Tiffany Victoria Horan

Complex Checkerboard

2012-01-31T19:27:00.003Z

Dear Kandinsky,

I've become even more obsessed with prisms and the ways in which light can be refracted and reflected due to your painting. I've started to see triangles everywhere; I'm starting to see circles orbiting my head as I wander the empty streets.

Every time the sole of my foot hits the pavement, a square forms underneath it. I'm constantly followed by a beam. My world has become a swirling abyss of colour, I am a complex checkerboard.

1. http://tiffanyhoran.blogspot.com/2009/12/swinging.html (Accessed 8th December 2009)

Goethean Methodology

2012-01-22T20:53:00.010Z

My biro isn't a biro. What is a biro? How did it come to exsist? Where did it come from? What is it for? What is it made of? What does it look like on the inside? Can I get inside? The ink inside the biro, similar to the sand within an egg timer, is a measurement of time. When the river of ink runs dry, the biro ceases to be useful. It becomes a shell. Shells can be found on the sea shore.
I've never seen a biro by the sea.

1. http://tiffanyhoran.blogspot.com/2010/01/notes.html (Accessed 13th January 2010)

Quintessence

2012-01-22T20:10:00.005Z

The number five is said to represent persuasiveness, a daring or bold nature, action, spontaneity or the five human senses. The number may reflect change. It is also said to be the link between the heavens and earth. The symbol of human microcosm. A five pointed star is meant to depict spiritual aspiration, individuality and education when it points upward. However, a five pointed star pointing downward tends to represent witchcraft. Within Alchemy, the five pointed star symbolises the quintessence, as does the five petaled flower.

1. http://tiffanyhoran.blogspot.com/2010/03/quintessence.html (Accessed 22nd March 2010)

Great Works Wait

2012-01-21T20:22:00.007Z

Bad faith, Sartre tells us, is a choice not to choose. It is negative freedom, freedom that denies, checks and represses itself. To exercise freedom negatively is to adopt what Nietzsche calls the ascetic ideal. The ascetic ideal values self-repression and self denial above all else and for their own sake. A person who adopts the ascetic ideal does not, for example, value celibacy for the sexual health and peace of mind it brings, but only for the self-denial it involves.₁

This example could be said to reflect the idea of authenticity within art, when an artist finds themselves stuck due to an unfamiliar brief, or because they are pandering to the needs of others rather than being true to themselves. This often hinders the quality of work produced. It could also be said that the negative freedom portrayed by the media tends to influence naive or young artists more than those already successful or comfortable with their practise. For example, artists targeted to create a certain style of work because the media tells them it will make them more appealing to the ‘right people’ or the ‘right crowd’. Rather than the media accepting that sometimes people just want to feel positive about themselves as artists and should be allowed to express themselves in any means possible in order to stay true to who they are. The diversity amongst art displayed in the media tends to depend on which magazine or newspaper you’re reading or the kind of websites you’re visiting.

The existentialist position sees ‘the man who makes art as one who offers a challenge to the rest of society and at the same time accepts a kind of bet with existence.’₂ This idea promoted a general feeling of isolation, a detachment from belief systems, and the creator must reinvent art from the very beginning as he is to find salvation in nothing but art. Due to this there was a somewhat tendentious emphasis on the idea of ‘originality’ – the artist was willing to have descendants, but not ancestors, and was, to that extent at least, as subjective as Sartre could have wished.₃

In Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: ‘important art works constantly divulge new layers; they age, grow cold and die’.₄ Their critical relationship to society must also be variable. Indeed, Adorno suggests that great art works might come in and go out of phase with society: at points their critical potential with be stilled; at others it will be alive and vivid. There will always remain something critical in the art work:₅‘Authentic art of the past that for the time being must remain veiled is not thereby sentenced. Great works wait… something of their truth content, however little it can be pinned down, does not: it is that whereby they remain eloquent.’₆

1. Cox, Gary, How to be an Existentialist: or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009) 98.

2. Lucie-Smith, Edward, Movements in art since 1945, New Revised Edition (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984) 9.

3. Lucie-Smith, Edward, Movements in art since 1945, New Revised Edition (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984)10.

