-W.Head-

THE PICASSO MANIFESTO Instagram:#W.Head2016 Email:w.head2016@outlook.com
Manifesto - a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives.

WHAT IS ART TODAY?

Art is many things to many people and continues to change. In this day of technology and social media, the question I pose is: What is Art today?

I have a proposal that makes a statement, a commentary on contemporary culture and society today. My idea rests on the work of many artists that have gone before, and particular pieces of their artwork. These artists attempted to answer the very question of what was the art of their time. While I cannot presume to compare myself to these artists, I will discuss them not from an academic position, but rather from a subjective view of their work, and how it has inspired my own. I also want to discuss their work as the inspiration for my concept and my project.

I call my concept: “The Picasso Manifesto”.

As voyeur you are already participating in this art, if you wish to consume the art please click and continue

PICASSO & POLLOCK

The Value of an Idea

I have often marveled at Art and how it can make you think, how it can change your perceptions. When I was younger, I thought the best artists were those who could make the most realistic art, those who could make their artwork look most like the real world. When I was young, I was amazed that people respected Picasso's art - I saw it as childlike; something anyone could have done. However, his style intrigued me and I wanted to understand why his art was so highly praised, so valuable. With study, I began to appreciate his works in a way that challenged me, both intellectually and emotionally.

I have titled my concept "The Picasso Manifesto" because he was the artist who opened my mind to how art could make me feel and think - and how it could involve me.

Pablo Picasso 1881-1973

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. A single still image, so says the common wisdom, conveys the meaning or essence more easily than a written description of a subject. Pablo Picasso's famous work, Guernica, is a dramatic example of this.

With this example, we can see that Picasso has discarded realism. While truly understanding the work requires a little study, even at a casual glance, it is obvious Picasso is representing, through abstraction, the grotesque nature of war and its effect on society at that time.

The mural Guernica depicts the suffering of the people of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain. The town was bombed heavily by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists.

With symbolism scattered through the image there are a number of emotionally evocative figures prominent in the Mural, the slain soldier and the figure surrounded by flame all demonstrate despair and violence. For me, though, the utter anguish on the mother's face as she clutches her dead child is the most harrowing, capturing an image of pain that words cannot convey.

As I was standing before Picasso's work, I felt a closeness to the artist. The only thing separating us was time: I was standing in the exact same location relative to the piece as Picasso had when he worked on this painting. I was in awe. I started to wonder what it was that makes this painting so important. Is it the composition? Is it the color? No - it was none of those things for me. It was the idea. It was the artist's investigation and exploration of the unique time in space that made this so special. It was not just the art itself but the mind it came from, with provenance of the artists signature.

Jackson Pollock 1912-1956

Jackson Pollack's "Blue Poles" is another piece that fascinates me.

The first time I saw this piece, I thought it was rubbish: a drop sheet for a house painter! Without comprehending the piece, I did what I had done with Picasso and began to look at why Pollock did what he did.

Pollock's technique and palette were very different from earlier artists. His technique of dripping, splashing and pouring paint onto the un-stretched canvas, along with the scale of the painting itself, could be regarded as a performance. Pollock didn't use traditional tools or colours, moving away from the palette of nature, and using sticks and cooking basters, or just pouring paint directly from the can. He believed his abandonment of traditional painting tools reflected the realms of unconscious experience but also responded to contemporary life. As he stated: "The modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any past culture."

It is this quote that interests me in this work. Pollock is clearly intending to express and respond to contemporary life through his art, even though this art is abstract. This statement, for me, associates the art with the unique period of time when the radio, the airplane and the atom bomb were cutting edge technology, and deepens my experience of viewing the painting.

Both these artists, made art which was unique to their own time, place and experience: the signature on the art not only represents the artist but the place in time to which it belongs. These pieces of art would not have been relevant at any other time, the ideas and influences that are conveyed through the artist, elevates the art beyond simply the most realistic reflection of the world.

THE READYMADES

The Value of an Idea

'Readymade' is a term coined in 1915. It denotes a common, mass-produced or pre-made object which an artist removes from its function and deems art. There are two pieces that are highly influential in this style of work. The first is by the most influential artist of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp (possibly the most important artist to this body of work), and the second is by Piero Manzoni.

Marcel Duchamp 1887-1968

In 1917 in New York, Duchamp made his most notorious readymade, "Fountain": a urinal signed by the artist with a false name and exhibited placed on its back.

In the May 1917 issue of 'The Blind Man', an avant-garde magazine run by Duchamp and two friends, an article was published which explained the theory behind the readymade. Though the article was anonymous, it was almost certainly written by Duchamp himself. An excerpt read: 'Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view - created a new thought for that object.'

There are three important points here: first, that the choice of object is itself a creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the 'useful' function of an object it becomes art. Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it 'a new thought', a new meaning. Duchamp's Readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist.

In 1917, 'The Fountain' was rejected by the Society of Independent Artists, and the original urinal has been lost. There exists a replica of the original, but a replica is not as significant as the original artwork. As a work voted one of the most influential art pieces of the 20th century, what has been lost?

Piero Manzoni 1933-1963

Manzoni's father, who owned a cannery, is said to have once told his artist son, "Your work is shit."

In May 1961, while he was living in Milan, Piero Manzoni produced ninety cans, each numbered on the lid from 001 to 090. A label on each can, printed in Italian, English, French and German, identified the contents as '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.' In December 1961, Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: 'I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.

