Novemb-American Art -er 13, 1994

Should I leave for Europe or Asia? New York is passé, dead, asleep, snoring. The last twenty years an over-intellectual bias turned off the country. Once upon a time, abstract expressionism or pop art occasionally hit the cover of Times Magazine and Americans paid attention. Now the public's bored.

Our critics are lost in meaningless intellectual abstractions, out of touch in elaborate constructions with little relevance. The older artists recycle their earlier works, the current ones practice marketing as art form. Consider the numerous curators who purchased "Kostabis" for their museum's collections. Sob!

Perhaps the problem started with Duchamp, that original "conceptual" artist. Duchamp himself showed that is conceptual practice led to an eventual decision to forsake art and play chess. Did anyone notice? An intellectual approach to art led to a withdrawal from the field.

Art is a public game, an expression of our cultural development. To withdraw in solitude is not our goal, nor is art primarily an intellectual activity. Instinctively we expect a multiple-level feed. Art originally referred to an experienced interaction with the material world. Art also spoke in feelings, how it felt to experience that which was represented.

The psychologist Carl G. Jung posits four functions by which we judge the world. Sensation tells us something is there. The intellect identifies and classifies it, then feelings give a value judgement in shades of acceptance or rejection, and finally intuition allows a peek around life's corners, an edge in the game as it were.

From this perspective intellect or feelings are simply functions. Intellect may be highly valued, but we're just beginning to realize it's dangers of sterility or futility, of going too far, loosing touch. It's time for a reality check. Feelings, sensations, something unknown , something new...something borrowed and something blue...