David Berkowitz Chicago

For anyone who paints, technical experimentation is a key element of the artistic production. Without conscious technical exploration, it is impossible to develop your own style, much less to realize yourself as a painter. As Chicago-based artist David Berkowitz often says, the biggest satisfaction comes not in terms of sales, but in terms of results on the job.

Today it is common to hear many painters say that they are not interested in painting techniques. However, this stance, inherited in a certain sense from the late avant-gardes, has also brought with it painters deeply interested in rescuing ancient techniques.

To be honest, both positions have pros and cons if they are approached without careful reflection on painting, technique and art in general. This time naïve painter David Berkowitz Chicago will reflect a bit on painting techniques: What are they? What are they used for? Above all, he will reflect on the prevailing need to go beyond techniques as recipes to follow and on the responsibility of those who paint to actively engage in technical exploration within their own painting.

Painting techniques before the industrial revolution

Before the 18th century, painters depended mainly on themselves and their workshops to produce their materials. Until that moment, there were no industries as we know them today and it was not possible to buy all your previously prepared materials.

Under these circumstances, not being interested in techniques meant not having materials to paint or, rather, not having materials to paint that were durable in the long term. The reality is that you can paint with many things, but obtaining specific results and that these results are long-lasting requires in-depth knowledge of our materials, explains David Berkowitz Chicago.

The painting techniques that existed until the time of the industrial revolution were the same one that had been developed for centuries to be able to practice painting with specific visual results and durability. They were the result of many centuries of technical experimentation, exercised by an enormous number of painters with an infinity of materials.

Technique is not the same as academy

Today, many painters still consider the techniques of painting as synonymous with the academy, but the truth is that they do not have much to do with it. In fact, contemporary artist David Berkowitz would even dare to say that they could become exclusive.

For painting techniques to emerge, many people had to experiment a lot with a lot of materials that they did not know. This involved dropping known methods to find new ones, over and over again. It also involved hundreds of mistakes.

The academies of painting, on the other hand, gained strength during the Baroque and gradually became more rigid. They stopped stimulating technical and aesthetic experimentation in their students, and by the 19th century, they had become large and powerful institutions that rigidly determined which painting was good and which was bad, in relation to what had been done in the past. It was at this point and under these circumstances that many left behind the extensive technical experimentation that occurred during the Renaissance to identify techniques simply by following techniques. However, understanding painting techniques to achieve the results we seek does not have to do with following recipes. It has to do with understanding physics and chemistry.

Contemporary art, technically explained, is a concept that is used to give a general name to the artistic expressions originated during the 20th century, that is, in a more colloquial way, we could say that contemporary art is the one that is made in our time. However, this greatly depends on the person who talks about it, since there are several ways to understand this concept. For some people this concept emerged in the last decade, for others this concept was created in World War II (1945),  and there are also those who believe that this concept was developed in the Contemporary Age (late eighteenth century). Therefore, it all depends on who uses this concept since there is a diversity of opinions about the origin of this concept. Although a more general definition of this concept is that it was born in the last century.

Contemporary painting is, in general lines, started and developed throughout the 20th century, and continued in the 21st century.  The works that are categorized as contemporary art are conceptual because in all of them ideas and discourse are the main intellectual weight they possess, and it is the concept that gives them meaning as art.

Contemporary art is art made today by living artists. As such, it reflects the complex issues that shape our diverse, global, and rapidly changing world. For example, through his work, contemporary artist David Berkowitz Chicago explores personal and cultural identity, offers critiques of social and institutional structures, and even attempts to redefine art itself. In the process, he often raises difficult and thought-provoking questions without providing easy answers.

Bellow, David Berkowitz Chicago shares his view on the meaning and significance of contemporary art.

MEANS OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Contemporary art, literally, is what has been produced in our time: current art. However, the fact that the concept was fixed historically at a certain moment, the passage of time makes it move further and further away from the contemporary viewer.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Contemporary art has a great aesthetic heritage of the artistic avant-gardes, the constant search for forms of expression is one of its fundamental ranges.

Abstraction has been one of the artistic trends that has profoundly marked the development of contemporary art. Likewise, conceptual trends form a very important part of contemporary art.

This fusion of artistic currents, together with originality, artistic experimentation and the author's own mark, can be considered its main characteristics.

The medium, the instrument or the tool that the author uses in his artistic productions is in constant change, every day more and more artists are turning to the application of new technologies.

Born in Chicago, David Berkowitz grew up in an artistic family environment. His artwork encompasses a wide range of disciplines, from painting, drawing, and photography through to large-scale sculptures and installations. This artist doesn't develop his art within the series, but paintings are created as a product of the moment, without previous drawing.

