I find myself thinking of John Lennon lately. So much so, that I ended up in Yoko Ono’s lap. My mind wonders into “conceptual art” and grapefruit. I hate grapefruit. It is a bitter and unrealized fruit. The one fruit that God, if He exists, would come to admit as a blunder.
Yoko Ono appropriated the name for her book, hailed by critics, who certainly know more than I do, as a masterpiece. On this day and age, it says a lot about our way of living, that one can safely question God’s creations before one can disregard a well known personality. Nevertheless, I believe the title to be appropriate to her endeavor, and a “freudian slip” of sorts on her part.
When one creates art, one strives to completion above all, because to achieve it one must teach through whatever medium one has chosen. Countless artists have denounced this idea, humbly suggesting that an artist is lucky to stumble into truth of any sort. Regardless of the road traveled, there’s no such thing as art that doesn’t teach us something.
The artist is solely responsible for the realization of the art, and a true artist will fail with the force of a hurricane that dismantles all in its path. In conceptual art, the artist never fails. He places on our shoulders the burden of the creation. He walks unpunished through what it is known by others as a torturous valley where one must connect with some sort of universal truth or face the wrath of the gods. Becker or Rank empathetically labeled this misfires as the “artiste-manqué.” I can’t quite remember who said it. Who’s the messenger and who’s the messiah. In the spirit of “conceptual art,” I will let you research who "said what" on your own.
That’s conceptual art, I assign to you a work that should have been mine. The “conceptual artist” can work within the safety of someone who realizes that his success is only hindered by the lack of imagination of his audience. The canvas will be as white as the audience’s imagination allows it to be.
I came to wonder today on how we can apply conceptual art to other art forms, such as cinema, science or technology. And it came to me: not as a film; for the Gods of cinema are not kind- and to that art I gladly toil in pain.
It came to me as an invention.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN INVENTION CALLED The remake of SHADES OF GRAY
I now
stand in an empty room
and you stand before me.
I insist
that your hands are clean
and I have a pair of white gloves
for you to wear.
I watch
as you struggle to vest them.
I ask
that you close your eyes
for a brief time,
and I hand you
the most revolutionary device ever created by men
in the past four hundred years.
Can you see
the beauty of it?
What does it do?
Go out there
tell the others
tell the world of my invention.
Tell them of how brilliant I am. *
And now a sample of GRAPEFRUIT by Yoko Ono
The most interesting piece of art in this book is a "conceptual art" entitled: PAINTING TO EXIST ONLY WHEN IT'S COPIED OR PHOTOGRAPHED
Legend has it that Yoko was inspired by a dream she had, wherein she found herself surrounded by some of the greatest artists in the world: Micheangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Cézanne, Van Gough, Picasso. When they asked for a sample of her work, she was inspired to create... two samples below.
PAINTING TO EXIST ONLY WHEN IT'S COPIED OR PHOTOGRAPHED
Let people copy or photograph your paintings. Destroy the originals.1964 Spring
PAINTING TRANSMITTED BY A MEDIUM
Yoko touched the shoulder of Leonardo, Cézanne, Van Gough and closed her eyes, vowing to transmit the painting she imagined. "Whenever you feel the urge, paint." -she said.2020 la la land
* Mr. Aurelio owns the copyright for any device you come to imagine.