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The fact of being misunderstood being for us neither a proof of sincerity nor of intelligence, we have written another version of the manifesto in light of your pertinent questions.

Lets define things!
At this threshhold of the millenium, Art is lacking in definitions more than vocabulary. The imprecision of concepts, often changing with the wind, and the jargon, voluntarily exclude laymen from a difficult-to-understand debate reserved for "specialists".
This didactic version of the ideorealist manifesto has as its goal to combat this intentional "ghettoization" and we’ll put paid to the shameful insincerity manifested by a certain number of intellectuals, who call it "populism", even "vulgarity", for trying to share, to explain, to confront, in a word, to popularize!

Contemporary Art
Has everybody forgotten? Contemporary simply means "of our time".
The term was justified at the beginning of the last century (the 20th!) But its meaning was quickly deformed: in short, artists who weren’t "top grade" couldn’t be contemporary, but behind the times! "Top grade", of course, being defined by the critics and institutions. Contemporary artists were those who shunned the concrete: Non-Figuratives, Abstracts, "Conceptual" Artists… Those who drew their inspiration from the real could only be devotees of the past, at best "naïves"!
Along side this more and more official art remained naturally the subject of complaisance, as with the specialty referred to as "Seascapes and Chapels".
The one fed on subsidies, the other on commercial success. Neither one nor the other excluded talent.

Non-figurative art
This art has rejected the "motif", that is to say the concrete subject, as a source of inspiration.
The general tendancy is to legitimize this attitude in claiming liberty, since the constraint of representation no longer exists.
But that ignores the many other less explicit constraints!
Certainly it is not necessary to identify a subject in order to experience an emotion. In this regard, the non-figurative is blameless. However it is guilty of having condemned the other forms of expression, even to the point of considering them unworthy!

Abstract Painting
In its true historic form, abstraction doesn’t turn its back on the concrete, rather it gives an interpretation to it. Cubism is a perfect example of what a theory can bring to the reading of the real. Beyond the sensations, an idea proves here its coherence.

But with time, the term ‘abstract’, which does not exclude reference to the real, has found itself monopolized by the powerful – because numerous – non-figurative movements. Little by little we have slipped away from a will to interpret the real, into a negation of this ‘reality’.
Now, there is no other term which can replace the term ‘abstraction’ to designate the reasoned interpretation of the real. In this sense painting could not be other than abstract!

But Official Art (recognized, established) scorns the figurative with degrading connotations like ‘aesthetic flattery’ and the ‘lack of ambition’…
If it’s not ‘no to the figurative’, forget it!

Conceptual Art
Only the "idea" counts! After having suppressed the Motif, the artist reconsiders the Means: medium, materials, tools. One has no need for all these alienating and antisocial constraints, and one delights in the fantastic freedom of thought!
Literature, and in particular poetry, has for a long time integrated the process. Conceptual Art makes its primary concern that which, before it came along, was perfectly satisfactory as a secondary issue!

An artist can make the idea King, no matter how trivial. If need be, making the works gigantic, monumental will obscure the weakness of the idea.
The media force of conceptual art can be explained by its role as poetic substitute. Because its principal asset is its need for words, its ability to be "transmitted textually".

 

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The manifesto consists of two parts :

- The observation of the end of an epoch and the obvious causes of this end.
- The proposal of a different reading of history and a different motivation to "make art".

Then, to define itself, Ideorealism has searched for its images, its referential icons, and two of them appear to be the most significant.

The triptych of liberty
(image to be taken tongue-in-cheek, of course)
A triptych is, classically, a union of three works connected with hinges. The two side panels close themselves over the central panel, often uniting their images to create a single whole.

Each side panel thus represents the two contradictory artistic currents of the last century, and the central panel represents the path of synthesis. The trouble comes from the overshadowing of the central panel by the two others, which continuously ‘beat their wings’ and fight each other for the favors of history.

The one lays claim to the motif, and the more or less faithful representation of the real: you have to recognize what you see in a picture! The other represents the medium, work relieved of all concern for representation or reference to the real, in the guise of freedom.

In the middle, the Painter synthesizes these two opposing and complementary aspects of painting. He doesn’t forget the real: painting is an excellent means, on the contrary, to "represent" it. But he also concerns himself with the means of doing this, the materials, the medium, the tools.

It’s in this unifying space that Painting finds itself. The Real is simply the referent that allows the spectator to "see the vision of the artist" and not only his effects of style.
On this central panel, the artist practices an authentic abstraction of the real, in giving us his version. This does not shut the door on the non-figurative: it is certainly easier to be a ‘phoney’, but it can also be the end product of a long work of synthesis. The fatal error was to condemn representation, when you can’t do without it.

The aesthetic of accomplishment proposes a simple image of that which one feels when a work is achieved.achieved ? accomplished ? (finish is not enough). We have chosen traditional African statuary as an example because of its ‘otherness’: it appears "obvious" to us when fact it is remote and outside of our culture.

We pose the question of the motivation of the artists who accomplish these works, a motivation that you can’t abstract from the works themselves. The work, be it anticonformist or revolutionary, justifies itself as part and parcel of the society which gave rise to it. (That an artist rejoices in not being understood – or loved – must in itself interest certain psychiatrists…)
If the art in the sacred appears natural to us, do we know how to recognize the sacred in art? A statue in a chapel, no problem. But the faith of the sculptor, what a question!?
The sacred isn’t of course limited to its religious dimension. It is in every human being, even an atheist.

Like representation, the aesthetic and the sacred have suffered during the 20th century. The "critics" have thus deprived the artist of that which allows him to touch people. (Only the dead retain that privilege.)

Conclusion: the traditional as school
Everybody knows, without acknowledging it, that we are at an impasse. History will inevitably sort it out. But when?

The issue is for us reconciliation and the abolition of stupid frontiers.
Traditional art, whether called "primitive" or "raw" (which, all things considered, is no less disdainful) must lose its status of ‘minor’ art.

It must remain alive and teach us its "primitive" vigor, filled with culture and the sacred: our best and highest school.