Alexander Wolfheze – Polaris (7) Art Wars with A Special Guest Rob Scholte
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Polaris (7) Art Wars with A Special Guest Rob Scholte
Links
Charles Dailey s Essay
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/art-appreciation-is-not-learned/
Rob Scholte s Web Site
https://robscholtemuseum.nl
Art and Beauty
The group discussed Charles Dailey s article on Art and its beholders, focusing on the debate over what constitutes True Art versus modern interpretations. Rob Scholte, A Dutch Artist, praised the Article for highlighting how knowledge about an Artist s background doesn T affect the intrinsic quality of their Work. Charles Dailey emphasized that True Art should be immediately recognizable as Beautiful, without requiring explanation or academic interpretation. Hans Vogel suggested that the rise of Modern Abstract Art could be linked to social class dynamics, noting that the petite bourgeoisie often sought to participate in elite cultural experiences. Alexander Wolfheze argued that there is A “War on Beauty” being waged, with authentic Art and Philosophy, traditionally defined by the pursuit of absolute Beauty and Goodness, being undermined by Modernity. The following discussion touched upon how Contemporary Art often prioritizes novelty over Beauty, with some forms of Art being used more to shock audiences than to create A lasting Artistic effect. The panel also debated the monetization of Art, with Charles Dailey arguing that pricing cannot reflect the intrinsic value of A Work, and the shift away from traditional Aesthetic standards caused by mass consumer culture.
Art and Definition
The group discussed the definition and boundaries of Art, particularly in relation to controversial pieces such as Maurizio Cattelan s banana, duct-taped to A wall. Charles Dailey argued that not all promoted Art Works deserve to be considered Art, suggesting that True Art is defined by Harmony and proportion, rather than its function of criticizing society or seeking attention. Sietze Bosman argued that Art categories must have clear boundaries, though Rob Scholte disagreed: he believes that Art can sometimes challenge traditional definitions and open doors for other perception forms. The discussion remained unresolved, with different perspectives on what constitutes legitimate Art.
Art and Function
The group discussed the function of Art, with Charles Dailey emphasizing that learning from something doesn T automatically qualify that something as Art. Alexander Wolfheze proposed that True and High Art can also incorporate negative contemporary realities like pain and evil, referencing European the Art tradition of incorporating the passion of Christ in A larger transcendent vision and suggesting that Rob Scholte s work can also be fitted into this later tradition. Sietze Bosman noted that the average person s understanding of Art is based on lived experience, concrete function, rather than intellectual grasp, abstract definition, pointing to the distinction between Craftsmanship and Art itself.
Art and Art Critique
The group discussed art criticism, with Charles Dailey arguing that judgment should focus on the Artwork itself rather than the Artist’s personal qualities. Rob Scholte emphasized the importance of personal intuition and experience in determining what constitutes Art, while Charles Dailey pointed to the contrast between enduring traditional symbols, evolving organically over time, versus the modern attempt to create new Art forms without reference to these. Many participants agreed that if something makes people feel uncomfortable and repulsed, it may not be genuine Art, regardless of official classification.
Polaris Ep. 7 – Art Wars by Alexander Wolfheze
Introduction: Charles Dailey – Special guest: Rob Scholte
Hello dear audience of the Polaris podcast for another episode. Today we are discussing Dr. Charles Daly’s article on the European Conservative and it is about art and art and its beholders. It’s the people that perhaps want to make the case that art is art because it is so, because there is a story to it that
If there is ugliness, we can talk our way into beauty. This is the main thesis of his article, and we are going to discuss it. The panel tonight will be Alexander Wolfhese, Hans Vogel, Charles Daly, of course, and we have a very special guest today, which is Rob Scholten. Rob is a very well-known artist from the Netherlands,
and we are quite honored that he is joining our podcast. So I’d like to begin with Rob if he would like to make his first comments on Charles’ article.
Yeah, I thought we were already running the show when I was speaking with Charles a few moments ago. But I will try to repeat best as I can. I think it’s an important article and I really enjoyed reading it. because it opens up certain venues that were not open until now.
The whole discussion about art in such a way, how is the first view, the first vision that you have about the artwork and how it enters your brain and it never changes again. That is something that I also found remarkable in Charles’ article. This has not changed. My first impression was always also my last impression.
And the whole idea that knowledge gives you something more about the artwork, certain information that you get. Okay, Van Gogh cut off his ear. And that’s why he made such crazy, remarkable paintings. This, of course, has nothing to do with the quality of a work of art.
A work of art is, in principle, totally independent from the maker. It gets more hallucinating if you know certain stories. But the work itself is still that work of art that you notice and that you see in the museum or the gallery or in the newspaper. Because, of course, there’s a very important,
an extra element that got in since Walter Benjamin, the the whole idea of reproduction. And I think that changes the artwork as well. It gets more equal to news and to information that you get across these channels. But that is a big revolution, I think, that’s taking place now. Most artworks are not seen in reality.
