Contributions to Düd Reintjes (1993)

Written by Patrick Chevalier. Posted in Conceptuals of Art

A reintjes poster

The collected works of Düd Reintjes was brought about through a collaborative and corroborative group exercise examining and assimilating contemporary art fundamentals and reappraising them anew through art works of displaying appreciative scepticism. In other words Reintjes was an instrument for me and my fellow contemporaries Erich Entner, Allan Sutt, Sean Lang, Hri Neil, Allie (-----), Malinda (-----) and others* to express our dissatisfaction with, our reaction to, and in some cases a rejection of some of the co-opted reasonings that were put in place and to justify contemporary art and art culture.

In the beginning of the 90s I was one of many studying fine arts who found the messages and the form of contemporary art to be out of touch with reality. It was analogous to learning a completely alien language. A language promoting hermetic intellectual values leaving one feeling patronising rather than enriched. It seemed for a time that in the enthusiasm to promote contemporary art values educators and the surrounding art milieu appeared distant and disconnected forcing us to question what art was rather than simply learning the techniques in producing it.

Art suddenly could no longer be viewed as an object to behold and to be appraised for itself but rather it required explanation, cross-reference, reinterpretations and sometimes a completely new vocabulary. In other cases art seemed almost like a vestige of some poorly expressed idea, misshapen and dropped before you like it had fallen off a truck.  A chunk of information isolated from context. For the most part it seemed to me that art was imploding onto itself and to my distress this is how I came to understand that it was in fact the language and the nature of the contemporary art scene; what made it ‘new’.

Also known as Düd Reintdjes a.k.a, Dood Rindjes a.k.a Dudley R. Intches the complete works of both exhibits originally stated as “My Örange Cloggs – recent thoughts by Düd Reintjes” and were shown in 1993 and the in 1994 in a second representation named “My Other Örange Cloggs – Introspection by Düd Reintjes” The exhibits had the initial goal of creating a hyper persona in order to popularise but the concept soon exploded into a backdrop for expressing our most varied and incredulous interpretations and contemplations about contemporary art expression. Düd was to be “Persona non grata” of art creating all sorts of inane works from installation to in-situ, colour field, conceptual art, cinema to technological art. Everyone Art. DemocrArt.

Düd Reinjest enlisted a cluster of contributors forming the first incarnation of the collected works by it was ment to evolved into a rejectArt bazar eagerly demonstrating to the uninitiated the epiphanies and imbecilities of contemporary art. It became for me a means to understand what contemporary art exploration was meant to be.  Art conceptualization and production exercising a healthy level of auto-cynicism in regards to its objectives and approaches. In short to challenge ourselves and our audiences the adaptation to alien concepts of art and life.

The conceptual phase of this project was engaged with zeal and the project quickly went into inception by the collaborators.  My particular contributions to the exhibit are represented in the following segments of Incepted art of Düd Reintjes (link) and those who which have been played into Existence are my Contributions to Düd Reintjes(link).