An Evolving Post (Hopefully)

On On Beauty

1=1

On "On Beauty", Elaine Scarry, 1999

Began reading yesterday. A second reading will be necessary but for now-

Finished section 1 - Beauty, and Being Wrong

To summarise

-> Beauty is worthwhile (?) because it intrigues us, often we misinterpret something's 'beauty' value - in a very broad sense - through either under- or overattribution. When we realise our mistake we examine more closely to find the truth.

-> Also because of replication, in short, 'beauty inspires'

Beauty, and Being Fair
Scarry talks about a divide between beauty and the sublime (divided up by Kant), though it seems to me an arbitary divide - perhaps there is simply more to be understood?
Also, she claims that thre is a connection between beauty and aliveness
And beauty and vulnerability - for the beholder. That this wasn't the case was news to me...

Kant thought that experience of the sublime depended on the viewer rather than the object itself
-> "A virtuous person fears God without being afraid of Him"?
Is fear at the root of beauty? There may be a case for that, too

Want, Christopher and Klimowski, Andrzej, 1996, Kant For Beginners, Icon Books Ltd. Cambridge
Scarry, Elaine, 2000, On Beauty and Being Just, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London

Yellowism?

Tailoring The Foot to Fit the Shoe?

So, "Yellowism"

First off, I don't know enough about this to be any kidn of authority. Probably playing to them.

Maybe admitting it mitigates that?

Maybe there was a part of me that thought I had to support these guys because they seem edgy and 'anti-establishment'

From what I can discern their principle can be distilled down to "____ doesn't have to be art, it can be Yellowism"

-> Yellowism = Art percieved in a new way, sans their concepts

-> Yellowism = Art objects (in this context)

(I know there's a strand about changing the way we percieve work based on it's context, but is that really anything new? It's more or less the basis of curating.)

Calling it now:

It's just a new kind of shock art - something creative is either art or anti-art

->Coming up with a random, 'quirky' idea then changing the world to make it seem philosophical

->Lets ruin some art for art's sake (and call it's non-art Yellowism)

I'm up for protesting against institutions, and sometimes that takes 'radical' measures, but that Rothko was defaced for a farce - either Yellowism is a joke, or it's a poor attempt at philosophy.

Smooth, guy.
He kind of contradicts himself on the "not art" bit, anyway.

Personality/Project/Research

Drawing¦There is No Line in Nature

Draw to delineate, express or depict? At most one can only draw a "picture of" the world, never truly this or that.

Drawing is the basis of all art, it is often stated, and I find myself in agreement.

-> Perhaps time for the inner nature, where lines do exsist?

Some looking may just be needed into the origin of our line-makings [is this alll drawing?]

and some line making may be necessary to understand what is not.

-> If there is some second nature to things - a phenomenological one - that cannot be photographed then we must draw it as we understand it but;

Are there lines in that Second Nature?

In relation, it may come out that by drawing a better understanding of oneself and ones true veiw of the world is reached. It might just serve as skill improvement, with nothing so grand as Art falling cleanly out of the movements of our ancients.

But we have always been drawing, so I will endeavour too - really draw, everything, like I haven't in a while.

Perhaps I shall happen to scribble on a wall and understand why I started. 

On Political?

frieze: Shouts and Murmurs

"How can change be manifested if it can’t first be imagined?"

"Who to make it for?" and "What's worth making?"

-> There is a nice antidote for that, I think. Some times radical expression can maybe be just expression?

 I don't want to make political art for the sake of being political, I don't want to make Art just to be Arty. 

-> Perhaps it's time to make a drawing. We can make sense of It by touching it. We can touch it with that Heart Hook? 

-> Put a line here or there, or draw this and that until

Thank you miss Higgie. But also thank you Ms. Mouffe, because when one reads and understands, one cannot forget.

-> The art/issues/politics never leaves us, I hope. But neither should beauty or writing or expression,

once we know how/a way to express  



 Mouffe, Chantal (2007) Artistic Activism and Agnostic Spaces, Art & Research: A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods, Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer 2007 [online] Available at: http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v1n2/mouffe.html

:24//01//12:

[The New York Trilogy begins]

:1//22//12:

http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/1269-slideshow-scientists-analyze-drawings-acid-trip-artist.html [will write about you later]

:02//12/11: War/Art

War affects art as it affects everything else. After the second world war there was a lull - "There [was] nothing else left to say" after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our perceptions changed from glory to death, and now from death to life - those caught in the conflict as soldiers or civilians. The art has taken a more vernacular form as the only sufficient way to represent a reality. Trauma changes the sensibilities of a nation entirely, and is displayed in their art, literature and film. Russian constructivists, Surrealists and their 'crazy' time. Civil war, Futurists. Dada anti-war - If society thinks it can handle high concepts and go out to shoot each other in the head then really we're still base. Dinos and Jake Chapman's 'Goya's before and after Iraq and stuff. The first world war had a profound effect on the art world - as it did on all of society. It fostered a negative view humanity that was new in it's scale and breath - Such massacre was a new sight to those away from the front line who heard an account of war not tailored by the victors. People were drafted (?) so there was more artisits (?!)
Otto Dix, Paul Nash