►► “Supreme” on Vladimir’s hat
by Marcin Lodyga
text dedicated to Vladimir Umanets who is imprisoned in Maidstone prison, Kent, UK

“It was nothing other than a yearning for speed … for flight … which, seeking an outward shape, brought about the birth of the airplane. For the airplane was not contrived in order to carry business letters from Berlin to Moscow, but rather in obedience to the irresistible drive of this yearning for speed to take on external form.” - Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism

The feeling of speed (flight) required a form and thus we have airplanes. The function of the airplane is not to transport people from one place to another, but to express the desire of speed - an airplane is a shape of this feeling, it’s a “definition” of speed in a form of aeroplane. However, an aeroplane placed in the context of yellowism expresses yellow color instead of the feeling of speed. (The feeling of) yellow can take an outward shape, an external form of any object and being. Yellow in a form of aeroplane, yellow in a form of a chair, yellow in a form of Black Square by Malevich, yellow in a form of “Fountain” by Duchamp. 

In yellowism, in contrary to Suprematism philosophy, the diversity of feelings doesn’t exist. The following feelings “illustrated” by Malevich: the feeling of metallic sounds, the feeling of electric current, the impression of resound, the feeling of magnetic attraction, the impression of universe, the feeling of cosmos, the feeling of mystic wave from cosmos, the feeling of non-objectivity are reduced to one, to the feeling / definition of yellow. All suprematic compositions by Malevich express exactly the same yellowistic feeling/meaning.

“Our life is a theater piece, in which nonobjective feeling is portrayed by objective imagery” says Malevich. Feeling? Kazimir, be precise, you talk about many different feelings, not about one and you defined your Suprematism language (Suprematism forms) to express the various feelings. But yellowists can use all “languages” - the whole art (including Suprematism) and the whole reality to express only one feeling / meaning. Every piece of yellowism is a pure expression of yellow color.

Malevich called his Suprematism world: “nonobjective”. Paradoxically, yellowism is neither objective nor nonobjective because yellowism flattens (to one surface) the nonobjective world (all feelings and impressions) and the objective world (material forms, all objects with their utility) at the same time. You look at a chair and you perceive it as an expression of nonobjective yellow. You look at yellow which only looks like a dark brown wooden chair.

Yellowism is based on the supremacy of yellow and takes domination over Suprematism. 

text by Marcin Lodyga, London, 2013

►► The Treachery of Ontological Images
by Marcin Lodyga
text dedicated to Khadija Davies, Easter 2013

I look at “Treachery of Images” by Rene Magritte and I say: “this is not a work of art” because this painting is placed in a yellowistic chamber. Magritte painted a pipe and wrote under it: “Ceçi n’est pas une pipe” - this is not a pipe. Indeed, what we see on canvas is not actually a pipe, but the image of a pipe. 

Rene Magritte, ”Treachery of Images”

As Harkness characterizes Foucault and Magritte in his introduction to Michel Foucault book “This is Not a Pipe”, both engage in a critique of language: the former historico- epistemological, the latter visual. Each in his own way concurs with the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in asserting the arbitrariness of the sign. However, in the arbitrary context of yellowism, Magritte’s message and Foucault’s analysis of the distinction between resemblance and similitude in visual representation are not important anymore.The discussion between painter and philosopher and their critique of language ends here, in the chamber. Now you can only say the final sentence, the last possible expression of, perhaps, still postmodern parlance: “this is about yellow” or “this is not a work of art”. 

The pipe on the painting only looks like a pipe but you can not put tobacco into it and smoke. This is not a pipe then. Moreover, Magritte’s painting inside a yellowistic chamber is not a work of art, it gained the new status, it only looks like works of art. According to the manifesto, pieces of yellowism can look like works of art but are not works of art. If you see Magritte’s pipe inside yellowism and you think that it is art - you are wrong. You are looking at a piece of yellowism. This is the treachery of “ontological images”.

