New Series ::: New Work

"IT'S YOU, NOT ME"  |  ink on clayboard  |  6 x 6 inches  |  © 2012 Darick Ritter,  All Rights Reserved

"YOU grow a HEAD"  |  ink on clayboard  |  6 x 6 inches  |  © 2012 Darick Ritter,  All Rights Reserved

Preview video to the creation of

 "IT'S YOU, NOT ME"

These pieces are the beginning of a new series about the relationship between the viewer and the artist. I have tenderly dubbed them "YOU Germs" inside my own head (more about, forthcoming).

The included texts in both pieces emphasize the importance of the viewer's projections and expectations in the experience of art. Your pre-set ideas can overpower any communicative intention that I - the artist - have while making it...

***

What I'm really concerned with when I make art is how much of what I intend to say is what you can or cannot actually read after I'm dead and gone; leaving you alone to confront my painting in the solitude of artist-lessness. The viewer is the most important person in the art transaction (or, at least, becomes the most important). It means that I am, inevitably, your humble servant.

And I think that this is what dada is all (or partly) about. I can call a broomstick art, but you are the one that gives that broomstick meaning and purpose [A broom has both masculine and feminine tendencies] and therefore power. But you are also responsible for feebling that power entirely [I mean, how can an upturned toilet be called art? It's just a toilet]. 

What I hope this emphasizes is not art's ability to connect us through a dream of "shared experience", but as a humble signpost to a more truthful situation: we are both animals that enjoy showing and sharing our dreams together... the fact that we all don't understand each other, but still really want to, is actually what connects us.

Hopefully, I've communicated that clearly enough.