Abstract
The Pure Taste Indicator (PTI) represents a new reference model for the art world; it measures the relevance and quality of the work of a visual artist through the conjunction of knowledge in art and the taste (“educated eye”) of a representative number of players of the art world. This is a complete change of paradigm where the current reference model of the art world is based on fame being susceptible to corruption, speculation, manipulation, or nepotism. PTI removes those variables from the art world, showing a new perspective to appreciate and value art.
Author’s bio
Originally from Mexico, David Hinojosa Admann lives and works in Berlin. With a background in computer science and marketing, Hinojosa Admann studied and obtained his MFA in Madrid, 2003, and since then has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and Central America. He worked as an advisor for Artfacts.Net developing the “artist ranking” and online tools for art collectors. In 2017, he founded the Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts (ODBK) – an activist organization whose objective is to bring equality and diversity for the art world. Admann’s practice ranges from traditional media, like drawing and painting, to multidisciplinary and media and artistic research. His projects address the relationship between conceptual art, commerce, and democratization of the contemporary art world.
Keywords
Democratization, art world, art market, equality, diversity, model, contemporary art, reference, indicator
The Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts (ODBK)
The Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts (ODBK) is an activist organization based in Berlin, Germany, founded in 2017 by the Mexican artist and activist D. H. Admann. The aim of the organization is to create more equal, diverse, inclusive, and democratic art world. By using alternative economic models and democratic systems, ODBK
builds both offline and online mechanisms to diversify and increase the number of active participants in the decision-making, which defines the current and future art world.
Amongst the main mechanisms enabling ODBK to implement its goals are the Art Market Regulation Commission (AMARC), the Pure Taste Indicator, and the Equality and Diversity Certification for Contemporary Art Spaces.
The Pure Taste Indicator is a new and alternative reference model for the art world. It is a new way to appreciate and value art. This is grounded in a complete change of paradigm, in contrast with the current one, which is based on fame and prestige. Being this last one susceptible to corruption, speculation, traffic of influences, convenient friendships, etc. The Pure Taste Indicator is free of these variables, because it is obtained based on the alternative economy model PARECON, and democracy mechanisms like referendums and demarchy. The PTI summarizes the taste and knowledge in art of unlimited and representative groups of the art world. In the ODBK the conjunction of these groups is called the AMARC or Art Market Regulation Commission.
In the big picture, the AMARC is a coalition of three groups that execute decisions in the contemporary art world/art market based on democratic processes. These three groups are the art world institutional sector (gallery owners, curators, art historicals, etc.), the artists, and the art lovers/art collectors. More precisely, some of the decisions that the AMARC should execute and regulate are:
1. The participant artists in public museums, public art spaces, etc.
2. Cap-prices of artworks in the primary and secondary markets.
3. Distribution of public funds for visual arts.
The Equality and Diversity Certification for Art Institutions is a program initiated and operated by ODBK that publicly recognizes those art organizations demonstrating a history of, and commitment to, voluntarily making the art world more equal, diverse and democratic.
The Pure Taste Indicator: A new reference model for the art world
While the importance of art and its significance has not changed in the last years, its accessibility certainly has. However, there is still a lot of progress to be made, specifically, in the inclusion, equality, and homogenization of the distribution of resource opportunities and attention among many contemporary artists. According to research conducted by The Art Newspaper (2015) ‘Nearly one-third of the major solo exhibitions held in US museums between 2007 and 2013 featured artists represented by just five galleries’.1 This leads to a rigged art system where a very small percentage of the art community make decisions for the entire community regarding what kind of art they are exposed to and how it is appreciated and valued. This centralization of power in the hands of a few players contributes to a lack of equality and diversity, making the art world predominantly white and overwhelmingly male. However, gender inequality and racial discrimination are not the only issues facing the art world. In the current art system, transparency of art market data is still restricted information and not widely available to the public.
In order to understand and deconstruct the problem we have to get to the roots of it. In our daily lives, we use references to appreciate and measure the characteristics of things or traits of people. For example, how sad is considered “very sweet” or how big is considered someone “big”. Art is not an exception. For the majority of people, there is a widely used reference, to appreciate and measure how “good” or “bad” the work of an artist is, and this is fame. The fame of the museums where the artist has shown their work, the fame of the curators who have selected their work, the fame of the collectors that collect their works or the fame of the collections to which the works of the artist belong. This is a paradigm that lives in the unconscious of society. But research has found that fame is, in fact, not a reliable reference system, because it is very susceptible to corruption, speculation, traffic of influences, convenient friendships, amongst other factors.
In the art world, the qualification of “good” or “bad” of the work of an artist, is translated in two main variables that are the core of what transcends in the art world and what will be considered art for the current and next generations. The first one is how
important or relevant the work of artist is for the art world and the second one is the price of the artworks. Only the ones that are “on the top of the mountain” or “blue chips” will be remembered as part of art history, and the unknown or “not famous” will be forgotten, with the hope that maybe in some future the work of these artists will be discovered by famous art participants and showed in famous art spaces and events.
