Free Art, Strange Land

Sometimes I wish I was more free in my art like David Choe. I feel like I have these two fighting daemons inside of me, one pulling me towards realism and the other toward complete abstraction.

I want to make great art. I want to become a household name. But I also want to be myself. But to become famous now days all you have to do is be shocking in some way and get your name in the news. The art seems secondary.

I often feel that some artists use gimmicks to get in the news. One guy is now making art blindfolded, we are to believe that will take him out of the equation, ignoring the fact that he is still consciously moving the pencil. Another guy uses body waste like blood, feces, urine, and even placenta. Some other guy performs stunts such as protesting against breast feeding or putting a confessional on the back of a bike and riding around town in a priest's outfit. (The media always falls for this, and amazingly it's splashed across the headlines.)

I sometimes wish we could move forward to a time of art without gimmicks.And then sometimes I think that the gimmicks while not adding to art, at least add something interesting to life.

This other world of art feels like an unexplored land but upon arriving everything is familiar. It's sad in a way. We struggle to push our limits, the way we think, and the social norms, but all we end up doing is shining a flashlight into a corner we haven't looked at. Everything was already there, we just decided that we'd turn our head in a different direction.