The works are called “Still-Lifes.”<\/p>\n
The artist, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he has “made the observation that the vast majority of art produced today is essentially still-life. In some ways, art today is not very much different than it was a thousand years ago; and in other ways, it’s vastly different.”<\/p>\n
“What’s the difference?” I ask.<\/p>\n
“A thousand years ago,” he answers, “people were more concerned with the meaning of their creations. They wanted to express something through art. Nowadays, people only want to express themselves through art.”<\/p>\n
“Oh,” I say. “That’s not entirely true.”<\/p>\n
“It is absolutely true,” he replies. The conversation drifts off from there.<\/p>\n
Last week the art world was treated to a scandal. The artist called himself justinbieber, and he was well known for his work in the field of still-lifes. His first show featured a series of apples, which were, he said, “a response to our culture’s obsession with fruit.”<\/p>\n
It was a daring statement, given the financial stakes involved. Still-lifes are notoriously difficult to get right; even the most famous artists have had trouble with them. The critic Anthony Appleyard wrote that “Fruit is so difficult because it has to be very realistic but also not real looking. And I guess no one gets it right all the time.”<\/p>\n
But when these apples were unveiled, everyone saw at once that they failed to capture the essence of fruitfulness. Not only were they not real looking; they also weren’t really there at all. Although ostensibly painted on canvas, they seemed instead to hang immaterially in some conceptual space. Their three-dimensionality was unconvincing; everyone could tell that they were really just pictures of apples drawn on paper and then projected onto the canvas using an optical device.<\/p>\n
The scandal did not stop there. Many viewers were also disturbed by what Justinbieber described as “an overall sense<\/p>\n
Lately my work has been going through a period of dryness. Not in the sense that I haven’t been making anything, but that I haven’t been happy with what I’ve been making. This is something every artist goes through, or at least should go through. Because being an artist means finding a new way to see the world and then trying to communicate your vision to others.<\/p>\n
When you’re young, you have a lot of enthusiasm for exploring a wide variety of styles and ideas. But as you get older, you settle into a more narrow way of seeing and you start looking for ways to express that vision more clearly. So when I was younger, I made a lot of surrealistic paintings with animals and flowers; now I prefer to paint realistic still-lifes, with the emphasis on still.<\/p>\n
But it’s hard to leave your old style behind completely while still communicating all your old ideas in the new one. The result is that my recent paintings are almost like still-lifes in the style of older paintings by me. It’s frustrating not just because they’re bad art but because they waste so much material.<\/p>\n
I’ll admit that some of this is just an excuse for not working very hard on these paintings lately, but it’s also true<\/p>\n
As you are well aware, the art world has been in shock this past week. After years of hard work and determination, a group of artists were finally able to achieve something that had eluded them their entire careers.<\/p>\n
What? What was it? What did they do?<\/p>\n
Well, they painted still-lives.<\/p>\n
Still-life paintings are those in which an artist puts a bunch of random objects from around the house on a table or something and paints them.<\/p>\n
What’s so shocking about that? Well, this particular artist is known for his brand of abstract expressionism. However, he said he felt like he was running out of ideas because he had painted so many pictures without looking at anything in particular. He said that he wanted to take a break from painting for a while and focus on these still-lives. He then invited several other abstract expressionists over to help him with the project by just having them paint the same stuff on the same canvases he was using.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”<\/p>\n
I had simply stopped believing in the value of my work. I’m not sure how it happened, but the day came when the realization hit me: I was making still-lifes.<\/p>\n
Still-lifes are like performance art. Performance art is just a performance, and a still-life is just a painting. And so there was nothing to stop me from doing away with the pretense and doing what I really wanted to do.<\/p>\n
Why do we need a pretense anyway? Both performance art and still-life are just making stuff up, and calling it art. So why not be honest about it?<\/p>\n
I decided to make my paintings more like the things they were trying to imitate.**<\/p>\n
The Art Gallery of G.F. Tifffany is proud to present a retrospective exhibition of the most recent works by world-renowned artist MF Rufus . One of the preeminent artists of his generation, MF Rufus has been hailed for his use of the common can, or soup can, in a manner that has previously been undiscovered. His work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Tate Modern in London, and The Guggenheim in Bilbao. He lives and works in New Orleans, where he owns and operates a small grocery store on St. Claude Ave.<\/p>\n
This exhibition features approximately 25 new pieces that have never before been seen outside MF Rufus’ studio. It will be on view at the gallery through March 31st.”<\/p>\n
The above is an example of how you might write the description section of your own blog post or article.<\/p>\n
Name:The importance of being earnest