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".
***
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.
Showing posts with label what is art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what is art. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 January 2010
What Is Art? - 3
Newness and provocations of modernism
Pretty scandalous masturbation scene in "L'Apres Midi d'un Faune" ballet + Stravinsky ballet that also caused a scandal ...
Clive Bell on art and significant form: significant form is the quality common to all works of art
Collingwood, "Principles of Art": works of art are expressions of emotions
Labels:
art debate,
ballet,
is this art?,
masturbation,
provocative,
scandalous,
what is art
What Is Art? - 1
German philosopher Immanuel Kant set the basis for the Western tradition of how we look at and conceive of art with his text "Critique of Judgment" published in 1790.
For Art to exist, audience's subjectivity must participate, according to Kant. Art is not something in itself. Kant, differently from Plato who advanced the idea that man can not experience "truth" and "reality" and that art is bad since it is based on sensations, believes that art has a fundamental role and can create a special and spiritual aesthetic.
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