In the 20th century, it was not beauty anymore to be equated to art. It was then transgression, ugliness, offensive works that became known as art while beauty and taste started to be lost. We seem to have a culture of ugliness today while anything can be art today. But, what if together with beauty we are losing the meaning of life? Can a urinal really captivate the viewers' imagination?
"Alternative" art first caught my attention a couple of years ago when I visited a small gallery in London that exhibited shit work - literally I mean: sculptures, a lot of them, made by what I recall being a Spanish or South American artist who employs faecis and turn them into art objects. Then there was a dog by the same artist, whom he let die of starvation while calling the process "modern art".
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The Tate has just bought some William Blake hand-made pictures. The inscription for one of them, depicting a naked man clasping his head in pain as he is consumed by flames, reads: "I sought Pleasure & found Pain." My thought exactly every morning when I go to work; I wonder if I also look the same. The museum paid £441m for these pieces.
Sunday 10 January 2010
Roger Scruton "Why Beauty Matters" BBC2
Labels:
art debate,
BBC2,
beauty,
goodness,
is this art?,
truth,
what is art
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