There are queues in front of the Mona Lisa. So if you have an experience with a lot of people next to you, But the newspaper stays still the way that you can enjoy your first impression of artwork. But the problem is, of course, that it’s printed in certain printing colors, the yellow, blue, red and white and black.
That’s it, what you get. And it’s points over each other that gives the image a sort of pontilism. OK. Of course, real artworks are not pontilistic. Some are, Seurat and others, but in principle, they don’t exist out of dots. So you can see that this is exceptional, but also these things, I think,
I don’t know if you want to make a book out of it, Charles, but I think there are a lot of things that you can put extra in it because there’s a lot of information. And I really look forward to the three pages that you said that it was longer and
especially what you wanted yourself that others didn’t allow you to publish. I think that will be a big gift extra. And I think this is already a big gift. So thank you. There’s something like this I want to say.
Very nice. Thank you. I appreciate that. Charles, would you like to already respond to Rob’s comments?
Well, I can say a couple of things right off. He mentioned news. And I think that there’s an obsession today among many so-called artists with making progress or creating something that’s new, novel. So the idea of creating something beautiful or revealing beauty has sort of taken a step back from the forefront of art creation,
whereas now it’s what can I create that advances, presents something new to the public they’ve never seen before or reveals an idea that they need to think about. It’s more like a progressive, strict pedagogical approach to art rather than revealing the harmonies of the universe or a proper balance in the universe,
which is what I think most traditional art is about.
Yes. Classic art is about those principles always. Also modern classic art has the same principle, I think. But new, it is really strange that you form the word news into new, because it’s a different word. And new has to do, I think, with the fact, the age that we are in,
that I and the colleagues that I had around me always have seen art as something that was made in the past. And it offered itself, but almost everything was done. There was, okay, a banana in an art space, auction, whatever. Of course, I forgot the name of the artist.
You know, probably by the artist that put a banana with the tape on the wall. You remember your article? I forgot the name.
I don’t remember. Was it Duchamp? I can’t remember right now, actually.
I have to remember. I will look for it.
A lot of these, you know, I look at these and they don’t impress me, of course, except it’s being ridiculous. And so I don’t try to remember the names of these so-called artists because I don’t
consider them artists. He is quite good, this guy. I have a girlfriend. I had a girlfriend years ago. She had her own gallery, Diana Stichter in Amsterdam. And this guy came. And he took a week to work on an exhibition in that gallery. And finally, the two girls, because there were two girls,
came and arrived to see the produced exhibition. And they found that the whole gallery was empty. There was nothing left. So no desks, no books, no administration. He had taken everything. And what he wanted to present was this empty gallery. That was the artwork. OK, this is crazy.
But on the other hand, I had a big laugh that I heard about it. Because he was so serious about many things. But see,
this is one of the points I make in my article is it’s almost like some of these individuals think they’re the master and they’re testing everyone else to see if they can figure out what they’re thinking. And they’re calling that art. It’s essentially pretentious. Instead of trying to master themselves, they’re trying to lord themselves over the public.
Yeah, that’s my opinion.
Yeah, they are authoritarian towards the public. I mean, if you enter Robin Winters, fellow artist, you probably know. He did the same thing in a gallery, the Apple B Smalls in Amsterdam. There was Marina Abramo, which she debuted there. And I remember that his artwork was that he asked everybody who came, all the visitors,
to give their purse to him and all the value books. Then he ran off with all the valuables and the guys were sitting in the bed. He was completely crazy. You remember that? I remember that. I know Robert personally, but I asked myself if I would do a piece like that.
I think I would not, as a matter of fact.
How can all these people pranksters, not artists?
Yeah, you could say that. Well, in a way, they also belong to the whole field because art, I think it’s very difficult to say what art has to be and what art cannot be. So I would not reject them, you understand, even if you call them pranksters. I think maybe the prank means more than just a prank.
You understand that it’s a human being who is doing these interventions. Same with the empty gallery, same with all the purses stolen. So I have difficulties saying it’s only that you call it certain words. You have certain words for it. And I have difficulties calling, because I know Robin, and I know what he does, and I know…
Now, you can say the same with Marina Abramovic. We don’t have to talk about…
I would say one of the goals of postmodern art is this ultra-subjectivism where you can’t really tell the difference between art and non-art.
I think that’s what they’re striving for. You think that’s postmodern? I think so, yeah. For me, it’s postmodern after the modernity. So there is a sort of developing line of history. And then people started to paint expressionistic again, and it went into the stream. And I think these actions can be, well,
revolting in a certain environment where people expect certain things. If you only want to look at Norris Weiner or Lubbeiner, or you look at the radical hard-edge paintings or something, You find the dead museum. You cannot enter there. There’s nothing left for you as a viewer. You cannot fantasize. There’s nothing to fantasize about.
And I think that is one of the problems. It’s authoritarian in its relationship to the public. And that’s what you mean, I think. But I agree that they are sort of pranksters, yes. But it’s not only pranksters. They have also other works. It’s part of their whole philosophy and development.
