TEXTS | CITATIONS

German Dictionary: convention a) (a practice) Brauch, der; it is the convention to do sth. es ist Brauch, etwas zu tun; conventions of spelling Rechtschreibregeln; b) no art, (established customs) Konvention, die; break with convention: sich über die Konventionen hinwegsetzen. [Langenscheidt, Dictionary]

Andrew's Art Archive: “… However, Pop Art had its enemies; anti-Pop was developed by the "NO" group and rejected the tendency by some Pop artists to cultivate standard images and stereotypes. Formed in 1958 by Boris Lurie, Sam Goodman and Stanley Fisher, this group was supported by the March Gallery, and later by the Gallery Gertrude Stein. Aggressive, chaotic, critical, political and angry, they used shock and horror tactics, environments incorporating handbills, statements, events, street actions and "Happenings" against what they saw as affirmative tendencies in Pop Art. …”
in: Andrew's Art Archive, Sydney, American Pop Art
> http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/5252/popart.htm

Peter Gorsen: " ... Die das Alltagsgraffito einbeziehenden Plakat-Wandbilder und Shit-Collagen der New Yorker NO!art-Bewegung von Sam Goodman, Stanley Fisher und Boris Lurie waren in den sechziger Jahren eine Ausnahmeerscheinung. Ihre mit obszönem Material assoziierten Verweigerungsgesten blieben ohne Resonanz, ein aus der marktorientierten Kunst sich selbst ausschließender politpornographischer Aktionismus. ...“
in: Peter Gorsen: "Graffiti und Art Brut", Wien 2003
> http://graffiti.netbase.org/kongress/gorsen.htm

Alan Murdock: I received a comment on one of my posts this last week indicating that an interview I conducted with Boris Lurie is now included on a website dedicated to the NO!art movement. The website, http://www.no-art.info/index.html, can be read in English or German.
The NO!artists countered the Pop Art movement during the 1960's by creating a hot, politically active art in contrast to the cool, politically aloof Pop movement. The movement was ignored through the 70's and 80's, but interest has been growing in their work and several retrospective shows have been mounted recently in the US and Germany.
Boris Lurie, a survivor of World War II German concentration camps and NO!art founder has been making artwork that is agressively anti-war and highly expressive for over 40 years in his New York studio. He and the other NO!artists were influenced heavily by Abstract Expressionism, but where these artists removed social content from their work, Lurie and others added intensely emotional and political commentary to their art while maintaining an emphasis on gesture and expression. Lurie is known for his use of knives, cement, women's clothing and pinup images in his sculptural assemblages, collages and paintings.
Rich in photographs and texts, the website is an important resource for anyone interested in arts from the 1950's and 60's as NO! has influences from expressionistic abstract works, as Lurie explains in our interview, but the movement also relates to the larger aesthetic/political changes in the arts during the postwar period.
I may have to attempt a German translation of the interview to submit for consideration under the German heading as well. — Posted by Alan at July 26, 2004

From a Letter to a Friend: I've been working on some ideas about individuality and the value of the individual as it changes through history, especially in relation to how individuality plays out in art. It seems to me that modernism in the early 20th century was much more willing to accept and promote people expressing their individuality (note the publication of the Founding Manifesto of Futurism in a Parisian paper in 1909) while now we promote professionalism and ability to work as a team. I'm looking at artists like Acconci who moved from fine art and now runs an architectural firm and Ken Friedman who moved from Fluxus to design. It seems to me that because art has become completely professional, something [NO!art founder Boris] Lurie pointed to in his interview I recently red, and is based solely on the money, that team design is the place artists can, in contrast to isolated individualist art, promote their ideas to the world in a way the art world rarely allows today. — Posted by Alan at March 12, 2004