They’re two representatives to 2 kinds of art. Banksy, an English contemporary street artist; Kurt Cobain, from Seatles, U.S, a provoker of generation X hearts’ angst and frustrations by the means of his desolating voice and his screaming guitar. The former is living and working under a fake skin, or in fact performing his art illegally; the latter committed suicide on April 5, 1994. There’s no links between them. The considerable common ground is the two of them seeing themselves as underground artists, denying the mainstream and expressing their points of view in underground ways. Moreover, the most striking one is they both make great impacts on their generations with their works. So, putting their influence under consideration, we easily find out fine arts and music (herein, Rock) have a strong connection in their own existence: conveying their generations’ voices.
A statement from a painter/rocker
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To me, as a contemporary artist (as I name myself), WHAT you want to say, to convey in your works is really important. The greatness of your works depends on the WHAT you put in them. WHAT, I mean, immediately strikes the viewers’ attentions, making them strongly attracted. It’s like an explicit message. Standing in front of such paintings, the viewers won’t get confused by the colors. They will recognize that the WHAT is what happens around them everyday, every moments, it clings to their life. Your paintings get the task to talk about everyday life’s issues of the whole human beings, not only about yours. It’s an access to the greatness.
Rock, with its directly communicative characteristic by the words, should effectively bring the contemporary breath to its audience. A good song is one that has a message, together with beautiful melody, directly mentions everybody’s problems and thoughts they are facing day by day. Having these, your songs are completely successful in your audience’s hearts and minds.
History – Look back in your gratefulness
You may consider yourself a contemporary artist, you may announce to the world you are a post-modernist or whatever “ISM” you wish to attach to yourself, one thing you can deny is you owe a lot to history. History does play a key role, a stable background on which you can freely and comfortably expose yourself, your arts and your ideas. In order to carry out your pop-art, expressionism, impressionism, abstractionism or those new comers such as installations, performances, visual art and so on, you have to master the fundamental premise of fine art (composition, color scheme, etc.). To blow up the crowd with your guitar, you have to know well in heart the blue and pentatonic scales, no matter what you are in Rock’n’Roll, Heavy Metal, Punk, Alternative or the young Indie. And you have to be thankful to the African American Blue.
Your pop-art paintings, with attracting and contrasting colors, have they ever showed their gratitude to Andy Warhol?
You make installations with tangled strings and messy stuff and may not recognize that deep inside you have been influenced by Jackson Pollock’s paintings. Would you please admit?
Then, do Francis Bacon’s paintings of crucifixion remind you of something when you show your performance and installation?
Back to music, if there were not rebellious Sex Pistols and raging, screaming Neil Young, would we have a Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain to adore? And, if Chuck Berry didn’t put a milestone, Rock’n’Roll would have turned to another direction.
What’s on today?
Besides the traditional canvas, contemporary artists nowadays use various materials to carry out their ideas. Banksy has turned the public walls, squares, alleys and street space all around the world into his backgrounds. Mobilizing thousands of people and talking them into taking off all their clothes in public areas, Spencer Tunick has made many amazing nude crowd photographs. Installations, performances, graffiti, stencil, visual art and square art (group performances in public areas such as the subways, squares, etc.) are emerging. Interactively speaking, these arts more easily communicate to their audience. In some cases, for instance, in performances, the audience also plays as a part of the show. This will help the artists to bring their works much closer to everybody. Traditional fine art, parallel to its juniors, still keeps the reputation as it has been created for ages.
In the 90s of the last century, Alternative rock was acknowledged with its powerful raise and influence. The name Alternative (Variety) itself ignored the mainstream’s standards. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins were the remarkable bands. Unfortunately, with the death of Kurt Cobain (which lead to Nirvana’s disbandment) and the long-term separation of Smashing Pumpkins, Alternative, more or less, slid down for a moment. But those excellent bands like Radiohead and Coldplay have kept Alternative alive. In the early years of 2000s, the melody of Indie started spreading worldwide, reviving the 60s and 70s hippy movement. With its happy melody and liberal spirit, Indie has achieved a huge support, from both fans and academic critics. The Killers, The Kooks, Kings Of Leon, The White Stripes, The Coral, Men At Work, etc., are some of the striking names in the recent years.
The changes of Fine Art and Rock mentioned above prove that contemporary artists gradually narrow down the gap between their works and everybody, make their works more approachable. The line between arts and life, therefore, fades away. We can affirm that Arts nowadays get well along with our life. It’s necessary for Arts to exist.
