A work of art or what I mean by it, needs - I think - not to be analyzed and explained. If it is
finished, that is, in every respect in itself completed and corresponds with a coordination system,
which is in itself comprehended in detail - then the educated, thinking (as far as it is still
possible) consciousness of the observing vis-à-vis easily understands the meaning of the
relevant depicted statement. But, as we know, in practice, these favorable circumstances are not
often combined with each other. I shall comply with the wishes of some people - although I am of
the opinion that principally nobody should have the roasted pigeons placed into his/her mouth. With
this, the up-to-date last of my works, my primary intention was: To throw a highlight, by using
slogans, onto today's more than questionable art scenery - including that of the last 10-15 years:
A period certainly. But with a serious background. The position of today's artist in our society is
degraded more and more to a tragic clownery. The basic thinking of this, our society, is coined
more than ever by primarily pure material points of view. The constantly rotating, always
increasing circle: production - consume, has in the meantime gripped all vital regions of society
and norms. This is known everywhere, but consciously comprehended in its implication only by a
minority. The majority of the artists as well as the members of our society, and inevitably their
reflectors, resigned and resign - actively or passively conscious, not as often unconsciously -
more or less without resistance to their regularities. The artist as individual person hardly
exists any more, he/she has become a manoeuvered-produced and self-producing mass in itself, who in
turn reproduces the masses as such according to the regularities which result from it. With the
background of commerce - and consume thinking, he/she voluntarily renounces subjective creativity
and consumes or produces willingly that which is proclaimed by politicizing, psychologising often
corrupt profiteers within the mentioned circle, as the at present to be striven for ideology of the
body of thought and the prevailing design. The motto: "Not the quality of a work of art makes the
price, but the market value of the individual name determines the price and with it the often
questionable quality. It is well known that it is learnable to determine the quality resp,
non-quality of material assets. It should be learnable just the same to realize and reward the
(non) quality of a work of art as such, independent of considerations which should not have
anything to do with it. These days, a creative and highly talented artist is not born any more, he
is made to be one. Even the silliest and untalented person has a chance in our "liberal, democratic
social order" to have the title "artist" or even "genius" attached to himself. A term, which always
pays in cash with clever manipulation. I do not intend at all here, for instance, to deny the
aesthetic beauty of a smooth, gray impersonal concrete wall, likewise not the aesthetics of a
narrow, empty room with skylight, in which the impersonal, sterile bier can speak a personal
language, and thus can become itself an impressive personality "matter", all the more so if the
ideology of a fantastic symbol, which has been made visible but is immaterial, is illustrated by a
colorful angel within a palette of gray, which on its part, unsuccessfully tries to escape from the
given premises or situations.
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I stand, among other things, for the conceivably greatest possible perfection of any portrayal - it
should live - as long as it does not put into question all contents, because to be nothing, not to
be, to be empty, can also be realized and therefore with regard to content - by the relation of its
realization and similar to mathematical regularity, can lead itself ad absurdum.
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Therefore it is absolutely sufficient to describe an obvious, as realistic recognized fact for
instance with the adjectives, amongst other things, as empty, impersonal, without content, etc. All
the blah-blah of some so-called art connoisseurs only really serves primarily their own
image-making and has often nothing in common with the actual statement of the artist. What to do
then?
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Personally, I lie down under the fading sun and let myself - as far as it is still possible - be
warmed by it in the illusory, unrealistic hope that no shadow might fall on me.
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J.A.BRO. © December 1977
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