... so I'm tempted to start to hem and haw rather than offer up serious fighting words.
But first, let me say I don't think I'm any more "qualified" than you are to comment, and that's a significant part of my point (which might be clearer in the 2nd, shorter, version of the review). Namely, that because "there is no there, there" yet the pieces are hanging in museums, we start to say things like, "I'm ill qualified" to comment.
I'm not trying to suggest that good art is necessarily "easy" to understand — in fact, quite the reverse. I mean, what is there to say about the content of Warhol's iconic soup cans?
Well (forgive me the Anglo-Saxonism), fuck-all, I say.
On the other hand, I used to have a print of "Man in a Golden helmet" (right — which Wikipedia informs me is not a Rembrandt after all) in the eyes and the twist of that sad, tired mouth of which I could gaze over and over again. That is a painting without an "answer", like a living being it just is and, like a living being, one could write any number of novels based on what you, the viewer, bring to the work.
Warhol's soup cans? There are endless pointless essays, I guess, but not even a half-dozen short stories contained therein.
I think part of the game we're being taught to play is the one which leads us to believe art is supposed to be understood, that it has an answer or a meaning.
Personally, I like things a little more complex and ambiguous than that.
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dancing_serpent
I hate being categorical ...
Date: 2010-06-20 04:59 pm (UTC)... so I'm tempted to start to hem and haw rather than offer up serious fighting words.
But first, let me say I don't think I'm any more "qualified" than you are to comment, and that's a significant part of my point (which might be clearer in the 2nd, shorter, version of the review). Namely, that because "there is no there, there" yet the pieces are hanging in museums, we start to say things like, "I'm ill qualified" to comment.
I'm not trying to suggest that good art is necessarily "easy" to understand — in fact, quite the reverse. I mean, what is there to say about the content of Warhol's iconic soup cans?
Well (forgive me the Anglo-Saxonism), fuck-all, I say.
On the other hand, I used to have a print of "Man in a Golden helmet" (right — which Wikipedia informs me is not a Rembrandt after all) in the eyes and the twist of that sad, tired mouth of which I could gaze over and over again. That is a painting without an "answer", like a living being it just is and, like a living being, one could write any number of novels based on what you, the viewer, bring to the work.
Warhol's soup cans? There are endless pointless essays, I guess, but not even a half-dozen short stories contained therein.
I think part of the game we're being taught to play is the one which leads us to believe art is supposed to be understood, that it has an answer or a meaning.
Personally, I like things a little more complex and ambiguous than that.