SO WHAT

I don't really get the idea. (See the teacher's blog) Was it about our internal problems? Or maybe about the challenges we're supposed to face soon? OK: nevermind. I'd like something more free to write about, but... well, what can I do. May I write about the weather? Or something related to food?

It's warm out there today. Isn't it? (Yesterday it was so fresh at this very time).

The point is this: I'm not well informed about the actuality of my 'career' (oh no, not that word again! In Spanish it means the same as 'race'. Is anybody getting to the finishing line already?). Call me irresponsible. Maybe I am.

Well ... I'll try.

Let's suppose I know a lot about the actuality of my discipline (but I'm not disciplined! What a paradox!). Then, I can say that the challenges we face regarding technology are the following:

-We don't have a good technological infraestructure.

-We're not really into technology.

-Then, it doesn't really matter (in fact, it does, but there are more pressing subjects to worry about).

(You can read it as a silogism, or as you like it).

And what about our challenges about social matters?

It seems like we're not into social matters, at least not most [of the] time. What a shame! Art ALWAYS concerns about social or political matters, but nowadays apparently it's not. Personally, I have to solve some problems of mine first. I don't know. I don't think I'm going to change anything, unfortunately.

The same goes for E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N. Our own education isn't going as it should: it's expensive (considering that IT SHOULD be FREE) and we don't have enough resources; then... How could we help to improve the whole country's education? We better fill our vacuums by ourselves first. Then maybe we could do something better.

I just can't go on right now. I'm feeling Ill. I'm wasted. My brain's not working fine today. Maybe I'm going a little mad. I need a beer and a rest. Yes, because I didn't sleep at night.

And I'm very sorry if I couldn't keep the expectations.

I hope I see you soon. Cheers!

P.S.

After all I'm just supposed to be an Art theorist. Sure.

My faculty (Faculty of Arts, Las Encinas, Universidad de Chile) is not as good, nor as beautiful as it should be. I'm sorry but it's the truth. The best thing is that we have a nice green place here, but I don't know if it will last long.

Now I'm writing from one of the computers of the Faculty, and it doesn't even work good. Internet is as slow as a snail here. Maybe THEY can start with the improving of this system. Of course, I think they should make a better building: the one which is already look horrible, really depressing. The library is very poor too, and it shouldn't be that way. It's small, dull, the computers really suck and most interesting or necessary books aren't there (actually, they're more "useful" books in the Faculty of Philosophy.

Well, many of this is the result of the decline of education because of the dictatorship's policies (after all, it is supposed to be a PUBLIC university, but actually it isn't, you know, we have to pay a lot for this).

I'm not a very proactive man, I really don't know how to improve all this in a viable way, but I can claim or complain, at least. Not all the things are that bad, of course, but they should be better considering that it's about the "main" university of this country. I don't know if it's actually like that. And I don't know how are other institutions in the rest of Latin America. It's a shame, but it's true. I really want this Faculty to work better, and the same goes for all education in Chile.

But the birds still sing nicely out there. And I'm going to drink some beer.

Favorite subject...

I've been asked to describe my current favourite subject in my 'career'. I don't know why, but it sounds a kind of deja vu for me. I think I wrote something about it before.




Anyway, I can say that my fav subject now is called "Vanguardia, escritura y ciudad" (I'm not sure that's the right order, but it would be something like "Avant-garde, writing and metropolis"). It is basically Theory of avant-garde art movements through the XXth century, and their relationship with several disciplines of thought and textual production, the progressive placement of the artistic activity into the big cities (as considered after the theory developed by Charles Baudelaire, the metropolis as the definitive wagnerian "total artwork" -Gesamtkunstwerk, in German).
Maybe the main matter in this subject is the complex relationship between Aesthetics (Arts), Technique, Politics and Society. The teacher is professor Carlos Ossa.

I like it because of the conceptual strenght that must be -necessarily- employed on it, in a complex discourse that must involve several subjects such as Sociology, Capitalism, advertising analysis, Theory of merchandising, Theory of images, etcetera.

And well, I learnt a lot this semester: some things about Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, avant-garde in general, Cinema and of course, some interesting points related to Politics.

The Greatest?

