Forms of taste

“The value system is thus entirely self-regulating and functional, with a built-in tendency to eliminate turbulence and fluctuation. Crisis, doubt, and experiment are features of the baroque. Certainty is classical.” 
– Omar Calabrese, Neo-baroque. A Sign of the Times

If we imagine certainty as the enemy of change, fluidity becomes a sign of our times, a signal of openness to replacing old binary structures with more inclusive representations and perspectives. Crisis, doubt, and experiment are essential features underpinning new ways of being. The baroque, as theorized by Calabrese, appears in my twisted forms and their resistance to represent fixed categories of interpretation. The neo-baroque’s permeability, its openness to vernacular elements makes it a significant form—from the entrails of Europe’s cultural machinery of seduction—for re-imagining integration over diversity.  [Read full text]