THE 10 ARTICLES OF THE ETHICAL CONSTITUTION OF ART

(museum model of installation and detail of one panel)

(N. 45 panels 40”x20”: White plaster and wood with mirrors installed in linear eye level manner on regular four wall square space. Original installation design: 1974; New Text written: in 2011 and revised in 2013)

“Art about art”

10 ARTICLES OF THE ETHICAL CONSTITUTION OF ART

(In Progress)

By: Martini Pandozy Conceptual Artist and Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Art Education

MUSEUM INSTALLATION FOR A HISTORICAL TURNING POINT

© Raffaele Martini Pan dozy, Ph.D.

THIS IS A CALL TO ALL ARTISTS OF THE WORLD TO UPHOLD THE VIOLATED DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE OF EXPRESSION OF ART AND TO UNITE UNDER UNIVERSAL ETHICAL VALUES.

TEXT

In the name of the democratic principles of freedom of expression in art, Martini Pandozy, artist and philosopher of the world, manifests the following:

 

1. The world needs better art to establish “universal” ethical values leading to         positive human developments of peace, harmony and prosperity for all people.

Our civilization is in decline.  Relentless, unscrupulous capitalism and globalization are antithetical to the democratic principles of an equitable society and have fostered oppressions, racial conflicts, famine and poverty, which threaten the future of humanity as a whole.  Artists cannot stand on the wrong side of reason. They must speak out the truth, cease to be jesters, entertainers and faithful servants of the same elite system causing the problems of humanity; they cannot remain heedless in their studios manipulating senseless images that encourage ignorance and social indifference; they must condemn material hegemony, corruption, hypocrisy and mystification of art; and stop treating all art objects as commodities. Art’s legitimate mission established during the Renaissance was to educate the human spirit across races and cultures. That mission is now repressed by the same system that claims to support it, by museums that have become business enterprises and social clubs offering art as entertainment rather than as expressions of truth and education of the human spirit; by art foundations that only benefit entrepreneurs who evade taxes in the name of art and philanthropy. Intellectual poverty and failure to expose this harsh reality annihilate art’s future, damage the artist image in society, and hinder the social good. The art market must be regulated and made to rest on ethical rather than material grounds. Those in power must know that intellectual and economic developments are not necessarily dichotomous when the ills of society are being exposed and cured.  In sum, a new spirit of “Enlightenment” is needed to develop better art, better support system, and make this world a better place to live.

 

 

1. Establish the “Telos” of art in social life, correct the cultural fallacy of ambivalence of values by making a distinction between “high” and “low” art for the sake of the higher ends of humanity.

All objects in the world fulfill a purpose, which explains their interdependence within the organic whole of the world.  However, not all objects affect us at the same perceptual and cognitive level and therefore not all “objects of art” deserve equal designation. There are objects that affect our modes and external behaviors and objects that affect our intellect and our spiritual values just as there are objects that serve practical and material purposes and objects that serve intellectual and spiritual purposes. Thus, a distinction must be drawn between the “high” art that offers intellectual experience and the “low” art that offers sensuous experience. Purity and integrity of “Telos” makes high art, which emerges from an essential purpose in life and projects the rational vision of natural harmonic components of thought relying on reason and development of direct communication of values. This expresses the valuable function of high art, which is direct and primarily heuristic, bringing about the perception of pure reason as a natural end and uncontaminated meaning of life. Expression of universal values is high art because it enlightens the mind of all people of all cultures of the world. High art can be a powerful language when directed toward intellectual developments and to the intrinsic anthropological genesis of humanity. The artist realizes him/herself in the high art as important participant in the making of a better humanity, in erecting the values that modify anthropological structures, and in the cognitive instruments of communication that actualize them. The heuristic function of high art consists in building the knowledge that shapes the mind and is passed on to help shaping the minds of others. This concept suggests reformation of the school curricula in order to establish common values, form new breeds of artists, differentiate among levels of art, and educate the public about it.

 

1. “Artists decide what art is, not the market, the museums or other art institutions. High art must be constantly redefined to keep up with the times and to be granted its original legitimate powers to change the world.