4. Hullot-Kentor, Robert, Aesthetic Theory trans. (London: Athlone, 1992) 4.

5. Thomson, A. J. P. (Alexander John Peter) ADORNO: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2006) 64.

6. Hullot-Kentor, Robert, Aesthetic Theory trans. (London: Athlone, 1992) 40.

Negative Press

2012-01-21T19:07:00.004Z

When a child creates something, they aren’t usually concerned by developing a concept, perfecting technical skills or expanding on thought processes and ideas. They usually create for the sake of creating, as a form of entertainment, communication, enjoyment. This could perhaps be argued to be the truest form of art. However one could argue that this is not art at all as it isn’t aimed at an art world public nor was it created to be a work of art in the conventional sense. The direct and unschooled was given sharp focus in the French situation by Dubuffet’s ‘Art Brut’. This was initially a form of celebration of the vitality and truth to be found in graffiti and in the art of children and of the insane. In turn, Dubuffet and others pursued this vitality and authenticity in their own art.₁

Some artists feel, when confronted with negative press or a lack of interest that they should try to produce work similar to that of current or relevant artists who appear to be doing well for themselves. This ‘tendency to give up the independence of one’s own individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking’₂ is often noticed by those in the art world and is considered copycat, as the artist is no longer being true to themselves, attempting to substitute what they lack with something they’ve stolen from someone else. Sometimes however this is considered not to be plagiarism but to be a smart move on the plagiarists’ part if the idea develops into a better work of art than the original work pertaining to the idea.

1. Harrison, Charles & Wood, Paul, Art in theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002) 559.

2. Fromm, Erich, 1900-1980 Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960) 121.

Indistinguishable Objects

2012-01-20T13:20:00.002Z

Danto went on to compare two perceptibly indistinguishable objects, one that is considered art and one that is not. The example he chose to discuss was Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes, he describes the boxes as being ‘piled high, in neat stacks, as in the stockroom of the supermarket.’ This idea of mimicking reality through art really allows us to question the value of objects and materials used to create artworks, is a bronze statuette of a man less valuable than a plywood Brillo box? In terms of material costs, yes, in terms of concept, no, as both objects reflect what already exists yet both have an atmosphere of something that didn’t exist prior to their creation.

In Danto’s ‘The Artworld’ he also touches upon the reversal of mimicking something from reality as art by using the thing itself: ‘Picasso's strategy in pasting the label from a bottle of Suze onto a drawing, saying as if it were that the academic artist, concerned with exact imitation, must always fall short of the real thing: so why not just use the real thing?’

A Theory

2012-01-20T13:09:00.000Z

For me, all art is in some way an interpretation of the human condition, expressed in a manner considered to be art by the artist. This interpretation may or may not be a conscious decision. It may be a product of a subconscious, suffering in silence. It could be described as a form of communication, a way of letting others know the truth without saying anything, without an explanation, a visual truth.

If you were to tell an artist something they did was a work of art and they know it isn’t or they don’t consider it so, then it is not. If the artist says something is a work of art, then it is. An artist cannot lie to their self when it comes to a work of art as it could potentially appear obvious to those who follow the artist’s work or to an artworld public when compared to their other works of art. Work that is based on something much more truthful, much more existential tends to possess a certain quality that cannot be faux. Any artist who believes in their work and knows whether consciously or subconsciously that it is existential could be considered to be an existential artist.

When an artist focuses less on aesthetics and more on ‘the condition of human existence, and on an individual’s emotions, actions, responsibilities and thoughts, or the memory or purpose of life’₁ the work tends to hold more empathy with a wider variety of audience. This starts allowing a deeper connection with the artist, creating a dialogue between audience and artist through the art work, leading to the idea that all works of art are interactive. Interaction within art could be defined as being the viewer’s ability to gain a number of multisensory experiences from the work or it could simply be the viewer’s eyes interacting with the visual aspect of the work.

The status of art has become much more accessible to the general public, more interactive. The idea of art for all, is one many galleries tried and are still trying to achieve in a variety of different ways, such as workshops for children, networking and social events, screenings and fundraisers. These events also benefit galleries and artists financially by building up a general interest in contemporary art that until the opening of Tate Liverpool or ‘The Tate of the North’ in 1988 seemed only to exist amongst those who were involved with or working in the creative industries. One could even argue that the interest only really began when Tate Modern opened in 2000 due to the media coverage.