►► The Authors of the Death
by Marcin Lodyga

When looking from art perspective, one can say that yellowism is a dead territory where the richness of meanings and interpretations is reduced to one - to yellow. But one needs to remember that yellowists don’t announce the death of art. Art is and will be alive forever. They rather say that yellowism is dead, inert, homogeneous mass without creativity. Authors of the manifesto and definition of yellowism are the authors of the death - yellowists are the authors of a single interpretation. This death is positioned outside of art, like mirror. 

Roland Barthes in “The Death of the Author” says: “To give a text an Author” and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it “is to impose a limit on that text.” Barthes argues against the method of reading that relies on aspects of the author’s identity — their political views, historical context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or personal attributes — to distill meaning from the author’s work. Yellowists want to impose a limit on the text, on art, and on ordinary reality too, but not by giving a “text” an author. Paraphrasing Barthes I say: To give a “text” a YELLOW and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it is to impose a limit on the text. Barthes demands the death of the author (author disappears) because the author’s identity limits the text, the reading. In yellowism case author also disappears and yellow - the necessary “limitation” appears instead of the author.

Inside yellowism the artistic kingdom of meanings and interpretations is erased together with the author. It doesn’t matter WHO made a piece of yellowism because all pieces were, are and will be about yellow only. Yellowism is permanent, boring, inert, homogeneous flat, ‘dead’ mass. Always was and always will be. Like in the forest where all the trees (meanings) ‘look’ the same – wherever you go you are in the same place anyway. A thousand kilometers left, two meters right or backwards – you are always in the same place. In yellowism the nature of the authors has “the identity of the indistinguishable forest”. 

Barthes conclusion: “the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.” Yellowism conclusion: the death of meanings and the death of the author must be ransomed by the birth of single meaning - yellow.

►► Luncheon on the grass
(on the grass: Arthur Danto, Roy Turner, Joseph Kosuth, Marcin Lodyga) 

What makes the difference between a Brillo box and a work of art consisting of a Brillo box is a certain theory of art. It is the theory that takes it up into the world of art, and keeps it from collapsing into the real object which it is. - Arthur Danto. But to expose the irrelevance of this idea when attributed to the tradition, we have only to ask what “real object”, “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” by Manet collapses into when the implicit theory which supported it is refuted. - ask another thinker Roy Turner (Philosophy Now magazine)

Marcin Lodyga starts: If “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” by Manet was placed in the context of yellowism, inside a yellowistic chamber, then it would stop to be a work of art and it would become a piece of yellowism - a pure expression of yellow color in the form of Manet painting. Inside yellowism the painting by Manet is not a work of art. We have only to ask what piece of yellowism “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” by Manet collapses into when the implicit context of yellowism which supported it is refuted. The answer: it collapses into a work of art, it becomes a work of art again, it gains its previous status.

Painting is a kind of art. If you make paintings you are already accepting (not questioning ) the nature of art. One is then accepting the nature of art to be the European tradition of a painting-sculpture dichotomy. - nervously said Joseph Kosuth (“Art After Philosophy”). Dear Joseph - Marcin replies - in the context of yellowism - which is NOT a kind of total, huge conceptual art work, as you would consider it probably, painting is not a work of art. You said: “Art is the definition of art”, I say: yellowism is the definition of yellowism. 

text by Marcin Lodyga
27/02/13

►► Rome outside of art
by Marcin Lodyga

Yellowism is not dadaism or neo-dadaism. If you think that yellowism is dadaism then actually you are a dadaist, because you try to devalue yellowism and make it meaningless. Dadaists were nihilists and they “promoted” nonsense. The fact that in yellowism everything means yellow leads to the wrong conclusion that everything means nothing and therefore yellowism is perceived as nihilism /dadaism. This is the big misunderstanding. The real consequence of yellowism existence is the philosophy of ONE and the vision of many different isms (existing outside of art) which can be reduced to (one) yellow-ism anyway. Although yellowism clones exist under different names - they are yellowism. In the future: many one-perspective “worlds”. Not only one “world” full of perspectives (meanings), many various subjective interpretations - like in postmodernism, especially postmodern art, but also many separate “worlds” (greenism, blueism, chairism) with one perspective each, concentrated on one meaning only. Yellowism, divided into many isms, will be positioned away from the forever developing, “organic” realm of art.  