Being high art not a divine gift or a religion, and artists, only human beings, it must be a product of the human intellect, rather than an abstract, esoteric idea covered by mystery. This fundamental truth alone establishes the authenticity of the artist in the social world. Everyone should know that there is no mystery or divine intervention in the concept and in the making of art in general. That is why the concept of art in general must be revised and advanced to serve the highest ends of humanity. Therefore only intellectually accomplished artists and not the market must decide what art should or should not be.  The artist is not a “creator”. He/she is a researcher of the truths of the world. Science can now demonstrate the heresy of creation by proving that what comes out of the artist’s brain is no more than the product of what goes into it.  The work of art must be placed in the legitimate context of applied human intelligence.  Artists can advance the causes of humanity or produce useless, deleterious objects, offensive to humanity. Artists such as Faton, Ophili, Serrano, Mapplethorpe, and others, who practice desecration of religious beliefs to advance their career, should be publicly denounced because they distort reality, produce friction and hatred among people, instead of accepting the fundamental values of humanity. What is most damaging to humanity is that the works of these artists hang in museums around the world as examples of good work.

1. The Art of today is based on a misconception of individual freedom of expression. Freedom of expression does not exonerate the artist from his/her social ethical responsibilities – that which Kant called “Moral Freedom”.

The artist is an existential being” operating on the inalienable fundamental principles of natural freedom and of the natural history of the world. His/her art can bestow a valid contribution to society when artistic freedom is conceived as legitimate right to exercise objective critical integrity regardless of market demands. Martin Heidegger called this behavior “authentic” because reflecting the genesis of the ideal being. The artist is a self-made individual and his being such entails a search and a constant improvement of his/her intellectual qualities. Under this criterion the changes of an artist’s work should reflect the constant movement of growth toward intellectual conscious completion. Conscious completion is attained when all knowledge of the world is incorporated into the mind and an ethical and moral order of natural values is established. Human civilizations live and die but the true substantial values of art remain as perennial markers of what artists and thinkers have accomplished. Time is the sole judge of the artist’s work. The artist is the only social being who can determine and sustain natural values that overcome the mediocrity of a class society, which tenders to their destruction by material means. Search for the true nature of being and the order of things are part of the artist’s knowledge that establishes the right to exercise freedom of expression. This type of freedom cannot be undermined or violated.  Art must be recognized within the context of natural freedom, freedom to be and to advance according to one’s nature and as a member of humanity.  Adequacy to scientific reality, preservation of historical continuity, and adoption of a philosophy of natural rights, are the three active principles helping the artist to realize a rational completion of the individual self, which society must recognize and value outside material means. The artist’s potentiality of being becomes in likewise manner a social example to be admired and imitated since it reveals itself as constitutive and integrative capacity to establish the same natural and cultural principles in the social world. Thus the world needs high art to measure the artist’s humanity, as ideation and synthesis of real values to be preserved in museums and public spaces and to be bestowed to future generations.

1. The intentionality of the artist must aim at the realization of a rational model of internal time consciousness, which corrects the fallacy and the mystery of “creativity” in art.

Creativity is not longer a mystery since there is a scientific explanation. As Kant said, nothing comes from nothing. The work of art is the implicit product and synthesis of what goes into the artist’s mind. He/she is the sole arbiter of the art production. There can be new production of ideas at the level of thought and at the mere level of images.  Thought requires the intentionality to will and to think, which turns cognitive stimuli into automatic genetic organization and spontaneity of representations of linguistic productions; images without thought are mimetic recombination by similarity, which explains the notion of creativity as conceived in art today. In general, the richer the cognitive stimuli and the more productive is the conceptual synthetic representation attributed to production of meaning. In reality, conscious reflection is the preponderant productive stimulus of the mind that recombines visions into reality. Visions of the mind are implicit organization of meaning, which may be as complete and as clear as they were in the mind of Michelangelo who believed to be the mind governing the working hand. Cognitive reflection is in reality the essential universal component of the realization of the art object, which can be better understood as a phenomenological reflection fulfilling the vision of existential possibility step by step and making generality and particularity come together as causal dynamics. Confusion exists also between accidental and conscious productions of art. Accidental occurrences are not spontaneous productions because they fall outside the mind.  Art can only be an intentional cognitive activity turning into genetic spontaneity enriching the genesis of human nature. In short, the misconception of “creativity” is explained by the process of an intentional consciousness, which becomes cognitively and genetically enriched as ready-made spontaneity of thought.  This process brings new light in the process of art and corrects many fallacies embedded in the history of art and perpetrated by schools, universities, art museums and institutions.