In 1964, Manzoni was said to have sold a can to Alberto Lucia for 30 grams of 18 carat gold. In the same way that Duchamp took an everyday item and turned it into art, Manzoni took his excrement and priced it on par with gold. He attached a value to what would otherwise have no value. The art world obviously assented to this act: Sotheby sold a can in 2007 for €124,000, and on October 16, 2015, tin 54 was sold at Christies for £182,500. The tins were originally to be valued according to their equivalent weight in gold - $37 each in 1961 - with the price fluctuating according to the market. However, these recent sales indicate that Manzoni's cans of shit are outperforming gold 70 times over.

OTHER INFLUENTIAL'S

Andy Warhol 1928-1987

The Campbell's Soup Cans series consisted of thirty two paintings by artist Andy Warhol. Warhol's art provides a snap shot of the culture of the 1960s. This was a time, particularly in America, where consumers were increasingly exposed to the advertising machine and mass consumption. Warhol provides a time capsule of this culture of mass consumption by producing art that appears to be mass produced. The canvasses are hand painted with the exception of the Fleur-de-lis across the bottom of the can, which was stamped. The only thing distinguishing the paintings is the name of the soup on each can: Warhol painted one picture for each of the 32 varieties of soup Campbell's produced in 1962.

In my mind, the success of Andy Warhol as an artist can be partly attributed to the art dealer and gallery owner Irving Blum. It is thanks to Blum that the paintings were preserved as a set. In July 1962, Blum held his first gallery show of the 32 Campbell's Soup paintings in the ferus Gallery of Los Angeles, California. Irving had already sold four or five, but they were still in the gallery. However, before the gallery show, Blum decided to keep them together as a set, called the clients, and was able to buy them back. Blum contacted Warhol and asked how much for the whole series. Warhol quoted him $1000, which Blum paid in ten installations over ten months. The last time the paintings were purchased, it was in 1996, when the Museum of Modern for $15 million (partially purchased, partially as a gift).

It only took one person believing in the work's success. Before Irving Blum, Warhol's series had only received a lukewarm response at best. Some responses at the time: "The exhibition caused a mild sensation in Los Angeles. The more daring members of the youthful art and film community were intrigued by their novelty. Most people, however, treated them with indifference or outright disdain. A nearby art dealer parodied the show by displaying a stack of soup cans, advertising that you could get them cheaper in his gallery."

"His pop art work differed from serial works by artists such as Monet who used series to represent discriminating perception and show that a painter could recreate shifts in time, light, season, and weather with hand and eye. Warhol is now understood to represent the modern era of commercialization and indiscriminate "sameness". "His variations of multiple soup cans, for example, made the process of repetition an appreciated technique: "If you take a Campbell's Soup can and repeat it fifty times, you are not interested in the retinal image. According to Marcel Duchamp, what interests you is the concept that wants to put fifty Campbell's Soup cans on a canvas."

The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid

What is Sacrifice?

When we hear the word sacrifice, we often think of completely selfless acts in which someone does something for another entirely for the other person's benefit. The image of a soldier sacrificing his life for his comrades frequently comes to mind. But sacrifice isn't purely altruistic. The best definition of sacrifice is this: "To forfeit something for something else considered to have a greater value." (American Heritage Dictionary, emphasis mine). Sacrifice does not mean giving up something for nothing; it means giving up one thing for something else we believe is worth more. This does not at all take away from the virtue of sacrificial acts. Instead of locating the merit of sacrifice in unselfishness, we can find it in a man's chosen value system. The man who lays down his life for his family or for his comrades has chosen to place more value on their lives than on his own. What is more praiseworthy than that? The law of sacrifice says that you cannot get something you want, without giving up something in return. In order to attain something you believe is of greater value, you must give up something you believe is of lesser value."

The next artists are able to define the exact amount they believe the value of a genuine idea is worth. On the 23rd August, 1994, Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty, both members of the Musical Group KLF, burned £1,000,000 pounds sterling in cash in a disused boathouse on the Ardfin Estate.At the time the K Foundation were criticized as some in the public incredulous and angry responded that they could have done so much for the starving if they hadn't burnt their money. To which they replied that they hadn't destroyed bread or oranges or something that could be eaten - they destroyed pieces of paper.

A piece in The Times on 5 November 1995, coinciding with the Glasgow screenings, reported that the K Foundation had no solid answers about why they had burnt the money and what, if anything, the act represented, but concluded: "The K Foundation may not have changed or challenged much but they have certainly provoked thousands to question and analyse the power of money and the responsibilities of those who possess it. And what could be more artistic than that? In the same issue, the newspaper's K Foundation art award. witness, Robert Sandall, wrote that the Foundation's award, million pounds artwork and the burning were all "entertaining, and satirically quite sharp", but "the art world has chosen not to think [of it as art]...."

I think of it as one of the great art pieces of all time, as it redefined my view of community and the standards we set ourselves.