Then, if it is not using fame as a reference, how to appreciate and measure the quality, relevance and price of the work of a visual artist without using fame in the formula? The answer is building a new reference model for the art world. So thinking of a new reference model, the first principle or idea is to make a shift of paradigm, proposing a new one. This new paradigm proposal would read like this: ‘the appreciation and measure of the levels of relevance, price and the quality of the work of an artist, should be based on the knowledge in art and the taste in art’ (“taste in art” known as “the educated eye” or the experience and knowledge acquired from regular contact with the visual arts, for example, studying visual arts, visiting museums, galleries, artist studios, etc.).
The second principle: is that the group of participants contributing with their knowledge in art and taste has to be large and wise. The main idea proposed by James Surowiecki in his 2004 book, The Wisdom of Crowds, reads that ‘large groups of people are collectively smarter than individual experts when it comes to problem-solving, decision making, innovating and predicting.’2 and ‘for crowds to be wise, they must be characterized by a diversity of opinion and each person’s opinion should be independent of those around him or her‘.3
The third principle is that the group of participants contributing with their knowledge in art and taste has to be created in the “Self-management” principle of the PARECON (Participative Economy): ‘“Self-management” means people and groups have decision making influence in proportion to the extent to which they are affected by the decision in question.’4 This principal is about individuals affected by the quality, relevance and price of the work of an artist are all the participants of the art world. Searching a way to equalize the power of decision between all the participants of the art world this is split and typified in three kind of people: first artists, second art lovers and art collectors, and third – the institution (gallery owners,
curators, academics, art critics, etc.). The total group of participants contributing with their knowledge in art and taste will be called the Art Market Regulation Commission or AMARC. The AMARC has a particularity that it has no limited number of participants and will be conformed by anyone who falls in one of the three kinds of people mentioned.
Fame has the characteristic of being non-transparent, there is no clear way to measure it. Currently there are many companies that propose indicators to measure how famous or prestige an artist is in the artworld, and provide statistics, graphs, and numbers based on the information of primary and secondary art market information. However, the truth is that it is not clear why or how an artist has been selected for a specific museum, gallery, or art exhibition, or what are the basis an artwork has reached a specific high price. That brings us to the fourth principle: all decisions and information made by the AMARC will be published online and free for all.
Moreover, the fourth principle states that it should be a way to perceive clearly and simply the importance and relevance of the work of an artist for the art world using the new paradigm; and this is through an indicator. This indicator is called The Pure Taste Indicator or PTI.
The Pure Taste Indicator (PTI) represents a new reference model for the art world; it measures the relevance and quality of the work of a visual artist through the conjunction of knowledge in art and the taste or “the educated eye” of a representative number of players of the art world. The engine of the PTI is a piece of software and a website where the information of the art world participants are gathered, summarized, and processed to calculate the PTI of the artists. The elements of information used to calculate the PTI are the “Evaluations”, and the members of the AMARC who execute the “Evaluations” are called “Evaluators”.
The “Evaluations” are originally surveys that pick up the impression of an Evaluator of four different aspects or values of the work of an artist:
1) the concept of the work or discourse of the artist;
2) the work (coherence with the concept, originality);
3) how transcendence or important is the work of the artist for the art world;
4) how transcendence or important is the work of the artist for the society.
The answer of each one of the aspects will be a number between 1.00 and 100.00, those results are registered and saved into the system, and used to calculate the PTI. There are two types of PTI assessments, which determine how the Evaluators are
selected to execute the Evaluations of a specific artist. If referendum model is used, it is open to all evaluators of the AMARC. If demarchy model is used, the selection process is based on a lotterylike scheme which randomly selects the evaluators.
There are different levels of evaluators in AMARC; they are based and calculated on their experience and knowledge in art. The level of knowledge and experience in art of the Evaluator will influence in direct proportion the calculation of the PTI.
One of the characteristics of the PTI – it is noteworthy, it has a range between the minimum (1.00) and the maximum (100.00) value, including two decimal places. This makes a contrast with the current reference model based on fame where it doesn’t know limits. This is one of the main reasons why speculation and unequal distribution of money and resources occur in countries based on neoliberal economy, where a very small percent of the population accumulate the bigger part of money and resources. PTI does not care about fame, but only the quality of the work of an artist, that’s why a very famous artist could have the same or lower PTI as some unknown artists. It is also important to mention that having the face and personality of the artist aside and bringing the artwork in front, should remove, for example, racial or gender prejudices, making the art world more equal and diverse.
The mechanism to calculate the PTI of an artist has the following procedure:
1) A notification is sent to the AMARC, requesting for a call to carry out a “Pure Taste Indicator” calculation for an artist.
