Remembering a Lecture on Mondrian

ChatGPT: Benjamin’s story explores the complexities and paradoxes of the relationship between an original artwork and its copy. He suggests that a copy can be seen as a senseless deed, but also as a multi-layered and complex object with its own ideas and meanings. While the original painting is created by the artist with a specific intention, the copy is created for different reasons, and yet it still embodies the same visual qualities as the original.

Furthermore, Benjamin suggests that the copy’s relationship to the original can be seen as a commentary on the idea of authenticity and the value we place on original works of art. He notes that the copy contains both the idea of its model and its own idea, the idea of being a copy, which adds layers of complexity to its meaning. The story ends with the realization that the copy and the original, despite being visually identical, are fundamentally different objects with different histories, ideas, and meanings.

AI Modern Art

Some time ago when became possible to have AI generated images I tried it with the names of some well-known artists of modern art, Malevich, Mondrian and Duchamp.   These were images vaguely resembling works of those artists, and it didn’t occur to me to try some chat box that was available, to generate text that would accompany these images Instead I made a few copies of AI generated “Malevich” and “Mondrian” on paper using color pencils and presented all this in my post “Modern Art” Made in AI. These days with all the excitement regarding Chat GPT and improved image generating algorithms thought I could try again AI relation/ interpretation of Modern art using both, a conversation with Chat GPT and images produced by the Stable Diffusion. This time I was focused on modern art in general, the Museum of Modern Art and the Russian-Soviet Avant-garde movements.

What is Modern Art?

One day, a long time ago, when young Alfred Barr, Jr. was in Paris, he visited Gertrude Stain in her Salon. During the conversation he told Gertrude about the plans for establishing the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Puzzled she looked at him with a smile: “That’s nice, but I don’t understand how it can be both, museum and modern?”

Original and Copy

“While the object of Mondrian’s interest can be read from the original painting, the same could not be said for its copy.” A copy is a painting by all its properties, but its idea is outside the painting itself…” “If the original is worthless (like the “Harbingers of the Apocalypse”), does that imply that its copy is also worthless?… I consider the copies of the “Harbingers of the Apocalypse” to be more important than the original, although they do not differ at all.”     “I think that questions such as the relationship between original and copy, truth and falsehood, sense and nonsense, are legitimate subjects of philosophical consideration.  I believe that this paper (“A Philosophical Treatise on Absurdity”) could raise the question of the exclusivity of verbal language in philosophy” (from the “Moment” no.2, 1984)

“Modern Art” Made in AI

A couple of days ago a friend of mine sent me a link with an AI algorithm that converts words into images. One of the first words I tried was, of course, Malevich, one of the most important artists of the 20th century modern art whose works I copied in the early 1980 looking in the reproductions from the various art books. So I typed the word “malevich” and after few seconds on the screen appeared nine images that looked like works by Malevich, but I immediately realized that something was not right. None of the “works” on the screen were by Malevich known to me, but in fact those were some kind of Malevich’s look a likes generated now by AI algorithm for the first time. As I did some copies of Malevich long time ago, it occurred to me that it might be interesting and even a bit absurd to now copy some of these AI generated “Malevichs”.

Modern Art – Unfinished

“I dislike a picture that is too suave or too skilfully done. But contrariwise, I also dislike a picture that looks too inept or too blundering. I noticed in looking at the Carre(gallery) exhibition of young French painters who are suppose to be close to this(our) group, that in “finishing” a picture they assume traditional criteria to a much grater degree than we do. They have a real “finish” in that the picture is real object, a beautifully made object. We are involved in “process” and what is “finished” object is not so certain.” – Robert Motherwell

MoMA Made in China

…Since this Museum of Modern Art consists of copies, it is not a museum of the past. It is rather a museum of the future. Moreover, by being  modern and non-modern at the same time, it is the only real memory of modern art, the only true Museum of Modern Art in the entire world. This is how it happened that this Great Nation unexpectedly got not only its Modern art,  but at the same time its first Museum of Modern Art as well…. From the Tales of the Artisans

The Making of Modern Art

Once, in the early age of modernity, there was a civilization that invented the art as a way of  reflecting the world.  Art was understood as an intellectual activity expressed through painting and sculpture by specially gifted individuals named artists. In order to show works of art, first the galleries and exhibitions had to be invented. Then, the art market and the museums emerged and a notion of art spread to all epochs and civilizations.

Walter Benjamin – The Unmaking of Art

The departure beyond the art domain will most likely take some time, until the new categories, new concepts are established and new stories about the past (re)invented, stories that will offer different visions of the future. But not all the stories will take us to the same place. A story like the Art History brought us here and from now on it would be wise to understand the choices we make and the consequences of the stories we decide to follow. Who knows, perhaps the future will always remain a prelude.

Four Stories on Art

                              An Ethnographic Exhibition “Once, in the early age of modernity, there was a civilization called the West that invented Art as a away of reflecting the world. Art became understood not to be primarily a craftsmanship,  but an intellectual activity  expressed through painting and sculpture by especially gifted individuals named Artists. In order to