JaZzArt en València

Y todavía se les ocurre a algunos querer reducir la semana laboral… ¡Hay que currar! Para progresar hay que trabajar…

So, I have philosophised about the objectivity…versus subjectivity…of art and as well brought forth my philosophy on the fact that art is categorised as being either good or bad. Those are elemental truths that one is taught in art school and in the school of life as one works one’s way up the professional chain and gains experience both in life and in art. It is impossible to think of these things when one is very young.

So, what is «bad art»? My reply is that “bad art”, seriously speaking, is art that pretends to be profound but is hollow, or art that substitutes shock, gimmick, or self-promotion for vision and craft. And I am referring to both, traditional art and conceptual art or experimental.

With that said, here are some examples often cited as bad, being bad artists producing bad art (in the sense above):

Jeff Koons – His balloon dogs and stainless-steel kitsch may fetch millions, but they’re little more than oversized novelties. They dazzle with spectacle, not substance.

Damien Hirst – Famous for pickled sharks and diamond-encrusted skulls, his work often leans more on PR stunts and shock value than on artistic depth.

Tracey Emin – Her “My Bed” (an unmade bed with personal detritus) is often held up as a symbol of art reduced to autobiography and raw display without transformation. And in very bad taste I would add.

Thomas Kinkade – Marketed as the “Painter of Light,” his sugary, mass-produced cottage scenes are technically slick but conceptually empty—art reduced to calendar kitsch.

AI-generated kitsch flooding social media – Endless pretty-but-empty images with no inner necessity, no artist’s hand, just algorithmic pastiche.

Each of these examples is “bad” not because someone dislikes them, but because they lack the enduring qualities of good art: invention, vision, mastery, depth. They survive on hype, sentimentality, or branding, and on the bad art professors that try to drive them into the heads of gullible and young art students who will later realise how they had been manipulated, controlled, brainwashed and misguided.

CHEERS

LAZARUS

Whose dream is this from which I now awaken
shrouded in a burial cloth and wrapped in mystery?
I have too much time, time,
time that yesterday I lacked, but that today caresses me
and kisses me on each cheek with lips made of shards of ice,
Ice that does not melt, not even under
this wondrous sun that tans my skin.

What is time, if not the idle thoughts
of the creator of the universe?

Yet I treasure it.
I am not the master of my dreams,
but I archive them.
I am not the ruler of my life,
but I savour it so sweetly.

I am Lazarus.
I am awake.
My dreams I’ve dreamt deep in your mind,
and you have given me this body.
The one who woke me with his command I cannot find.
The dream?
I do not remember,
Perhaps you do
after all it was your dream.

I am Lazarus.
Am I now eternal?
All I have is time,
and she stalks me,
tortures me,
horrifies me.
She lulls me asleep on the lap of a lady
who harvests flowers,
whose fragrance,
poisonous,
inspires in me a marvellous vision
of things that will never be…

I am Lazarus.
If you see me in the gardens,
Will you recognize me?

C.2025, Francisco Bravo Cabrera – 02 SEP 2025 – Izmir, Türkiye – While listening to Piano Concerto No. 20 in d-minor K 466)

Although I have returned to my home base in Spain, I have not been able to keep up with you, my friends and subscribers. But I am posting at least once a day.

The reason? I am preparing for my 2025 art show at the Sala d’Exposicions de Ciutat Vella in València. The exhibition, which will feature over 50 paintings and drawings, will open on the 9th of October and will run for 10 days.

I also acknowledge that I have repeated many articles, but at the same time, I am preparing new ones and simultaneously developing other projects that I have at hand, not to mention commissions. Besides, many of you were not familiar with them, and it was good to repeat them.