No, I wouldn’t say they’re all pranksters, but that’s one category of individuals who call themselves artists. Political activists are another category, people who call themselves artists. And I mean, you can be both. But that doesn’t mean that all art is political expression. It seems like a lot of people have begun to think, or some people have.
Absolutely, absolutely. I think you have to make reliable art. Whatever step you take, it shall be reliable. It shall really be a next step, putting something next to the other things you made. So without that, I could not produce, I think.
It’s also unpopular to claim that art is objective. I mean, you know, you’re considered naive to believe that art can be objective about objective values that need to be expressed, that should be expressed, and to reveal something that’s essential to all human beings.
Now, you said something about truth in the end of the article. Truth, there’s a statement about truth. Art doesn’t have to be true. It can also align to you, probably.
No, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that.
Art does have to be true.
I’m not sure which signature.
Two words you acknowledge. There are two words next to each other. Truth and there’s another one that typifies the real art in Europe.
Well, I think what Charles meant is the art that approximates the concepts of beauty and goodness. Or truth and goodness.
Goodness was the word. Truth and goodness. Sorry about goodness. Yeah, I think that’s an expression of our being, who we are. In principle, we are harmonious. with nature and our fellow citizens, right? And there’s a lot of people who have a different approach and misuse the fact that the principal artist is relied upon. And that is misuse,
I think, of the relationship that is built over the centuries, in my opinion. Yes, yes.
All right, so Alexander or Hans, would one of you like to make their comments now on Charles’ article? Hans? You’re muted.
You have no microphone. Put your microphone on.
First of all, I would like to thank Charles for his great article. I really liked it. And you say things that were monotonous, but I liked it because it says things that must be said, needed to be said. And it’s very insightful. And as I was reading it and thinking about it,
And I thought maybe there’s something, a broader framework that can help explain the issue. And that is this, because we’re talking here especially about the visual arts. And I think the visual arts have long been the exclusive domain of the elite. I think average people out there in the street, the proletariat, the people working in the fields,
living in the countryside, would never be exposed to art except perhaps a church painting on Sundays, they would see on Sunday, or a sculpture of the Virgin Mary or whatever, a fresco. But the only thing in art they would be exposed to was really ballads and music, traditional music that they were used to. That’s all.
But I cannot think of anything in individual arts that they would be familiar with. And then this remained so until the middle of the 19th century. And then we get the Industrial Development, Industrial Revolution. we get also developing for the middle classes art visual arts was something new you
keep the french impressionists and the the precursors and then people would be more exposed to art than before and also um art began to develop in many different directions and then you get of course um a the the petty bourgeoisie um people in
the bourgeoisie who were ambitious and who also wanted to partake in in in the in the the lifestyle of the elite. And I think the petty bourgeoisie with their pretensions and their sort of deep insecurity, which they would overshout, they’re the people who are the public for artists like Jackson Pollock and pranksters, modern-day pranksters.
That’s the kind of public. So it’s also a social phenomenon, a political social phenomenon. Very much. That’s what I would like to add to this discussion. Perhaps you would comment on that or agree with me, disagree with me. Please go ahead.
I was teached that expression is especially Jackson Pollock and Rothko and all the guys. that they were, in principle, hired by the CIA as an operation to make a sort of freedom movement in the US, contrary to the Soviet regime, where there was censorship on all fronts, where they were not allowed to make paintings like that.
And I think it succeeded very well, wonderfully well, also for the guys itself that were part of it. But this is, I think, a pre-planned operation that happened. I don’t know about which other art had the same, but there I had really great articles that are also published on my website, you can read them, about this connection.
But I agree that what you said, it is more public. That has also to do, I think, with television and our interconnectivity between us also, that we can talk here with the computer, right?
I think that a lot of postmodern art is simply critique, and it’s become popular to equate critique with art. And I would say that critique is not art. It’s at least not great art. And you have the same movement in art as you’ve had in philosophy, where you’ve gone to something post-philosophy,
which is supposed to replace it because philosophy is, quote, dead. And now people want to say that art is dead, and we’ve gone to post-art. well, what is this mess that we’re creating now? It’s not art and it’s not philosophy, and why should we pay attention to it? If it’s not revealing eternal values,
what is the point of just seeing an endless series of opinions being expressed from all these vantage points if it’s not revealing the harmony that connects all of us together? That’s what I would ask. Because I would say that communal projects like Gothic cathedrals or Buddhist temples,
I would say that almost every human being thinks those are beautiful as soon as they see them. They don’t need to think about it. They don’t need to understand the experience of the creator and what socioeconomic class he came from or what abuse he suffered at his parents’ or his friends’ hands or something like that.
All of that’s completely irrelevant as to whether that is great art, in my opinion. And I think that sort of in the late 19th and 20th century, humans who call themselves artists increasingly got sucked further down into this mire of psychoanalysis and making that into art, calling it art as self-expression.