One Red Paperclip

This piece was extremely influential to the Picasso Manifesto, as it not only describes a format of trade, but more importantly to me, it shows the social implications of what one person's idea has achieved. "One Red Paperclip" is a simple idea developed by a Canadian man named Kyle MacDonald. On the 12th of July 2005 he began using the Internet to advertise on Craigslist and his own blog that he would trade one red paperclip for a house. Nearly one year to the day and 14 trades later, that is exactly what he did. On July 12, 2006 he traded with the Town of Kipling, Saskatchewan for a house located at 503 Main Street

He started by trading his one red paperclip for a fish pen. Each trade very gradually improved the value of the object he owned. As his idea took hold and began to flourish, it developed international attention. When I first heard about his idea, I was instantly interested. It became a voyeuristic experience, hoping that he would indeed trade up to a house, watching each trade to see when his idea would be realised. The idea coalesced and connected to those watching all around the world into a single team of people cheering him on. As someone looking on, I wanted him to succeed: I wanted him to beat the system because of a brilliant idea. The realisation of a single idea that began with one red paperclip and became a house, and that as observers we could participate indirectly. That with each person who logged in to watch the progression of his idea actually validated the process.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Life is a journey, not a destination." The same is implied in Kyle's idea for us as the voyeur. For those of us that watched, it was a fascinating social journey that we could participate in through the modern day communication tool: the Internet.

Redesigned Table

Many years ago now, we needed a coffee table. As we were not wealthy, I decided that I would make the table, but we could not afford the wood either. So, in the backyard of the shared house we were renting was an old work shed. Over the years, it had become just a place of refuse, and the shed itself had rusted and had severe water damage. Most of the contents had rotted. Underneath this junk was an old work bench that had been eaten away over the years by termites. The vast majority of the work bench was destroyed, however there was enough salvageable wood to build the coffee table. So I set about preparing the wood, including treating the wood with mineral turpentine so that no more termite damage would occur. Apart from this treatment and cutting the wood to size, I left the wood as it was found, displaying all the marks and paint from its days as a work bench. That which was once a tree, than a work bench, is now table. In saying that it is now a table, who knows what it may become next? A museum piece? Firewood? Is it art? Could it be art?

ART & COMMODIFICATION

Artist; aged two?

Can a child's playful paintings be called "abstract" art?

In January 2009, Mark Jamieson, director of the Brunswick St gallery, was displaying photos by a Russian born photographer, Nikka Kalashnikova. Kalashnikova asked Mark if he would also include work from a promising abstract artist named Aelita Andre. Mark liked what he saw, so he agreed to include a group show alongside Kalashnikova's work. It wasn't until later he found out that Aelita Andre was in fact Kalashnikova's daughter, aged 22 months.

The value of an idea for me, as Edgar Degas said, "Art is not what you see, but what others make you see". Well, in this case I was certainly shown the value of an idea. It is clearly the lack of an idea here that made to be seen. This example shows a snapshot of today's art world - one that pimps out art without any ideological value, and passes it off to the masses without deeper thought. Andre's art is labeled abstract, but what was it abstracted from? What is the idea supporting the abstraction? Without those, can it really be art? Yes, to her parents it has value, but to the art world, what makes this work valuable?

Consumer of the image and the iconography

These images what do they mean to you? What is the difference between them? Has one got a greater meaning and does anyone care? We have become fashion billboards displaying the commercial image of the garments producer on our clothes. The style of that designer is sufficient any longer, we now need to let people know through the image that we are wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt or carrying a Louis Vuitton bag, otherwise what is the point of spending extra money on these products? Do we even ask if these clothes are warmer or more comfortable, what are the motives?

Cycling home, I heard a woman on the radio talk about Apple products. She said: "I don't care what it is or how it works, if it is Apple, I have to have it. I just love Apple stuff!" This is the very heart of commodification, Valuing the icon with no regard to the functionality and performance of the product. I don't know how many times I have watched people camping out, talking on their perfectly functional phone, to get the next and newest iPhone. Then punch the air in victory when they have purchased one. Why?

Consider the near-ubiquitous image of Che Guevara, for example. People wearing Che's face - do they know exactly what he was or what he stood for? For many, it is just an image with some vague assumptions thrown in as to a meaning. Author Michael Casey notes how Ches's image has become a logo as recognizable as the Nike swoosh or golden arches.

This is a quote from an art investment Nanda\Hobbs "Over the past decade, art investment has seen a new class of investor emerge. Spectacular results have been achieved at auction and records set for numerous artists and genres."Art fairs, auctions and galleries have produced a veritable marketplace for hot commodities and much of the art world has become the playground of the rich, The selling of prestige and status to the emerging wealthy peoples of the world..

At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe art is neither a product to be sold nor a commodity to be gambled on. The artists, arts administrators and activists who define art as an experience by which one is transformed for the benefit of a community believe the only product of this type of engagement is human capital and spirit. Commodification is often criticised on the grounds that some things should not be treated as commodities, like the education and the health of our young, or publicly funded scientific knowledge. When art is commodified - sold as an investment, rather than as the expression of an idea, does it then become more about how valuable the object is rather than the ideas that the art conveys? When we look at news articles informing that another record has been set do we even wonder why? Do we even consider what the art represents?

The "Messiah" Stradivari Violin

The Hill family donated the legendary 'Messiah' violin to the British Nation, in order to see it permanently preserved in pristine condition. It is housed at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, in the Hill Room. Access to the instrument is strictly limited. It is remarkably unused, and was given to the museum on the understanding it would not be played again.

It is hard to understand that something designed specifically to be played; to produce art in the form of music, is denied and will never be heard again. It sits in a dichotomous limbo, of being held up as the greatest of all violins with the finest sound and the highest price tag to match. But the reason that it is held with such honor is the exact reason it will never be heard again. It is a self-defeating commodification of art. The true value of the art is lost, in order to preserve its value as a commodity - its price tag. This is a true tragedy.