 

1. Art, science and aesthetic philosophy must march together in history and aim at the same humanistic ends.

Since Paleolithic times art has been a form of substantial linguistic communication of what is objective and important to human life. Modern Art changed that and turned into a subjective nullity of meaning. The Paleolithic frescoes of Lascaux and Altamira show that art was never empty representation of imagery. If it were so, we would not have had anthropology, according to Levi Strauss’ linguistic theories. This tells us that artists must understand and reconstruct art’s true anthropological significance. Today science can demonstrate that art educates and refines the five senses that allow us to identify reality. Art carries meaning to the mind that is important to human life, which is thought being cognitively, genetically incorporated and becoming operative as anthropology. Nothing else is important in the history of art outside the movement of human substance. Art ceases to possess historical value at the moment it stops communicating substantial meaning and values to posterity.  Empty feelings are therefore experienced when visiting most museums of contemporary art offering meaningless objects to the public eye. General ignorance of scientific facts induces the misconceptions of value practiced by public museums and art institutions.  It is correct to say that because of the stupidity of art productions humanity may have undergone through anthropological regress and waste of potential intelligence, which could have advanced the emancipation of sensible and intellectual faculties. The problem is more compelling now when scientific evidence shows that the intellectual vacuity of art hinders and delays both cognitive and genetic development.

 

1. Art does not constitute a world unto itself. The “Telos” of science and philosophy is to determine the order of things; that of art is to explore the significance of that order.  Therefore, art in order to fulfill its “Telos” must extend its contextual parameters and be at the forefront of the teleology that produces changes in the world.

DNA structures, Functional Genomics, and the most recent neurological discoveries are not accidental events to be ignored, but part of the process of human understanding. Science can now explain most brain processes, which art theorists and artists ignore and do not care to find out.  It can be said that what is not understood as science remains a threat to art intellectuals.  Art is in principle a message to humanity, which must carry forward the human spirit of advancement, research, analysis and synthesis, which extend mental processes. Indeed what has been established by recent scientific studies was predicted by some of the thinkers of ancient Greece such as Anaxagoras, Protagoras and Plotinus who advanced how the mind opens itself to productive imagination. Two century ago Nietzsche announced the death of art because it failed to communicate the spirit of knowledge and keep pace with scientific progress. One hundred years ago Marinetti’s idiotic “Manifesto of Futurism” announced that art would have anticipated the times and human progress, instead it marked the beginning of an era of ignorance and inexistent values driven by aggressive market demands for decoration and entertainment. Today art is an industry founded on pretensions and gimmicks, as Sartre and Marcuse and even Picasso admitted that Modern art only offers petite perceptions and stupidity in place of true human values.

 

1. Art’s historical turning point consists in implementing the new role of the artist as participant in the process of changes in the world.

Since the Ancient Greece and during the Renaissance the image of the artist was one belonging to the higher social spheres of government, which demanded rational knowledge and wisdom.  The artist’s visions, pursuit of knowledge, and excellence were equally regarded to the ones of the philosopher and the astronomer. Today the works of Modern and Post-Modern artists remain objects covered by layers of ambiguities, esoteric, and mindless connotations supported only by material interest. Absurd market demands render these artists incapable of dealing with reality, which separate them from the “intelligible world” (Kant). To be socially responsible beings and to be “free spirits” is not dichotomous as long as moral freedom and social commitment remain bound.  Artists can show the people of the world how to be free and still be committed to advance the meaning of humanity, which in substance means to act as conscious and responsible beings.  Looking at the history of art one cannot help realize that the last 150 years have been nothing but a waste of human energy since there is nothing in the history of art that helped advance society as a whole.  There is nothing to learn from art history, which is filled with ordinary narrative, biographies of useless and idiosyncratic lives, battling with stupid dreams, illusions and prejudice, placed in the historic context as if they represented valuable examples of human distinction and excellence. This fact distorts the idea of history, art and life. I am compelled to say that a new vision of art requires above all reflection on the values we assign to ordinary objects we place in museums and public places, and above all, on the moral freedom that accords some people the license to call themselves artists and members of the rational world.