It is not group work normally. So you can build a temple and a cathedral not with your own hands. So you have to use more people. So it has no individuality or personality that’s really behind it. You can make the design, the architect,
but uh yeah i would say it still has personality in the sense that jesus has
personality but jesus is god in christianity it’s god as personality which is perhaps the highest form of deity so i would say that things like a gothic you know charter cathedral or anchor what have personality even though they’re created by multiple individuals and like like you said in your interview i mean you had these industries like in
what, the 1600s and 1700s in the Netherlands and stuff of creating the base for whatever Dutch artists you’re thinking about. So there were multiple people involved in creating those works as well that they turned out to be what I would call great art. I think most people, as they see them, would think that they’re great art.
In the modern art, I think it’s a really habit to work with assistants. And a lot of them, if you look at Frank Stella, there are 20 assistants, 30 assistants running around in the studio. Always a special job, yeah. But if there’s an Art in America article, you cannot read about it, you know.
It’s like there’s one person, one personality that carries the whole burden of the work, all the works together. But that’s another problem.
Oh, go ahead.
I think you’re right about this personality of Jesus that tries to express itself in church’s harmonious architecture. And also the public has the same kind of experience that is almost beyond their reach, although they feel the humanity that’s coming out of it. I think you’re right. Completely right. And I enjoy what you say.
It is really very special to hear somebody really pronounce the words that I believe in. So, great.
So, Alexander, would you like to give your comments on Charles’ article, please?
Yes, thank you, Sisa. And also thanks to Charles for a very insightful article. Of course, Charles’ article does nothing but reiterate the traditionalist point of view. which is in fact that art is absolute. So there is nothing relevant relative to it. And it stands for absolute truth and beauty incarnated in another form.
That’s what this art from a traditionalist point of view. When I read this article, I was thinking that this podcast should be called something like probably the art, the war on art, the war on beauty, because that is what we are seeing in front of our eyes. The war on duty has been noted by many people.
It has been accelerating, I think, lately. And I think a few of the basic items of this war, they are, the fact what people are attempting to forget is that, and by the way, also philosophy, are higher in the food chain than power itself. This means that art, has an authority, here we come to the word author,
authorization and authority, higher than any other power structure. Art is a form of power itself. The same applies, by the way, to philosophy. These are forces that are standing above worldly power. They inform it, so power, economics, politics are downstream from art and from philosophy. This is something that people tend to forget.
This is also explains the course of the war on beauty, because of course, if you want to get rid of these authorities that are higher than politics and economics, you have to get rid of what is the essence of art and what is the essence of philosophy, which is the pursuit of beauty, absolute beauty and absolute good.
So, you have to relativize these things. And I think here comes to mind the qualification that a great philosopher, our colleague, Jason Giorgiani, he put on artists. They are the ultimate authority, right? They are the bearer of authority in our society because they are able to shape culture. So the,
of course also philosophers is a prerequisite to modern subversion so modernity can only thrive in a situation in which true art true authority is undermined and I think here we come to a very painful point that has to be acknowledged and this is the existence of an absolute standard an absolute standard of beauty an absolute
standard of goodness an absolute standard of the divine. These things are not logically recognized by people, by the masses. In India, sometimes they were installed by elites. They were probably forced upon the masses of the people as well. And here I like to remind people of this beautiful saying of Globus Davila,
a traditionalist writer who said about the masses, that we should not forget that for the ugly and the bad, the hate for the beautiful and the good is very, very deep. And I think this is what we are seeing as the driving force in this war on beauty and the war on art.
And I think the restatement of absolute calm and absolute categories is something that is probably the most important metaphysical, that has to be re-educated to people. People have to be taught again this thought. And I think the metapolitical struggle of the disciplined rights is also engaged in this.
Our metapolitical struggle has to strive towards the reinstatement of absolute balance and absolute recognition of truth and beauty as such. that cannot be doubt because they are self-evident. Just a small final thought. I’m living in a city that’s called Budapest. Everybody that comes here, whatever class he comes from, whatever nation he comes from,
whatever background he comes from, knows that the city is beautiful and says so. And here I come to the collective nature of art as well. Because in my view, the artist, individual artist, is just somebody that expresses a larger soul, that expresses a larger value system, that expresses collectively held set of recognitions, self-functional recognitions.
So it was not so much designed as well, but rather it organically became. a collective endeavor of the Hungarian nation, or probably of the whole central European civilization, because it was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. And the result is a harmonious whole that has been created by many, many people at the same time,
with many famous people in music, in the visual arts, in literature contributing to it, all at the same time. And it has reflected to the collective back. So the collective in Budapest is a different collective than the collective that lives in other cities. It is a unique collective because it reflects this environment.
And I think if people are walking through streets here, they, for example, can still see ladies with a little doggy dressed very beautifully in high heels, something that in the Western cities, you can hardly see because there are only two fat ladies and people with blue hair.
And here you can still see a gentleman being dressed in a town with a hat, with a walking stick. Something that has also been driven from the West. And I think this has to do with the fact that the city itself is a subconscious form of life that is art itself.
And I think that this reality, it is not something that can be argued with. It just is. It is a living form of art as well. the urban life that exists in Budapest. It existed also before in other cities, of course, even more so probably in Vienna and in Berlin. But I think that there, in those cities,
it has been destroyed by this war on beauty, by this war on art. That’s what I wanted to say.