A Sign of the Times?

Jonas Salk Martin Shkreli

Around the same time as Jackson Pollack was producing his body of work, a medical researcher and virologist Jonas Salk released results on the Salk vaccine from a field trial that proved to be effective in the immunization against Polio. The Vaccine was licensed in 1955. After a huge immunization campaign, the annual number of polio cases in the US fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,600 by 1957. By 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the United States. Salk never patented the vaccine, though, on principle. He is quoted as saying, "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

We move forward 60 years, and in September 2015, Martin Shkreli, founder and former CEO of Turning Pharmacuticals , bought the license for Daraprim, a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, and more famously, HIV/AIDS and raised its price by a factor of 56 (from USD$13.5 to USD$750 per pill). In other words, he commodified life giving drugs. In response to criticism on this issue, Shkreli said this: "If you see someone selling a Aston Martin for the price of a bicycle, and you buy that company and put the prices up to a Toyota, I don't see a problem with that". To me this is as striking a commentary of our world, as much as Jackson Pollack's "the atomic bomb, the airplane or the radio". This is a snapshot of a society where the wealthy equate the necessary expense of drugs to aid in serious illness with the luxury expense of an Aston Martin.

This is the society that we live in. Where those who ask moral questions, such as Edward Snowden are treated as criminals for informing the people, while Kim Kardashian becomes immortalized for absolutely nothing, and those who convince us we should be afraid become President.

Evolution of Art

The value of evolutionary art was demonstrated to me after watching both Kill Bill 1 & 2. During one particularly graphic scene I understood the relevance of two lead women fighting to the death using samurai swords, that being, the glass ceiling of cinematic violence was broken. For me the scene is a critic of modern social issues, that of a woman's role in today's world. The lead role for a woman is no longer that of a wall flower, they are now kick ass martial artists that answer to no one. It is important to comprehend that Tarantino has evolved from master film makers such as Sergio Leone, and has produced a neoclassic modern western. Tarantino is literally borrowing dialogue and music scores to create a visceral assault on the senses, however by modernising the characters and plot, make it relevant to a contemporary audience.

THE PICASSO PROPOSITION

My Art!

I have given you a tour of artists who have helped shape me as an artist; who made me think and ponder what art could be, what art should be to me.

I don't know who first said it but I have heard many times that we don't design in vacuum. I realise that the works and artists that I have discussed in this paper are revolutionary, and the work that I am proposing is more evolutionary. I don't suggest that I am in their equal, but I do believe that I am exploring the same questions as them, but in a modern setting: What is art today? I have also been equally influenced by the pervasive influence of social media and commercialism that we are continually bombarded with at every turn.

The question I intend to ask with the Picasso Manifesto is more specific than just "what is Art today?". I will ask "Is art the intent of the piece and the value of the idea, or is it just commercialism - an investment based only on the status one gains from owning art?

I will explore this idea through a series of transactions that will encourage public participation through voyeurism, using the Internet to connect with people directly. It will also engage people across classes and socio-economic groups: Initially it will be priced to be accessible to the lower economic groups, eventually accessible only by the wealthiest in society.

My proposition is to begin by selling a piece of art that is to me inherently priceless. That is, a drawing done by my son. In the same vein as Piero Manzoni defining the value of his art and referencing Warhol's Campbell's series selling for ten installments of $100, I will sell the first piece for no less than $100 to anyone who will pay it. However, unlike Warhol's Campbell's series or Manzoni's Merda d'Artiste, I will increase the value of each piece - doubling the sale price with each sale. I will reinvest the total sale price to acquire the next piece in the process, effectively improving the commercial viability of each transaction. It is essential to understand with the exception of the first trade all subsequent trades will only risk half the value of purchase price. This is due the entirety of the previous trade being reinvested to purchase the next piece. It is only the first trade that will risk the entire dollar value, because they will be investing in a piece that holds no current commercial value.

Before each piece is placed for sale, I will sign the newly acquired art work, I will sign it under the pseudonym W. Head, using the signature to claim not the artwork itself, but the idea of the value of the artwork. The only common trait of these pieces will be my signature on them.The end goal of this process is to, by buying art and doubling the price each time, to eventually purchase and sign a Picasso painting. The signature is my art and the canvass is reused in the same way that canvases have been reused by artists over millennia. With the exception, that where they have hidden the previous work with another image, I chose to celebrate both my art and theirs.

Allow me to say that I do not intend to do this to offend and shock, like the Chapman brothers. I don't see that what I am doing as defacing art work but rather giving it a new lease on life: bringing back into relevance. When I made a table out of a work bench, that was once a tree, none of those past states ceased to exist. The knots in the wood are still clear and show the life of the wood as a tree, and the center of the table still displays paint stains and the many nicks that a work bench receives over its life time. Just the same way, the fact that I may sign a Picasso work does not mean it wasn't Picasso who painted it, nor that some basic research could not identify it as a Picasso piece. His thought process through his symbolism is so plain in the work that no signature by anyone else could ever erase that origin.

I am asking what it is about our culture at this time that is important. We do everything through Facebook and Twitter: how does the internet play a part in what is art today? I take my cue here from the One Red Paperclip project, which needed the Internet and its following. If I tried to do this without the Internet, it would be impossible, as I need the voyeurism to validate my position. Just like the Merde d'Artiste was not validated as art until it was purchased, those watching me sell my art and buying the pieces I sign will prove that my undertaking is art.