1. http://eof737.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/reflections-life-as-we-live-it/ (Accessed 23^rd November 2011)

Dickie and Danto

2012-01-20T12:19:00.000Z

‘A work of art is an artefact of a kind created to be presented to an art world public.’ - George Dickie.₁ This being the case, if one was to find a piece of driftwood belonging to a shipwreck and place it in a gallery as a sculptural work, one could argue that this is not art because it is an artefact not created by an artist to be viewed or presented to an artworld public but merely the result of a disaster at sea. Then again we could argue that by the artist finding the artefact and viewing it as art, they have created a new meaning for it as an object that coincidentally could be considered art due to its visual qualities and by simply placing it in the gallery space.

When we use art in an evaluative sense, to provide a positive evaluation of something we describe something as being ‘a work of art’ because it displays all of the attributes of ‘art’. Most people however, are not interested in the evaluative sense of the word art but rather the classificatory use. For example, if there are both good and bad works of art, how is this classified? If there are no rights or wrongs within art, no good or bad pieces then how are we to criticize?

The scepticism for defining art changed during the 60’s when a man called George Dickie came up with the Institutional Theory of Art. Dickie believed that it’s the placing of the artwork in an institutionalised framework which makes it art. For example Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ holds a place within the institutionalised space of the art world that a regular urinal does not. Another view relating to George Dickie and the idea of institutional theory was that of Arthur Danto: ‘To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.’₂

1. Stecker, Robert (Spring 1986) The End of an Institutional Definition of Art, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 26, No. 2, Available at: http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/2/124.full.pdf (Accessed 1st December 2011) 124.

2. Danto, Arthur (Oct. 15, 1964) The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 19, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Sixty-First Annual Meeting. pp. 571-584. Available at: http://estetika.ff.cuni.cz/files/Danto.pdf (Accessed 15th October 2011)

Defining Art Continued

2012-01-18T12:50:00.001Z

A concept has a real definition as an attribute. Every concept must have a real definition - otherwise it would not be a concept.₁There are two kinds of definition, real and nominal; a real definition states the essence of a thing, what it is to be a thing of that kind. A nominal definition gives the meaning of a word. In a lecture on ‘defining art’ by James Grant he gave a good example of the differences between nominal and real definitions. He stated that the claim that water is something with the chemical structure H₂O is the case of stating the essence of water. Saying what it is for something to be water but it is not a definition of the word ‘water’.

The word ‘water’ does not mean the same as ‘has the chemical structure H₂O’ because people have understood and can understand the word water without knowing it’s chemical structure, with no concept of hydrogen or oxygen etc. He went on to discuss the importance of keeping this in mind when it comes to defining or accessing definitions of art. Is the aim to provide necessary and sufficient conditions of ‘being art’? Is the aim to state the essence of the thing? Or do we just require a test to help us deal with works such as Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’? He also mentioned that the reason people refer to their views as ‘theories of art’ is because they’re reluctant to say that what they’re doing is providing a ‘definition’ of art.

1. http://www.information-management.com/issues/20_2/real-definitions-versus-nominal-definitions-in-data-management-10017321-1.html (Accessed 15th November 2011)

The Artist's Role

2012-01-18T12:09:00.006Z

The role of the artist seems to be ever-changing. Artists who focus on a white cube setting, giving value to their work once it’s in a gallery space rather than giving value to it outside of such a space appear to move away from the idea that art should represent anything directly. It becomes a game, the idea that there’s always something more and even if there isn’t, colleagues of the artist, the audience and critics will come up with a new definition or meaning for the work due to its location. Work padded by the use of words as opposed to work that speaks for itself. When the role of art is a mystery, it is usually because the role of the artist is an enigmatic one. In the BBC documentary series ‘Imagine - Winter 2011, 1. Grayson Perry and the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’, Grayson Perry touches upon the idea of the art space and the insignificant object:

I am increasingly being dissatisfied with the context of the contemporary art space as an arena where I want to put my work. Things are given a spurious significance by being in the gallery now; it used to be you built the gallery to put the significant objects in, now you put insignificant objects in the gallery to give them significance. That’s worn out now, it was a novel thought 100 years ago, when Duchamp said ‘artists will just be people who point’, that was an interesting thought. Now, it’s boring. I get tired of a lot of art because it’s not special enough.₁

