Zen and a Re-evaluation of Art

Robert Maddox-Harle

---Robert Maddox-Harle

 

This short essay is an attempt to foster a return to some semblance of balance in the criticism, creation and appreciation of contemporary art. Specifically, it should be recognised that all forms of art are valid and necessary for the wellbeing of our global community.

D.T. Suzuki often spoke of not taking the results of intellectual inquiry as the ultimate answer or truth of matters. “As far as the content goes, there is none in either satori or Zen that can be described or presented or demonstrated for your intellectual appreciation. For Zen has no business with ideas!”  (Suzuki, 1973) when I heard this I thought, “What nonsense!”  

I turned my back, on the deliberately non-intellectual, feeling orientated nature of my sculptural work, and pursued for twenty years an intense engagement with philosophical intellectual investigation of ontological problems and finally realised he was correct! To be clear, I believe he did not mean such activities as scientific investigation or engineering problem solving as such, he meant becoming engrossed in and deluded by such absurdities as postmodern theory and philosophical enquiry concerning the ultimate meaning of the universe.  

Zen Mind 3 (painted sandstone 1 m H)

We all know there are “no solid objects only events” as clearly established by Buddhism, Process Philosophy and Quantum Theory. We all know there is no permanent enduring “self” as established by Nagarjuna. But as he also suggests (paraphrased), “if your non-solid, non-self steps out in front of a non-solid carriage (bus) it will still break or destroy your physical body”. (Nagarjuna)

Object sculptures, in parks and on pedestals, and paintings hanging on walls - enduring for a time for contemplation – are a part of human reality. To deny this or dismiss them as dead - “painting is dead”, constitutes delusionary thinking and an impoverished feeling nature. I suggested to a young woman art student attempting to synthesise the thought of Derrida and Barthes into her artwork that, “Postmodern theory is intellectual masturbation which forever denies the possibility of achieving orgasm”, she replied “That depends on how you define orgasm!” I replied, “If you have to define orgasm you'll never have one!” This intellectual dissociation from the whole appreciation of the nature of reality is the sad state we have come to. The paradox of insisting upon mindless conformity via corporate controlled mass media, yet espousing the Me, Mine, I, Have-it-now society is underpinned by postmodernism. The resultant dumbing-down refers not only to intelligence but to respect for others, and respect for the planetary environment. 

“We are beginning to realise that sickness is a relative term, as is normality. One may express symptoms of a psychic sickness by being sane, normal and well adjusted to a sick society. There are many kinds of sickness and not all of them show in a pathological way. There is a sickness of the soul which results in a sense of meaninglessness and this sickness is more prevalent than the common cold and far more difficult to cure”.(Greene)
                

I am not suggesting a return to a Rousseauian idyllic romantic style of art, nor a tribal earthy primitivism, simply that we honour and respect our total selves through authentic existential “direct experience” with artworks that are not vacuous, banal, or intellectually contrived works of meaningless detritus. Postmodernism has left us wallowing in a void of hopeless, nothingness. Postmodernism has attempted to kill the sublime, the numinous and spiritual in intellectually “sophisticated” Western societies. Postmodernism has left us with nothing, whereas Buddhism at least attempts to leave us with no-thing. No more "mysterium tremendum et fascinans" for we, postmodern individuals.

As an example of this, witness Buren’s arrogant, culture destroying proclamation, “Art is dead, art galleries (museums) now “cemeteries”, and artist’s studios have become “commercial depots”.(Costello, 2007) This has the effect of perpetrating a form of fundamentalism alluded to below. Further, it denigrates the validity of the appreciation experience of traditional art by millions of art gallery visitors who still stand in awe before the art of both old and modern masters’ works because their art exudes greatness. These attendance levels are on the increase! Perhaps in direct response to much of the art that has been served up since the 1980s and 1990s? Please do not think I’m against “cutting edge” contemporary art in any medium, far from it, what I’m against is banality in art, and life, which is devoid of inspiration, effort and is intellectually contrived without feeling.

The trend in much contemporary avant-garde art is works which come about through a (re)liaison of science and art. This is seen as repairing the rift created between the two approximately three hundred years ago. Yet another legacy of Cartesian bifurcation. Many of these works are interactive installations, some are truly great works of art such as those by Sommerer and Mignonneau, (Stocker, et al. 2010) others are simply irrelevant garbage.

We must be careful not to uncritically accept just any image, object or process as art, simply because it has been generated by or conceived through a liaison with science and modern technology. In short, and as a simple example, a coloured graph from an EEG at the medical clinic, beautiful as it may be, is not a work of art.

This lands us squarely in the rather boring debate of, “What is art?” This debate will probably never be settled, so I believe the only reasonable approach is for an artist or author to state their understanding of the term upfront. This may result in disagreement but hopefully not misunderstanding. Also why we make art universally is a highly relevant aspect of this discourse. I have addressed this in detail in my essay Biobehavioural Basis of Art, (Harle, 2008) it would be helpful to read this in conjunction with or prior to this essay.

Art may be an object – painting, sculpture or film, or it may be a process – interactive Ergodic growth of text over a network. For a work of art to be art it must be conceived as a work of art, not as a construction diagram for example. The extreme postmodern notion that everything is art, that the “author is dead” and individual greatness is a myth has done humanity a grave disservice, the damage barely perceived by the perpetrators. This stupidity was accepted, absolutely and uncritically by many cultural theorists as a literal truth, when in reality what is really meant is that individual greatness is still alive and well as it always has been, however, rather than believing we create things out of a void or cultural vacuum it should be recognised the contribution that the cultural milieu has had on that individual.

