Paul Hartal

Lyrical Conceptualism

A renowned visual artist, poet and philosopher, Paul Hartal, Ph.D., was born in 1936 in central Europe, and educated on three continents. Since 1973 he lives in Canada. In 1978 his works were displayed at the Luxembourg Museum, as well as other venues of the French Capital, and he won the Prix de Paris for his canvas, Flowers for Cézanne. "As a noted space artist" in 1994, Space Week invited him to participate in a historic exhibit at NASA Space Center in Houston, celebrating his unique vision and contribution to the exploration of the cosmos.

Following his solo exhibition at the Jacquie Gallery in Montreal, in the spring of 1975 Paul Hartal published the first Manifesto on Lyrical Conceptualism. According to Elizabeth Exler, a New York critic the artist's manifesto "has ushered in a philosophy that proceeds with many layered viewpoints, an elaborate dialogue between paint and concept." Hartal's statement on Lyrical Conceptualism also appeared in the November-December 1976 issue of Art in America.

In the 1980s Paul Hartal founded the Centre for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal. One of the many prominent people who have supported this project was Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize laureate in physics. As IBM Research Staff Member Clifford Pickover points out in Mazes for the Mind, "the Center facilitates the exchange of ideas between the various domains of human knowledge"

I cannot separate art from life. I see life as a precious gift which we may celebrate or debase by choice. We cannot succeed neither in art nor in life without love, courage, vision, knowledge, wisdom and faith. My work focuses on specific problems of the human condition, including identity and alienation, healing and medicine, ecology and space exploration, culture and survival. I believe that the happiness of the individual is bound up with the happiness of the community. The realization of this reflects on the meaning of art in its relationship to the hierarchical ladder of ethical norms. Yet, the meaning of life does not derive from a particular experience, or of moments of happiness, but from the joys and sorrows of being alive.

My art flows from the theory and practice of Lyrical Conceptualism, which I introduced in Montreal with a manifesto in 1975. This idea of art represents a unified field trend built on the synergic interaction of the different but complementary forces that participate in the creative process. Clifford Pickover, in Mazes for the Mind (New York: St. Martin's Press) quotes from my book The Brush and the Compass (University Press of America): "The present human condition calls for the rise of a new, inclusive form of culture in which art should play a most prominent role. We need the imagination, the intuition, the insight, the lateral reasoning faculty, as well as human values, that are excluded from the rigid methodology of science, but are intrinsic to art".

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