Moving away from extremities.

Sometimes when I see a bad contemporary art piece, I feel embarrassed about being a contemporary artist. Some contemporary art can seem so absurd, so grotesque, completely incomprehensible, lame and alienating. And I feel embarrassed. Because I know there are people who experience the work that I have helped create in this way. Their responses to my work are exactly the same as my responses to another contemporary art piece that I didn’t get.

I don’t want to be in that position any more. I don’t want to be that artist. I don’t want to make work that confuses people. It seems so unnecessary. And lazy in a way. I need to work harder.

Because I do want make the world a better, more beautiful place.

I have tried to do that by investigating my own preferences and trying to present the most pure version of what I find moving, what I find beautiful. I think that is what drove many decisions in Bientôt l’été.

But the “extreme” work of art that comes out of such a process is bound to alienate most people. To most people Bientôt l’été will be empty and it will not move them. Perhaps it can inspire peers who may include a milder version of some aspects of it in their own work. And this work, unlike my own, can inspire people.

In the future, I want to be like those peers. I want to at least try to make something that is refined, well balanced, accessible, understandable. Rather than presupposing that I’m always going to be too weird to ever get through to anyone outside of a small elite.

I hope that not every artist makes this choice, though. Because I do think extreme works of art can ultimately be beneficial to people, if only to keep the mainstream from becoming all too dull and dulling. Even if I cannot enjoy that extreme contemporary art myself. Some people do, and some of then will be inspired to make something that I do appreciate.