2) Validation of the artist’s information.
3) The PTI system makes a random selection of ten people from each group of the members of AMARC: artists, art lovers, and the institution5, a total of 30 people will evaluate the work of an artist. (This process is called demarchy or Sortition. The list of the evaluators will remain unpublished until a decision is made). There are two aspects that are considered in the random selection; a minimum of five countries of the world has to be represented by the set of Evaluators, 50% woman and 50% men, and should include all the different levels of
knowledge and experience in art.
4) Every person selected for the process will receive an email with a unique link containing the information of the artist and a link to execute the evaluation. Each evaluator will evaluate according to their knowledge and taste in art (“the educated eye”) in the following four parameters relating to the artist’s work.
5) Calculation of the Pure Taste Indicator. (A notification is sent to the artist, evaluators, and to the AMARC, which will publish the result and the list of evaluators online).
It is also possible to use the PTI to calculate the Capprice of the work of an artist. This is the maximum value or price that an artwork should have in the art market according to its quality, judged by a representative number of art world participants. This calculation creates a relation between knowledge and experience in art and economy. Or, more specifically, a relation between the higher WAGE of the world, the PTI, and the size of the artwork. The Capprice can be used to discover the speculation process from where the work of an artist is passing.
By using this alternative reference system, new and fresh principles can be introduced to the art world, including but not limited to:
• Elimination of hidden variables6 of the current system of the art world
• A bigger number of people who can influence the decisions of what the current and future generations will consider what art is and will define the art world;
• Discovering new values in the art world;
• A fairer distribution of money and opportunities for the art world.
Some of the problems or disadvantages that this model could face are:
• The PTI requires a considerable amount of resources to get the information to build the calculations;
• The estimation of the evaluators could potentially not be honest and/or precise;
• The referendum model could present the lack of homogeneity of the evaluation groups, and lack of control of preferences oriented evaluations
(friends and family of artists who evaluates the artist not objective);
• Evaluators cannot see the works live, causing potential problems with installations and 3D works.
The innovation of the PTI lies in dismantling the centralization of power that has for so long characterized the art industry which artists have fought to break away from, in order to include all art world participants and provide for the first time the tools necessary to decide for themselves what is considered art. Implicating a wider number of individuals in reflections and decisions concerning contemporary art is a much needed change, because art institutions present wrong predictions on the kind of art the public wants to see and experience. For instance, The Art Newspaper published in 2014 the ‘Visitors Figures Survey’7 analyzing 590 solo exhibitions, held at 68 US museums between 2007 and 2013 reveals that the public is more interested in lesser known artists than in big names and blockbuster exhibitions. By letting the public choose for themselves the artists they want to see represented in museums, the Pure Taste Indicator transforms museum audiences from passive receptors to active participants, thus, creating a meaningful impact. This shift in the role played by the public allows us to get a better understanding of what the public wants. Moreover, studies show that decisions taken by a larger group of individuals tend to lead to better results.
The PTI can help museums respond to the demand for diversity and inclusion because it is based on a democratic process and participatory economics. A survey by The Art Newspaper (2014) revealed that, unlike art institutions, the public does not discriminate based on gender with solo female exhibitions attracting large numbers of visitors8 Art exhibitions such as the ‘Marina Abramovic’s 2010 retrospective at MoMa: the artist is present, was the second best-attended solo show, drawing 7,120 visitors a day.
The contemporary art market is a complex system driven by many interdependencies between its players. The determining factors of success of
artists in this system is fame and prestige, which triumph over values such as artistic creativity and quality. To acquire fame in the art world, artists work towards getting their artwork into public collections of renowned museums and galleries. In the Art Machine: Dynamics of a value generating mechanism for contemporary art, Victoria Rodner and Elain Thompson (2013) state that in order to achieve this, artists must have their art filtered and legitimized by multiple players in the art world. This process is called subscription, presented by Morris Hargreaves McInty9. This process involves networks of art world professionals, including academics, curators, dealers, critics, artists, and buyers, providing advocacy and endorsement for an artist’s work through exhibitions, critical appraisal, and private and public purchases. With the PTI, artists are no longer utterly dependent on galleries, museum directors, art critics, and curators to gain fame and prestige.
The PTI removes these interdependencies, and the variables that remain hidden to discover the true value of an artwork.
It is very problematic that the current art world is so attached to the art market, because of that it is becoming urgent to separate the one from the other. This problem is further amplified, because the high value of a work is based on the fame of the artist who produces it. It is becoming more and more pressing to reconsider how we define good art, bad art, or even what is art and what isn’t art. The interests of a select group of people are surpassing our need for transparency. This makes it necessary to propose and build new models that will help us reconsider and examine the current system.