 

1. The ethical duty of the artist is to obtain pure perception and produce true representation of reality and what constitutes anthropological values.

Pure perception of reality, as has been defined in Martini Pandozy’s book “Of Arteology” is the infinite genesis of objectivation of substance that assures the vital projection of human existence.  Art becomes anthropology only if it exercises its capacity to embody the pure perception of what makes us humans. The artist explores the universal perceptual knowledge of phenomena and attends to the ethical responsibilities of art of passing it to others. He cannot neglect the substantial values of nature in favor of the formalism and subjectivism of image-making and abstracting reality without violating the natural laws. One must wonder and praise the humility of Renaissance artists who pursuit objective truth and did not even sign their work as they did what history demanded from them.  Art language requires consciousness and intelligibility rather than chaos and abstraction beyond representation. In Hegel’s theory of the “two worlds” perception makes just reference to the non-sustainability of images representing themselves as art. The function of language is to communicate and to open the mind to the perception of human substance, instead of evoking fantasy. Fantasy is only the naïve product of imagination without rational rigor.  Art works must be considered and evaluated for their anthropological weight alone. Today this concept of art as universal value has been forgotten.

 

10.  The promotion of a phenomenology of art represents reflection of contemporary art upon itself and a “Reawakening of Thought” as historic turning point for 2013.

The absurd historical fallacy attributing to artists the predominant use of the right hemisphere of the brain over the left one impairs the production of substantial thought and makes art objects meaningless. The production of art has been a carousel of empty imagery for the last 100 years because of the absence of thought. It is a physiological fact amply proven by the neurological sciences that one lobe of the brain cannot operate without the other. Laziness of mind has been accepted and mystified in art history books as a natural occurrence. In other words, the belief that artists are not thinking beings because they are visual beings is perhaps the most ominous fallacious belief of the century impairing artistic development as a whole.  A phenomenology of art must now come to the rescue in explaining the reasons there cannot be meaningful perceptual and cognitive processes without thought, in the same manner of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, i.e., ascertaining the true reality of what is manifested in a thinking consciousness separate from what constitutes external phenomena. The phenomenological order of perceptual processes establishes that reality is conscious thought and projections of past, present, and future, not only as passage of time, but as phenomenal development recognized by the brain.  The twenty first century has arrived at the second decade. Human life in this old world is still evolving and can be presumed to continue to advance for millions of years only if humans are able to recognize their potential nature. Self-destruction would certainly occur without thinkers as a result of the calamities and disasters, which the human race would bring upon itself.  This suggests that artists may contribute with their thoughts to the natural evolution of a consciousness of the world. The reawakening of thought in art may just be the needed historic turning point to actualize such phenomenology art and to make this a better world.

 

July 28, 2011- January 2013

© Raffaele Martini Pandozy, Ph.D.

(rmpandozy@aol.com; rmpandozy@libero.it)

(N. 45 Pannels in plaster and wood with double mirrors at the center, installed in linear manner medium height in a regular gallery space. Original drawing and design installation done in 1974; Text revised in 2011 and 2013)

(N. 45 Pannelli di gesso e legno bianco con doppi specchi centrali, istallati in maniera lineare ad altezza d’occhio per uno spazio espositivo regolare. Disegno originale di opera e istallazione eseguito nel 1974; Testo riveduto nel 2011 e nel 2013)

Ecco cosa dice dell’artista il grande filosofo Sebastiano Maffettone:

