Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The State Paintings With Anti-Abstract (1999-2000)
I. Slow Allegro
II. Slow Andante
III. Still
Ensemble Recherche
Part I
The point is that for a work of art to "sound true" isn't enough—the work must lead us away from what we already know—it can't simply be something we recognize: in fact, this recognition effect can hinder a great work by only leading us back to our own emotions. Building on this, I would say that directly translating one's own life experiences into artwork is misleading—I would argue that such a thing merely creates disorder and leads away from deeper truth, while one simply operates in the realm of the complacent. You can't just recount these things as if there were some greater truth in them. The work must be connected to the stage of having already drawn a conclusion. The only way, in my opinion, available to us to arrive at any conclusions is through associations, the bringing together of two things (that already exist in the imagination / that both occur in the external world / one of which exists externally, the other in the imagination) to form a thought: the most concrete thing and the one that comes closest to God (considered as the source). An artist should be "in the picture" and not crawl around hoping for the best.
Part II
To realize themselves, people form relationships with others – love is the highest form of self-realization –; relationships themselves are the least abstract of all human endeavors, less abstract than the physical aspect of existence. This would mean that relationships and art have much in common, that art is a kind of concretized form of relationship – not a relationship, but the thing itself.
Part III
A car is abstract because it's connected to the abstraction of our lives. Everything we do, apart from art, is "functional." Everything "functional" is connected to the abstraction of our lives. We take a material "in use" and make something else out of it, something outside of ourselves. The steel used to make a car is no longer steel; it's the car's body. This steel is the product of our minds. Abstracted steel, if you will. Of course, art also uses materials, but it makes something out of them that takes us back from the abstraction necessary for production. It takes us back to thought, with the abstraction of materials forming a necessary intermediate step to take thoughts further than our minds alone could have, and then to reflect back on ourselves and others, to correct our minds. Art is there to correct our minds.
Part IV
It is, in my opinion, obvious that the difference between the thing itself and someone's perception of the thing lies in the act of perception, which varies depending on the perceiver but remains fundamentally the same phenomenon. Nevertheless, the question remains how this can be represented in artistic terms. With regard to my transcribed improvisations, the point is that transcribing those recordings is not an editing process like writing down a composed piece, but rather the necessity of writing something at all. It is not an editing process. That is to say, in terms of anti-abstract, unedited material that uses me as a source is combined with edited material that uses someone else as a source. Me with my perception of someone else. What I despise about myself combined with what I love in my perception of someone else. Trying to transcribe oneself represents unedited "source" material. Trying to transcribe someone else represents edited material, because it always happens "through" oneself. Passing one through the other could have the effect of the material disappearing.
Part V
To speak of a specific relationship, to design a model for it using artistic means: it is a question of combining the source material, the specific element, with the generalized form of the relationship itself. It deconstructs the source material and transforms it into a relationship, a connection, and the material, in turn, makes the generalized connection specific. --Chris Newman
Art by Xiyao Wang
The State Paintings With Anti-Abstract (1999-2000)
I. Slow Allegro
II. Slow Andante
III. Still
Ensemble Recherche
Part I
The point is that for a work of art to "sound true" isn't enough—the work must lead us away from what we already know—it can't simply be something we recognize: in fact, this recognition effect can hinder a great work by only leading us back to our own emotions. Building on this, I would say that directly translating one's own life experiences into artwork is misleading—I would argue that such a thing merely creates disorder and leads away from deeper truth, while one simply operates in the realm of the complacent. You can't just recount these things as if there were some greater truth in them. The work must be connected to the stage of having already drawn a conclusion. The only way, in my opinion, available to us to arrive at any conclusions is through associations, the bringing together of two things (that already exist in the imagination / that both occur in the external world / one of which exists externally, the other in the imagination) to form a thought: the most concrete thing and the one that comes closest to God (considered as the source). An artist should be "in the picture" and not crawl around hoping for the best.
Part II
To realize themselves, people form relationships with others – love is the highest form of self-realization –; relationships themselves are the least abstract of all human endeavors, less abstract than the physical aspect of existence. This would mean that relationships and art have much in common, that art is a kind of concretized form of relationship – not a relationship, but the thing itself.
Part III
A car is abstract because it's connected to the abstraction of our lives. Everything we do, apart from art, is "functional." Everything "functional" is connected to the abstraction of our lives. We take a material "in use" and make something else out of it, something outside of ourselves. The steel used to make a car is no longer steel; it's the car's body. This steel is the product of our minds. Abstracted steel, if you will. Of course, art also uses materials, but it makes something out of them that takes us back from the abstraction necessary for production. It takes us back to thought, with the abstraction of materials forming a necessary intermediate step to take thoughts further than our minds alone could have, and then to reflect back on ourselves and others, to correct our minds. Art is there to correct our minds.
Part IV
It is, in my opinion, obvious that the difference between the thing itself and someone's perception of the thing lies in the act of perception, which varies depending on the perceiver but remains fundamentally the same phenomenon. Nevertheless, the question remains how this can be represented in artistic terms. With regard to my transcribed improvisations, the point is that transcribing those recordings is not an editing process like writing down a composed piece, but rather the necessity of writing something at all. It is not an editing process. That is to say, in terms of anti-abstract, unedited material that uses me as a source is combined with edited material that uses someone else as a source. Me with my perception of someone else. What I despise about myself combined with what I love in my perception of someone else. Trying to transcribe oneself represents unedited "source" material. Trying to transcribe someone else represents edited material, because it always happens "through" oneself. Passing one through the other could have the effect of the material disappearing.
Part V
To speak of a specific relationship, to design a model for it using artistic means: it is a question of combining the source material, the specific element, with the generalized form of the relationship itself. It deconstructs the source material and transforms it into a relationship, a connection, and the material, in turn, makes the generalized connection specific. --Chris Newman
Art by Xiyao Wang