Thank you. So I would like to add my own two cents here. And I think that there is a combination going on here. At one point, there is perhaps a war against beauty, but there is also the effect of the rise of the mass man, as Ortega y Gasset would say. So where art, as Hans already said,
was basically the play garden of wealthy, wealthy people and of the elites of the, of the nobility, let’s say. And then we had the rise of the masked man and the masked man. in history was always shown what beauty and goodness and art is. And they had no conception of it in and out of themselves.
It is exactly why they are ordinary and the exceptional were part of the elite in general. And, um, So the fact that we have 7-Eleven and Starbucks and McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken on every street corner is not just the result of handy marketing. It is also the result of the desires of the masked man.
This is what they want. This is what their desires are. And if there’s no elite in charge of society that demands that… places are beautiful, that architecture is beautiful, that city centers are beautiful places that reflect the greatness of the nobility, then everything reverts downward to the low standard of the mass man.
So I think it’s a two-pronged problem that there is an actual war, but there is also something that is innate in the nature of ordinary man. But here I find myself… puzzling a bit because there still is the innate ability within these masses and mass men to recognize beauty.
I mean, tourism is a hobby of the mass people. And where do they go? They go to places where there is immense beauty, like the Sistine Chapel, like the Quirillo statue of the fishnet, to the amazing fountains in Rome. to the pyramids of Giza they go to all these places of beauty and they recognize
beauty because it speaks to them without language it moves something in their spirit in their internal being that they understand that they are dealing with beauty and yet they are utterly incapable of producing it themselves so that’s what I would like to add so I think perhaps Rob would like to add some comments on what
we have all said
Yeah, I’m thinking what to say. I mean, yeah, really. There are words that you use that are quite, the whole sentences that you make are quite big in its consequences. So I try to get used to the consequences, that’s it.
All right, so I have a, yes, if you’re still thinking, then I have another little tidbit to add. And that is, there’s a very interesting guy called Alfred Korzybski, and he wrote a book called Science and Sanity. And one of his famous quotes is that language is merely a map of the terrain and not terrain itself,
meaning that language and terrain and reality are isomorphic. But the conclusion of that is that if a reality has exactly the same qualities as language, we must infer reality is a type of language. And I think that art, beautiful art that speaks straight to the human soul, has qualities that match this language of reality,
the harmonious mathematical precision of nature, basically, of reality.
Correct. Yeah, I’m sorry, but it’s correct, I think. I don’t know how to react to these words. I think you have to see that we are not allowed to see the reality at any time. It is close for us. So it’s kept away. There’s no speaking about it. There’s no publishing about it. There’s no.
And then you come to the life of Jesus, for instance, and the total conscience and the harmony with life and your coexisting humans. I think that is the center, and I think we are made to be people who want to have things, to not see things, but have things.
The value of art is really extremely deforming for all our good hope, let’s say, our hope of goodness. And that’s all around. It’s not only art, but it’s everywhere. And of course, elites that program you in such a way. I don’t know how you see this.
Well, I’d like to add a little bit. The painting that you guys already mentioned, or I mean the artwork of the banana being taped to the wall, it was actually recently sold for an astronomic amount of money. I forgot, but it was countless millions. But, you know,
the idea that art can be expressed in terms of money is to the traditionalists, I think, revolting because the work I mentioned by Quirillo, this statue out of a single block of marble that has a fishnet in it. You cannot put any price on it because it is seven years labor of a man working a
solid piece of marble stone into one of the most amazing pieces of artwork humanity has ever seen. And there’s this other statue of, I think it’s called Veiled Isis. It’s a woman. who has a veil over her face. It is carved from solid stone, yet the veil looks translucent.
I mean, how on earth are you going to put a monetary value on that? And I think that’s another distinction between what Charles calls phony art or fake art and real art.
All art has a price, right? So you cannot really get out of the system or you have to stop making art. Because it’s in the character of art to produce money. And if it’s not for the artist himself, often not, then it’s for the one who collects it. So I think there’s no art without money.
And I love art that is different. You maybe see it differently.
I would disagree with that.
I hope so. I really hope you can.
I think that’s a 20th century perspective. I mean, I would say that. The 20th century art, things that you can move around easily and sell.
That can also be more difficult. As compared,
again, to ancient architecture that was made for the community and that had a metaphysical cause. I mean, today, a lot of academics take for granted that first principles are economic or political. I would say, even if they don’t say it out loud, so everything can be reduced to economics and classes of society instead of metaphysical.
And so they want to reduce things to monetary terms. But of course, in any age, the same piece of art can go for a different amount depending on the mindset of the person who buys it or bids on it. So I think it has really nothing to do with the artwork,
whatever amount some particular human puts on it.
But it has to do with the public and how they can see it, for sure. And also, OK.
There is something that you should keep in mind, and this is the traditionalist tenet. And we can agree on it or not agree on it, but the tenet is that art is absolute in the sense that the two art expresses absolute, namely true beauty and happiness.