Endnotes
1 Halperin J (2015) Almost one third of solo shows in US museums go to artists represented by five galleries. The Art Newspaper.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/almost-one-thirdof-solo-shows-in-us-museums-g o-to-artists-represented-by-five-galleries. (22.11.2019).
2 James Surowiecki (2004) The WIsdom of the Crowds
3 James Surowiecki (2004) The WIsdom of the Crowds
4 Michael Albert https://thenextsystem.org/whats-next-parecon-or-participatory-economics
5 Gallery owners, art critics, academics, art curators, art theorists, art journalists, art dealers
6 Corruption, speculation, traffic of influences, convenient friendships, amongst others
7 Halperin J, Patel N (2015) Visitor figures 2014: what do we want? Immersive installations by unfamiliar artists. The Art Newspaper. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/visitor-figures2014-the-world-goes-dotty-over-yayoi-kusama. (04.06.2019).
8 Halperin J, Patel N (2015) Visitor figures 2014: what do we want? Immersive installations by unfamiliar artists. The Art Newspaper. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/visitor-figures-2014-the-world-goes-dotty-overyayoi-kusama. (04.06.2019).
9 Rodner V and Thomson E (2013) The Art Machine: Dynamics of a value-generating mechanism for contemporary art, Arts Marketing: An International Journal, Vol. 3. Issue: 1 : 58-72. DOI: http://doi.org/ 10.1108/20442081311327165.
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A.
In this album, the best photographic portraits of A. Aleksandravicius, created for many years, introduce us to the very mysteries of portraiture, to the field of the power of portrait light, to a broad and not directly covered polemic of portrait expression. The field of light power is the field of visual empathy. When the portrait feeling turns into empathy, deepening, opening, open visual dialogue. At the same time, it is the field of emerging suggestion, extended visual suggestion, the attraction that establishes itself in the portrait. At its core, a portrait is about posture, an extended visual posture. When we talk about visual posture, we are talking about substance, the visual substance of the portrait. The visual substance itself in a dynamic sense is perceived as portraiture in the broadest sense of the word. The portrait
embraces, anticipates the tropical into portraiture as an extended mutual performance, doing, creation, search. But at the same time, portraiture also foresees a polemic, a dialogue with the visual tradition, the photographic history of portraiture.
Visual posture lies in its portrait origin, a form of portraiture. The portrait actually comments on the portraiture itself, and the portraiture treats the existing portrait itself in its own way. The visual creation turns into a work that establishes itself in its resolution, discovers itself in the lights, and remembers itself in its exhibitions. The entity portrayed is full of many influences, interactions, and at the same time many obstacles and tasks. Visual portraiture is like a derived texture and score, a physical and mental, self-assembling, self-finding, and at the same time
© A. Aleksandravicius – Portraits: visual postures. Saxophonist Vladimir Cekasin. Vilnius, 1999
self - defining entity. Features as drawings, tension as resolution, mobilization of light changes, these are complex visual paradigms of personality. These visual paradigms meet with the open, yet elusive texture of the face. The physical texture of the face, the tension, the map of the muscles, the wrinkles, the direction of the gaze, the expression of the eyes, all this goes beyond the usual criteria of control, direct definition. The texture of the face in such a fabric of expression, in such portraiture, is then already an elaborate and self-surpassing extension, a visual entity far beyond immediate experience. The changing and migrating features of the manifestations, floating and imperceptibly disappearing plaques, all these are the features of the portrait action, the fixed action. When the fixating gaze itself sinks, it sinks into the fixated scout. Just then, a posture is born, a physically-mental posture that gravitates in its own way and maintains tension in itself.
The posture itself in the visual sense is understood in two ways, as visual statics and as dynamics. And statics and dynamics are perceived as effort and result. As a multitude of different qualities, learned in one’s own way, mastered socially and culturally for a long time and patiently, refined in daily practice, as a sum that cannot be added directly, as an open and ever-filling work. At the same time, the portrait resolution is a showcase full of automatisms, full of personalities. When seeing and working with these derivatives, the photographer has to control all this, he has to direct all this in the right direction. There are many different factors at play here that you need to know and take into account. And often those portrait factors are far removed from direct resolution. Often such factors sink or lurk, float, and in rare moments of manifestation they shine in all their excess. The photographer’s task is to refine all this without destroying authenticity, without denying openness, while remaining faithful to diversity.