As an internationally successful artist, David Berkowitz Chicago his works have been included in the collections of the Ludwig Museum in Vienna, the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Sent Ethen in France, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, as well as in some of Europe's most prestigious collections such as Solo Collection in Madrid, Esterhazy Collection in Austria, Collection of Maya Picasso in France. His artwork can also be found in many other private and public art collections around the world.

David Berkowitz Chicago has been painting for decades now. His usual day consists of waking up, painting, and going to bed. Until this day, he remains true to the domain of recognizable figurative poetics, referring to a different, deeper reflection of the sacred reality. In it, one can read the author's artistic sensitivity as well as his perception of life truths. His figural compositions are based on the representation of a different lightness essentially performed by the artist, referring to the latter (historical) experiences of the relations of the Byzantine, Metaphysical and Surrealistic Painting. The atmospheric and dramatic composition of David Berkowitz Chicago emphasizes the pulsating chiaroscuro, which further contributes to the effect of the complete work.

By walking on the edge of the painting and the edge of metaphysics, this artist secured all dangers and many virtues of uniqueness. In Berkowitz interview for Muckrack, the painter reveals that he's working on a new series that will most likely be finished by the end of the summer.

David Berkowitz Chicago is an esteemed American painter who enrolled in the School of Art Institute of Chicago but never finished the academy. Apart from his own personal life, this self-thought painter draws inspiration from Spanish dances, where he recently went on a trip, and in Cuba where he found his inspiration for the “Balet Clasico y Pasion” (Classical Ballet and Passion) exhibition.

Although painter David Berkowitz Chicago has so far had over fifty solo exhibitions all over the world, he hasn’t run out of inspiration for new creative work. Namely, for his latest exhibition “Balet Clasico y Pasion”, which he recently showcased to the public, David Berkowitz Chicago found inspiration in one of the best ballet schools in the world, at the Cuban national ballet in Havana.

"This time I wanted to introduce myself with a single image cycle that was inspired by my frequent trips to Cuba, and the classical ballet that is very well known and recognized there. I wanted to bring closer this dance experience through vivid colors, realistic manner, unique approach and I hope that I managed to portray to the public the beauty of the Cuban ballet seen through my eyes, "says painter David Berkowitz Chicago.

Although this absolute favorite of American collectors and cultural circles has so far had a number of successful exhibitions, Cuba and dance somehow intertwine in his artistic opus, partly through a theme, partly through color, and this time merging two art forms, the painting one with the ballet one, which he exhibited last weekend.

"Somehow I found it convenient to combine these two forms of art, painting, and ballet, because I was deeply inspired by the body movements and beautiful dance innovations in ballet, and I believe that they pair beautifully on the canvas. In regard to the color wheel and color palette, in the last ten years, I have been strongly inspired by these strong, bold colors that are present in the everyday lives of Cuban people, maintaining that world, that culture, way of life, "added David Berkowitz Chicago. 

3D painting is actually called an anamorphic painting. Anamorphosis is the technique used to distort a picture in such a way that from a vantage point it looks correct. The story of 3D painting is perhaps 700 years old, and the last 30 years appears on the ground. Anamorphic painting represents a large, distorted, three-dimensional image of a flat or distorted surface. When viewed from a certain point, the image creates the impression that what the observer sees on this surface is gratifying and real. So the picture viewed from any other point is very elongated.

The 3D picture effect can only be seen from one angle and everyone can enter the picture and become part of it. That's why it's so interesting. For the artist, it is most difficult to calculate how long it would take to create a three-dimensional effect for a normal illustration. David Berkowitz Chicago got his first such project when he drew a box of bottles at his university campus.

For David Berkowitz Chicago, on average it takes about three days to create such a picture. He mostly works with tempera colors for concrete, which are ecological and do not contain poison, and he uses chalk. The very nature of a 3D image is such that it exists only for a certain amount of time until it gets washed down by rain or flow of time. But besides on the streets, 3D paintings can also be created on the floor, the attic, and sloping walls - says the painter David Berkowitz Chicago.

A 3D image can be a key event, or as is often the case, it can be used to promote a manifestation or an event. In that case, it's an advertisement. In the world, this vision of art is very popular, both in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, and often such images arise in opening up new market centers or various promotions. The thing that sets apart David Berkowitz Chicago from other artists in this area are his drawings of famous strip heroes and naive art drawings. So far he has made a 3D paintings of Betmen, Dilan the Dog, Lucky Luke with a horse, and other heroes of the nine art. Besides, the painter also paints landscapes.

