also as the most validated artistic standard in which it can only go from there. The arts of defeated cultures is often destroyed or overshadowed by an abundance of art and meaning from the opposing, victorious culture. Art is like a prisoner of war to be shown off like a beautiful animal, and only in context to the victorious kings and queens of battle.

ZioMax took a trip to the Rose Art museum at Brandeis University in Waltham Massachusetts to investigate this theory of how war makes art, and saw the Rose Museum as a perfect example in itself.

The same exhibitions being held at the Rose Art museum would probably not be there if World War II went differently. Before World War II, Brandeis University in Waltham Massachusetts, was known as Middlesex University, and was one of the only non-anti-Semitic Colleges in America, which was a very noble thing for its time. After the allies destroyed Hitler and ended World War 2, and when America was completely depleted of money, funding, and students of their own because of fighting a horrific war, a very open and very influential Zionist named Israel Goldstein bought out Middlesex University, and named it after the first Jewish justice of the Supreme Court.

This is a small example of however since World War II and the American alliance with Israel, there seem to be a heavy Judaic influence in the direction modern and post-modern art is heading in America. Most of the artists shown in the “Invisible Rays” exhibition as a whole were of Jewish descent with art symbolic of the horrors of the holocaust.

The “Invisible Rays” exhibition as a whole:

The “Invisible Rays” exhibition at Brandies Universities Rose Museum, supposedly attempts to achieve Andre Breton’s (the so-called founder of surrealism) idealistic vision of “surreality”, by merging the dream world with reality.

The “Invisible Rays” exhibition attempts to achieve a possible glimpse into the “surreality” that Andre Breton envisioned by trying to give visitors the sensation of being amidst a dream-like state. This “dream like state” is attempted in three magor ways:

1. Autumn leaves are scattered all over the floor, possibly to give an eerie feeling of being lost in the woods at night with strange things all around you. The autumn leaves may also add to a surreal experience as the viewer looks at the artwork on display.
2. The use of very dim lighting (in almost total darkness) in such a large room, is meant to accentuate this feeling of “surreality”.
3. The interaction of flashlights which are given out to the viewers to shine on the exhibition work (almost like a laser pointer to identify certain arias of a piece) may interest the viewer while leaving the rest of the form and content a mystery.

Invisible Rays installation:

The “Invisible Rays” exhibition is mostly abstract drawings and painted images on canvas, with some photography and projected videos, all hung vertically on giant white walls with one single multiple media wooden type of sculpture, called “Ruth” being the only piece installed on the floor.

Comparing and contrasting Rauschenberg’s “Monogram” to Marisol escabar’s “Ruth” Sculpture:

Rauschenberg‘s Monogram:

Rauschenberg‘s “Monogram” is a freestanding sculpture that uses the combination of “ready made objects” mixed with original crafts and a dead goat that has been mounted on a painted canvas that is being used as a foundation type of table to not only stage the piece, but to also defy how a canvas is normally used and presented in art. The combination in sculpture, ready made, painting, use of space, and canvas use in Rauschenberg‘s “Monogram” is similar to Marisol Escabar’s Ruth Sculpture in many ways.

Escabar’s Ruth Sculpture:

The Escabar’s Ruth Sculpture seemed interesting because it was the only sculpture or piece of any nature, that was being displayed on the floor, even though it looks like nothing more than a painted wooden grog-barrel that’s made to look like several women stuck together. The curator must have found some relation with the creator and or piece, with the surrealism theme that is either not there or not immediately apparent. Maybe this piece is meant to become surreal only with the lights off and within the entire exhibit (almost like a strange figure lurking in darkness, but then you walk up to it and see that it’s just some cheesy painted barrel shaped wooden representation of Siamese-twins, the interest begins to fade fast. Then it all made sense. Jewish or not, Marisol Escobar was an active feminist female and was also a board member for the art floor of directors in the Newton Massachusetts Jewish Community Center.

This is when one can perceive to reanalyze and realize that all the art that is displayed at the rose museum has always (since WW2 anyway) carried a very heavy Jewish influence in its art even if the artist is not Jewish. This can be perceived as both good and bad depending on what side of the painted fence one stands on. However, it is a pretty clear sign on the influence war has on art and who gets to display it and why, and the influence that that display art has on its culture, along with other cultures.