Important works of art are the ones that aim for an extreme; they are destroyed in the process and their broken outlines survive as the ciphers of a supreme unnameable truth.₂ In December 2004, Duchamp's Fountain was voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals.₃ It was however not created to be viewed as a work of art but as a means of testing the ‘American Society of Independent Artist’s’ commitment to democratic values in art. Marcel Duchamp submitted this piece of work in order to challenge the idea set by the Society of Independent Artists that any artist, of any level who paid the submission fee and submitted their work would be featured in the exhibition. Duchamp was the only artist who was not featured even though he had paid the submission fee.

His work was submitted anonymously under the pseudonym RRMutt, which again shows us that he as the artist did not intend to take credit for this work. Unless regularly using the same pseudonym, for example Jean-Michel Basquiat’s ‘SAMO’ or the graffiti artist ‘Banksy’, an artist would not hide his identity when submitting his work unless he did not want to associate his own recognised name and practise with that work. This is perhaps slightly different as the art created by Duchamp under the pseudonym RRMutt was not intended to be viewed as a work of art but as a test, a social experiment on how far he could stretch the limitations of a group of judges when told there were no limitations as to what they were willing to accept.

1. ‘BBC - Imagine - Winter 2011, 1. Grayson Perry and the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’ (Episode 1, 2011)

2. Livingstone, Rodney, Quasi Una Fantasia: Essays in Modern Music trans. (London: Verso, 1992)

3. "Duchamp's urinal tops art survey" BBC News. 2004-12-01

Relational Aesthetics Continued

2012-01-17T23:46:00.001Z

We had to create to live, we had to explore to discover, and we had to experiment in order to move forward. I agree in a way with Bourriaud’s opinions on contemporary art and that ‘contemporary art resembles a period of time that has to be experienced, or the opening of a dialogue that never ends.’₁ When art stopped being used as a form of communication, when art had moved away from the decoration of useful objects or craft, when art became something valuable, something special, something wonderful and different, it took on a new form, it became contemporary, it was controversial.

Anyone who has ever produced something ‘unique’ in the sense that it was different to the ‘art’ of the time, produced a work of contemporary art; which is why we need to go backwards to discover what once was in order to improve our knowledge of what could be. I do however also disagree slightly with Bourriaud as I feel that if you knew a work of art was ‘contemporary’ in its day, if you read and learnt about other works around at the same time as this ‘new’ piece, if you possessed the ability to empathise with people of that era, you wouldn’t need to experience the work first hand because your imagination could do that for you. I think by putting yourself in the position of an audience member from whichever period the work was created, you are allowing yourself to form your own opinions on the work without modern eyes and by comparing the ‘new’ work to others created around the same time, you are seeing how this work becomes ‘contemporary’ in comparison.

A lot of artists deny or discourage the use of the word ‘relational’ to describe themselves or their work, even those who are considered to be by Bourriaud. ‘He saw artists as facilitators rather than makers and regarded art as information exchanged between the artist and the viewers. The artist, in this sense, gives the audience access to power and the means to change the world. Bourriaud cited the art of Gilian Wearing, Philippe Parreno, Douglas Gordon and Liam Gillick as artists who work to this agenda.’₂ The ability to give an audience such freedom could suggest that these artists or ‘relational’ artists could be considered to be existential artists.

1. Bourriaud, Nicolas, Relational Aesthetics (Dijon: Les Presses du Réel, 2002)

2. Wilson, Simon and Lack, Jessica, ‘The Tate Guide To Modern Art Terms’ (London: Tate, 2008)

Relational Aesthetics

2012-01-16T17:36:00.001Z

‘Relational Art or Relational Aesthetics is a mode or tendency in fine art practice originally observed and highlighted by French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud. Bourriaud defines relational art as ‘a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.’₁I feel that sharing a common emotion or experience when viewing a work of art is more important than not experiencing something similar to those around you.