It is always important for me to express that my main task here is to share and disseminate information about art, artists, music, and current affairs. It would be lovely if we could exchange ideas to keep the dialogue on art alive and spreading. That’s why I write short articles which quickly get to the point so that you can read them without much difficulty. And of course, I hope you like my poetry…

Well, the ethics of writers, painters, or court jesters, I am obliged to disclose that what I write…everything without exception…is a product of my imagination. It has nothing to do with me or with my personal reality. Everything is pure fiction, contrived, worked on and filled with the artistic way that one can develop ideas. One of my greatest references, Konstantin Stanislavski, said that raw emotion is not art, and that has become a kind of motto for me that I apply to life and most definitely to creation of my art.

Art is the catalyst for emotions, it manages to bring out the deepest ones that we have lost in there because we constantly repress them. But art can make you cry, laugh, think, become euphoric, horrified, can make you change the course of your life, and also, sometimes, make you angry as hell.

But please understand that everything…that I write… is a contrived and fictitious artistic creation. Art is not life. Art is not natural. Art is not spontaneous. Art is not created. Art is a manifestation of the will of the artist. So I beg you not to label me a conservative or a liberal or an idiot, because nobody knows what the true Francisco, who that artist is, what he really thinks and what he believes. And finally, I want to thank you for your attention and kindness, and ask you to continue visiting our page VALENCIARTIST. And please don’t forget to comment. I read them all and I appreciate them greatly. And you can agree or disagree, but do it in a civilised manner and with good, solid arguments. And any suggestions for future posts I will most gladly accept too.

And for those of you who are painters, writers, or artists of any genre, you can be the protagonist of FEATURES by VALENCIARTIST (in your preferred language), you just have to reply to this post with your email, and we will send you all the information.

CHEERS

ROUND ABOUT SUNRISE

(While listening to the Overture of Die Zauberflöte by W. A. Mozart)

I like to whisper in the doorway,
play with shadows at the bar,
turn the clocks back one long hour
drive a fancy blue sports car.

I’m an atom torn from silence,
causing ripples on a stream,
like a face half-torn from memory
that returns like a disease.

Like a key that fits no doorway,
like a word you cannot find,
like a letter left unopened
in the chambers of my mind.

Like a road that leads to nowhere,
yet you walk it all the same,
seeking answers in the lyrics,
while you mumble the refrain.

Like a circle drawn in water,
like a wheel that spins in sand,
like a heartbeat that remembers
what the soul cannot command.

Round and round the silence carries
every thought you’ve left behind,
and the turning never tarries
runs big circles round your mind.

NOTA BENE

This poem, “Round About Sunrise” is from my upcoming book Jazz Poetry (more about that later). It was written in the free jazz style where the verses flow with rhythm and a sort of string of consciousness attitude. However, each stanza was, in the original first draft, loosely created, allowing for the much needed “jazz” improvisations during the re-writing stages. The title is a play on the tile of Miles Davis’ Round About Midnight album of 1957. The song “Round About Midnight” was composed by Thelonious Munk probably between 1940 and 1941. Since then it has become a jazz standard. But the song was actually copyrighted in 1943 in C minor with the title «I Need You So«, and with lyrics byThelma Murray, a friend of Monk’s. And that is how my jazz poetry is, very similar to my jazz art drawings and paintings. They utilise the principles that guided and allowed for the creation of Jazz which are: Improvisation, the soloist as composer, and swing (rhythm).

* This image, «Let the Sun Shine In«, is available as a Fine Art Print from my gallery at Fine Art America

CHEERS

¡Ahora estaré viajando de regreso a casa y me tardará llegar unos días! Y aunque trataré de leer vuestros posts, quizá no pueda comentar… el equipo de VALENCIARTIST regresará a finales de octubre, después de la exhibición de Francisco en el Salon d’Exposicions de Ciutat Vella en València (del 9 al 19 de octubre).

Cíao y un fuerte abrazo!

+++

I am now en route, travelling back home and it will take me some days. I will continue to check in and read your posts as best I can, although I may not be able to comment. The VALENCIARTIST team will be back for our new season at the end of October, after Francisco’s big art exhibition show at the Salon d’Exposicions de Ciutat Vella in València, which opens on the 9th of October and runs through the 19th.

Ciao and a big hug to all!

GRACIAS – CHEERS