Critic versus Consumer

I am not focused on the retinal image, brush work or composition; the art focuses on the idea, Like Duchamp, the act of signing becomes a component of the art, however it is what the signature represents that differs from Duchamp. The art itself is represented as the voyeuristic and intense nature of globalization the age of Tinder, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook. Participation legitimizes my position, as each individual that logs on becomes a part of the performance and the commercialization of the art. I am endeavoring to get people to question the world of art, by using the internet as the medium. The manifesto aims to directly engage with commodification and becomes about the process with those who participate, both voyeuristically and commercially become part of the art. The voyeur and consumer influence the success of the art as much as cellist in an orchestra, or the muse that inspires the painter. This is Art that is accessible to the masses. This is Art that is influenced by the masses.

This piece intends to appeal to critics of art, and those who invest in art. Put simply: if you are a critic and see the value of an idea and the artistic merit, then this work appeals to your artistic nature. However, if you are a consumer and can’t see the value in the idea but see it as a fetishized commodity and want to make a shrewd investment, understand that only 22 or so people can partake out of 7.5 billion people, and that each piece will be associated with the value of a Picasso!

Sangre Del Artista

Finally, I would like to say that, just as Piero Manzoni wanted to give something personal of himself to those who see the value in his work, I too want to pass something that is uniquely personal. Therefore, my art will be signed with a substance that is unquestionably mine: a literal combination of blood, sweat and tears. I say this not to be dramatic, but because no other person can forge my DNA. In this era of science and technology, where people are found innocent or guilty through DNA evidence, my blood, sweat and tears is a personal as it gets. In the film Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? the authenticity of recently discovered art work by the Artist Jackson Pollack painting is investigated. A forensic art expert is engaged, and identifies a partial fingerprint that is matched to Jackson Pollack. By signing the work with DNA based media, there can be no doubt of the art's true provenance.

VOYEUR & CONSUMER

Number 01- $100 USD
TRADED 03/06/2017

Number 02- $200 USD
TRADED 07/06/2017

Number 03- $400 USD
TRADED15/06/2017

Number 04- $800 USD
TRADED 19/06/2017

Number 05- $1600 USD
TRADED 17/07/2017

Number 06- $3200 USD
TRADED 20/07/2017

Number 07- $6400 USD
TRADED 19/12/2017

Number 08- $12800 USD
TRADED 09/03/2018

NUMBER 09- $25600 USD
NOW TRADING

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INTERVIEW ON POPBOLLOCKS

https://popbollocks.com/w-head-discusses-art-value-picasso-manifesto/

Here at popbollocks we have a manifesto. Our manifesto is outlined by a larger sequence of art projects, it’s called the silent academy. We concern ourselves with only the art, music, and books which represent the best in genre. We like work that represents the most beautiful or challenging aspects of modern culture. We don’t run ad-units, so we remove the desire of sponsors to influence our behavior. We operate (more or less) anonymously or under pseudonyms – and we celebrate process, and the intentions behind art, more than the size of an audience, or the financial returns on our work.

Of course, we are attracted to artists who share similar views of culture. We like artists who play with the rules of the game more than those who know how to simply follow the rules of the game.

One evening, when stumbling around the internet we found “The Picasso Manifesto”. This art project, the brainchild of an artist who works under the pseudonym W.Head, takes the shape of a broad metaphysical exploration of value, art, identity, and our relationship with process and artifact. There’s also a perspective that could see this piece as a method of closing the distance between artist and audience, and a kind of time machine that closes the space between event and observation.

The concept of “The Picasso Manifesto” is deceptively simple. Starting with a piece of art created by his son, W.Head is trading artwork for artwork, until he lands on his target, “Le Reve” by Pablo Picasso.

W.Head’s work excited us. We reached out. We compiled an interview. And together we discussed the process and principles of “The Picasso Manifesto”.

Ahead of interviews we like to offer artists an opportunity to introduce themselves. W. Head said this “…I am operating under a pseudonym, so I prefer to maintain my anonymity. I am however an artist that is attempting to answer the question of, what is art today?”

popbollocks: Please speak a little on how you see Pablo Picasso’s influence on art.

W. Head: I don’t feel that I am the best person to answer this. Picasso is obviously one of the most influential artists in history and changed the direction of art entirely. I am sure there are people who have spent their life studying Picassos influences on the art world, that are better equipped to talk about his effects and influences.

popollocks: Please speak a little on how you see Pablo Picasso’s influence on you.

W.Head: Picassos influence on me personally has had a profound affect, not only on the way I view art, but his work has dramatically affected every aspect of my life.

When I was younger I looked at Picassos work with contempt, I saw Picasso’s art as childlike, unable to comprehend why his work was valued and praised. I remember standing before one piece in particular “The Weeping Woman”, I was unable to grasp why it was so valuable, why people gave it such respect. To me it was not art it was grotesque. The colours offended me, the shape of her tongue and disfigured face was difficult to look at, quite simply, it was the ugliest painting I had ever seen. It was at this moment I wanted to understand why his art was so highly praised and so valuable. With a little study, I began to appreciate that this particular painting was produced in 1937 and was a postscript to one of Picassos most famous paintings Guernica (The mural Guernica depicts the suffering of the people of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain. The town was bombed heavily by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists). The postscripts show the disturbing pain of a woman who screams uncontrollably as she clutches to her chest, the dead body of her child, who had been killed during the bombing of the Basque town Guernica.

