Michalis Pichler
1. Conceptual painers are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
2. Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.
3. Irrational judgements lead to new experience.
4. Formal pain is essentially rational.
5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
6. If the painer changes his/her mind midway through the execution of the piece he/she compromises the result and repeats past results.
7. The painer's will is secondary to the process he/she initiates from idea to completion. His/Her wilfulness may only be ego.
8. When words such as sadism and masochism are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the painer who would be reluctant to make pain that goes beyond the limitations.
9. The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.
10. Ideas can be pain; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
11. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed.
12. For each pain that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.
13. A pain may be understood as a conductor from the painer's mind to the receiver/sender's. But it may never reach the receiver/sender, or it may never leave the painer's mind.
14. The words of one painer to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept.
15. Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the painer may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.
16. If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about pain, then they are pain and (not) literature; numbers are (not) mathematics.
17. All ideas are pain if they are concerned with pain and fall within the conventions of pain.
18. One usually understands the pain of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus misunderstanding the pain of the past.
19. The conventions of pain are altered by pain.
20. Successful pain changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.
21. Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.
22. The painer cannot imagine his/her pain, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.
23. The painer may misperceive (understand it differently from the painer) a work of pain but still be set off in his/her own chain of thought by that misconstrual.
24. Perception is subjective.
25. The painer may not necessarily understand his/her own pain. His/Her perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.
26. A painer may perceive the pain of others better than his/her own.
27. The concept of a work of pain may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made.
28. Once the idea of the piece is established in the painer's mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the painer cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.
29. The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.
30. There are many elements involved in a pain. The most important are the most obvious.
31. If a painer uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the painer's concept involved the material.
32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
33. It is difficult to bungle a good idea.
34. When a painer learns his/her craft too well he/she makes slick pain.
35. These sentences comment on pain, but are (not) pain.
bibliography:
Oswald de Andrade, Cannibal Manifesto (also known as Brazilwood Manifesto), 1928
Sol Lewitt, Sentences on Conceptual Art, 0-9, pp. 3-5, New York 1969, and Art-Language (England), May 1969
Kenneth Goldsmith, Paragraphs on Conceptual Pain, Open Letter, Twefth Series, Number 7, pp. 98-101, Ontario 2005