The total flattening announced by yellowists is more humanitarian than dadaism because it doesn’t leave people with nothing - inside the desert of meanings where you can watch only the wrecks and corpses of culture. Yellowists save one meaning (yellow) for everything and also they let you live in the “yellowistic totalitarian illusion of many”- you can exist in autonomous groups called greenism, blueism, chairism or skyism etc. but you will be a yellowist anyway. All roads lead to Rome. The universal Rome - the absolute truth will be always outside of art. 

Dadaists are nihilists, they do not offer anything, they don’t show a new perspective, new possibilities, they replace everything with nothing. » Dada (…) wants nothing, absolutely nothing, and what it does is to make the public say ” We understand nothing, nothing, nothing “. “The Dadaists are nothing, nothing, nothing and they will surely succeed in nothing, nothing, nothing.” « 391, No. 12, Paris, March 1920 Francis Picabia who knows nothing, nothing, nothing. 

Nihilists say that without absolute, universal, and transcendent values, there can be no real values at all. Friedrich Nietzsche, however, argues that the lack of such absolute values does not imply the absence of any values at all. Nietzsche “permits” the values of many different and even mutually exclusive perspectives. This is called “perspectivism” - all ideations take place from particular perspectives. This means that there are many possible conceptual schemes, or perspectives in which judgment of truth or value can be made. This leads (me) to postmodernism. Postmodernism is the consequence of Nietzsche’s perspectivism but is nihilistic. The proliferation of alternative perspectives, beliefs and values makes that postmodern society is foundationless.

This what we see in the galleries is the result of postmodernism or post-post modernism, or postpostpostmodernism, whatever. Many perspectives, many points of view, not one grand and universal but many interpretations closed inside the circle called “art”. In the future artists will resign from art, will abandon this circle. Art full of many perspectives will still exist but will be surrounded by - isms. Some artists will never leave the territory of art but there will be yellowists, greenists, chairists looking at them from outside - located in one perspective circles. 

All the other isms are actually yellow-ism because, they have the same architecture, logic. Finally they can be reduced to yellowism, flattened to yellow-ism. However, people will need this totalitarian illusion of many isms, they will construct their own contexts, for example greenism,redism, chairism or godism, and they will be happy inside the isms but all the new one-meaning worlds can be always considered as yellowism.

Yellowism doesn’t replace (like dadaism) all the values with nothing, yellowism gives one sense instead of nonsense. Yellowism presents the vision of many autonomous territories around multiperspective art. Yellowism saves the ONE - whatever it is: blue, green, chair and offers the new grand philosophy of ONE. 

Marcin Lodyga
18.01.2013
London

►► Discipline and punish.The birth of the black hole

Yellowists see the whole domain of reality and the whole domain of art as gigantic readymades which can be transported into the context of yellowism. Yellowism is a specific prison, a ghetto in which you are free from freedom, in which the freedom of interpretation doesn’t exist. Every content placed in this territory defines yellow color. It requires a noetic discipline. You have to respect the internal yellowism law. Yellowism is a bit like a black hole - most of the information about the matter that went into forming the black hole is lost. In the end yellowism only remembers the total mass, charge, and angular momentum. The physical form of objects and beings transported from art and reality is preserved, but all the forms carry only one, always and forever the same, identical message. You can observe that something is moving inside, you can watch pieces of yellowism free from the past and future; there is a movement but there is actually no time. 

