At Frank Berndt 's request : Statement on Ornamente : 3 Positions of Conceptual

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Ornament is one of the oldest expressions of human creativity, adding
resplendence, desirability, and opulence to appearance. Its function as
symbolism stems from its many-in-oneness sense of synthesis. Yet ornament is
considered a form of flamboyant indulgence in perceptual stimulation which
the literal-minded might dismiss as superfluous, but which today is pivotal
in understanding our cyber-media culture. It is pivotal in discerning our
time in that it conceptually entails expansive thought related to ambient
rationalizations of electronic space. This stimulating conceptual
discernment generally involves a repetitive intertwining visual logic which
ensnares the eye and establishes the impression of an enveloping heightened
concern with ambience.

The word ornament in Latin means significant embellishment - and in our time
this means seeing the invisible (but overall) hyper-totality of electronic
communications and its essential spread-distribution. Conceptual ornament
therefore calls upon the mental/optic procedure of spatial summation.

In its humble, early form, ornament usually is constructed of intimate but
visually elaborate designs added to adorn a body or a tool. Less intimate,
it is used to festoon an edifice or an environment, enlivening the expansive
space with visual interest. The Sanskrit term for ornament used by
generations of Indian aestheticians is alamkara, a term which has been
traced back to the Vedic period where its meanings ranged over notions of
adornment, beautification, ornamentation and enhancement in order to
invigorate or make fit for a purpose. Thus, apparently, ornamentation not
only serves to please the eyes of the beholder but also fulfils a beneficial
metaphysical purpose. What it already always expresses, even when not as an
actual space, is an unequivocal notion of plethora in terms of its
reproductive and distributive feeling (and its ardent efflorescence) which
strives to express the basic vital rhythms of motion, rest, and rhythmic
unity reminiscent of voluptuous human sexuality.

Through the bountiful repetitions, by way of its general animated linear
motif, ornament expresses self-conscious immersion in the pulsations of the
biosphere with its throb of the heartbeat and its repetitious breaths and
copulating rhythms and female sexual cycles. Conceptual ornamentation
imitates the pulsations of the technosphere through its unconstrained
graphology, and it is against this invariably repetitive order that we can
gauge our appraisement concerning Ornamente : 3 Positions of Conceptual Art.
By emulating both nature's and the technosphere's cycles and rhythms,
conceptual ornament - in its suggestive optical spread - propounds something
of the repetitious cadence within which we intertwine when engaged in the
pleasurable activities of music, dance and libidinous demeanour. As such,
conceptual ornamentation is almost mesmeric.


Ornamente : 3 Positions of Conceptual Art raises then the issue of
ornamentation out of the opinion that it is mere superficial decoration and
into the arena of understanding living in technospherical awareness through
conceptual artistic positions which surpass (while using) beautification in
the interests of need compatible with the current range of human spatial
intuitions. Hence conceptual ornament can be seen as a meaningful symbolic
language laden with conjuration for those who understand its ocular tongue.

- Joseph Nechvatal, 2002



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Ornamente : 3 Positions of Conceptual Art

Joseph Nechvatal
Endre Tot
Gilbert&George

September 14th - October 18th
Opening September 13th

Galerie Berndt
St. Apern StraBe 17-21, Koln

http://www.berndt.de


Galerie Berndt <[email protected]>




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