I Named This Piece After I Wrote It
“All The World’s a Stage”
On Friday the 18th of January 2013 in a small room of a medium-sized building next to a busy street opposite the main campus building belonging to the University of Tubingen, an art seminar was held by Marion Schmidt for a small group roughly comprised of 16 South African students.
(YES, this is one sentence.)
My reason for such a detailed and lengthy text?
It is my form of “self-expression”, my art.
This is the concept that was taught that day by the “Old Masters” (artists) through Mrs. Schmidt: “Anyone who expresses directly and truly that which is in him is one of us.”
From the very first Modern Artists- those who applied the Fauvist, Cubist, Expressionist and Surrealist approaches which were thought to be radical at that time - to the presently thriving Contemporary Artists, the message rings clear throughout the Generations:
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.
At this point, I think it is appropriate to explain the title of this report. It can be noted that art movements are often named after they start. You may ask yourself why this is the case. Think of it this way: Would it be possible to think outside a box that you have placed in another box? In other words by naming the movement before it starts; Artists would be limiting or essentially ‘handcuffing’ their self-expression to the pre-defined movement. This action would then defeat the purpose of the movement at that time. So what exactly was the purpose or rather respective objective of the Modernists? Here’s a list:
1. Fauvists wanted to liberate the colour from the original object.
2. Cubists liberated the objects from their geometrical constraints.
3. Expressionists aimed to defy Beautification and strove for self-expression in whatever form it may take.
4. Social Verists broke with logic and created their own world without a logical system that is comprehensible to the brain.
5. Surrealists broke with what was visible and tried to “overstep the boundary of everyday reality to explore the surreal quality of visions, dreams and madness”.
The common denominator is clear: They rejected anything that represented the world’s idea of an ‘Ideal Society’.
As endearing as this may sound, Contemporary artists take this concept to the extreme for they create art for art’s sake; they just acquire creative ingredients from who knows where, mix it in a bowl named ‘creative license’ and cross their fingers hoping that something passable will come out of it. But they need not fret because anything will be accepted in the art world so long as you are ‘expressing your “inner sound”…psssh!!!
This practice, in my opinion, not only diminishes the value of art but also one’s appreciation of art in general.
So from my visit to the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie along with the insightful seminar I attended, this in summary is what I learnt:
We are all artists;
Our self-expression?
Our art
The World?
Our Canvas
(Mpumi Mahlabane)