Portraiture relies on various portrait paraphernalia, and the portrait paraphernalia itself is already an open endeavor. Open effort is perceived as variable and competing with each other, hence the self-concealing effort of traits and drawings. It’s the kind of visual endeavor that can go to several extremes. One of such extremes is the banal identity, the identity created on the basis of documentary simplification, species, relative trait, obsessive taxonomy. Such an intrusive and artificially self-limiting identity reduces the whole intrigue of the portrait. And the portrait’s intrigue itself is also a dramatic, vital game of change and exchange, a whole set of temporary, but the most intense emerging and opening possibilities. When self found, self-collected gestures speak in the tension of the face, the arrangement of features, the relief of interaction, folds and lines, folds and bends, when portrait mimicry begins to work within itself. When the movements of the lips, cheeks, eye circles, and joints in their intense statics go beyond the usual definitions of physical identity. So unexpectedly, suddenly the expressive, intense difference speaks, so a completely different effort emerges, breaking through the professional, subject-related plaques. It is not derived from an artificial pose, but from somewhere further, sometimes even an unremembered portrait effort is brought. In the portrait effort, completely different marks emerge, multi-dimensional marks. And when other marks appear in the collected and purified facial expression, then a new visual doubt arises. Visual doubt about foreknowledge, foreknowledge, hasty total knowledge. Portraits always contain marks, marks of familiarity. Labels are misleading, labels are misleading in their excess, they create unclear errors, introduce, introduce into necessary and obligatory errors, as if they can no longer be cleared. Familiarity seems to dissolve the usual line between visual knowing and not knowing. A portraitist, a portraitist within the limits of his mastery, should rely on something in his creative initiatives.
For Aleksandravičius, portraits are a reference to an extended visual psychology. Not that, everything is just a naïve and simplified reality, a practice that is turning into only elementary features, which is supposedly turning into an all-encompassing technique. In essence, Aleksandravičius’s portraits, such psychological portraits, lead to a transcendent plane, when the portraits drown in endless veils of light, when qualities, qualities that are no longer similar to themselves, do not fit in themselves.
Here, visual difference is relied upon, relied upon and trusted. Not a quality preserved in some artificial intrigue, but a difference that has turned into a much more complex uniqueness. The dramatic differences in his portraits are visual focuses. Openings of differences, distinctions, ever new divisions and purposes, still different features, although as if presenting themselves in the same rhythm. Traits and qualities do not go away, they do not lead our perception to absolute separation. A completely different thing happens here. These portraits are full of allusions not only directly to past actions, fulfilled intentions, not only to current, but often to possible actions. Artistic dramatic expression is a complex set of possibilities, postponed, unexpanded and undeveloped actions and reactions. Marks, marks of photographic portraits, marks of features here are marks of visual recognition, visual feeling, life’s vital intrigue. Physical, known physical, marks dictated by birth or nature, such portrait marks are transformed here into a visual symbol. Physiological characteristics here become symbolic ornamentation, the traces of which we know from the tradition of heraldry, casts, medals, and engravings. The mental qualities, which here extend the physical qualities, become the qualities of individual power. Such characteristics, portrait characteristics, which find an echo in the history of the dramatic portrait. On the one hand, collected in this way, the arranged features already create a portrait. The portraitist here is a guide, director and conductor, the person being portrayed here is a helper, the founder of his powers, his visual depths. On the other hand, a more complicated process is born here in such a process of treatment. A new, sometimes very minimal, barely perceptible exchange between portraits is created. Features from one portrait tradition travel to another tradition.
Famous and famous people find themselves in fame, in the knowledge of fame. Notoriety, familiarity, celebrity, these are signs, signs, features, characteristics; it seems it is very easy to orientate according to it. Such an existing navigation system seems to facilitate, provides so-called recognition, assured and guaranteed recognition. But basically the opposite thing happens here, a naive trust is created. Because familiarity, familiar and seemingly very familiar facial expressions create endless opportunities for error. It is very easy to get lost in the signs of familiarity, well-known signs, appropriated, borrowed characteristics. In the artistic, aesthetic, and dramatic sense, the portrait
© A. Aleksandravicius –Portraits: visual postures. Writer Juozas Aputis. Vilnius, 1998
always has an irreducible excess, a reserve that transcends itself. The facial features in the portrait have additional subordination, their own subordination qualities. The features on the face obey and stumble in a different light source, dive deep or soar in a different creation of lights. The dramatic foundation, the creator of unique, multi-layered lights reveals other facial features, opens a completely different facial rhythmic texture. Traits in such circumstances are already those traits that have transcended themselves, that is, traits that have gone beyond their direct definition. A different kind of expression is formed here, the features that are crowded together in their efforts, spread out somewhere, create or simply imagine the intonation, which restores the possibility. A look, a glance, looking around, is a self-expanding effort. It is already an extended, derived effort, sometimes extending to the
maximum of tension, an effort that cannot stop itself within itself, and sometimes a minimal, laconic, closing effort, which has already found itself in its own face.
The extended formation of the features and their unfolding in the portrait is full of endless, multi-layered play of lights. This is where the whole mimetic game of sloweddown, prolonged tensions, breakthroughs, retrospections, renewed enlightenments, and inner discoveries comes into play. Here we see receptive, open facial play that shows its tension. It is precisely the play of the face, in its elemental, restrained, self-releasing and self-enclosing power that shows the route that stretches out in portraiture. The specific portrait of Aleksandravičius itself is a hint to the motifs of portraiture.
