"We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men’s minds" -Hans Arp

Having lived in Portland, Maine on and off for the last year I have observed and experienced the elitism and commodification of "artists" and "artwork". Portland being something of a renowned "art" enclave is generally known for Maine College of Art assorted galleries and general "hipness" has become a place of refuge for some of the most stale, barren, and unimaginative "artists" and "artwork". Outside of this context there are some artists and artwork, who and which manage to transcend the mundane art existing here in Portland.

There are many art galleries here in Portland. Without comprehensively analyzing the role of the art gallery in maintaining the social edifice, I will attempt to sketch a rough picture of its role. The role of the art gallery serves in seeking to commodify art so the process of creation is turned into product. In other words, art as a creative and affirmative act has become a mere relic one hangs on the wall without a connection to lived everyday experience and observation. The artist fails to supercede art by neglecting to make the imaginative real.

Under the present social order one is expected to pay a price for everything that exists. The art gallery serves this function quite well in its continual accumulation of works of "art". The piece is given on consignment to the gallery who in turn attempt to sell such works to wealthy consumers. Thus the circuit of capital is complete. In this way, it is facile to pass oneself off as hip and alternative as the creative process has been stunted in attempting to meet the standards set forth by the art-world in general and the gallery in particular. The "artist" in seeking to meet such standards is helping to maintain the role of specialist in creativity. The creativity in much modern art has been leeched out due to commodification which makes such become solely commercial in quality. On the converse of this is the individual in revolt against the commodification of life in general and art in particular.

I recently in Issue No. 3 of "Diavolo in Corpo" read of French Surrealist Andre Breton and his comrade in 1930 laying waste to a new Parisian nightspot entitled "Bar Maldoror". The name is a reference to a book by seminal Surrealist Lautreamont, entitled Chants of Maldoror. The book itself is one of complete negation. It was (and is) classically known as a total refusal and a kick in the teeth to all the forces that would seek to restrain the individual. But I digress Breton and his comrade strongly detested the opening of "Bar Maldoror", which would have only been a means to profit off of his legacy. Knowing this they destroyed the bar without apology. The owner faced with such a show of wrath was forced to change the name of the business.

Relating it back to Portland, many have come to embrace this elitist category of artist. In doing so, they seek to separate themselves from the rest of society, while simultaneously creating an insular "scene". A scene as opposed to an identified movement, with its intent to supercede codified social roles. The Surrealists, with all their shortcomings (internal purges etc.), attempted such an endeavor with a degree of success far beyond that of cliche art scenes.

In a less consciously political (anti-political) way in Portland (and across the country for that matter), graffiti-which calls into question private property and the role of artist- used to adorn many alleys and buildings. Unfortunately, much of it has been covered up and stale lifeless buildings remain. Though I am not a big fan of graffiti aesthetically, it shows a lot more guts, emotion, and bravado than that which exists in stale "art" galleries. The transformation of a once private building into that of a social space to free one’s creativity subverts the logic of capital. This is a lot stronger than art merely being displayed within the confines of a private building. In this way, the process is both destructive (spray-painting a private building) and creative (freeing one’s mind in the process) thus subverting the logic of enclosed and commodified art. The creative process of the graffiti artist becomes social in its reappropriation of private space.

Maine College of Art (MECA), darling of Portland, is concerned with molding its students to fit the function of art producers. Teaching students how to produce profitable art its function is to stifle the creative process in its focus upon producing for profit. This is not surprising seeing as how the school itself is attended by many spoiled upper class brats whose primary interest is making a living from the art products they produce. The function of MECA thus serves to keep art from actually escaping from the canvas-in other words actually ceasing to be and becoming real. Thus MECA like all institutions seeks to further the divide between product and process, artist and society, while what is necessary is an active supersession of all such categories. Creating, imagining, and making reality- through a refusal of our narrow role as artists in particular and roles in general- a reality so real that it tears and finally destroys the canvas of specialized "artists", and their "art".

In the face of such our project should consist of communication, theory, and action in utter defiance against this social order, which would assign paltry roles for us to live our lives through. This defiance should be collective when possible and individually through our own subversive thoughts, actions, and discussion. With continued interaction perhaps we can one day cease to define ourselves in terms of roles this social order assigns to us and instead revel, know, and explore each other as unique, differentiated human beings.

crossing the street you are captured by the gaze of security cameras-the empty houses, boarded up, nobody allowed to use them-the street full of speeding cars-everywhere you go you got to pay in order to be there-the parks are trashed-huge warehouses, factories, schools all sorts of buildings rot a little more with each rain-you and me, we stuffed in tight row houses and when you look up on your way to the bus stop all’s you can see is billboard ads.

in a huge world of possibility we are constantly confined by private property...

a thousand guarded walls keep us on the job, on the sidewalk, in front of the tv. a thousand clocks keep us in a planet-wide coordination of traffic flows, tv programming, leisure scheduling, and childhood processing. a thousand illusions, a thousand borders fence us off, fence us in. and if you refuse it, there’s always a thousand cops to come after you.

roaming the streets, blowing-off life in a cell, hopping fences & walls, walking train lines, ducking cops, busting through boarded up doors & windows-talking back to industrial wasteland with stolen paint seeking out the forbidden view of this world-seize the abandoned, some room to really live-the city is too quiet & compliant, but someday it will be the land of the people uprisen.

graffiti is only a backward cast shadow of tomorrows’ insurrection. graffiti is the first hints of a premonition of a sweet dream waking you up from a nightmare, and of a nightmare for those who can only live by dominating others cause everything will be lost to them. not just the walls anymore. we will take it all. graffiti is the writing on the wall.

-From Claustrophobia newspaper.

Homage to Valerie Solanas

A hundred and eighty-one years ago William Blake warned us against certain artists who the ruling class "Hired to Depress Art." Today capital and its state monopolize Art itself while stifling all free expression. Contemporary society is one huge prison, and it comes as no surprise that the various celebrities of the Art Market are guards armed with stun-guns and tear-gas.

Avowedly racist and sexist, a devout Catholic, professional flatterer of corporate complacency, apologist for imperialism and every other form of exploitation and degradation, Andy Warhol exemplifies the sort of scum that rises to the top in this intolerably miserabilist society. The stinking corpse of this rich toady--the Richard Nixon of Modern Art, who boasted that his greatest ambition was to make himself a machine--remains the perfect embodiment of today’s official culture.

Never having had the chance to spit in Warhol’s face when he was alive, we take this opportunity to spit on his memory, on all his work, on all his admirers, and especially on all those curators, critics and other highly paid liars who have managed to convince a certain number of people that this putrid non-entity was and is actually of some importance.

Some day-- and sooner than you think! --we shall have the pleasure of trampling and pissing on Warhol’s loathsome representation of commodities, on the ruins of this whole stinking social structure founded on the fetishism of commodities.

Meanwhile, if some of us take the trouble to show at these disgusting funerals of yours, the joke’s still on you, isn’t it? As Daffy Duck would say, "It is to laugh!"

Chicago June 1989

I must see something new and investigate it. I wish to taste dark water, cracking trees, to see wild air, to stare at rotting fences, how they all live, to hear young birch groves and quivering leaves, I want to see light and sun, to enjoy wet green evening vales, to sense the goldfish shining, to see white clouds forming. I want to talk to flowers. To look at the grass, rose- coloured people, old dignified churches, to hear small cathedrals speaking: then I will form beautiful coloured areas. -Egon Schiele