INTRODUCTION

Yariv Alterfin used a kind of visual logo to brand his activities.
The tuning fork looks like an Y and sounds like an A, to resemble his initials. So Y is a question A is and answer which is Yes, of course.

Do create good art, do draw attention.

This Syllabus has the intention to give you answers to some questions, but be aware those answers come should read as a new question of course.

And, not even to be humble, this is written by me, Peter Mertens, from a personal point of view and experience. (So far so good I did manage to draw some attention, though on a local level. My claim to fame, 25 years ago I was one of the initiators of park4dtv, which just last week was added in its entirety (~1500 hours of “Pure Image and Sound”) to the collection of the (local) Stedelijk Museum. I don’t think my own contributions are considered good art, most likely contributions to Park from Yariv are. So what I mean to say is being a cultural entrepreneur for 36 years now, I still am wondering how to find the proper balance between attention and art.

So there are more Questions than Answers thus, and probably some questions are answers.

In starting to write this over and over I started with: “before all, I have to say this”, than wanting to say something more important that had to go before that. Before before. So let’s start with where it ends:

Do create!
Create art! Good art.

Thankfully good art can’t be defined. And I you think you can, than it changes. Always change what you expect from it, and even change that.

But now.

The Mondriaan Fund is not ashamed to define good art practice:
“Whether the quality of the artist’s work (…) is relevant for the modern visual arts and whether the same can be expected from the development of the artist’s work. Important for the assessment of this is the relationship between the artistic principles of the artist and the way in which this is expressed in his work. Here, amongst other aspects, the following aspects can be analysed:

the substantive meaning of the concept, the imagination of the artist and the competence with the chosen techniques. Furthermore, it is analysed how the work and views of the applicant relate to the (historical and present day) context.”

So the advice is: don’t follow advice.