Several components are important in this approach of the author. Authorial emphases are arranged, reduced to a reserve, and not to a final or preliminary summation. This is precisely why the portrait contains traces of a common effort, a common light, and not just a singularity. An outstanding personality, a well-known and appreciated person, it has a distinctive visual reserve. The author leads the audience through those different expressions of light and opens that reserve. And such a portrait reserve is based on visual empathy.Portraitureis the discovery of the lights around the portrait, the discovery of illuminations or illuminations, the dimming of these or such lights. On the other hand, there is the elimination of any artificial poses, unnecessary gestures, unnecessary uncharacteristic features. The face is lit up, the features are reflected in the characteristic light, in the coverage of the necessary light.
Pictorial conceptuality, like any other conceptuality, has a technological visual basis. Sometimes such justification allows to find and understand ontological, value, aesthetic or narrative intrigue. The concept itself sometimes finds its support in the polemic of ground, layer, color light. Color, in its essence, is a temporary, resolution of different layers, different planes. Color itself sometimes, in its filled painterly expression, takes us back, descends itself down to the beginning of its duration, its lack. Color time shows its colorful duration, its colorful breaks, shows its exits, entrances to different actions. The entire conveyed, captured, predictable pictorial narrative, visual duration is arranged in color. In the duration of the visual narrative, a set of expressive interruptions, a set of hints and reminders. All this is already the time of painting speaking and listening, the time unfolding in the view. The time of telling and listening looks at the folds of color, seeing the abyss of the beginning in the rough surface. Everything that is in pictorial saying, in pictorial hearing, does not have the power of linear, straight, direct saying. The powers of pictorial expression are in detours, they are elaborate, postponed, left behind somewhere, placed somewhere. And at the same time, it has the power of enlightenment, the power of reserved light. Color is created by itself and from itself, it provides a different kind of story, a layered and vertical story.
Contagion or epidemic, calamity or calamity on a global, global level, all this is a broad polemic, at the same time a visual polemic, which is often undertaken by the painters themselves. Epidemic, which seems to be known only institutionally, which seems to remain, which should become part of the critique of customs, as an extended phenomenon, becomes part of the polemic of painting. In the pictorial sense, it is a grateful visual theme, because there are many classic things, which have been treated in different traditions many times in their own way. Thankfully, this is a theme, because such a theme has a richly colored plot. E. Velaniskyte is interested in the broad sense of the colorful fable that takes root in the themes and their narratives. There is also the color intrigue of individual scenes, where painting can express its point of view. The colorful intrigue of the scenes is in itself a conflict, a visual contradiction, because complicated passions boil here, open fields of colorful influences, effects, and visual exchanges spread out. But more importantly, there is a figurative motif of ascent, resurrection, decline, descent.
We, observing these pictorial plots, considering them and our own distabations, find ourselves in the framework of such colorful plots, without realizing it we are already in the lights of the colors themselves, in the lights of multi-layered colors. When color is layered, when layer after layer the color opens up and hides itself again. Waiting for new light, new illumination and enlightenment seems to become fatal for us. The colors light up, the colors in their lights stop and allow another, new action to circulate again. When there is a build-up, when the plot climax begins, then the colors glow. On the other hand, the slowing down of the action itself is also accomplished in this way. Motives change motives, the scene takes us to another place, but the light of the colors remains, because the light comes from the environment, from the material, attributive reality. In the ecstasies of universal falling, confusion, delusional euphoria, running or hiding, the action of light everywhere in the visual sense, the action of light that has been captured, played out, withdrawn, burst, escaped, separated. Pictorial criticism of customs, analysis of emotional history, intrigue of visual anomaly, all this is presented to us in a unique, slow rhythm. But the real intrigue does not end there. Because by taking a closer look at those actions, into the painterly light of those actions, we in our own way enter the course of complicated perception. Here it is like a polemic between different stories, different situations in such stories. That real state is reflected by the polemic of words and images, when the real event is commented on, corrected by the color of the picture itself. Color itself does not destroy the circumstances of representation, color does not take away the power of the figure, the overall composition. However, the color itself argues with direct naming. A word, a title, a name, it’s already feedback, it’s already a response, feedback. Image, image, image of a picture is a multidirectional phenomenon here. The light of colors with its subtly filled intonation, with its fullness, also shows other directions of expression. The displayed, drawn, colored action begins to show its reverse power, begins to develop another direction of its perception.