I also feel that to experience something completely different to those around you perhaps either indicates a lack of understanding of the piece by the viewer or a lack of clarity of the piece by the artist during creation, this however could perhaps be intentional. Marcel Duchamp gave a talk₂ that I feel challenges my belief in the artist alone participating in the creative act regardless of the role of the spectator, where as he recognised that in the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. He believed that the spectator determined the weight of the work on the esthetic scale.

This gap which represents the inability of the artist to express fully his intention; this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize is the personal “art coefficient” contained in the work. In other words, the personal “art coefficient” is like an arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed. To avoid a misunderstanding, we must remember that this “art coefficient” is a personal expression of art “à l'état brut” that is, still in a raw state, which must be “refined” as pure sugar from molasses, by the spectator; the digit of the coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on his verdict.₃

All art is participatory, regardless of whether or not it’s seen by anyone but the artist. By participatory, I mean that because the artist creates the work and without the artist there would be no work the artist has participated in the act of creation. The public or the audience of the piece don’t necessarily have to be in the presence of it if there is another way in which it exists, through documentation or a common knowledge. If you know about a work of art, if you’ve thought about it, if you’ve mentioned it, even if you’ve never seen it, it is still participatory. In order to form an opinion on something, to think or to speak about something, to prejudge something, that something has already become a part of you; you are therefore involved in the work, with or without visual proof.

1. Bourriaud, Nicolas, Relational Aesthetics (Dijon: Les Presses du Réel, 2002)

2. Duchamp, Marcel, from Session on the Creative Act, Convention of the American Federation of Arts, Houston, Texas, April 1957.

3. Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968 The essential writings of Marcel Duchamp (London : Thames and Hudson, 1975) 139.

Existentialist Terms

2012-01-15T16:56:00.002Z

In Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialist terms, the fact that ‘every person makes himself what he is and is condemned to be free’₁ shows us that we have a choice as artists. If an artist truly believes in themselves and their work, then there is no reason for them not to progress; if they do not, they will not as they have already made this decision by ignoring their own freedom and remaining oppressed by their own thoughts. Sartre was not the only philosopher to touch upon the idea of self, for example Nietzsche allows us to gain a sense of liberation, to convince us what it is to feel free and how to achieve such freedom through his writing: Be your own source of experience! Throw off your discontent about your nature; forgive yourself your own self, for you have in it a ladder with a hundred rungs, on which you can climb to knowledge.₂ You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through – attempts, false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your love and your hope – into your goal, with nothing left over.₃

Sartre believed that personal freedom was often threatened by other people; in his play ‘No Exit’ this idea can be clearly observed. The play is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity, and is the source of one of Sartre's most famous quotations, ‘l'enfer, c'est les autres’ or ‘hell is other people’.₄ Personal freedom is important when it comes to creating art as without it we are not being true to ourselves and therefore not able to create true works of art.

1. Ashton, Dore, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning (London: Penguin, 1972) 181.
2. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Human, All Too Human (U of Nebraska Press, 1996) 174.
3. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Human, All Too Human (U of Nebraska Press, 1996) 175.
4. http://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2010/07/most-famous-thing-jean-paul-sartre.html (Accessed 5th November 2011)

Theodor Adorno

2012-01-14T22:04:00.001Z

Theodor Adorno produced some of the most challenging critical, aesthetical and philosophical works of the twentieth century.

Adorno’s work is very often a response – to what passes for common sense at the time of writing, to a specific claim made about a work, or to quite specific developments, in particular artistic traditions – and so it helps to know something of the situation to appreciate Adorno’s point. This tension is reversed in the theory maze of Aesthetic Theory, which although incomplete at the time of his death, is the most intense expression of Adorno’s own quest for form. The ambiguous title offers us both sides of Adorno’s project: a theory of the aesthetic which must come to terms with the violence of arraigning the singularity of the art work under general categories, and a theory which itself aspires to the uniqueness and individuality of the art work.1

1. Thomson, A. J. P. (Alexander John Peter) ADORNO: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2006) 44.

The Artefact

2012-01-14T21:52:00.009Z

When arguing what constitutes an authentic or true work of art we must also consider the idea of the exhibition itself. Most exhibits containing artefacts in museums were not originally intended to be viewed as works of art and tend to be objects that were created for a more practical or ornamental use. These displayed objects may still provide an aesthetic experience, for example – the visual aspect of a working model of a water pump exhibited in a physics exhibition could be compared to the auditory experience one gets when viewing the Loophonium or Harpic-phone by Fritz Spiegl.₁

Multisensory experiences within art tend to be encouraged when they are part of the work, when it was the artist’s intent to provide such experiences. Multisensory experiences within artefact or science exhibits tend to be coincidental. However, if an artist were to put a working model of a water-pump in to a gallery space people could be convinced that it is in fact art, even though it wasn’t created with the purpose of being art.