In David Berkowitz Chicago’s paintings created in the early nineties, the postmodernism is vocalized through a daring and irrationally fervent combining of various historical reminiscences, traditions, and contemporaries, all of which are skillfully and easily dressed in the mantle of mythological dreams. However, his dreams and imagination will soon lead to a series of black paintings painted in extremely tactile procedures on a solid black clay background. Symbolism, as far as it has been and is present in the David Berkowitz Chicago’s paintings, now gains a central place, and the atmosphere is no longer as imaginative, multilayer and indented, but becomes anxious and troublesome. The world inspired by the lucid comic narrative is now being pulled before the ace of darkness and death. 

The cycle is both cumbersome and imposing, dark and metaphysical, theatrical and transcendental. From a painterly point of view, it is the most sophisticated cycle of craftsmanship in the dramatic composition made by David Berkowitz Chicago. The source of light comes underneath the painted surface, emitted by a dense tartan background, and it becomes dark, resulting in nightly dark scenes in which the only silent light accent is a convex drapery covering the head, and often the body of a flattering figure, usually the only protagonist of the composition.

This drapery of Baroque emphasizes the new atmosphere of the paintings, but it is probably the author's re-invocation of sculptures, for besides being extremely voluminously positioned, it represents the textile cover in which the sculptures or the trumpet wraps up just before their public discovery. We may conclude that these paintings brought us closer to the neo-baroque, not as a style, but above all as a spiritual term for postmodern art, which confirms the numerous citations in the works of artists who use this visual language such as David Berkowitz Chicago himself. This is one of the reasons why does these paintings cost so much. 

In accordance with the unbearable thought, this cycle uses parallel actions that lead us into a kind of time labyrinth where the feeling of reality, time and space is lost. In these paintings, specific neo-baroque relativization of the representational and illusory relationship is used to equalize the relationship between the subject and the object, that is, the observer into the body of the art object, which will remain one of the essential characteristics of his forthcoming painting cycles.

David Berkowitz Chicago’s next series of paintings, "Rosses on my way", where he combines modern technology and classical painting, is an exemplary example. The forest has suddenly changed (lightened) its palette, returning from allegorical depression to its optimistic painting hedonism. Blue, red or yellow roses in picturesque earthy colors are lined up along the edges of the road, inviting the observer to steer clear of the horizon.

There is almost no person who, when meets with abstract art painting, do not get confused. A few spots on a canvas, a field of pure color, a web of lines that does not cause any association... While others stand in front of the picture and watch it impassively, you are wondering what the thing is and what have you missed. But don't despair this is a completely normal reaction.

Art can be confusing

What makes abstract painting so much confusing, for David Berkowitz Chicago is the complete absence of references (historical, mythological, biblical, psychological ...) and the impression that nothing is presented in the picture. Unlike the subject painting, abstract images do not have specific, recognizable physical objects from the phenomenal reality. Only visual elements can be seen in the picture, and the observer gets the impression that it is a mere decoration that does not have any particular artistic value.

This "absence" of content and the impossibility of attaining the meaning of an artistic work in people, unfortunately, most often causes negative reactions and ridicule. How many times have you heard or pronounced the sentence "It could've been my child painting this"? People like to see things in the pictures they want to see in reality and most of us like images that look "real". As the only correct rhymes of the forms and colors of the old masters, it is undesirable that any innocence that the modern artist deliberately represents. But "there is no greater obstacle to enjoying great artistic works than our own habits and unwillingness to reject our prejudices," says painter David Berkowitz Chicago.

Is Naive Art Important?

Of course, this does not mean that works of classical or some other artists are less important or valuable. There is no such thing as progress in the art world, there is only an evolution of different styles. Where one painting direction gets - the other loses and vice versa. What, however, is defeating is the categorical refusal of the contemporary observer to give the opportunity of naive art.

And in order to truly understand a naive artwork, David Berkowitz Chicago believes it is not enough to go to the museum and flick through the exhibits in seconds. This kind of observation is extremely superficial. Every work of art is related to a particular social context, created in a special environment, and only when a basic insight into the ideological circumstances at the time of its creation is reached, its position within the developmental flow of art and learns more about the life of its creator, it is only then that it is possible to obtain a more realistic picture of the work and appreciate it more. Art should not only be viewed, but art should also be read.

After all, quite logically, the following questions are posed: Why would artists spend their time on education and invest so much effort in perfecting artistic skills to later "pull three lines"? Why should these art objects be exhibited in museums, if they already do not have any artistic value? Why would naive arts be dedicated to the entire monograph? Why would naive painting be an integral part of the study program of art academies and departments of art history around the world? Why do these art objects at auctions reach the price of several tens of millions of dollars?

David Berkowitz Chicago Answers Questions

In order to answer these questions and understand the essence and value of intangible painting, it is very important to explain what type of changes David Berkowitz Chicago painting has experienced to date. More on this subject can be read from Berkowitz's interview for Medium.