What is Omni Art?

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I was still in the city at that point, and it wasn't until I was 87, so about a year later, I started really mulling over the art that was going on, because that's a good year had passed where that scene had really kind of changed completely.

And I started thinking about, you know, this art I'm doing definitely is different than anything I've been seeing around that much.

And I was looking for a way to identify it.

So I moved upstate to New York that year in the summer, 1988, and got a studio in a barn near Rhinebeck, New York, and started doing new pieces.

And it was during that time frame, I remember one night in particular, I was sitting there going, this is a new art form, I need a name for it.

I know there's a name, I just don't know what it is.

And I said...

It's interesting, I just kind of walked across the room, I pulled out a book on my bookcase, and it was a Buckminster Fuller's book, Critical Path, which was the last book he wrote.

And I opened up the front page in the introduction, and it says,

Omnidirectional Humanities Becoming Omni-Successful in the Omniverse, or something to that effect.

And I went, Omni, that's it?

It just like bounced off the page at me.

I said, it's Omni art.

It's not pop art, it's Omni art.

Because it's about...

All the arts at once.

And it's also about the other dimensions in the universe, the omniverse, which was just then being talked about in that era.

And I thought, this is really what it's about.

Because pop art's like the surface of the orange.

It's the surface of life.

All the pop symbols, the images of individuals, just through their face or through their presence in the commercial marketplace, like celebs and whatnot.

But Omni art was the inside of the orange.

And there's a famous quote from Bucky Fuller I always liked.

And he said that 90% of reality is invisible.

So I thought, boy, there's a lot of material to do art on 90%.

But it's invisible.

So you've got to find a new way to express the invisibility of 90% of reality.

That really intrigued me.

One of the things you learn in New York is that ideas travel rapidly.

So once I had come up with this word Omni, and then thinking Omni art, that's interesting.

It's a pretty catchy phrase.

I need to make sure that just as self-protection in a way, that it's associated with who I am.

Because if I release that, if I just start talking about it in my art parties or whatever, it'll slide all over the city and it'll be gone.

So I thought, how do I do this?

And I thought, I know what I'll do.

I will play.

I'll release an ad in the Village Voice with my name and Omni art.

Nothing else.

A little black ad.

A little black with white lettering.

Right.

No explanation for anything.

A little copyright symbol.

One thing I learned from Andy Warhol is document everything.

Okay.

Photographs of everything.

Take films, whatever you can to document something.

Because you're making history.

You know, the scene that I was working with in New York was much more socio-political, metaphysics and other dimensions and quantum physics.

That was not even in the conversation.

I was a real outsider with that group.

Right.

But on the other hand, I had studied art history as a younger person, and I was very intrigued by the art of Kandinsky.

As like an early metaphysician, so to speak.

And I also was fascinated by Yoko Ono's work.

Because it was very, very zen, and it was very, very pointed, especially her piece, Yes.

I can't say for certain, but I can probably say that Yoko definitely felt like she was outside the loop of the pop art group, although she was a popular artist.

And John Lennon, of course, is super popular.

But, you know, as far as the art form...

Yeah, she was in her own world.

She was in her own category.

You know, portraits in history have always been representations by, you know, original paintings were done because they didn't have photography.

So when photography came in at the turn of the last century, it really completely changed the way we see reality.

Because, you know...

It indicated that all the elements in the physical world are reflections of light, and they're signatures of energy moving in different oscillations and vibrations.

So once that was established in the turn of the last century, as we moved into the 1950s, and then the 60s, and 70s, and 80s, and on to the 21st century,

I really see art more about the things we can't see.

That's the most intriguing and most important part of art, I believe.

To compel people to look at life in a new way.

So, in OmniArt, we talk about the inner dimensions a lot.

Because all things proceed from the inner to the outer physical world.

That's the part that interests me.

It's like a puzzle.

You know what I mean?

You're going to have to choose the right thing.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

But it doesn't have to be the perfect color.

And it doesn't have to be the perfect color.

Thank you.