Egle Velaniskyte as a painter in many of her cycles moves the color itself to the so-called intermediate state. We find ourselves in the middle of something that does not yet have a precise definition, whose expression is like a visual halfway point. It is as if we have come out of one situation, but we still cannot even visually enter another situation. There is no such thing as a direct answer, instruction, or advice. Then the ambiguities of visual
judgment arise. Advice or approval should be sought in the current color situation. Color also offers an intermediate situation, a procedural situation that helps define the expression of experience as difference. There is a difference between an event, a chronicle, a body of facts, and a reflection of that process. In painting, such a situation also becomes possible. The half-way here is also the half-way of direct expression. We are destined to recognize action in its color surroundings. There is also that exponential halfway point. Because the action can turn somewhere else.
One of the questions that can be identified here, in this pictorial cycle, is the question of
color catharsis, which is treated in a unique way. And this is primarily artistic solutions, their color exchange, the total diversity of expression, the endless mutation of gestures and movements. Colors in movements, their varieties, the slowed-down method of illumination, the slowed-down course of intentions, all this is a matter of clarification. The painter introduces us, involves us with her resolution in an imperceptible visual change. When the whole intrigue of clarification and clarification are seen in mutation, in the situation of mutation. The situation where a specific visual narrative develops is the conflict between enlightenment and enlightenment.
A scene where a paraphrased, differently interpreted color conflict develops, the difference between illumination and enlightenment is visible in this scene. Mutation here is a change of lights, colors of lights. Visual, pictorial situation, light of existing colors, layered light is not the evaluation itself. Such light is illuminated in the search for a visual outlet. We, involved in such a process of clarification, must rely on the painterly light, the expected, coming, self-obscuring light. A mutation of illumination and illumination, because this is where visual doubt comes into play.
Doubt about prejudgment, about preconceived or preconceived understanding. In order to understand a classic situation, a historically repeated situation, sometimes you also need a painterly light, you need the opportunity to be illuminated by such light. Then the process of perception, the slowing down of the visual route is also needed. This author presents us, offers us the possibility of a slowmotion painting action. The choice of a bright and heavy line is an appeal to the power of expression, derivative, abstract expression. The question of the pictorial action here is also the question of that bright line, the question of the heavy line, it is the question of the light of the line. It is necessary to slowly and patiently walk the entire path of resolution along such a broad line. Such a heavy line, weighed down in itself, containing brightness and coherence, a gesturing, begging, blushing line, it is the line of the
© Egle
x 90 cm, 2018
© Egle Velaniskyte (Lithuania), Title: “Accompaniers“, oil painting, 110 x 130 cm, 2021
provided tone, the line of the suggested motive. There is no one and only binding line, which means there is no one and only solution. There are those winding and lurking, self-complicated decisions.
This kind of painting also raises other kinds of color questions. Everywhere there is a noticeable issue of full background, full picture background resolution, such background filling. Because in such paintings, not only the usual plotbased figuration works, here it works, ensures circulation, renews the plot and is illuminated by the colored background itself. A new color influence is born from those slight background hints, from blurred lines, spots. The theme is set in motion, the theme is set in motion by background color power. A full background question, it’s not just a technical question. Filling in the sense of a migrating, flickering contrast here constantly
interacts with addition and fulfillment. The full background should respond to the expected flow of the visual action. The background itself is already filled, there is already a polemic of colors and shades going on in it. There is already that ceaseless action of overflowing, never-fulfilled, repetitive desires and intentions.
Compositional paraphrase is all about compositional stability. A stable composition seems to testify to the stability of the motifs themselves. There are classic plots and there are classic motifs, and it’s as if there isn’t even any random selection of motifs. There is only an expressive paraphrase of such motifs. But the paraphrase says that the motive comments, the subject treats the motive. That the expression of complex and viscous actions is a self-presenting and self-commenting expression. One wants to look at the motive itself with a motive, to
turn to the motive itself with a motive. The commenting motive often does not coincide with the commented motive. That inconsistency, that passing, that questioning the universally established means of treatment.
The question of the weight of the line, the array of the line, it is the question of the burden, the impact, the marked route, the route of expression. The trunk means of expression, it is the line of obligatory actions existing in the motive. But here is a polemic with that direct line of motive, plot motive. Because it’s like all the extra connection is being introduced as well. The stretch here is the stretch of colored light, the stretch that can be touched, affected, and reached by action. Only that line drawn in this way, moving with light of this color, does not have an unequivocal description. Action trace, potential impact trace, here it’s multiple traces. There is a trace of the motif in the motif, here it is not a deliberately destroyed, erased trace. The stretch, the stretch of the effect, the effect of the action, such a stretch is not a difference, not a boundary, but a stretch of the road. The stretch of the perceptible and sensory path, of sensory contact, such a stretch is full of sediment. It is
possible to walk this path through those colorful, meaningful sediments, you can accompany, follow, observe this section with your eyes. The action effort here leaves and achieves that footprint. The question of the anomalous trace here is absolutely a visual question. At the same time, maybe even very polemically, the issue of slightly color confusion. The line is also a matter of perimeter. We can travel the rims of that massive line, the rims of massive, heavy expression. The heavy line is associated with the slowing down of the subject, with the weight of the subject, with the burden of the narrative. The line also has its own depth, which is the depth of the line array.
