Susan Sontag
1964
I find it interesting that over the course of the last four years that this same idea has cropped up. The amusing part is that it tends to crop up when the artist is standing before their work and have gone on the defensive, having a lack of substance to back up the work. I believe that this idea of "just let the work be, it, itself" is fine if you have no desire to know anything more. There is no reason a person cannot live life and make art based on the surface of themselves, never gaining any true revelation into who and what they really are. Ignorance is a choice, and one people make every day. The immutable fact is that the deeper content IS there, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. A piece is NEVER just about the surface. The human existence cannot help but place what it is into everything it does. It is fine to say "I only want you to see the surface of my work" but the fact remains that there is always something underneath. I don't think the author ever denied this fact as I have heard others do, but articles such as this paved a delusional path for the self-imposed ignorance of the modern flippant artist.
No comments:
Post a Comment