In that moment and realisation, of what “The Weeping Woman” represents, the pain of a parent holding their dead baby, I was redefined. I was overcome by the staggering power contained within one image. The enormity of the work was like a punch in the face, immediately I understood that It had to be those colours, her tongue and face had to be disfigured. His brilliance was instantly laid bare to me, the value and inspiration contained within his art was instantly obvious. I then asked myself, if I had been so wrong about my perceptions of Picasso, what else had I been misjudging in my life? And not just with art, but every aspect of my decision making. The way I perceived the world was turned on its head. One artist and one fucking ugly painting redefined my entire life, for me that is how art can make you think and feel, you cannot put a price on it and commoditise the experience. Even now, many years later I find it incredible that one painting set my life on an extraordinarily different trajectory.

popbollocks: Whether through a material trade, or a financial exchange, do you feel like the value of art can only be evidenced during a transaction of some kind?

W.Head: This is an essential component of the question that “The Picasso Manifesto” is actually asking. And in answering this question, I find it actually raises more questions about what is art today? How do we see the value in art? Is it something that inspires and provides new techniques and mediums? Does art still possess the potential to provide inspiration beyond that which can be measured or quantified? Or has all art at varying levels succumbed and been reduced to commodification?

I have provided a specific example of how art has added value to my life, and how the artists that I have discussed in the manifesto beginning with Picasso have redefined my life. The value associated with that has nothing to do with financial or material trade or gain. The dollar value that “The Weeping Woman” has had on my life is priceless.

In the manifesto I endeavor to discuss the loss of value contained within art today. This has happened for a number of reasons. Due to the internet and modern media, you will see more images in one day presently, than anybody 200 years ago saw in their entire life. We have become so desensitized to the retinal image, that we no longer appreciate the art contained within it. When you look through Instagram at images, they blur. A beautiful sunset or portrait by a painter is given less than a second glance and if lucky, a double tap to like it. The magnificence of that moment and the effort contained within the art is lost except on the artist.

I also suggest that once art or a particular artist is identified as having artistic merit, the art becomes commoditized it becomes commercialized. The idea and inspiration contained within the art is immediately dwarfed by the monetary value of the art chocking the original artistic merit, like a parasitic vine that kills the host tree.

The artist Jeff Koons as an example, from an outside perspective people might ask why anyone would pay $28 million for a two-thousand pound Popeye. Is it solely the inspiration behind the art that delivers these prices? Maybe, or is it possible that the artist has been commoditized and not the art contained within. Koons orange “Balloon Dog” became the most expensive work sold by a living artist when it was auctioned for $58 million at Christie’s. So, does this automatically suggest that anything he delivers including a two-thousand pound Popeye must be worth something without deeper critical investigation? I am not suggesting that there is no artistic merit in Koon’s work. I appreciate that “Popeye” is a kitsch modern day “David”. However, with critical analysis applied, has commodification of the artist occurred. The KLF were hounded and ridiculed for burning £1 million Pounds Sterling as an art piece, imagine if they had used $28 million, consider the outrage then.

In my mind the perfect example of commodification, can a child’s playful paintings be called “abstract” art? In January 2009, Mark Jamieson, director of a gallery in Australia, was displaying photos by a Russian born photographer, Nikka Kalashnikova.

Kalashnikova asked Mark if he would also include work from a promising abstract artist named Aelita Andre. Mark liked what he saw, so he agreed to include a group show alongside Kalashnikova’s work. It wasn’t until later he found out that Aelita Andre was in fact Kalashnikova’s daughter, aged twenty-two months.

The value of an idea for me, as Edgar Degas said, “Art is not what you see, but what others make you see”. Well, in this case I was certainly shown the value of an idea. It is clearly the lack of an idea here that made to be seen. This example shows a snapshot of today’s art world. A world that pimps out art without any ideological value, and passes it off to the masses as art without deeper thought. Andre’s art is labelled abstract, but what was it abstracted from? What is the idea supporting the abstraction? Without those, can it really be art? Yes, to her parents it has value, but to the art world, what makes this work valuable?

Commodification occurs even when the artist opposes the commercialisation processes, as seen with the artist Banksy. Once a piece is identified as being a Banksy, the piece immediately becomes commercially valued, with people actually physically cutting parts of buildings out and removing the art for sale. This occurs without the artists, and in some cases the building owners consent. Banksy famously set up a pop-up stall in New York’s Central Park., The stall owner acting on behalf of Banksy sold only a handful of canvases in the one day from the stall. The very next day Banksy confirmed the pieces as originals, the pieces sky rocketed and are estimated to be worth around $250,000 per canvas. The art on the canvas had not changed overnight, but because the artist identifies them as originals they are instantaneously commoditised. Shouldn’t the ideas and inspiration of the art provide the real value, not the provenance?

In short, it is not for me to say yes or no to this question. However, my work is looking at “art” through a different lens, through the medium of the internet, to get people to re-engage with this question, by asking, “What is the value of art today?” Is it the inspiration contained within the art, or is the only value contained in the art, the arts commercial value?

popbollocks: So far, The Picasso Manifesto has traded nine pieces of art. Please describe your relationship with any of the artists whose works you have traded.

The first trade in the manifesto was given to me by my son. When he gave it to me he was in his first year of primary school. I used this piece from my son because it had no monetary value to anyone else, but to me it was inherently priceless.

