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Conceptual artist #20, (performance-based acting as his own receiver, he's seeking a signal from the airwaves for over a decade), 2023.
Hernan Bas's show, The Conceptualists at the Bass Museum of Art, is exciting.
Conceptual art
Conceptual Art refers to various artistic practices from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, emphasizing the worth of concept (or idea) over the art object.
We need to unpack the theory since conceptual artists are considered art theorists.
Conceptual art is a specific theory of reference.
A reference theory of meaning ... claims that the meaning of a word or expression lies in what it points out in the world.
For a reference to become art, the meaning needs to be aesthetic. It is aesthetic if it elicits a feeling of pleasure, which is recognized as such. For example, a hot shower only elicits aesthetic pleasure if we take pleasure in our own admiration for the hot shower.
For conceptualists, art is the concept behind it. However, conceptual art comes in different flavors.
In Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs (1965), below, the reference is direct. The piece is composed of (a chair, a photo of the chair, and a chair definition). Let's call this a first-order reference.
Joseph Kosuth, One and Three Chairs, 1965
Bas uses a second-order reference flavor. In other words, he shows a painting that refers to a situation and a title that subverts such reference.
How? Make it bounce off itself.
The folding
In The Conceptualists, the protagonist and his alter ego undergo a series of "conceptual tasks," which appear banal and purposeless. According to plan, this conceptual maneuver loops onto itself, pointing to its ultimate world referent: the artist, Bas himself.
The folding happens via the painting's title.
For instance, the painting above depicts a pillow-fighting match. The reference is apparent. However, we need to include additional layers of meaning in the title. Without such information, there is no real conceptual pull.
We need some context.
Czech theorist Jan Mukařovský has an interesting thesis. What we take as "banal" remains a suspect choice precisely because of its preassumed hierarchy. Mukařovský counsels looking at neglected things differently, that is, as (potential) redeeming notes, legitimate subjects of aesthetic investigation.
Use these glasses to look at Bas' show.
Conceptual artist #36 (his site-specific wall drawings are created after a night's sleep in purportedly haunted locations), 2023
The artist breaks from working on a crayon drawing on the wall (a bit of trompe l'oeil adds a certain je ne sais quoi). For now, observe how the title and painting do not necessarily coalesce. It's daytime (the semi-opened window proves it). The artist sits, hands dirty, on a disheveled bed. The reddish drawings are glued to the wall underneath the superimposition of the crayon drawing. He looks outside the painting (the painter? or the observer?). He's self-absorbed.
According to the title, does he just have this thing of doing site-specific art in purportedly haunted locations? Weird.
Keep in mind Mukarovsky (things are not what they seem).
Radical distancing
Here comes Ortega Gasset's lesson in The Dehumanization of Art:
The creators of new art give their works a dehumanized aesthetic by radically distancing themselves from the "lived" reality ... their daily existence (objects, spaces, living beings, inorganic beings): it is this radical distance in the gaze that allows them to make the leap from the "lived" reality to the "contemplated" reality.
What's the radical distance?
In phenomenology, "distance" means a lack of presence. From the perspective of conceptual art, one could retort that a lack of presence presupposes presence. Using Ortega's favorite metaphor, missing the trees from the forest presupposes the former.
The retort from conceptual art: what if presence is absent? One can "see" a tree and yet miss it altogether.
Conceptual artist #18 (spirited for urban legends, he fabricates roadside memorials from which to hitchhike), 2023
Bas's painting title (above) suggests the hitchhiker standing at a "fabricated" memorial. Is this young man really hitchhiking or—judging his demeanor—"posing," as it were? It looks too perfect: the trees, the clean, well-paved, sinuous road—is it really raining?
The more one looks, the more open-ended everything seems. The strategy is richer than Kosuth's late 1960s modus operandi. Bas' maneuver is so sleek and slippery that, in the end, one (after much cerebration) accepts the insoluble dissonance back and forth.
Conceptual artist #24, (his multidisciplinary works are cultivated from the periodic table), 2023
Conceptual artist #24's explication and visual mise-en-scène prove Ortega's point about dehumanized, "contemplated" reality by forcing a self-defeating insight.
His conceptual artist #28 recalls a passage from Fin de siecle French in literature and sensibility,
Falling for the trap 😂
Someone by the name of Douglas Markowitz covered the show for The Miami New Times.
Here's a paragraph:
Every piece in "The Conceptualists" engages in the melodramatic yet ridiculously unserious artistic discipline that one usually sees in parodies of the art world like The Square or Velvet Buzzsaw. They all look somewhat alike, all possessing the same slim, androgynous build and gaunt complexion that has become a hallmark of Bas' paintings. Obvious craftsmanship and attention to detail aside, the series presents something rare in contemporary art: classically inclined, representational work meant to be purely funny.
Let's see:
1. Every piece?
2. Melodramatic yet ridiculously unserious artistic discipline.
3. Classically inclined, representational work meant to be purely funny.
Markowitz, what are you talking about?
Conceptual artist #21 (his formative work, "Prom Night," marked the beginning of a career of works based on acts of disappointment), 2023
Doing the dirty work
Here's a photo of Bas in his studio (via The New Times). It looks like he's actually "doing" the dirty work of painting faces, hands, flowers, balloons, etc. Not outsourcing it!
The themes of the early 2000s reappear, but Bas' self-referential mal du Siecle appears filtered by a skillful—if florid at times—self-parody. His alter ego is now protean, witty, and less obviously effeminate.
Titling
Conceptual artist #3 (chewing gum every working hour of the day, he considers "Bubblegum Alley" his archive)
Lastly, Bas' paintings would not work without his titling style. Take the painting above as an example: We see the artist blowing up a bubblegum ball and walls collaged with bubblegum. The title describes what the artist does and then reveals his objective—an over-the-top plan that throws off the balance between signified and signifier.
(this last painting is Bas's smorgasbord)
👇
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