Neko the Modernist

Modernism is a movement in philosophy and art, concerned with self-examination. It begins by discarding all a priori knowledge, and building up a system of evidence-based understanding. The modernist uses their medium to examine the medium itself.

“[Modernist art] happens to convert theoretical possibilities into empirical ones, in doing which it tests many theories about art for their relevance to the actual practice and actual experience of art.” Clement Greenberg, Modernist Painting, 1960

Neko's database will allow him to correlate words to colors to pigments. It's my hypothesis that he'll reveal a wealth of information about color can be used in painting to represent different concepts. I consider him a color field painter.

“Through its fetishization of the base, the sculpture reaches downward to absorb the pedestal into itself and away from actual place; and through the representation of its own materials or the process of its construction, the sculpture depicts its own autonomy.” Rosalind Krauss, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, 1979

Autonomy is the goal as I reconstruct Neko. This will come through 1) a well-balanced feedback system with me, viewers, and the work; 2) a unified, articulate, transportable body and pedestal ; 3) a well-organized archive.