All of the other canvases are obtained purely as objects of consumption and commodification. The selection criteria at each of these trades consist of searching for art that falls within a specific monetary bracket. Each of these ascending brackets provides a pool of two or three possible pieces. From these two or three, the piece that provides me the greatest inspiration or a connection is selected. A good example is “Trade 08”.

Last year my son was stung by a box jellyfish and went into cardiac arrest in my arms. This was obviously the worst moment of my life. Fortunately, I was able to revive him. In the surreal nightmare when he lay lifeless in my arms, there was a brief moment, a millisecond where I took in where I was and what was happening. I was struck by the beauty of the sky, feeling incomprehensibly lost. I felt, as if my son and I were floating, linked by the tentacles that draped across us. It is a memory that I could never explain or translate into words appropriately, as I could not describe the complexity of that instant. So, when the manifesto came to trade eight. Without thinking of the moment my son lay in my arms, I put in the relevant search criteria. The first art piece that came up, was the repurposed canvas chosen for Trade Eight by Renata Waterfall. Instantaneously I was transported back to that moment, lost on the beach, my son and I floating amongst the clouds, linked by the tentacles that draped across us. Art for me delivers such an emotive response contained in a single vision. I was further in awe and dumb struck when on investigating the details of the art, to find out that it was named “Heavens Brink”. So, for me, Trade One and Trade Eight are connected not only through the manifesto, but on a much higher level that still amazes me. I don’t know the artist Renata Waterfall, but one day I hope to meet her and explain to her the inspiration and power that her work means to me.

Ironically it was a painting that I initially didn’t understand. A painting that set me on this journey. A painting which I came to understand in a way that I never wanted. The connection and reference to Picassos “The Weeping Woman” became even more relevant, as I had a glimpse into the pain of holding the lifeless body of my child in my arms.

popbollocks: How would you explain this project to an artist whose work you are getting rid of to ‘trade-up’?

Early on I had to explain the manifesto to one of the artist whose canvas has been repurposed. This particular artist had been informed by a third party after I had traded my signature. The artist when made aware of my work was incensed and angry. The artist did not fully understand what the manifesto was about, had seen the act of me signing their canvas as me trying to take credit for their work. This is not the case. The artist in question is extremely passionate about their work as am I. The respect I have for the artists chosen is immense. Please understand that I am not flipping another person’s art, that my art is represented with my signature. This signature represents the Picasso Manifesto and links and joins together the art from the collective into a single piece. So, I made contact with the artist to explain what my work is about. To clarify, I take no authorship of the repurposed canvases. Each piece to date has been selected because it has been inspirational for one reason or another. I also explained that me signing a canvas can never take away the art from the artist, the art is theirs and will always be theirs, and nothing I, or anyone else could take away the artists authorship. I also explained that their work, for good or bad, had now evolved into something else. I explained that their work is now linked to Picassos. As evidence of this claim I suggested the artist search online under “Picasso & Manifesto” where their work is interspersed amongst Pablo Picassos for the world to see. I suggested that their work was now connected to Brett Whiteley and Picasso and that Andy Warhol may be the next trade. The artist replied “That’s really cool!”

In your question you have used the terms “get rid and trade up”, both of these terms are not accurate descriptors in the way I see the manifesto. Each of my signatures are a link in the chain of the manifesto, each of the signatures hold equal value when representing the words of the Picasso Manifesto, and each link validates the preceding link.

Therefore, I do not “get rid” of the art, the art becomes imbedded, and a permanent remnant of the process of the Picasso Manifesto. I will never be rid of “Trade 08”, it is with me always. This link also joins each of the artists equally within the process of the manifesto, providing opportunities to each of the artists contained within the manifesto, as they become synonymous with the greatest artists in history and part of a dynamic changing collective of artists through time.

popbollocks: By taking art off the canvas you have, in a sense, made ‘process’ key. How hard is it to engage audiences in a long and abstract journey?

This has been the most difficult component. When I started out on this journey I realised I had a difficult question, what is art today? But I believed I had a relatively loose but simple methodology. However, as I researched and began to write the manifesto it has expanded and developed in ways that I couldn’t imagine. The manifesto had developed into something that has consumed me. It has been made more difficult a proposition due to the immediacy of modern culture. We expect to have everything within an instant, TV on demand, information and news on a 24-hour cycle and all night fast food. So, as a lengthy abstract art piece, it is extremely difficult to get individuals to engage with the ethereal nature and complexity, or more importantly to understand the processes that I am engaging within the work.

If I can try and distillate the manifesto. It is essentially a time capsule through which I am trying to preserve a snap shot of how I see the world functioning and interacting at this moment in time. For better or worse I try and discuss the world. How the manifesto does this, and is it art, is up for discussion.

popbollocks: Your goal is distinctly material, but until the target is arrived at your project relies on a kind of metaphysical understanding. Is your own understanding of the piece shifting as it unfolds?

This is a fascinating question, my understandings and experience changes daily into how I see the manifesto developing. As it took me a number of years to produce the manifesto, I thought I knew exactly what the manifesto represented. However, I am constantly surprised as to the shifting experiences that unveil themselves.

For example, the connection of art through the manifesto has become a point I didn’t recognise until about trade 05. It is interesting to note that currently there are now nine artists that have nothing to do with each other, except to have their art connected via the manifesto and invariably linked to Picasso. Suddenly they are connected in a way they would not have imagined. The canvas from Brett Whiteley was produced in 1965 and the artist has been dead for quarter of a century, yet his work has become an essential component to the manifesto. Whilst all the other artists now have their art intermingled on the internet with Pablo Picasso.

