Monday, March 22, 2010
The fecundity of dullness
The brilliant artist awoke and trembled, as was his habit. He had been frustrated for several days, as he knew that he was out of ideas. No. Rather, Man was out of ideas. Art had been destroyed by a vicious Postmodernist at Yale, and all that was left was shapes and colors, bearing little meaning and surely no aesthetic value (for how could there be value once the critique had so succeeded). The artist decided to create the only thing that could be created, Nothing. He did this by finding all the art that Man has created and incinerating it. A brilliant project this was, and it was extolled by all, as finally Man's creation's had caught up with his world.
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So damn dramatic! Destruction is not creation: it is parasitic on creation. "Creativity" has the very word in it. It is not "destructivity." And is not artistic capacity defined by creativity?
ReplyDeleteI think that's not necessarily right. Realism for example is not characterized by creativity but rather intends to reflect reality. Also, it can probably be the case that destruction is art and I'm sure I could find artists who destroyed to create.
ReplyDeleteBtw I'm not backing this thing I wrote; it could well be crap.
Realism is art because it is NOT real: it creatively imitates the real. It wants to BE real. If it were real, it would be uninteresting. It is the fact of non-reality that gives realism its bite.
ReplyDeleteSecond, "destroying to create" again, is the point. I agree with you, many "destroy to create." But if it is artistic, it is the creation that matters. You speak in instrumental terms of the function of art, I think, rightly. Destroy TO create. The destruction is parasitic on the creation.
Right. But anyway destroying things to represent what we really have would be art under your criterion.
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