My points of view
As a painter and a Rocker, I’m always conscious of my own style. No matter how much I gain from my style, I keep trusting my choice. I have a stable standard: both my paintings and songs must concentrate to the world’s common issues, the problems that most of us are facing and feeling restless about. An artist must take the public matters as his own ones. Maybe your points differs from mine, but, as the matter of fact, the time for artists who live inside their own shells has gone. Now it’s time for us to plunge ahead and work things out together.
Why are the paintings of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud so expensive and having big attentions from the world? Is it people find something similar to what they keep wondering themselves everyday in these artists’ works?
Why did Kurt Cobain’s songs, with only a few chords, put a great impact on his generation’s ideology and this impact still goes on although he died 14 years ago? Was it his generation has found for themselves a spokesman who stated out their depression and angst?
Banksy, Obey and D-Face are well known all over the world today because these artists have brought their names out of the street level with their works. They reveal people’s inside and worriment. They drastically criticize the indifference of authorities and governments. They show up the disturbing conditions of the working class people, and their dreams of change as well.
Taking a good look into human beings’ hearts and mind and displaying what are inside is what a true contemporary artist should do.
I tend to paint in the furious sound of Kurt’s guitar, in the sorrowful voice of Bono. Sometimes I get high and inspired by only the phrase “everyday is exactly the same” from Nine Inch Nails’ song, so I make a series of paintings with this inspiration. What they sing, what they talk about is completely the same with my unrest, and maybe yours, too. So it is an elixir of my works of both paintings and music.
In my opinion, Rock is NOT but music. We should take Rock as a lifestyle, a way of thinking, a characteristic or an attitude towards things. Please stop seeing Rock a rebellious kind, although rebellion is one of Rock characteristics. Rock means a different way of thinking that brings best results. Just look at Live 8, a big concert with participations of Rock stars to call governments upon reducing or erasing debts for poor African countries, too see how effective Rock is. As the result of it, I temporarily cast aside the classic records and the proud Jazz ones until I have time. At the moment, I’m into Rock only.
In Vietnam, I am somehow like an exile in arts for I can’t share my points with any artist. I used to join the business not related to arts: selling Rock records. I wished to introduce Rock to everyone, let them know what happens in the world outside and absorb some Rock spirits. It’s no need to entirely saturate with it, it’s only about catching up with the world, recognizing what is up to the human beings. Yet I failed. Vietnamese painters pay their attentions only to tradition. Their usual topics are some authentic girls in Ao dai, standing soullessly or doing something gracefully. I have no idea what those painters wish to convey to the world. And they are satisfied with this way out of an understandable reason: they are making a lot of money thanks to it. It’s the only thing they care about. It’s not right, really. It’s my biggest taboo when doing arts.
Some ask me why I paint Bono and who he is? Others are curious about the line on my painting that says Che GuevaLA. They insist on putting it to Che GuevaRA. They don’t even care this painting is a pop-art one, and I combine Che Guevara with Coca-Cola. They are really narrow-minded, or exactly, they totally ignore what are around them. Please take your look with wide views, don’t bind yourself by your shallowness.
“Be completely modernized!”, a reminder from Milan Kundera is worth of being borne in mind. Once you are an artist, you must bring everyday life’s breath into your works.
Watching Radiohead’s Thom Yorke performs his songs onstage with an ultimate feeling, I suppose that Vietnamese artists still lack of enthusiasm and contemporary concept. Or just look at Banksy sacrificing his real name and taking risks for his passion to realize how far we get lost. We’re trapping ourselves now. Just wake up, please!
The most perfect BEAUTY is not the one to be nicely framed. Putting a good effect on people’s consciousness as well as sympathizing their restlessness is a TRUE BEAUTY.
It’s time to change.
A change is coming…
There will be shows of your dreams. The shows of Arts and Rock. After attending Fine Arts exhibitions, we’ll soak ourselves in the challenging sounds of Rock.
There will be a magazine that gives you an insight about music, arts, current problems, your own interests and new things.
There will be a talkshow among the artists, yourself and your contemporaries to share what you all may question.
So, let Tran Trung Linh, a contemporary artist, be able to see Thom Yorke and go: “Hey man, I love your songs, they all are inside my paintings…” . And then things go on...