1. http://www.culture24.org.uk/places+to+go/north+west/liverpool/art18870 (Accessed 4th November 2011)

Assessing Aesthetic Value

2012-01-13T14:25:00.002Z

Philosopher Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches to assessing the aesthetic value of art in general: the realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view, the objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience and the relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.₁

Due to the subjective nature of aesthetic quality, the artist tends to aim for the aesthetic value of their own work, regardless of an aesthetic quality favoured by the public. However, one could argue that in cases such as Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel ceiling that it was made to be viewed both as a work of art and to glorify God. Aesthetic intention in order to provide and enhance aesthetic experience was prevalent in this situation.

A lack of aesthetic intention could potentially mean that the work is not art because it was not intended to be viewed as art. If for example, a work was created with religious intention, then it was made to glorify God rather than to be viewed as art by the public. Art with aesthetic intention could be defined as a work of art created with the intention of providing an aesthetic experience, which is not to say that art without aesthetic intention can’t provide an aesthetic experience. Work created in order to glorify God could be beautiful or appealing to us in some way but not necessarily connect with us on a deeper, more experiential level. The dialectical critic of culture must both participate in culture and not participate. Only then does he do justice to his object and to himself.₂

1. Wollheim 1980, op. cit. Essay VI. pp. 231–39.
2. Weber, Samuel and Shierry, Prisms trans. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981) 33.

Reflecting Beauty

2012-01-12T09:54:00.003Z

‘We have art in order not to perish from the truth.’ - Nietzsche.₁Plato thought that art should try to reflect – mimic – beauty in the world. This indeed was the view of most European artists up until the time of Nietzsche. Philosophers sometimes say the fact that artistic fashions changed, with the impressionists and later surrealists changing the world to fit in with their values and priorities, had much to do with the influence of Nietzsche. In his writing Nietzsche argues that art should make you think (so you shouldn’t receive it passively) and any example that does not make you think is not true art.₂

The idea that art might produce thought may be distinguished from the notion of art partaking of a body of theory endangered elsewhere. Of course, artists and art theorists may still look to philosophy for a certain manifestation of an idea or argument, but it is never the less possible to demonstrate that art is engaged in a synchronous development of theory. Whereas once disciplinary definitions might have allowed us to circumscribe the nature of arts core activity, limiting it to a set of aesthetic concerns, in the new interdisciplinary dispensation, we cannot so readily cede the domain of thought to philosophers.₃

1. Farrell Krell, David (Winter, 1976) Art and Truth in Raging Discord: Heidegger and Nietzsche on the Will to Power, boundary 2, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 378-392 (article consists of 15 pages) Published by: Duke University Press. Stable URL Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/302141 (Accessed 1st December 2011) 379.

2. Cohen, Martin, Philosophy for Dummies (England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2010) 299.

3. Bennett, Jill, 1963 - Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005) 150.

Salcedo and Bourgeois

2012-01-11T22:08:00.002Z

Doris Salcedo, is a South American sculptor whose work is, in part, influenced by her readings of philosophy (in particular, the writings of Emmanuel Levinas) and literature (especially the poetry of Paul Celan), as well as by the ‘social' sculpture of Joseph Beuys.₁ In the past, Salcedo described her research process in terms of internalizing the grief of others – of allowing their pain to take over [her]…: In a way she claims to become that person. Their suffering becomes hers; the centre of that person becomes her centre and she can no longer determine where her centre actually is.₂ Salcedo, by taking on the roles of others within her work is focusing primarily on the human condition, thus reflecting ideas based on existentialist theories through her work. More recently, however, she has articulated a certain discomfort with the notion of identification and the implication that one can move into the place of the primary witness.₃