And I would like to illustrate this point for people that do not understand this. True beauty and true beauty is found in other points in creation as well. So artist is just a co-creator of God in a certain way, right? But God puts the music part of creation or an artist is able figuratively to
express part of creation. He is co-creating in a certain sense. And the creator, God, says, of course, take beauty and truth in many things, not only in human lands, in art. I think nature can be truly majestic, awe-inspiring, beauty, and treat this self-evident. And I also like to remind people that we are absolutely beauty that exists, woman.
We’re not talking about the blue-haired man walking in the street bouchered skin due to tattoos and to piercings, and who has been destroying herself for the art, the art form of the war on beauty. But I think woman itself, you can compare it to art, because also she can be bold, yes?
If you really do your best, you can probably buy a woman. You won’t have a result that was intended, perhaps. But it is a monetary aspect tool if you really insist upon it. On the other hand, it is also for its own sake.
So the beauty is still there, even if there is nobody to behold it, except for God himself. And the same thing is true for goodness. Goodness can be expressed also in a human form. And this goodness has no price, and it has no value.
And I think here we come to the essence of the war on beauty and the war on goodness, which is And I think what people are trying to do, who are buying this new Mumbai, this system that is ruling us, I call it the globalist elite. These people are systematically inverting beauty and goodness,
transposing them and inverting them in a literal sense. So many art forms are being literally flood down the toilet in certain cases. And the same applies, I think, on a very large scale. So inclusion of innocence, goodness, and beauty is also something that keeps this elite alive. It is a vampiric elite.
It derives its energy from the goodness and the beauty that it destroys. I think we should also forget this because even if We can have a discussion here about this. This is a process that is visibly going all around us.
Mauricio Catalan is the name of the artist. The artist with the banana. The banana artist. Mauricio Catalan. Sorry, I had to find the name.
I think the guy who bought it took off the banana from the wall and then ate it. Isn’t it true?
Who’d be? If you couldn’t still eat it after such a time.
You know how they don’t want to share the names of these mass shooters because it makes them famous? I have the same approach to these non-artists. I don’t even like to speak their name, if not necessary. Because we’re showing someone who doesn’t deserve to be talked about, really.
It’s also a responsibility, a name, and it is a claim.
He also made a statue of Hitler as a young boy, which is really very nice, which I saw in an exhibition in Portugal. So, he can do some things that are nice, sort of humorous.
You really don’t respect artists who make things like this? No. No?
It was nice to see, but it was not great art.
Yeah, sure. I don’t know about his entire corpus of work, so I suppose I can’t judge everything that this person’s created. But I do wonder at his motives overall, if he presents things like the banana duct tape to a wall as art, then what are his motives for the other works of art?
He’s an entrepreneur. That’s it. Like Damien Hirst, I think.
I think it’s too easy to talk this way about it. There’s more happening. I think everybody is free to make what he wants to make and should just carry responsibility for those works that he creates, right? Oh,
I agree that everyone’s free to make what they want to make, but don’t accept the public to call it art.
Marcel Duchamp, for you, is also just a toilet, let’s say. Or is that different?
Again, it goes back to what I was saying about art is not commentary or criticism. It’s not the same thing. It’s expressing harmonious attributes of the universe, which I think a lot of ancient art and architecture and medieval art and architecture did, and some modern art also. Like Sitzé was talking about, it has to do with proportion,
a geometry, and not simply trying to criticize your society or present some political perspective in a negative light or a positive light.
I think it’s excluding a lot of work. It is. I don’t like that so much.
But the other extreme is to accept all of it as art and to make the word art meaningless because so many things count as art.
No, that’s not true. It doesn’t dismiss the real works that have that harmony you describe. I mean, it’s still there next to these pieces, even more fissional, probably.
Sometimes… I mean, Heidegger talked about great art. I would say that people make things constantly all the time. I would say that a quilt that some woman makes in her town and no one ever sees is more work or art than the banana duct tape to a wall just because he had promoters
And he was a part of the art community and he had connections. And so then we had to submit ourselves to this and think that it’s art as opposed to this lady who’s not known at all making a quilt or some other kind of thing in her hometown that only a few people may see.
That’s more art in my opinion.
Yeah, I think that’s too narrow-minded for me, at least, because I think there are…
I think it’s narrow-minded to accept anything that goes into an exhibit as art. It’s calling it art just because that person has connections.
What do you want then? Only to show pieces that are harmonious according to your view?
Well, I think it’s naive to not realize that the people who are promoted as artists have other connections, not just their talent.
We all have other connections, I think. I think it’s too easy to describe it this way or to reject it for this reason.
Well, I think Charles has a very important point, and that is if we, you know, art as a word is, of course, a category. And if we accept that art is a category, then there must be boundaries. Something is art or not art, and it has to fit into the category or not.
So at some point, there is a point where we have to say, well, this is no longer art.
I agree. I think sometimes art also makes freeze the way for other art. If you look at like a toilet in a museum as action, you can tell many things about it. The one thing it did, it made the use of normal objects in a museum possible for others who made real art, in my opinion.
