Anteaesthetics: Critique of Form?
Some art snob coffee thoughts
Art analyzed myself briefly yesterday and started drawing similarities to Caravaggio. At first, I was excited by the sentiment of having the same sort of sensibility of Caravaggio but then I questioned why an alignment with the figure of Caravaggio would garner me any respect versus understanding the work and person of Caravaggio.
Caravaggio, the Fatha of Baroque, is a master known for his dramatics of color, haunting realism and violent contrast of darkness and light amongst bodyform. So to mention myself against or to parallel similar artviews as the Italian will make folks imply that I know a lil something about somethin’
As I’ve been reading through the DENSE (it’s dense AF) “Anteaesthetics: Black Aesthesis and the Critique of Form”. I’ve been considering what it means to have the formal training of a BFA, studying the masters (most of the White Europeans ) , developing a fine arts palette but then DESIRING to express art in this form of my Black body and my life’s experiences that are not “fine art”. Those studies and my experiences mix most times. Then moments, such as this one, come along and make me challenge if my taste are influenced by eurocentricities or if my tastes are influenced by something deeper within the art itself, not the artist.
It’s taken years to sort of bring together the paradox of being an art snob with taste and academy training, mixed with an innate gift for art that this countretto, hood girl that loves club graphics, 99-00’s southern rap covers and what folks consider lowbrow Black and shotgun house to working class aesthetics was born with.
It’s even more interesting to see how media platforms have begun to encourage people on them to use aesthetics or even the terminology to assert their level of taste, which aligns them with some sort of class or archetype [ luxury, gothic, soft girl, goddess, minimalist, ect ect blah blah blah]. To observe this and to also see that there’s a disconnect between the visual and the roots, lore, iconography or symbols of the aesthetics being portrayed. To the untrained eye— it just looks good and that’s enough. Is it? Is it?
The realization and the truth is I didn’t color grade this inspired by or even to mimic Caravaggio in association. He wasn’t even in my mind while dancing, lighting or going into to post. What’s happening here is osmosis, something I’ve been meditating on for quite a bit. Osmosis isn’t inspiration, in my opinion. It’s this phenomena that happens because you’ve just been relating so much, so deeply to a person, place or concept that you begin to ooze characteristics of being with or being in relationship with.
When I meditate on why I danced— violence, vengeance, trouble-making, conjuring, passion, friendship, righteous-indignation, threat and anger— I realized that the reason I can parallel Caravaggio’s preference for working with shadows and light is that we both are diffusing the human experience through a different lens but at a similar tone. His with his spirit-eyes and paint for the wealthy Medici associated church iconography, mine with my spirit-eyes and body for the counter-propaganda of what I think the industry needs to see and hear beyond the aesthetics. Maybe this is what anteaesthetics is talmbout, the before— the things happening before the modernity of what aesthetics has become. Maybe…