My English teacher asked me (actually, she asked us all in the class) to write about "who's the best on my field". Ok, but... My field? I suppose it has something to do with Arts, since I study Theory of Art (apart from that, I don't have a job nor anything like that). But, What kind of person in particular? An art historian, critic, or theorist? A philosopher? A man of letters? A musician? From the request for posting some images of his or her works, I deduced that the post must be about an artist in the most common sense of the term: a plastic artist, like a painter, a sculptor, a photographer, or a draftsman, and perhaps a moviemaker.

Well, in any case, it's hard to choose only one who may be called "the best" in his/her field, even in a subjective opinion. Personally, I have a lot of favourite artists, not necessarily between the best or most prominent artist of all times (in Western civilization, of course). Some of them are: Hans Bellmer, Max Ernst, Picabia, Joel Peter Witkin, Georg Grosz, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Holbein the Younger, Grünewald, Dürer, Giotto, Ingres, Watteau, Bernini, Arcimboldo, Vermeer, Hyeronimus Bosch, James Ensor, Magritte, Hopper, Turner, William Blake, Bramantino, Botticelli, Caravaggio, El Greco, Goya, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Manet, Cézanne, Picasso, Tolouse-Lautrec, Raoul Dufy, Derain, Chaplin, Eisenstein, Basquiat... Norman Rockwell? Why not? (as you can see, most of them are painters).

Now, the canonical artists considered between the greatest of all times, are usually the same as always. I mean, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Tiziano, Caravaggio, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso... and, among them, some radical transgressors of the Idea of Art, now acclaimed: Malevich, Duchamp, Pollock, Warhol... But: who can I choose as 'the best' without repeating the same names? Hard question. Because all of them are, according to the tradition and the conventions (but also according to solid parameters), great and essential, or at least, very important artists. Ok, I'll choose one significant to me.

And my choice was: El Greco.

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco was a Greek born artist from the XVIth and XVIIth centuries (Baroque period), who lived most of his life in Spain, where he made his best known artworks. He was one of the most original painters who ever lived, and nowadays his style is still easily recognizable: tall, long figures (some experts believed that it was because of vision problems, and some others even thought that the artist consumed marijuana), delightful and expressive colors, mystical force... He painted some masterworks of all times, such as "El entierro del Conde de Orgaz" (The burial of the Count of Orgaz), "Visión de Toledo" (View of Toledo), and "La visión del Apocalipsis".

I like El Greco because of his unique style, because of his use of colors and lights and shadows, and his creative force, full of mysticism and magnificence. His paintings are very dark, in some way, they have a kind of hidden force that makes them mysterious and charming.

I think that he could be named "the best" because of many reasons. Maybe the main one is that he was an irrefutable and absolutely genial precursor of very later art styles, centuries after he died, and in an unique, unmistakable, original way. His formal and stylistic originality, I think, has almost unprecedented (just a few previous artists can be compared with it: Hyeronimus Bosch, Pieter Brughel the Elder, Michelangelo, Arcimboldo, between them). El Greco prefigured some modern and avant-garde art movements such as Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Modernism and Symbolism. His paintings are full of expression, religious sentiment, and force, almost violence. This is why El Greco can be considered, in my opinion, simply "the Best".

On Theory of Arts

I told you before that I'm studying Theory of Art.

Why am I doing this?

Well I'm

not completely sure, but one first reason is: I have some free time by studying this, and that's an important point.

Second: I like Arts, I like to read and, a good point: this 'career' can be a good starting point to give you some knowledges concerning to other fields (Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Politics, Archaeology, etc) of knowledge.

Well, I don't really know what will I do in the future. I don't even know if I'll continue studying in this field, or if I'll study another career, or if I'll leave university. I don't want starting work immediately after concluding this degree, and of this I'm sure.

What else can I say?

Art theorists or historians don't necessarily contributes directly to society (maybe they are, in some ways, dispensable in a basic one), but they inevitably work inside the system, by saying what is "a real artwork" and what isn't; by legitimizing some practices and valuing pieces of art; or by contributing to state cultural politics. Art theorist can also think about social and political problems starting from art-related thoughts.

An art theorist must know well, at least, some specific period in Art History. He/she must know the History of the different theories of art too, and must be conscious of the current problems concerning to Aesthetics, being capable to take part in present discussions.

I'm not sure about what is my favourite subject in this degree currently. Maybe one concerning on vanguards and problems related to it.