Art by Andre Brocatus
@xndre.bsky.social
Conceptual artist from the Netherlands. I use this as a place to post thoughts I have about my art.
For an overview of and introduction to the art and to get on my emaillist for updates check my website https://www.xndre.com.
For an overview of and introduction to the art and to get on my emaillist for updates check my website https://www.xndre.com.
I am now declaring this an artwork of mine.
The Department of Justice placed a black square over an image of the Mona Lisa in the Epstein files. As the DOJ faces accusations of releasing sensitive victim information, the decision to cover the world’s most famous portrait feels particularly misguided.
Mona Lisa’s Face Redacted in Latest Trove of Epstein Files
The decision to cover the world’s most famous portrait feels particularly misguided as the DOJ faces accusations of releasing sensitive victim information.
hyperallergic.com
February 9, 2026 at 10:29 PM
I am now declaring this an artwork of mine.
Stare into the abyss scream into the void
January 26, 2026 at 3:02 PM
Stare into the abyss scream into the void
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
Here’s a short poem about the power of poetry to change the world.
January 18, 2026 at 9:47 AM
Here’s a short poem about the power of poetry to change the world.
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
Thread.
If you're a writer, wondering why you should bother writing with the world on fire. It feels like it's not important, I need you to understand that it is.
Even if it is just because it keeps you moving forward? Even if it only brings YOU joy, that gives you energy to fight & survive.
Even if it is just because it keeps you moving forward? Even if it only brings YOU joy, that gives you energy to fight & survive.
January 17, 2026 at 9:51 AM
Thread.
Ja dat kan er ook nog wel bij.
NASA say that the crew member who was ill and returned to earth is doing well and now having a meal with colleagues.
January 16, 2026 at 2:38 PM
Ja dat kan er ook nog wel bij.
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
While the pasty incels who work the federal agencies continue to churn out feeble, bloodless AI pastiches of Axis propaganda, here’s how a living breathing artist powerfully invokes design history. This is by illustrator Emily K in South Philly, a free poster-sized download on her website: →
January 15, 2026 at 7:57 PM
While the pasty incels who work the federal agencies continue to churn out feeble, bloodless AI pastiches of Axis propaganda, here’s how a living breathing artist powerfully invokes design history. This is by illustrator Emily K in South Philly, a free poster-sized download on her website: →
Thanks I needed that
John Cage, submitting the sheet music for "4'33"" to his publisher: What do you think?
Publisher: No notes.
Publisher: No notes.
January 12, 2026 at 12:11 PM
Thanks I needed that
Culture is everything. [...] If our culture says that we should use an obsidian blade to cut people’s hearts out of their chests and offer them to the god Huitzilopochtli, we’ll do that too. So it’s pretty important to get our culture right.
www.experimental-history.com/p/underrated...
www.experimental-history.com/p/underrated...
Underrated ways to change the world
How to get a good heart unstuck
www.experimental-history.com
January 9, 2026 at 12:29 PM
Culture is everything. [...] If our culture says that we should use an obsidian blade to cut people’s hearts out of their chests and offer them to the god Huitzilopochtli, we’ll do that too. So it’s pretty important to get our culture right.
www.experimental-history.com/p/underrated...
www.experimental-history.com/p/underrated...
Great piece:
a process with friction makes me feel other people’s work, their point of view and how it differs from mine, makes me feel their needs and wants. Friction is part of what being in, being part of society is.
a process with friction makes me feel other people’s work, their point of view and how it differs from mine, makes me feel their needs and wants. Friction is part of what being in, being part of society is.
#MustRead @tante.cc
Friction and not being touched
“AI” systems are not framed as specific tools that solve specific problems in specific ways but just as solution in itself ("Everything Machines")
The conversational mode of modern "AI" systems is based on frictionlessness.
tante.cc/2025/07/30/f...
Friction and not being touched
“AI” systems are not framed as specific tools that solve specific problems in specific ways but just as solution in itself ("Everything Machines")
The conversational mode of modern "AI" systems is based on frictionlessness.
tante.cc/2025/07/30/f...
Growing subtler. Al- ways, at every moment, there.
tante.cc
December 8, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Great piece:
a process with friction makes me feel other people’s work, their point of view and how it differs from mine, makes me feel their needs and wants. Friction is part of what being in, being part of society is.
a process with friction makes me feel other people’s work, their point of view and how it differs from mine, makes me feel their needs and wants. Friction is part of what being in, being part of society is.
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
If you don't know the term "ekphrasis," the William Carlos Williams poem below is a great example of it; from the Greek, it generally refers to vivid written description of a work of art. Another common example: Homer’s description of Achilles' shield in the Iliad writingaboutart.org/pages/ekphra...
December 7, 2025 at 6:12 PM
If you don't know the term "ekphrasis," the William Carlos Williams poem below is a great example of it; from the Greek, it generally refers to vivid written description of a work of art. Another common example: Homer’s description of Achilles' shield in the Iliad writingaboutart.org/pages/ekphra...
www.equator.org/articles/sur...
A century ago, artists who survived the trenches captured humanity’s capacity for destruction. What can they teach us about confronting the far-right in a new age of genocide?
@naomiaklein.bsky.social totally made me see the surrealists with new eyes and fired me up
A century ago, artists who survived the trenches captured humanity’s capacity for destruction. What can they teach us about confronting the far-right in a new age of genocide?
