Riots and Racism

These thoughts come a little late, but better late than never, they say. Right?

When I read about the riots in France and also some stories and statements from people living in the ghettos/suburbs there, I saw it like this; these are people who have been abused and now they strike back. Yes, I think it is that simple.

Anyone who has been a victim of abuse, either it is bullying in the schoolyard, incest, rape, torture, physical, mentally, whatever, knows that it creates a volcano of pent up aggression inside. This aggression is more often than not, turned inwards. Women who have been sexually abused when they were girls become 'bad women', yes, even prostitutes. They castigate themselves and their bodies, abusing themselves even worse than the molester did. The same is the case with the victim of bullying in the schoolyard. As one of them I can tell you that. A solution is to turn into a real bad boy, because nothing else creates respect - but inside you're burning of an aggression which is eating away on you. It turns into self-destructive behaviour.

But it can also turn the other way at times; it can flare up in a blind rage towards everyone and anything that might be in the way.

To me, it is rather easy to see that this is exactly the case with the riots in France. Anyone who can't see it, is either ignorant or blind to facts. The molester pretends to be innocent. What, me? I haven't done anything! 'He/she just became mad all of a sudden! People like that should not be allowed to be among us!

Whole populations are in denial. We are innocent. We haven't done anything wrong.

At best, they can claim that they haven't done anything. That is exactly the problem.

Also in the schoolyard, the actual bullies are few, but those who form a circle around them and their victims, cheering and leering are more and those turning their backs are even more.

Looking back and thinking of Norway in the near past, before 1970, it was supposed to be innocent. People got upset when hearing about the racism in USA, about lynching etc. Something which is totally forgotten now, is that, at the same time, people from Northern Norway were the 'niggers' when moving south, looking for a better life, often inspired by recruiting campaigns initiated by the industry. It was actually quite ordinary to read ads in the newspapers about rooms and flats to let - Northern Norwegians not wanted! I remember reading such ads as late as 1972 when I was looking for a room in Oslo.

The irony of it all is of course that the same attitudes were prevalent in Northern Norway, turned towards the Sami and the descendants of Finnish immigrants - and within the Sami culture, the Mountain Sami looked down at the Coastal Sami and in Finland they looked down at the Rom and the Sami etc. etc.

Anyway, back in Norway the Pakistani came and took the brunt and we were white people again. I worked and lived together with some of the first Pakistani immigrants then and they were all, without an exception, hard workers and very nice and supportive people, friendly and trustworthy. But how were they treated? As scumbags, as criminals, as inferior beings - that is how. This was in little Norway and the ones treating them thus, were ordinary Norwegians.

Imagine then how it has been in France.

Seeing how people don't understand how this could happen, makes me dumbfounded. The stupidity of mankind is overwhelming and entirely solid, as an armoured concrete wall.

We get what we deserve. We haven't stopped the molesters when we could. At best we have turned our backs. We reap what we sow.

Brief visit to Ye Olde Battlefield...

Nothing much to report from the art scene what with the holidays coming up and preparations for it. I will have an exhibition here in Viseu between January 4 and 31 but I will come back to that later.

Now, a digression.

Ye Olde Battlefield is that one where users of Macintoshes stands against the vast army of Windows-users.

You see, I just read again some aggressive reactions to the success Apple has had lately with the iPods and iTunes and that always make me so puzzled. Why is it that the same people who seems to be personally offended by Apple's success, all the time find it quite natural that one single company and one single operative system completely dominates the market and has done so for years? That lies beyond my understanding. Is it something psychological? It is just like they feel threatened in some way or other. Their reactions are completely out of proportions.

Imagine a situation where owners of Volvos took it almost as a personal insult that other people actually prefers BMWs.

Another thing which is hard to understand is how it is repeatedly stated that Apple is limiting choice by binding customers to their prioritary solutions. The same critics of this -it might be valid in itself - obviously have no problem that Microsoft actually do the same and very often narrows it down to one OS only. But of course, when that OS has become synonymous with OS at all, it is perhaps not so strange...

Meanwhile, the rest of us - which seem to be increasing in numbers lately - can only hope that the world in this aspect, will eventually return to normal.

As it is now, I sometimes have the feeling of living in a kind of science fiction dystopia where most people are controlled and dominated by a dark force, to such an extent that they are ready to attack anyone or anything which seems to threaten the force. Then there is this small guerilla fighting it, consisting of the only free spirits left in the world! Hahaha!