►► A dead animal 

Today you can overstep the border, you can be a bit like Alice through the looking glass, you don’t have to, together with other artists, push the boundaries of art further anymore, now it’s time to cross it and discover the another, still unknown for many, space called yellowism. Of course, you can stay where you are and run your artistic life in harmony with the motion of postmodernism. Yellowists don’t announce the end of art; they say in manifesto: art is a forever developing whole. They don’t promote a slogan: “art is dead”, they rather say that yellowism is dead and always was dead and always will be dead. Therefore they don’t want to replace art with yellowism. They just introduce a new autonomous territory, specific environment which is parallel to the context of art. They give you a vision of time in culture when the resignation from art will be a trend. Yellowists show you the possibility of alternative existence in which the fact that you abandon art is considered as the most creative decision. It doesn’t matter what the condition of art will be after twenty or hundred years - yellowism will be still the same. Any changes and any progress around yellowism are and will be, metaphorically speaking, like a tank of formaldehyde for a dead animal. 

text by Marcin Lodyga

►► Jump out of the speeding train

Since civilization is changing extremely fast today, there is little time for new meanings of objects to crystallize - said Jan Swidzinski - the creator of contextual art. In effect the objects of art assume different meanings. The outdating of meanings is a constant process - proceeding all the faster the quicker civilization changes. Contextual art by Swidzinski just follows the changes, it runs, chases the transformations and proposes the criterion of truth of which, defined by the pragmatic context, changes incessantly. Yellowism is steady and proposes the stabilization of meanings, actually - one meaning. Yellowism is a zone with the only one information inside. Art is running, the time is running but yellowism arrests just one interpretation and it’s permanent, constant forever. You can jump out from the world of many perspectives (art) to the one-point perspective world (yellowism). Yellowists guarantee that inside yellowism the point in which you are now will be exactly the same like the point in which you will be after fifty a hundred or thousand years - you are moving in harmony with yellowism expansion, you are producing pieces of yellowism, but the time is stopped.

text by Marcin Lodyga

►► The barbarous prophets of useless paradise

Perhaps contemporary yellowists have prepared the intellectual system for the next generation or maybe for the next civilization - for unborn people and unborn world. Their task is to leave a legacy - the ready philosophy which humans will need in the future. The current culture, the present society is not able to take yellowism without the radical change of perception and it causes a conflict. Yellowists say that yellowism exists already. That’s true, but yellowism existence is perceived by many as an unnecessary thing. For today spectator it’s completely useless and also barbarous, because annihilates the richness of interpretations. But, what now is seen as a stupid revolution or a ridiculous utopia, after some time will become the real basis of the culture. The worldwide need for yellowism must born and then yellowism will be generally accepted. The era of yellowism is coming. The total flattening in culture is inevitable. The sooner you realize it, the better. Pioneers of yellowism clearly see this context because they are already in it - they do pieces of yellowism, they open yellowism exhibitions in yellowistic chambers, they write texts about yellowism to prepare you for the new stage, for the real “totalitarian freedom”. It is a bit prophetic. Yellowists - the barbarous prophets of useless paradise.

text by Marcin Lodyga

►► The Dangerous Exchange of Names

If you call yellowists: “artists” then the millions of artists, all the artists which were, are or will be living on this world are yellowists, and it means that there are only two artists forever: Lodyga and Umanets. Remember, this not just the exchange of names, this is not the matter of how you call people who do art and people who do yellowism - it’s not only about designation. The consequence of the “replacement of names” is much more profound and serious. Some say that yellowism is art, that it is an artistic movement. I warn you now, all of you, don’t be so fast with your statements, don’t be so sure. The definition of yellowism is based on the axiom that yellowism is neither art nor anti-art, therefore, in the context of yellowism, you don’t see and experience any creation, any form of creativity, you have to forget about the diversity of interpretations, the freedom of interpretation, the incessant necessity to push the boundaries, the dreams about original or revolutionary ideas do not apply here, there is no progress, hierarchy, tension, envy, contrast, history and time. Art without all these listed things is not art, while yellowism without all these things is truly yellowism. When you say that yellowists are artists you erase at the same time all the attributes of art. The lack of the key features which make that art is art, is the core of yellowism. If, from your point of view, yellowists are artists, then art with its past and future must be seen as a flat, inert, homogeneous, “dead” mass in which all and everything is about exactly the same thing - yellow.