文 | LEWIS GESNER美國多媒材實驗藝術家，近四十年聚焦在聲響發展的可能性，作品常以行為藝術、音樂/樂音與寫作呈現，擁有視覺藝術與英國文學碩士文憑。多元經驗與高度實驗性作品經常走在藝術的前端。現居高雄。 Lewis Gesner is an artist, writer and performer who uses a variety of mediums in his work, in keeping with his philosophy. He is from America but now lives in Taiwan with his wife and children. He has exhibited broadly, including venues in Taiwan.
The Truthful Lie that Compensates Objects and Actions; an art fiction
Language: English; 中文
Introduction and introductory thought on a series of articles
I am wondering if art needs to be made to exist.
I am wondering if our opinions are as often formed by familiarity through written material first, and if the viewing of work on a wall or in the environment merely supports an existing point of view from other familiarity.
I am wondering if art can be as legend, stories told and retold, of conceptions and objects never seen.
I am wondering if the reviewer or critic, who writes “truthful” if not honest articles or reviews relating to actual work, may be replaced by the artist, whose work it is to conceive of work.
I am wondering then if that work can exist as mere documentation as does much performance, but, not confined to performance or action aspects, extending to objects, painting, and other genres.
I am wondering, if this extension is made, if it might be just as creative a production to have the documents exist without a fact of actual performance, or object, or painting, so that it is no longer documentation, but the work itself.
I am wondering that if this is the case, we might dispense with the notion of fact or truth per se and move beyond it to the realm of writing parallel to fiction; the presentation of false facts, of relation to the familiar world, and the previous development of art, in the pursuit of an original description of art, as it might be observed by cultural professionals.
I am wondering if it might be acceptable that some people might be confused or tricked into believing that some description represents a real object, and that those people modify their thought and existence based on the belief that such objects exist.
I am wondering if the opening of this way to art making, and a parallel to fictional writing, might grow further from art than it might within the limits brought on by making physical art and art actions.
I am wondering what will then constitute what parts in these parallels to fiction, if the creation of imagined galleries, exhibitions, and artists, in addition to their “work” will equally occupy the space of what would for the reviewer be art description.
I am wondering if, as an artist myself, the attention I give to this conception might affect my desire to ever make physical work again, and I am considering that the freedom from the physical in this art fiction parallel might be akin to the immateriality of the soul or spirit, and that in proposing and carrying out this project, I might be preparing myself for some unknown transition of my material life to something else.
I am wondering, if this project leads me to an altered state of being, if it might also lead readers to a transformation or, a phasing of their physical and spiritual aspects, and that if this happens, if I am somehow liable.
A series of articles will follow this introduction. They will be in pursuit of the conception I have described, and as such, this secret key will not be supplied or made reference to again, as we will be in the world of this conception, which doesn’t account for itself in self-awareness. Exhibitions, art works, artists and their biographies, as well as countries, cities, towns, locals and historic events as reference points will be fabricated or allowed to fill in the frame of this conception. It is my sincere hope that this project will enlighten and entertain, perhaps assist in readers’ own ideas of what art is, and at the very least, as the motto of the medical field advises, “do no harm.”