@naomiaklein.bsky.social totally made me see the surrealists with new eyes and fired me up
Surrealism Against Fascism • EQUATOR
A century ago, artists who survived the trenches captured humanity’s capacity for destruction. What can they teach us about confronting the far-right in a new age of genocide?
www.equator.org
December 5, 2025 at 10:54 PM
www.equator.org/articles/sur...
A century ago, artists who survived the trenches captured humanity’s capacity for destruction. What can they teach us about confronting the far-right in a new age of genocide?
@naomiaklein.bsky.social totally made me see the surrealists with new eyes and fired me up
A century ago, artists who survived the trenches captured humanity’s capacity for destruction. What can they teach us about confronting the far-right in a new age of genocide?
@naomiaklein.bsky.social totally made me see the surrealists with new eyes and fired me up
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
I feel like it should be an amazing time to be an artist and yet somehow it also feels like the worst time to be an artist?
November 19, 2025 at 4:57 AM
I feel like it should be an amazing time to be an artist and yet somehow it also feels like the worst time to be an artist?
Oh man that page takes me back immediately I did not expect it to be such an accurate reproduction
Fonts based on the type generated by the Epson MX-80 dot matrix printer (1980). [mw.rat.bz]
November 12, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Oh man that page takes me back immediately I did not expect it to be such an accurate reproduction
Great cover photo. This is my favorite work by Newman.
🚨 New Modern Art Notes Podcast!
Amy Newman's much-anticipated new biography of Barnett Newman from @princetonupress.bsky.social! (Amy is no relation to Barney.)
manpodcast.com/portfolio/no...
🍎: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
🔊: open.spotify.com/episode/1aHT...
Amy Newman's much-anticipated new biography of Barnett Newman from @princetonupress.bsky.social! (Amy is no relation to Barney.)
manpodcast.com/portfolio/no...
🍎: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
🔊: open.spotify.com/episode/1aHT...
November 1, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Great cover photo. This is my favorite work by Newman.
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
Every Televised and Filmed Joy Division Performance. “One hour and twenty-five minutes. That’s apparently all of the footage that exists of Joy Division playing their music on TV and in concert.” [kottke.org]
Every Televised and Filmed Joy Division Performance
One hour and twenty-five minutes. That’s apparently all of the footage that exists of Joy Division playing their music on TV and in concert. Open Culture’s Colin Marshall writes:
Brian Eno once said of the Velvet Un
kottke.org
October 18, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Every Televised and Filmed Joy Division Performance. “One hour and twenty-five minutes. That’s apparently all of the footage that exists of Joy Division playing their music on TV and in concert.” [kottke.org]
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
When I saw Godot with Aasif Mandvi and Rainn Wilson last year the couple next to me also squirmed through the first act and then left at intermission. Sam’s still got it
TFW you paid $1400 to see Beckett’s most famous work without knowing anything about it
October 9, 2025 at 4:48 PM
When I saw Godot with Aasif Mandvi and Rainn Wilson last year the couple next to me also squirmed through the first act and then left at intermission. Sam’s still got it
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
Though it can be frustrating, it is such a gift that Jasper Johns refuses to disclose anything. In a lot of ways, the artist who resembles him the most in this regard is David Lynch.
August 30, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Though it can be frustrating, it is such a gift that Jasper Johns refuses to disclose anything. In a lot of ways, the artist who resembles him the most in this regard is David Lynch.
That header image on your account is great and hilarious as head of product of a social media site #namjunepaik
hi Bluesky! 🦋
i’ve been chosen as the new head of product here at Bluesky HQ! and i couldn’t be more excited to hack with this incredibly talented team on making this site better for everyone.
i’ve been chosen as the new head of product here at Bluesky HQ! and i couldn’t be more excited to hack with this incredibly talented team on making this site better for everyone.
August 15, 2025 at 7:56 PM
That header image on your account is great and hilarious as head of product of a social media site #namjunepaik
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real.
-Baldwin
-Baldwin
August 2, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real.
-Baldwin
-Baldwin
If I am not using this account, should I just delete it?
July 20, 2025 at 1:22 PM
If I am not using this account, should I just delete it?
This became even more accurate and relevant. Also now I can never go to the USA any more…
July 4, 2025 at 5:50 AM
This became even more accurate and relevant. Also now I can never go to the USA any more…
jailtime for USA
June 25, 2025 at 10:23 PM
jailtime for USA
I've watched this and it has strengthened my resolve to make only abstract minimal pictures and art.
Death of a Fantastic Machine, a short documentary on the camera and how the increasing ability & rewards of misleading with images has shaped our society. “Not gonna sugar-coat it: this video made me want to throw my phone in the ocean, destroy my TV…” [kottke.org]
Death of a Fantastic Machine
Death of a Fantastic Machine (aka the camera) is a short documentary on “what happens when humanity’s infatuation with itself and an untethered free market meet 45 billion cameras”…and now AI. It’s about how — since
kottke.org
June 23, 2025 at 10:37 PM
I've watched this and it has strengthened my resolve to make only abstract minimal pictures and art.
All I can do right now is create angry images of dissent and protest.
June 22, 2025 at 7:47 PM
All I can do right now is create angry images of dissent and protest.
Reposted by Art by Andre Brocatus
To wit (and much more eloquently put): bsky.app/profile/mlob...
These discussions always bring me back to a remarkable passage in which artist Zoe Leonard recounts what David Wojnarowicz said to her about the importance of embracing beauty in difficult times, which I think is worth a read right now (from @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social's book "Orwell's Roses")
June 21, 2025 at 6:36 PM
To wit (and much more eloquently put): bsky.app/profile/mlob...