We can see a powerful painting array in these canvases; we can see, as it were, a covered and primed beginning. The first step, rising from the ground, breaking away from self-evident knowledge, the basis of visual knowledge, becomes a common and difficult painting task. The bottom of the array, the base of the array is not displayed. It is as if a new confusion of colored lights, a visual confusion, reaches us. Color confusion is a question of color light, only a question that arises from another aspect. In the field of view of the
action, there are not many of those different lights, but they bring, open an alternative light. The light of one’s own light, the light of one’s understanding, must come into understanding. Distant and repetitive plots offer their own light, a light that is no longer illuminated for us and us, at a different pace, at a different speed. Thus, we agree, we welcome a completely different authorship. Authorship is a search for depth and at the same time justification. Translucent, the foundation thus prepared, it is not just a technological ambition. Re-enlightenment itself is the search for the light of the foundation. Plots, their motives are based on their colors. The colors begin to act, the action begins to take place, to develop in the lights of other colors. Let’s understand this with an even more difficult route, because you have to wait until the settled, lit color light brings a new motif, until the background speaks with its flashing hint. In the layered color, in its vertical resolution, there is that pressure of ascent and descent. Like the most pure, basic colors of the author, there is pressure. From the essential opposition, the pressure arising from the yellow-blue extended color, and the other pressure going to the secondary colors. This is how the pressure light itself, is created, and opens. There is the vertical light of tiers-layers; there is also that vertical narrative. The vertical narrative is a formwork of color, a layered formwork. The history of such layers, all aligned as color intonations, is no less intriguing than the history of direct figurative motifs. Representation, horizontal representation, does not undo the inner, deep story. The layer here is also a matter of narrative conflict, narrative levels, color narrative level. The light of transparency, when no mystery is shown, there is no hiding, because everything is transparent and transparent. Visualized ideas, flaws, transgressions, all this is described very clearly in the effect of colors. But here color begins to show its indirect, inverse power, the event dives into its depth.
Each original painting is a visual, secret, layered accumulation. Here is the entire reserve of color light. The light of the cluster of colors is the totality of the whole picture. We are allowed because we are also shown that light of the colors of inner conflict. Ritual and ceremonial light of relaxation, light of fun that intertwines with the light of fear, separation, isolation. The color light itself here is the light of color moods. We are already in a mood color that has its own light. And if it has its light, it has its darkening power. That separate, darkening light also works in the compositional arrangement. There is a light of color relations, of their conflict, with which one must dare to shine. There is the light of the motif of becoming, covering, overlaying colors. The light of the stage is painted; it is the color and its light that stage something. At the same time, it is the indirect light borrowed from the mentioned objects and attributes. The light of such a brilliance, a flash, is based on many motives. The color yellow, the color of yellow radiance, with its appeal as it ascends and descends, carrying the radiance far away. Another question is that low light, the light of the low beam. There is the light of accumulation,
and it is the light of deferred narrative, the light of inaction, of waiting, of confusion, of bewilderment, of bewilderment. Through the color narrative itself, something must appear, something must begin in it.
A layer has start, defined, left start. We can conditionally call such a beginning a primer. The pictorial vertical is then understood as rising from the ground. And the rising from the ground, with layers of a certain color, shades, different resolution, is a slow and patient process. This is the process of creating and opening a visual surface. The formation of layers and their existence allows us to find painterly speed, flow, pace, tension, and suggestion. In the process of going up, it seems that the only thing left to do is contemplate such a course, patiently waiting for something else to flash in a new illumination of color, a new illumination of a motif, a new slowed-down, self-forgetting flash, until something else happens in the visual event. Layer by layer, as we travel
through such a scattered and divided, self-deformed expression, we climb up. There is no quick response, no sudden reflection. Hence, visual hesitation and doubt are needed in such an expectation. Doubts relying on the disorder itself, on the preconceived inconsistency. Believing in the power of exchange of colors, shades, background tones, self-correcting, self-flashing, pulsating power in color. However, if such an ascent by the power of the layer becomes possible, it is quite possible to descend all the way to the ground. To the origin of the theme and motif, to the beginning of the narrative play. There all themes arise, there they swell, they darken, and there they find their original setup. To rise from the ground means to rise pictorially from ambition or from a visual statement. To take off pictorially from the given motifs and themes. But even that is not enough. It is necessary to create all the traces of ascent, to find the traces of the forgotten rowing, the unfinished story, he layered traces.
© PHOTO BY: NERIJUS JANKAUSKAS
Anima Mundi Academia Jurgis Dieliautas
BY: A.SALKAUSKAS
