Art is rewritten. All history is. The new has to sweep out the older topics, otherwise they have too much to climb over, so with uncertain steps they climb upon the rubble and proclaim that this is a new art. A new age. A new criticism. But they are usually variants. The same as it ever was.

I often ask them to tell me what new work they see and the two points that give it reason or meaning. Even flavor would do. Too help, draw the line between you newest talent and the following has beens.

1. Picasso
2. Duchamp
3. Pollock

Are you able to get around those three? Yes, then you have something new. Know those works, you know art.

Test the rule you find. Test its strength. Does it flex, can it break. Test it by trying to break it. Walk across the path. Put the highlights on the edge, darken the middle. Does the rule regain itself or restrain you. If you return to it, then it is truth. Truth always repeats itself, sadly so do cliches.

When you can make rules, you can break rules.

Back in the days, before digital was born. Back when painters were trying out photography and grants were new means of support. During that time, which I have just been reminded of by Judy Seigel’s “Mutiny and the Mainstream” During those years that the female arts movement (aka FAM, so called by only me) the feminists were outraged that the word “he” had more meanings than “she” That is, that “he” was thought to be generic, inclusive of all people. Anyhow during those same hard times for women, several of we affluent, carefree male artists couldn’t get a show by just showing our tits. Not even if we pouted. That was when I organized a “tit for tat” exhibit, open to all artists. It ran throughout the streets of Upstate New York, okay, mostly Syracuse, okay, mostly two blocks and a few bus stops… the show had escaped my memory, as it and many other works I’ve done have slipped unnoticed, unannounced into art histories short span memory.