And I would not reject those things. There are certain things that people shall experience. And also to see that there is only because the name art is given to it in a museum, it becomes art, sure. But for me, it wasn’t important for my development, you know, so I cannot really close these out or something. Hell no.
I learned a lot from these people, even from Robin Winters, who stole the money from his visitors. I mean, there are things that go over borders, but at the same time, they learn what you don’t want, for instance, what you don’t like and what you don’t accept. I would not exclude it. at all. I would allow everything.
Because now, because if you don’t, I mean, what do you get then? Sort of very dogmatic and ugly world, I think. Even if you only go for harmonic pieces, who are you to decide is harmonic? And who is the other one? You know, I have problems with it.
Well, the art community is who’s deciding right now. That’s dogmatic as well. Instead of regular people, average people. That’s equally dogmatic. It’s just presented as not being dogmatic. I remember what I said in the essay that I still learn from things that I don’t call art, but just learning from something doesn’t make it work of art.
I can be curious. I can be curious about an object. I can think of it, but that doesn’t make it a work of art.
Well, probably you’re right, but I don’t want to accept it.
You understand?
You’re probably completely right, but there’s… Many things, or maybe I just learned from it, but I also admired certain people who did certain things, and they took risks. Art is a difficult thing to judge easily, I think. There are many sides of every statement or every concept. Well, there are points.
here, from a traditionalist point of view, which might explain how you can combine with what you have said. All high art also could not use this to .
Alexander, sorry to interrupt, but could you please speak a bit more in your microphone? You’re very difficult to understand.
Can you hear me better now?
Yes, yes. Okay.
I wanted to propose the following. Let’s say that high art also incorporates ugliness and evil. So let’s look at European art. If you look at the crucifixion, which is a theme that is referred in European art, or Stabat martyrs, These are kind of themes that incorporate evil and otherness to the exponential degree.
So does the Johannes Passion, St. John’s Passion written by Bach. Pain and evil is actually incorporated in it. And I think Rob has a point in the sense that the artist has a task to come to the realities of his day. What does that mean in our modern day? What does that mean?
That means that all the evil and the ugly that we are seeing around us, which is arguably greater than ever before, has to be at some point or another amalgamated into that high art canon. So it has to become part of high art. It has to be incorporated, literally transcendent, transcendent in an active way.
So it has to be done with it. It has to be overcome in a certain way. incorporated into European art. How do we do that? And I think, in his art, as far as I can look at it, he has done that. He has come to terms with part of the modern reality in a very,
I would say, transcendent way, because the value system that European art has, I see it back in Rob Stolper’s art. So the passion, the theme of the Christ, reference themes as well, many classical themes. I see them back. And I think the end result is, of course, not yet known.
And how this incorporation process takes place is not for us to answer because the process is not yet finished. So it is a work of art in the world, right, naturally. And I think maybe this, the subject that I
well you know it is a very fascinating question of course what is art and what is not but let’s say who are we to judge but I think that is one of the main points of Charles’ article it is not about judging it is about experiencing And if we would ask, you know, the average Joe,
what is art and what is not, he will reject things like bananas taped to a wall or, you know, a pack of noodles painted gold or used tampons strung up in a room. He will reject those things as being art. And he will look at paintings of Rembrandt or Vermeer and say, that is art. You know, even…
Even Van Gogh, they would, to a certain height, say, well, this isn’t art. It’s just too plastic, too coarse, too undefined. And of course, the average Joe hasn’t even words to describe why he thinks something is art and not. It is exactly the lived experience that informs him on the beauty.
So there is… Craftsmanship is something else than art. I mean, you can be a craftsman in many ways.
Yes.
And I think you should distinguish and don’t… I think that’s another modern viewpoint. It’s another viewpoint.
That, again, is a modern viewpoint on art.
Yeah, probably.
If you take that perspective, of course.
That’s important to… And if we’re not…
Wants to judge who is, going back to what you said earlier.
Yeah, that’s very… Who’s the judge?
Well, who is the judge? That’s one of my points in the essay. I tell you the people… Nobody in London, Paris, or New York?
No, no, no. It’s not the art critics or the collectors of the art world. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about responsibility. Judgment is very easy if you don’t see all the parts that make the form that you judge. And that is the problem with a lot of people.
I think you can only judge about yourself again. And I think that if you die, that you will do. That is the last judgment. The only judgment that I see happening is how people see themselves when they die. Because your life has ended and it passes by. I mean, sorry, that’s how I see it.
But a lot of things take work in life. And all of these artworks, we can never know all the passion and strife that went into creating, whether it’s a cathedral or something taped to a wall. But none of that is necessary to judge the artwork.
Because a lot of things are created all the time that are not of worth. And work goes into those things, too. And yet they’re not artworks. And so it’s not like we’re judging the person as a bad person because we’ve decided it’s not an artwork. I think that that’s another modern idea.
It’s been conflated with, if you’re judging my work, you’re judging me as a person. I think that’s part of the modern perspective.