Raffaele Martini Pandozy è un artista italiano che vive da più di quaranta anni neglli Stati Uniti. Ha partecipato alla grande stagione artistica di New York, cooperando con le più prestigiose gallerie degli anni settanta. Nel tempo, ha sviluppato una innovativa teoria estetica, il cui intento principale è quelllo di restituire all’arte il suo significato universale e il suo valore etico e emancipativo. Questa teoria estetica ha solide basi accademiche -Pandozy ha ricevuto un Ph.D. dalla New York University- ma si è realizzata nel tempo attraverso la realizzazione di opere e la partecipazione a discussioni critiche con i più noti artisti contemporanei. Il nucleo filosofico della sua opera è costituito da una teoria della percezione che si rifa alla filosofia della fenomenolgia tedesca degli anni tra le due guerre nel secolo ventesimo. Le sue opere sono esemplificazioni e occasioni per diffondere questa visione cosmica dell’arte e della sua funzione. “Telos” l’opera esposta a Venezia, incorpora perfettamente questa visione. La visione di Pandozy è grandiosa e i suoi intenti epocali. Proprio questo impegno costante e di così vasta portata ha reso difficile il suo accesso ai grandi circuiti internazionali dell’arte. Venezia 2011,anche per la formula sui generis della selezione al Padiglione Italia, mi è sembrata un’occasione imprescindibile per rimediare solo in parte a questo deficit di informazione che riguarda un artista di assoluto valore.

 

 

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST AND THE AUTHOR

Website: martinipandozy-artaboutart.com

Email: rmpandozy@aol.com – rmpandozy@libero.it

Martini Pandozy artist, philosopher, Master in sculpture and art history,(Univ. of Dallas, TX), and a scholar of art (Ph.D. in the philosophy of art education from New York University), since the late 1960’s has worked incessantly to advance the perception of art and produce a comprehensive theory of phenomenology and ontology of art. His work as an artist and as a philosopher throughout his life was influenced by German philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger and has been motivated by the belief that art can change the world and contribute to a better humanity. To this end, the production of art should move from the present “metaphysical” and “esoteric” realms to a ontology of art that embodies the essential values of human existence. For this reason he thinks of himself as the founder and the initiator of the true ontology and phenomenology of art in the world.

Martini Pandozy was born in Rome Italy in 1937, where he received his basic education. He lived in Rome until 1967 where he learned marble cutting and bronze casting in the old “Botteghe of Via dei Coronari.” Pari passu, he developed an insatiable interest in existential philosophy, which moved him to the natural progression of encompassing phenomenological thought. With such cognition in the mind in 1967 he left Italy and went to live in San Francisco CA where he worked as a sculptor, executing marble and bronze portraits for established California families, while taking courses in phenomenology and American Art at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1969, he moved to New York where he joined the group of the conceptualists “art workers”. There he interacted with Joseph Kosuth and shared with him some philosophical concerns about art and language. Leo Castelli of West Broadway took an interest in his work. His “white on white” works were metaphysical representations of the lost meaning of art. As his phenomenological ideas matured, he began designing museum installations, which were linear inscriptions about art on white plaster he called “Writing with Light.” At the time he also met Joseph Beuys and Klaus Staeck with whom he exchanged ideas about establishing a “Free International University” in New York. Although such project did not materialize, Martini Pandozy continued to pursue the ambitious idea of universalizing the perception of art in New York and in the world. He exhibited works and produced performances in the alternative spaces and galleries of Wooster Street and Pier 21 in Queens New York, but was waiting his chance to mount a major exhibition with prominent galleries, such as Leo Castelli, Ronald Feldman and John Weber, which never materialized for lack of sponsorship. Later his phenomenology of art moved toward more thematic projects proposing The new “Ontology” a series of sculptures devoted to the exploration of conceptual application of existential ideas in art.

In 1971, disappointed with the art world, which he thought was not ready for his advanced work, Martini Pandozy moved to Dallas, TX with his wife, where he had three children and continued his philosophic studies side by side the making of several art projects.  There in 1975 he mounted a major one-man exhibition on the phenomenology and ontology of art, which comprised three installations and a performance.

