Super Fictions Jef Bourgeau fluxus

THE MUSEUM IS THE MEDIUM

By pulling from imagination, recollections, and real interventions, Jef Bourgeau’s museum claims new boundaries for an artwork by forcing all boundaries to fall away. Political, novelistic, psychological, personal, the museum ruptures conventional notions of art – to build its own space. The great messer-upper of media categories, the project has formed its own medium; and by its radical simplicity and deliberately open invention, it has been able to touch on the most sensitive nerves of contemporary and cultural history.

Bourgeau’s museum challenges the stereotype of, not only what art can be, but, the power structure of art. By shouts, with whispers, luring into cul-de-sacs, guiding out through halls of mirrors: the museum visitor is not merely drawn into a visual relationship with a static object, but forced to become an active participant. And is shown – how art can be honest, or, tell lies. And that even within lies, there is truth.

- Frank Provenzano

MANiFESTO

FOR AN

ANACHRONISTIC

-FUTURISM:

Trapped in the ever-present

PASTthere is no

future.

1 Anachronistic-Futurism is the final art which

will be the art of fact in the language of fact but

it will be the art of fact not realized before.

2 Anachronistic-Futurism will be art and at

the same time the secret of beauty; art and at

the same time an explanation of art.

3 Anachronistic-Futurism will disavow

interpretation. Rather, it would have us inquire

into the notion of time, of time filled, not

fulfilled, of not really going anywhere within a

certain period of time, of the sense of time

passing (slowly, rapidly) until the time is used

up, quo pro quid, an inquiry into the very notion

of human existence.

4 To capture the definitive by chance.

5 To snatch in a moment of courage, from the

remorseless rush of time, a passing fragment of

life – is only the beginning of the task. The task

approached in tenderness and faith will be to

hold up, unquestionably, without discrimination

and without fear, the rescued fragment before

all eyes.

Let us now praise Jef Bourgeau at the time of his Retrospective, as one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation and a recognized pioneer in the field of computer generated and multi-media art. A renaissance man who has contributed much to this area, Bourgeau has made a career out of that noblest of pursuits — the harnessing of the human spirit to the soul’s imagination.

Maybe it’s just the passing of time, but I’m evaluating people who have touched my life over the years. I must say that Jef Bourgeau has made a dent in my thinking. I always somehow mistrust the word “genius” but I think if I were going to use it for an artist in this place and time, it would be for Bourgeau. I think his ideas and his philosophy need time to reach people, to seep through the armor that walls off our brains. I’ve been in turn annoyed, angry, dazzled, amused, nonplussed, outraged, intimidated, bewildered and a host of other emotions that his work calls up.