Louise Bourgeois’ work refers to human consciousness and to human perceptual experience. In Cell III – Eyes and Mirrors₄ the cells have been linked to the claustrophobic, psychologically traumatic atmosphere of Bourgeois' childhood home, in which her father and governess were having an affair. The cage-like enclosure is dominated by a large marble sculpture resembling a pair of eyes suggests themes of surveillance and voyeurism.₅ Many artists, including Bourgeois, put such theories into operation in their own aesthetic discourse and started to focus on the importance of the human’s point of view (and its mutability) for a wider understanding of reality. They began to conceive the audience, and the exhibition’s space, as fundamental parts of the artwork, creating a kind of mutual communication between them and the viewer, who ceased, therefore, to be a mere addressee of their message.₆

Bourgeois however did not consider herself to be a surrealist as most would believe her to be. Complaining about critics who kept misunderstanding her work, Bourgeois famously said “I’m not a surrealist, maybe I could be an existentialist”.₇ The act of courage involved in Cell III – Eyes and Mirrors₈ could be seen in terms of her own identification with – and simultaneous distance from - Albert Camus, whose work The Myth of Sisyphus she often quotes in her interviews₉: ‘An artist performs his/her problems. There’s no cure anyway because the representation itself doesn’t involve any learning. It avoids it. That is why it continually repeats. Sisyphus liked pushing his rock up. It was his reason for life. A form of self expression that taught him nothing. Camus didn’t want to learn. He wanted to justify his suffering. I want to learn.’₁₀
1. http://old.likeyou.com/archives/doris_salcedo_whitecube04.htm (Accessed 30th November 2011)
2. Princenthal et al., Doris Salcedo, 14.
3. Interview with Jill Bennett, Camden Art Centre, September II, 2001.
4. http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21134 (Accessed 24th November 2011)
5. http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21134 (Accessed 24th November 2011)
6. Sabatini, Federico (2007) Louise Bourgeois: An Existentialist Act of Self-Perception. Nebula ISSN 1449-7751 Volume: 4; Issue: 4; p.1-10. Available at: http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Sabatini2.pdf (Accessed 14th October 2011)
7. Sabatini, Federico (2007) Louise Bourgeois: An Existentialist Act of Self-Perception. Nebula ISSN 1449-7751 Volume: 4; Issue: 4; p.1-10. Available at: http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Sabatini2.pdf (Accessed 14th October 2011)
8. http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21134 (Accessed 24th November 2011)
9. Sabatini, Federico (2007) Louise Bourgeois: An Existentialist Act of Self-Perception. Nebula ISSN 1449-7751 Volume: 4; Issue: 4; p.1-10. Available at: http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Sabatini2.pdf (Accessed 14th October 2011)
10. Meyer-Thoss, Christiane, Louise Bourgeois, Designing for Free Fall (Zurich: Ammann Verlag, 1992)

Understanding Modern Art

2012-01-11T12:09:00.002Z

I believe that only if the artist believes his work to be art, is it truth.

It can be interpreted that an existential artist is an artist who believes their work to be about what existentialists believe to be subjective, such as emotions relating to freedom, regret, guilt and pain, religion and beliefs as opposed to analyzing objective knowledge, language or science.₁ There are a number of artists who could be categorised as being ‘existential’; I have chosen to discuss some ideas in regard to these artists, by reflecting this upon their practises in later posts.

According to William Barrett, ‘anyone who attempts to gain a unified understanding of modern art as a whole is bound to suffer the uncomfortable sensation of having fallen into a thicket of brambles.’₂ We find ourselves arguing over what art is, theories of art, definitions of art, philosophies relating to art, what constitutes a work of art, what is an artist, what is the aesthetic value of authentic art; the aesthetic value of truth, what is truth or authenticity in relation to works of art and how do we discover it, how can we come to terms with it?

We find ourselves occasionally banging our heads against invisible walls built up by historians, critics, philosophers, artists and writers of the past. We’re constantly attempting to justify our own practises, trying to understand what it is we do and why it is we do it. Every word a brick, every paragraph the mortar cementing those bricks we have to smash through in order to feel the warm sun kissed glow of realisation, of aspiration, of inspiration behind those walls.

