Jose Ruiz: Contemporary

Artist Jose Ruiz of New York City, continues my recent project by writing about "contemporary." Ruiz is represented locally by G Fine Art and is a member of the collective, Decatur Blue.  As usual, I extend an invitation to all local artists who would like to participate in this effort. Just email me!

still from video, Cultural Padding With Varying Degrees of Insulation
2004

Jose Ruiz: Contemporary

The problem with the way most people look at art is that they usually seek the easiest way to digest what it is they're seeing. All of us have a weakness that lures us to quickly pinpoint the work before us into art history's comfortable nest. When making work, artists themselves are usually in self-conflict to not create a work that is similar to another artist's fruit. So, instead some artists make work that is forcefully unfamiliar in hopes of making something new. This chain of events predictably leads to the most boring and contrived work being currently made, and in many ways; this is the type of work that is usually tagged by critics as contemporary.

We cannot look back when looking for something new. We cannot define contemporary art with aged terms. We should actually be looking for something unique instead of something new. This struggle with time (much like post-modernism) is perhaps where the definition for “contemporary” lies.

Art (whether contemporary or not) only exists experientially rather than in matter or form. Artists do not create art out of their genius DNA. What we end up seeing is never really the art itself. It’s a re-creation or even better, a translation of a set of experiences that were art. It stops existing after one notices its importance, beauty and perhaps, meaning.

Much like a con artist can leave you empty-handed there should be room for artists to "con temporality."

One of the current mediums of use that can slyly re-interpret time is Video art. The moving picture (cinema) opened the door for viewers to take their own understanding of time inside a moving picture plane. An early example of this phenomenon is an early film of a speeding train approaching the camera. The first time viewers watched this film many of them ran out of the theatre in fear that this train would rip through the screen and run them over. This was the result not only of a well-crafted realistic illusion but more so of a clashing between four different sets of time. The speed of the train, the moving frames of the film and the stillness of the seated viewers were all congealed inside real time.

Since then experimental filmmakers and more recently video artists have continued to explore the spatial relationships with time and how we simultaneously experience multiple time shifts. One example is the seamless video loop. It infers that the moving gesture is endless and continuous but it also allows the individual to construct his/her own definitive time set. Mainstream media gives us the control to switch, mute or turn off what we don’t want to see or hear. Very similarly, the video loop can last as long as the viewer sees fit. When you walk into its presence that’s when the piece starts and when you leave that’s when it ends. Interestingly enough, much like perceptions of time change from person to person, the context of the same video piece will in fact change from person to person depending on when they entered it and when they left it.

Ultimately though, the best art is a process that does not care where it came from, what it is or how it will be defined.

*More key points on these issues will be in my upcoming book, “An Introduction to Sass Art.”

still from video, blackhole - whitevoid: Escape With The Scapegoats
2004

Previous Posts:

Charles Neenan: Tradition
Kelly Towles: Color
Ryan Mulligan: Originality
Matt Hollis: Confinement
Dean Fueroghne: Originality
James W. Bailey: Obligation
J. Coleman: Depiction
Andy Moon Wilson: Decision
Molly Springfield: Language
Bryan Whitson: Scene
Elyse Harrison: Motivation
Jiha Moon Wilson: Influence
Alexandra Silverthorne: Derivative

Comments

[JOSE RUIZ]

soy jose ruiz artista canario........ are you there?

[Nancy Carpio-Gonzales]

canario
notario
usuario
beneficiario
secretario
millonario
multitudinario
what are you?