Regarding The "Anti-Nike"

A friend of mine just sent me a link to Charlotte's front page rant/spoof regarding flooding the meme-way with concepts alone instead of "realized" conceptual art. Although this is obviously a fun/tongue in cheek call to arms, in many ways I think this is a fundamental critique of "conceptual art" and a pointed observation of it's fundamental flaws.

I invite you to continue reading a section of a recent blog from my website (www.joenolan.com) in which I address the same subject more directly.

Thanks and enjoy!

Joe Nolan


I have been finishing up a series of drawings that I hope to include in a book of poetry that will be available some time this summer (hopefully). They are "self portraits" and also religious iconography. Those of you who are familiar with my other my work know that I feel that "All Art is Martial Art". Which is to say, the elements that create the successful martial moment are the same ones that create successful art.

These elements are: 1) confrontation, 2) impact and 3) movement.

Anyone who is familiar with the visual work I have done in the past knows that it is my contention that "art" is best employed to express that which is beyond the bounds of language. In this sense I reject all "conceptual art" out of hand as an intellectual conceit and an ignorant miscalculation.

A concept is an idea. An idea is a collection of words. A collection of words is most simply (i.e. most elegantly and therefore most beautifully and therefore most artistically successful)conveyed by…wait for it…more words!

Please just write me the essay you are going to have to post in the gallery anyway to explain your faulty efforts.

Because of my understanding of "art" as the language that is beyond language, in my opinion it is most effectively applied to those concerns that elude our clumsy mouthings: emotions, impulses etc. Being somewhat over-the-top as an artist and a person I, naturally, tend to push this to it's logical conclusion and concern myself with the ultimate "unspeakable": God and man's impulse toward the transcendent.