blog on "For the Discovery of a Zone of Images"

 I'm really intrigued with this article, essay, paper or whatever it is by Piero Manzoni called "For the Discovery of a Zone of Images". He reminds me of how i use to go about art, very ignorant of what i could say. I've read a lot that reminds me of how I've been trying to come up with something to say in my art recently.          he starts off by stating that a common mistakes among bad artist  is that they are to afraid to take a stand, and  have a very vague idea of what art is. because of this vagueness the artist ends up making vague art that means nothing, not to the artist nor the viewer. i hated reading this part, reminded me too much of a not so younger self, maybe about less then a year ago and a few friends i know that are struggling in art, right now. i'm not so sure if this is only a problem for bad artist but rather new artists as well. so i started thinking how does one get past this, so i kept on reading. 
           he presided to try to explain what he meant by "art". this part kinda went over my head a few times, but the more i read it the more i think i got it. in a nut shell art should have "universal values common among all men". meaning that good art should be able to be appreciated by all peoples. but how, we're all to different from our physical way down to our culture that can have deep deep roots in us? however, i know this can happen. how could i a proud Chicano end up having a common ground with some white supremacist skin head? the answer in this case is punk rock, needless to say he still hates my very existence. we still share a common ground. the people of the world have many different cultures but we all share something and thats our humanity and art should be fed by this. we must remove all things to personal in our art so that we can successfully communicate with all people. but how do we find this common ground these "universal values".
          the answer i think is when he wrote "the key point today is to establish the universal validity of individual mythology." what i think he means by this is that we must look in ourselves to find these  value. we must look in ourselves and explore the things that separate us, then look deeper and find the things we all share through our individual philosophies. my favorite part of this is when he said "so it is obvious that at first glance there would seem to be a paradox: the more we immerse ourselves in ourselves, the more open we become, since the closer we get to the germ of our totality the closer we are to the totality to all men."  in simpler terms the closer we are to ourselves the closer we are to all people. 
       this is how i will soon try to communicate to people through art!
       fermin jimenez