The Alpha Seer understanding true art

 

FIGURE 1: THE ALPHA SEER A.K.A.  BEN LAU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one should call himself “master” the way impostors such as Jeff Koons,Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Ai Wei Wei etc. etc. call themselves “masters.”

To be a master you must be the real thing.

And you’d better be the real thing,– because the Alpha Seer a.k.a. Ben Lau won’t be happy about it. 

In the domain of real art, only one genius can recognize another, so the title of one master is always conferred from another artist of equal or superior caliber!

When Ben Lau was young he went around  looking for a person in Pablo Picasso’s caliber to tell him what art is. He knew that since New York had exceeded Paris as the capital of auction houses and museums, he vaguely concluded that New York would be the place to be if you want to be an artist. Sure enough, Arshile Gorky, deKooning and Elias Goldberg were based in New York. But he knew nothing about Knox Martin at all. Knox has never enjoyed the same kind of fame as deKooning’s and he was selling his work at, maybe a hundred thousand at the most,– while deKooning was already selling his in the range of millions. However, it was more than obvious to Ben that even at that tender age in his life, Knox’s talent is much bigger than that of Gorky, Goldberg or deKooning combined! Putting it in a less complicated way, Knox is bigger even than  Ingres, Cezanne, Picasso or Matisse!

And it just turned out that Ben had the great fortune to meet Knox Martin at the Art Students League in New York City. Looking back, Ben would acknowledge that as his bit of crazy luck in life! Ben would write his dad in Hong Kong about this piece of good luck. He wrote: “The odds of meeting someone in Master Knox Martin’s standing is so great, and the window of opportunity so narrow– and yet I made it!”

 

That was the year 1976. Ben originally wanted to become a scientist and he had his B.A. from SUNY at Stony Brook.  Ben went to Stony Brook because the famous Nobel prize winner Yang Chun Ning, a fellow Chinaman , taught at Stony Brook. In 1977, Ben’s father passed away and Ben would return to Hong Kong for the funeral. On record Ben could only claim to have studied with Master Knox Martin for about a semester at the Art Students League.

After seeing Ben’s artistic effort, Knox Martin, a former professor at Yale University, pulled his student aside and said to him: “Ben, I don’t know what your plan is, but you need to continue this course. I do not have any doubt  in giving you this advice. You won’t catch me talking to another student like this. To be an artist is not  exactly an easy or romantic life- style, you know.

To be fair, Knox Martin is an artistic genius of  I.Q. 196. Compared with Einstein’s 160+ and JFK’s 98 or so, ( at 98, you can become a pretty decent US President already,– and what with GWB’s dismal standing and so forth,…? So I really don’t think the GWB’s  decision in picking up the paint brush by way of unfolding the next stage of his life is such an awesome choice,…  someone really needs to tell him that, not Dick Cheney again, I hope! )

 

Real art is real  hard for the laymen. That is to be expected. It has taken the Alpha Seer called Ben Lau,  ( recognized by Master Knox Martin in 1976 )  another 40 years before Ben truly finds himself fully matured as an artist. Universal recognition from the public VERY OFTEN will only come to a great artist posthumously. There is nothing you can do about it!  Imagine this: no way, –absolutely no way , can Master Knox Martin’s talent be fathomed by his contemporaries. You cannot see the summit of the Himalayas as you walk directly under it! The contemporaries of Knox Martin won’t be able to see how great Knox Martin is, they are walking directly under the Himalayas! And the Himalayas in this particular personification represent the great master Knox Martin. Eras will pass before history is able to make the correct judgement. It will then be like  everyone seeing the Himalayas from a distance. You just cannot see its top when you walk under the foot of the Himalayas.

 

Yeah, you won’t believe me, right? I know you won’t, but that’s O.K. I’ll tell you why you cannot believe me.

First, you are not an artistic genius. Second, you only believe those with the dollar sign attached. I would too if I have no other way in knowing what great art is, or whether the Alpha Seer a.k.a. Master Ben Lau is telling me the truth.

I don’t blame you. After all, that is how things are.

How can one blame  Ignorance when Blindness itself fails to see its own predicament?

When Van Gogh tried to give a painting to the mailman, guess what the latter  told him?

” Thanks, –but no thank, Master Vincent! My wife will be mad at me if I take this thing home. You must understand, –we are living in a very small house, and you know what that means!”

So Vincent Van Gogh could not even give away his work when he was alive.

And Paul Cezanne,– look:  Cezanne was ridiculed by the Paris public all his life. The whole of Paris really came to the conclusion that Cezanne was a perfect mad man, that he was indeed the poster child of eccentricity!

Cezanne, a genius, was taken to be a lunatic. How crazy can Paris be? Is it not mirroring  on us, reflecting the so-called human condition that keeps on repeating itself?

The Paris public was blind to real art. I am not saying this to insult anyone, just pointing it out as a fact. They were only able to see the trail of money when it came to art. And likewise, since everyone today think Andy Warhol was a master, (alas!)  and  deep-pocketed fools listen to the so-called pundits, ( i.e. the art critics, the art professors, the so-called art historians, the art magazine editors, gallery owners, those who run the auction houses, the art directors,….etc.–who themselves know next to nothing about real art,) then go on to follow their herd instincts and vanity without question,– no doubt they are willing to pay big bucks at  fancy auction houses for a piece of  shit like  the Campbell Soup, or photocopied portraits of Monroe. Other odious impostors like Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Ai Wei Wei etc. etc. can eventually thrive because of such stupidity, blindness, ignorance, superstition, vanity, or herd instincts, –or all of the above.

Use your arithmetic, friends,  since I am sure that anyone perusing this blog is far from dumb,– most  of my readers may be lacking some kind of  vision for art, but , hell no, you are not  dumb, –of course you  know how to count!

In the last centuries, we only had Ingres, Degas, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse  Gorky, Juan Gris, Seurat, Miro, and deKooning. The number of real artists is a little more than the number of fingers on my hands. How they come up with the number of one million is really beyond me.  Not only that, but each impostor are at the same time,– what gut!– proclaiming themselves as “masters” ?

Let me put thing in the proper perspectives then:

Real art does not necessarily come to us with a price tag!

Real art is the labor of the artistic genius, since no one else except the genius can know the secret of beauty, and therefore what it means to be great.

Real art is timeless, why?  because it is priceless!

Real art belongs to all humanity, not just the nauseating , pretentious walls of some deep-pocketed fools!