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"As an artist, I learned from both East (socialism) and West
(capitalism). Of course, now when the borders and political systems have
changed, such an experience will be no longer possible. But what I have
learned from that dialogue, stays with me. My observation and knowledge of
Western art has lately led me to a conclusion that art cannot exist... any
more in the West. This is not to say that there isn't any. Why cannot art
exist any more in the West? The answer is simple. Artists in the West are not
lazy. Artists from the East are lazy; whether they will stay lazy now when
they are no longer Eastern artists, remains to be seen.
Laziness is the absence of movement and thought, dumb time - total amnesia. It is also indifference, staring at nothing, non-activity, impotence. It is sheer stupidity, a time of pain, futile concentration. Those virtues of laziness are important factors in art. Knowing about laziness is not enough, it must be practised and perfected. Artists in the West are not lazy and therefore not artists but rather producers of something... Their involvement with matters of no importance, such as production, promotion, gallery system, museum system, competition system (who is first), their preoccupation with objects, all that drives them away form laziness, from art. Just as money is paper, so a gallery is a room. |
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Artists from the East were lazy and poor because the entire system of
insignificant factors did not exist. Therefore they had time enough to
concentrate on art and laziness. Even when they did produce art, they knew it
was in vain, it was nothing.
Artists from the West could learn about laziness, but they didn't. Two major 20th century artists treated the question of laziness, in both practical and theoretical terms: Duchamp and Malevich. Duchamp never really discussed laziness, but rather indifference and non-work. When asked by Pierre Cabanne what had brought him most pleasure in life, Duchamp said: "First, having been lucky. Because basically I've never worked for a living. I consider working for a living slightly imbecilic from an economic point of view. I hope that some day we'll be able to live without being obliged to work. Thanks to my luck, I was able to manage without getting wet". |
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Malevich wrote a text entitled "Laziness - the real truth of
mankind" (1921). In it he criticized capitalism because it enabled only
a small number of capitalists to be lazy, but also socialism because the
entire movement was based on work instead of laziness. To quote: "People
are scared of laziness and persecute those who accept it, and it always
happens because no one realizes laziness is the truth; it has been branded as
the mother of all vices, but it is in fact the mother of life. Socialism
brings liberation in the unconscious, it scorns laziness without realizing it
was laziness that gave birth to it; in his folly, the son scorns his mother
as a mother of all vices and would not remove the brand; in this brief note I
want to remove the brand of shame from laziness and to pronounce it not the
mother of all vices, but the mother of perfection". Finally, to be lazy
and conclude: there is no art without laziness."
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Work is a desease - Karl Marx.
Work is a shame - Vlado Martek. |
Mladen Stilinovic
Born in 1947 in Belgrade (Yugoslavia). Member of an informal group "Six
Authors", which had a significant impact on the development of radical Croatian
art in the second half of the seventies. From 1982 heading the Galerija
Prosirenih medija. Lives in Zagreb (Croatia).
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