Duchamp’s “Urinal” in the gallery when first exhibited was revolutionary and forced people to (re)think and see art in a new way, a urinal in a public toilet is just a urinal. I’ve reviewed a large number of art orientated books over the years and even artists who have openly embraced postmodernism such as Louise Bourgeois and Alice Aycock still exist as iconic characters with distinctive, highly idiosyncratic sculpture and are appreciated for their individual contribution to our culture.

 

Marcel Duchamp Fountain (1917)

It is my contention that all forms of art are valid and necessary for the wellbeing of our global society. If we are not very careful there is the possibility of becoming art-science-technology fundamentalists, so to speak, through the exclusion and non-acceptance of more traditional forms of art as valid or meaningful. Just because mobile (cell) phone art was recently the “flavour of the month” does not mean that portraits painted in oil on canvas are “dead”. I believe there is room for all forms of artistic expression and humanity is enriched by embracing them all. Roy Ascott says, “art [traditionally] was focused on the appearance of things and their representation, artists are now concerned with processes of transformation, construction and emergence”.(Ascott)  I think it would be more accurate to say, “some new artists are branching out into a form of art which is concerned with processes of transformation, construction and emergence”. This is not a trivial criticism - to uncritically accept statements like this, is to dismiss the work of millions of artists globally, as irrelevant.

It is worth noting that a number of artists, critics and art directors of educational institutions have made a gross assumption on behalf of the public, in that interactive art is more desirable than static art. Traditional books, poetry, films, listening to music and viewing paintings or sculpture entail a kind of physical inactivity but certainly not a psychological inactivity. Good static works of art demand as much, if not more interaction from the viewer than deliberately conceived interactive installation art. The main difference between the two is that the viewer does not affect or physically change the work. Did it ever occur to the champions of interactive art that viewers may not want to affect the outcome of the art that they may simply like to be taken on a magical artistic trip by the artist?

Whether this be reading a novel, where the reader’s imagination interacts intensely with the text or a piece of music that carries us away to a special place?  The reason for the almost complete failure of ergodic or interactive hypertext is that readers do not want to do half the work, they want a break!

It seems to me we are right in the middle of a major transition period, some say from human to post human, others say from biological to post biological. Whichever, technology over and above mere tool usage has changed our lives and will continue to do so irrevocably at even greater rates than at present. This perhaps constitutes a true renaissance – a period where “a new birth in great art, letters and learning” occurs. Perhaps this techno Metamorphosis adds even more importance to nurture a balanced appreciation of all forms of art.

The notion that traditional style painting is dead is purely an ignorant, ill-considered piece of elitism. It really indicates how shallow and uninformed those are that echo this hideous nonsense. Our earliest ancestors decorated their cave walls with visual imagery and we have been doing so, in our caves, ever since. We all live in some form of shelter, from one room mud huts to grand palaces and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Are we to have blank walls because performance, conceptual and now interactive art are the flavour of the decade? Or because some angst ridden, unhappy, socially challenged intellectual makes these declarations?

 

Zen Mind 1

Yes to be sure, fine art, art, craft, decorative figures and sculptures are commodities! Just like almost everything else – drinking water, food, intellectual property, housing, art materials, health care and your soul! From the earliest spice traders to multi-national companies robbing others from Wall Street - humans sell things. The most outrageous avant garde art ends up in the same “commercial depots” (prestigious art galleries) as traditional art.  Photographic documentation, not even the real deal of conceptual and performance art, are also valued by these institutions. They are further reproduced in expensive books for the art world’s elite to muse over whilst drinking expensive champagne, another form of art.

As long as biological human beings exist, so will poetry in books, paintings on walls and sculptures on pedestals. Only the style and subject matter will differ depending whether people buy these for investment reasons, personal joy, social one-up-man-ship, interior decoration or as images to inspire themselves.

All artists have an essential place in our communities, the only thing that needs discussing further is how many artists earn a decent living for their creations which bring so much pleasure to so many?

 

Cited works

Ascott, Roy. A Glossary www.cooper.edu/art/techno/essays/gloss.html

Costello, Diarmuid and Jonathan Vickery (eds.) Art: Key Contemporary Thinkers. Berg Publishers, Oxford, New York, 2007. P.6

Greene, Liz Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil, 1976, Weiser Books

Harle, R. F. "Biobehavioural Basis of Art” Techno etic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research. University of Plymouth, UK.  vol. 6 no.3, 2008

Abstract: This essay argues that the human activity of art making and art usage has a biological foundation which precedes language acquisition. Together with cultural dynamics we have created ourselves as we have created our arts. I attempt a synthesis of the theories of Dissanayake and Joyce which shows the human trait of art behaviour evolved as surely as did the behaviours of mating and hunting. Download at http://www.robharle.com/B_Art.pdf

Nagarjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā:
Stocker, G. & Sommerer, C. & Mignonneau (eds.) Christa Sommerer Laurent Mignonneau Interactive Art Research 2010 Springer Wien NY.

 

Suzuki, D.T.  An Introduction to Zen Buddhism 1973

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Setu, April 2025