Neil Gordon's Post-Punk Aesthetic (Lehigh Acres, Florida, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail art by IUOMA member Neil Gordon (Lehigh Acres, Florida, USA)

June 9, 2015 - I am thrilled to have received this colorful, large-size postcard collage from old friend Neil Gordon. He took a long break from the network (checking in occasionally) and has returned now – if this piece is any indication – with art moving in a new direction and with a new depth. Neil Gordon has obviously taken note of the fact that MinXus is all about who has the best hair. His collage, at root, explores that paradoxical stance concerning art. Yet this work hardly reflects the M-L party line.

The current consensus among those who consider such issues is that Neil Gordon has an important, historical place in defining Trashpo. His anti-art, Punk rooted compositions circa 2011-12, placed in Trashpo’s evolutionary continuum, reveal themselves to be very influential on trashpoets and kulters working today.

Yet nothing remains the same, time passes and this new work by Neil Gordon reflects a changed aesthetic sensibility moving past anti-art Punkdom (a force with surprising resiliency in the Eternal Network) and less dependent upon chance operations, at least that’s what I think I see in the work. He still draws upon cultural debris from the media and popcult, but the arrangement is more meditative and focused when compared to his earlier work. This piece also manages a fairly successful MinXus-Trashpo synthesis.

Neil Gordon has proven to be a network innovator, passenger and survivor. I will be interested to see where things go from here.