Another example that really became apparent, it is essential to understand that the art of the manifesto is what is currently happening. It is the participation of the voyeur. Wondering if I will sign a Picasso, watching as more people follow and like, and discussing if it is indeed art. The manifesto captures this unique time and space that we are in. I originally envisaged the twenty-two signatures as the “The Picasso Manifesto” but I have come to realise that once I sign the Picasso the moment will be lost with twenty-two paintings the remnant evidence of the real art. The real art is participation, on global scale not just of the masses, but also of the now.

A big shift in my thinking of the manifesto was when I started it was as an art piece to highlight the commercialisation and commodification of art. But as it has evolved it has solidified in my mind as an interconnectedness that allows us to understand each other’s worlds in ways previously not possible. This is due entirely to the medium of the internet. I realise that I appear naïve, the world is shrinking and we are more connected. Yet we still seem to cling to ridiculous lines on maps. With lines of communication open, lines on maps mean less and less. Our strength is in our connection with each other. The enormity of these connections has really only just become apparent to me. The scope of change is immense.

popbollocks: The commodification of art is a subject that you touch upon. Can you describe your relationship with the commercial space?

My observations of the commercial space are, once any venture or idea becomes commercialised, it becomes a commodity, and subsequently the original venture becomes secondary to the commercial aspect no matter how noble that venture is. I touched on this point in an earlier question, that commercialisation is like a parasitic vine that kills the host tree.

In the manifesto I discuss examples of how commercialisation does this. Whether it be Art, Medicine or Politics, once an idea has been commercialised, critical application of thought ceases to be about the ideas, and its success or failure is determined by the monetarisation of the idea.

A great example of this is September 2015, Martin Shkreli, founder and former CEO of Turning Pharmaceuticals, bought the license for Daraprim, a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, and more famously, HIV/AIDS and raised its price by a factor of 56 (from USD$13.5 to USD$750 per pill). In other words, he commoditised life giving drugs. In response to criticism on this issue, Shkreli said this: “If you see someone selling an Aston Martin for the price of a bicycle, and you buy that company and put the prices up to a Toyota, I don’t see a problem with that”. To me this is as striking a commentary of our world, as much as Jackson Pollack’s “the atomic bomb, the airplane or the radio”. This is a snapshot of a society where we commoditise lifesaving medication and equate the expense associated with the necessity of drugs to aid in serious illness with the luxury expense of an Aston Martin.

Or the ludicrous commodification of the Messiah Stradivarius. The Hill family donated the legendary ‘Messiah’ violin to the British Nation, in order to see it permanently preserved in pristine condition. It is housed at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, in the Hill Room. Access to the instrument is strictly limited. It is remarkably unused and was given to the museum on the understanding it would not be played again. It is hard to understand that something designed specifically to be played, to produce art in the form of music, is denied and will never be heard again. It sits in a dichotomous limbo of being held up as the greatest of all violins with the finest sound and price tag to match. But the reason that it is held with such honour is the exact reason it will never be heard again. It is a self-defeating commodification of art. The true value of the art is lost, in order to preserve its value as a commodity – its price of admission. This is a true tragedy.

So the relationship that I have developed with the commercial space and commodification is to embrace and hold the commercial space as the idola. In a way I hope to let the vine grow and see if it chokes itself.

popbollocks: Is there an artist whose work you would purposefully target, to include as a constituent part of the larger piece?

I would say that no artist is off the table in regards to their canvases being reused. However, the opportunity to repurpose and incorporate the artists that defined their period in time and asked the same questions of what was art in their day? To include, Warhol, Duchamp and of course Pollack would be incredible. However, the only Artist that I have purposefully targeted is Pablo Picasso and LeReve.

popbollocks: Why do you make stuff (How did you come up with the idea for the Picasso Manifesto)?

Nearly all of the people I showed the manifesto to have asked me this question. I tell each of them the same thing…

I was standing in front of “The Weeping Woman”. You can stand so close that you could literally reach out and touch it. It occurred to me as I stood there, that relative to this painting I was standing in the exact spot that Picasso would have stood while working on it. I realised that the only thing separating Picasso and I was time. I felt closeness to the artist, I thought of all the questions I would want to ask him about this work. I then thought about how this painting had been frozen in time. How the artist had over the years been commoditised to the point that his art and the inspiration for his art had been lost to the point where now when a Picasso is sold almost nothing about the painting matters. It no longer matters what is the subject of the art, what was its inspiration? The only question asked now about Picassos work is how much did it sell for?

I want Picassos work to time travel, to be relevant in a completely different way, and as the inspiration of investigating what art can be today? Not as a stagnate reminder to the dollar value of his work. Also, very importantly to me personally, I want to sign a Picasso. The notion to work on the same canvas and explore ideas and inspirations of the world with Picasso, is mind bending.

What difference can one person make to the world? The world is in an un-apparelled time in many regards, from the speed of information, to the power of technology effect how we are as a global community. These factors impact greatly on the challenges that we face as a collective moving forward. Recording this and making a statement about the world through my art is essential. It is essential in my mind to be a critical participant of society and culture of the present. To preserve a view of the social anatomy through the prism of “The Picasso Manifesto” for those who come after us. Not just in the immediate future but in 100 years time and beyond. This is why I make stuff!