Well, let us hope that some day the dark force will lose its strangulating grip on most computer-owners and that they will be able to raise their heads and look around to make a choice according to their free will and not according to what the force has made them to believe is normal:) When there is not only one OS and a couple of resistance pockets belonging to other OSes, but a multitude of options to choose amongst. That is what is normal.

A web gallery

There. Finally done! I have uploaded a web gallery with 54 of the paintings I have produced since September - with the exception of one - Rhythms - which is an oil I started the autumn/winter I moved here, in 1999, but only finished in 2003. The rest are acrylics and from the last 2-3 months. There are more, of course and new ones coming every week.

Was it Picasso who said that any artist worth his or hers name should paint at least one painting per day? I tend to believe that there might be something in it. I have deliberately slowed it down to a few per week, since I haven't sold anything so far and paint, varnish and canvases have their price as well. I can afford it, but need to step slightly on the brake.

Anyway, the gallery is found here.

Enjoy!

The images might be a bit too large to view on very small monitors, like on smaller laptops, but...

Phases, periods and the abstract

musikk/music
Originally uploaded by Wilfred Hildonen.

One day I realized something about the art I am producing; I am actually working through 'periods' or 'phases' of my art, the way it is widely believed all artists since Picasso do. I have always been doubtful to such statements, seeing it as something on the pretentious side, but now it seems like I am going through the same.

It is not totally true, however, that I haven't been aware of this before. I knew it when I started to paint, in 1982 (until then I had been working almost only in black and white, sketching and drawing or just doodling:). That was the first time I attended to a serious of lectures on modern art history, performed by Arne Klingborg in Sweden. I say 'performed' because that was what he did, actually, aside from giving all the facts.

Anyway, I set out on a quest, almost, in search of the true abstract expression. I soon realized that I more or less unconsciously began to imitate the impressionists and expressionists - in my very own manner, of course, but none the less. This lasted for the entire two years I spent in Järna, Sweden. It was not something I deliberately set out to do but I realized that something like this was the case when I looked at the results of what I was doing.

Abstract. To the majority it may seem as the simplest thing to do, paint abstract. Why, even a child can do that, right? The truth is that it isn't so easy. First, let us try to take a closer look at what it is about.

Art as painting or the production of any image, takes place on a two-dimensional surface. Depth in this form is nothing but an illusion, mostly, created by perspective. But there is another sensation of depth, the one which one sense by looking at colours 'confronting' each other.

As I see it, in the first case by the help of the central perspective, it is only a question of illusion, refined tricks to fool the eye. I am not so sure whether it is an illusion when it comes to the depth of colours, however. We cannot talk about spatial, 3-dimensional depth, of course, but isn't there another depth which is just as valid? Like we talk about thoughts as having depth, as well. That is not an illusion, either, not in the same way as the visual tricks played by applying perspective lines to an image is.

I think that abstract art is an attempt to find the true depth, the one which lies in the colours themselves. Colours are no longer a mere tool to try to depict some object from 'reality' as we know and love and hate it, but they do have a reality of their own and that is what we are trying to find, working with the abstract.

Objects and forms are only distractions here and we need to come away from them. Maybe we shall return to them, though. Never say never. But perhaps it will be objects and forms determined by colour, ruled and shaped by colour?

Art is related to scientific research in this way, yet very different in the sense that we cannot expect to find empiric results. Everything has to remain floating, indecisive, uncertain, doubtful, probing - thus it can be seen as a valuable commentary to science, a reminder of something which is important to maintain when we are claiming to have found the truth. The only solution. This cannot exist in art. Art is forever moving, but like science, it is trying to uncover the obvious to reveal what lies underneath.

Now, back to what I mentioned about the difficulty in arriving to the pure abstract. We have so many objects in our mind. It is overpopulated with shadows of objects, memories of objects, although behind them are other 'things' moving. If we are honest to what we create, we cannot just skip these objects, these figures but have to render them down to the surfaces we are working on - until we finally, one day, have managed to free ourselves from them and have reached the pure abstract. The colours in themselves, floating, moving, billowing, undulating, vibrating, always striving to reach a form, but a form which is not created by matter but by light and darkness.

I feel that I have finally reached that stage, after frantically painting my way through objects and away from them. That is what I have been working on so far. Now commences the interesting part.