Pranksters are pranksters, right? So… You can say many things, but it stays a prankster.
I do like the anonymous, if Banksy is indeed anonymous, that I do like the idea of maintaining anonymity.
Absolutely.
That says a little bit about his character. We’ll see if it stays that way.
Yeah, we think he’s a very good artist. Like the residents, in my opinion, are a very good band. You also don’t know their names. You didn’t know who they were, and you were not allowed to film them. And there’s a big article now in Art News about the real identity of Banksy.
I mean, a lot of people speculate. It’s not so important. He wants to be anonymous. That’s his position. So I think we should respect that. Pure that.
And what Alexander was saying earlier, I agree with. And this is seen in the serpent symbol around the world. You have the incorporation of evil into an overall order of good. And it has its particular place. that people for thousands of years essentially knew what that place was. They knew intrinsically or intuitively.
They didn’t have to study it. And it’s represented in whether Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism. You have a specific relationship with something up against a serpent or a dragon. And this occurs over and over again. And so the whole order is there. It’s presented just like in a mandala.
You know, you have a representation of the universe in Buddhism. Everything is there, the demons, the gods, the humans and everything else. And it’s all incorporated. And people just intuitively used to know that those things work together in a specific way. They didn’t know all of the details. And that was art.
I mean, the order presented itself to their sensibilities as something beautiful. And now art is sort of the reverse of trying to question everything rather than to I guess to stay open to what the order had always been known to be by traditional
peoples I think there’s a lot of confusion a lot of confusion please go ahead I
like the fact that he talks about symbols that are well known in history and have grown in the public mind but it’s still the same now I think we can use those symbols in many ways still we don’t have to use those symbols but we can find our new symbols that represent those. No, you don’t see that.
I would say that’s also modern. You’re thoroughly modern. That’s another perspective that we can create new symbols like that. Traditionalists would say symbols are organically grown over who knows how long, thousands, tens of thousands of years, perhaps. It’s not something we can just create and say, here’s, you know, like Hitler picking the swastika or, you know,
the Soviets having their symbol. And then we’re going to have a new culture because we’ve come up with this new symbolism. I mean, look how far that went in both cases. And there are other cases as well versus the cross or the serpent or, you know, a number of, Geometrical designs from Buddhism, for example.
I think these things sort of grew over time. You can’t point to a person and say this person created this symbol or this group created this particular symbol.
That’s my opinion. We can disagree. I think you have a modern perspective on this. Well, there’s more than we see. That is what is. So I cannot tell if this is the right way and this is new or modern. I don’t consider the word modern so bad for something. I mean,
I read you didn’t like American architecture in a certain way in a certain period, 50s, you said. I mean, I understand that. That is not something I disagree with. But there is more than we see.
It kind of comes down to what is healthy and what is unhealthy. And that could be considered subjective. I mean, like when you see certain things, I think you should trust your… original uh reaction or impulse for the most part you know you see something that’s
called art and it kind of makes you sick is that really art to me that’s not art it can be called art and some people are buffaloed by that that label they’re meant to you know it’s in a building it’s in this important building that’s funded by the
city and you’re all supposed to go there and learn stuff and share it with your family and so who are you to say that’s not art but when you go in there and it makes you sick That’s your organism, which is a product of millions of years of evolution or creation, whatever the case may be,
telling you there’s something wrong here versus this nice building that’s, you know, air conditioned with these guards and so forth. And they’re supposed to tell you what’s wrong, what’s right. I mean, which do you trust? I trust me more than I trust that structure.
Of course.
Of course.
I don’t disagree with that. I trust myself also more than others, especially if it’s well-presented, specialized, accused.
Long lines of people. And I would say, Cissé was right also what he said about Van Gogh. I mean, he’s right on the edge there. I do like Van Gogh’s stuff, but it’s right on the edge of what I would call art.
It doesn’t matter if it’s art or not. If it works.
If it works for what? That’s pragmatic. What does that mean?
If you like it, it’s important. If you appreciate it and like it, I think that’s the crucial… It’s whimsical.
I like a Campbell’s suit cover. That’s very whimsical and entertaining. That doesn’t mean it’s art.
All right. So, yeah, we have been busy for over an hour. And I think that we have had a very interesting discussion about Charles’s article. If there is somebody who has some really pressing, you know, final remarks to make, then please speak them now or forever hold your silence. And this concludes this episode.
And of course, we all welcome you next week to our next episode. I would especially like to thank Rob for joining us for this conversation. I really enjoyed it to have a, you know, not as very much a traditionalist or a non-modern perspective. And yeah, I think it was very nice to have you on board.
Thank you very much. I think it was very pleasant to be with you guys. and talking about the subjects that we talk about. Hey, thank you all.
Thank you.
I love the discussion.
Substack is the home for great culture
alexanderwolfheze.substack.com, Mar 27, 2026
https://alexanderwolfheze.substack.com/p/polaris-ep-7-art-wars?publication_id=2647105&po
Alexander Wolfheze & Hans Vogel – Polaris Interviews (2) Rob Scholte | Image Power
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