Escabar’s Ruth (now feminine appearing) sculpture, was slightly more unappealing up close but can be quickly related to some possibly influential similarities and differences with Rauschenberg‘s “Monogram”. Both, Escabar’s Ruth Sculpture, and Rauschenberg‘s “Monogram” are multiple mixed media sculptures that are displayed on the floor, alone. Escabar’s Ruth is displayed on carved wooden stilts (like the legs on a chair). Little wooden tubes sick out like uneven nipples. The faces are box shaped with minor suggestive detail in the faces eyes, nose and mouth, and seem to be unpainted. The only part that seemed painted (it was very dark), was the body, which was painted blue and white. While, Rauschenberg‘s “Monogram” was displayed on more of a symbolic table type of stage made out of a painted canvas tipped horizontally to become the base of the goat with a rubber tire wrapped around it. Both of these pieces posses a surreal quality in theory. One could most likely think the Monogram is a real goat in darkness from far away. The Monogram use of variety of media seems to be more apparent than in the Ruth sculpture. The Monogram uses a ready made tire and goat, and an original pained marking on the canvas as well as the goat’s skeleton face. The Ruth sculpture seemed to be mostly wood and paint, but it did use rubber, metal.

Both these pieces have differences, but are similar in many ways, especially in ways they were even acknowledged, thus made, and that reason goes far behind art , into a world of politics, religion, beliefs, and of course, war.

Comparing and contrasting Baltz’s “San Quentin point” photos to Newman’s “Stations of the Cross” paintings:

Lewis Baltz’s five photos from San Quentin point:

Lewis Baltz’s five photos from “San Quentin point” also stood out amongst the exhibit. They seemed to almost resemble the concentration camps of Nazi Germany without the bodies lying everywhere, but the last photo shows one small plant growing to symbolize new life growing from death and nothingness. Baltz’s images, tell this story in a almost bluntly morbid sense that strips away everything but the timeless absolute of the continuous recycle that is, existence.

Barnett Newman’s Stations of the Cross and Sublimins:

Barnett Newman’s “Stations of the Cross” is fourteen separate paintings symbolizing the begging and end of the holocaust in the form of vibrant lines with different variations to represent a beginning, middle, and ending in time. “Sublimins” was Newman’s masterpiece. It was large contemporary abstract paintings on canvas, usually almost all one color or absence of color with vertical lines, which Newman called “zips”. These zips are painted all the way from one side of the canvas to the other. One of the styles of art happening in “Stations of the Cross” is Newman’s use of repetition, but with slight variations in the placement, thickness contrast and density of the zips.
The Zips in Barnett Newman’s works (Vir heroicus Sublimins) seems to suggest a similar beginning middle (climax), and ending. Both Newman’s zips and Baltz’s photos seem to represent an artistic expression of suffering, death, and rebirth, Newman does it with a slight change in repetitions of abstract lines, and Baltz trys to tell the same story of life and death with a photo series.

What is “Invisible Rays” message?

The “Invisible Rays” exhibition seems to ask what is the next step beyond modern art by trying to embrace surreal sentiments in all different types of media. But whom is it asking? The “Invisible Rays” exhibition also seems to kind of leave the door open to new rays of light from many ideas to come from great minds that have yet to shine, but is that door to the next step in art left open for anyone that can actually achieve it, or is it only left open to an elite class of a select few that achieved their elite class by hypocritically shunning the elite classes of others?

Only the victors of war may dare to ignorantly answer that question, because whoever wins the war is the new keeper of arts meaning and its direction. Thus, modern art itself and nearly everything following it, is nothing more than a repercussion of war.

-Max Brissette

ZioMax Cite 1: Rose Art museum at Brandeis University in Waltham

ZioMax Cite 2: Robert Rauschenberg’s Monogram, 1955-59
Freestanding combine
Oil, printed paper, printed Monogram

ZioMax Cite 3: David Hopkins, After Modern Art 1945-2000, Oxford, 2000,
Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimins 1950 (Serigraph) Painting on large canvas with zips.

ZioMax Cite 4: Barnett Newman, Stations of the Cross, 1st Station, Fifth station, and twelfth station - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Newman

ZioMax Mention 1: Marisol escabar’s Ruth Sculpture – carved wood and mixed media reproductions, metal, wood, rubber heel and tennis ball on canvas, with oil on angora goat and tyre on wooden base mounted on four casters.

ZioMax Mention 2: Lewis Baltz’s five photos, “San Quentin point” from the “Invisible Rays” exhibition, Rose Art museum at Brandeis University in Waltham.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Maxuality, War and Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.