Among his large body of work, is his series of monumental sculptures, which earned him first prize in the 1978 Dallas City Hall Competition. This series is all in model forms, except the execution of the revolving “Solar Magnet” executed for the Eastfield College of Dallas Campus. Throughout the 1970’s and until 2005, he maintained two studios, in Grand Ave., Dallas and in Lafayette St., New York City.  In 1978 he developed a strong interest and deep feelings for basic materials such as the soils of the world. It was then that he began travelling and gathering all sorts of samples of soil (humus) from all parts of the world. He then began making art pieces emphasizing the depths and the natural colors of earth establishing ontic and ontological relationships. During the middle 1980’s he produced some political works with American and Italian soil, a series of flags and maps with soil taken from states and regions.

He was the founder of “Art for the 1990’s” and of the Dallas Contemporary Art Museum of Dallas, where he produced several exhibition of his work and designed children educational programs. His work is part of numerous private and public collections throughout Texas, among which is the Mc Dermott collection, the University of Texas Collection, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Forth Worth Museum of Modern Art, the Eastfield and Mountain View Colleges, and many more.

In 2003 he participated in the International competition of the Ground Zero Memorial with a large work which has been credited by some critics to be a landmark in synthetic architecture for its arduous and daring structures defying gravity and stress. Another major work is his design for “The Museum of Tomorrow”, which he designed between 1972 and 2008. Some compared it favorably against the F. Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum of New York with its large and continuous exhibition halls. It is a museum of great geometry and functionality with an internal spiral walkway that connects in one single breath twelve large exhibition galleries.

His current sculpture project at the 54^th Biennale of Venice is called “The Lost Language of Art” which re-proposes in sculpture employing steel, marble and glass the ontological language which makes the true being of art and the artist. It is a continuation of the “Painting of Stones” realized in New York in 1985, where on each stone he inscribed a word as part of the art vocabulary which has been lost – and we know what the loss of language signifies, i.e., loss of meaning, of values, of our perceptual capacity, of our consciousness and of our anthropology.

During the last 35 years, he has been working consistently on his major life work, which is a book of 2,600 pages (tree volumes) which marks the needed transition to a phenomenology of art. The book is titled “Of Arteology” “A phenomenological Approach to the Authenticity of art.” It is Martini Pandozy’s historic achievement. This “Opus Magnum” was written with the precise intention to change the perception of art. In order to achieve such ambitious goal, he had to obtain the most advanced philosophical and scientific knowledge and interpret art from every angle. To this end, besides philosophy, he had to delve into  psychology, microbiology, neural science and even genetic engineering.

Martin Heidegger was his teacher. He believes that Western philosophy ends with Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology of being. For nine years Martini Pandozy studied Heidegger’ single master work “Being and Time.” He arrived at this conclusion after studying the forefathers of phenomenology, such as Kant, Hegel and Husserl. In Heidegger’s book he found the reason and the motivation to start writing “Of Arteology”, namely, the “Authenticity of being” – an indispensable quality for the edification of the new concepts of art and the artists of the future. Thus, his entire book aims at precisely this end. His research material comprises more than 350 books, a cross section of philosophy starting from the Presocratic and ending with the Postmodern thinkers. In other words, it took that much to prove that there is no mystery in art and that art can be defined as ontology, i.e., “the art of the authentic human being”.

For this reason, Pandozy believes that the meaning expressed in the word “Telos” presented at the Venice Biennale is as infinite as our human potential, and that art can indeed change the world, if endowed with the proper intellectual tools. Thus what he advocates is “art for the sake of humanity”, rather than art for the “sake of itself”.

The world, as a result of economic globalization, greed and ethical lawlessness has turned humans into beasts again behaving in a sort of Darwinism. What we need in this historic time is for artists to understand their place and function in the world and provide examples of ethical behavior. The author has come to the conclusion to write the 10 Article of the Ethical Constituion of Art as a text for a museum art installation project and to change the way art is done and perceived, since he believes that ART CAN CHANGE THE WORLD AND MAKE IT A BETTER PLACE FOR HUMANITY.

For Further Information about the artist, please visit the website

www.martinipandozy-artaboutart.com

Raffael M. Pandozy, Ph.D.

(Revised on July 29, 2011)