1. http://philosophytweet.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html (Accessed 5th November 2011)

2. Barrett, William, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York: Anchor Books, 1958) 42.

Silver Trees

2012-01-10T10:41:00.002Z

I couldn't have gone that far, not on foot. I stood up and feebly attempted to survey my surroundings. Where was I? I touched my face, my hands were wet with dirt. I looked down towards the ground at my feet. I had misplaced my shoes. My socks were black.

A path stretched out in front of me like a pier heading out to sea. The leaves were crisp under foot as I moved towards the light. A dim light, one that shone through the forest, the light flickered against the silver trees. My jeans were damp against my legs, they began to grate the skin on my thighs. The friction felt like fire, I dropped to the floor again. The silver trees glistened, I raised my head, now on all fours, I could feel myself sinking, the wind whistled past my ears and I was gone.

Homeward Bound

2012-01-10T10:25:00.000Z

Dragging my hands along the walls, watching as the debris fell onto the dirty wooden floors. The plaster crumbled, the brickwork exposed, the ceiling cracked and cobwebbed. I long to stare out of a window with shutters. I long for the taste of humid air and a lingering smell of dust in my nostrils. I miss the way the sand felt between my toes, the way the hot concrete felt underfoot, the sound of crowds and the light, most of all, I miss the light.

Unexplainable Force

2012-01-10T10:14:00.000Z

An artist knows if he or she is an artist, they don't deny it, they don't hide it nor are they embarrassed by it in any way, shape or form. Being wholly accepting to everything around them, everything as art. Life as art. Life as art because art is creation and without creation there would be no life, there would be no art.

Whether we came from science or were placed on this earth by an unexplainable force, we are here, we exist and we will continue to do so until we don't. This is reality. There may be other lives for us to live once we're gone but if we don't do what we want with this life, we'll live to regret it in the next. I was born an artist. This is what I want to do with my life. This is why I have made so many sacrifices. I don't regret anything I've done. I don't regret any of the choices I've made, regardless of how right or wrong they were at the time. Without these choices I wouldn't be where I am today and I definitely wouldn't be the person I am today.

Defining Art

2012-01-10T10:10:00.000Z

In order for me to make any decisions regarding my work, I have to first believe in art and what it means to me. I have to force myself to decide what I think constitutes a work of art and I have to believe in my own definition before I can move forward and create anything.

The Inventor's Method

2012-01-10T10:07:00.000Z

An inventor tries and tests his methods before deciding on the final invention. He doesn't invent the first thing that comes into his head. He learns from his mistakes, he develops his ideas. This process is what makes a great work of art.

A Brief History

2012-01-09T22:17:00.007Z

I made it. I survived. I feel as though I can breathe, as though I knew nothing but what it was to be drowned in years of dark water. When I was about seventeen years old, I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog. Consequentially, the inevitable series of events that followed were due to my own naivety. Little did I know that something so innocent could cause my life to spin completely out of control.

I became very popular, very quickly, not in the real world (much to my disappointment) but in the mystical realms of the Internet. I had almost four thousand friends on Facebook, thirty six thousand followers on Tumblr and over a thousand followers on Twitter, not to mention all of the other sites I was using, YouTube, IQONS, Flickr, Vimeo, Blogger, Last FM etc. I had so many subscribers, followers, friends, buddies, chums, pals I didn't know what to do. At one point I wised up and attempted to make some money, which I did, not a substantial amount but money none the less. This is probably the point everything started to go wrong.

Prior to committing virtual suicide, I was the unfortunate victim of an unimaginable amount of abuse, emotionally and physically, both online and offline. I received some really horrific emails, prank calls and anonymous messages. I was stalked. It was quite frightening how threatened people were by my success. I became increasingly ill. All of a sudden, I could hear a pin drop, my life flashed before my eyes, I felt as though my entire reality had been sucked into cyberspace.

I created a vast array of justifiable reasons for my sudden disappearance. I went on and on about ‘our society’ and ‘my generation’. I became dragged down by faux friendships and plagiarists. Fuelled not by a competitive nature but by my will to survive, gritting my teeth and bearing everything life insisted on throwing at me. I severed any ties binding me to anyone, everyone, without a thought for their health or well being. I suffered from seizures and heart ache. Asphyxia with eyes wide open. Tears with a mouth sewn shut.