File puptcrit/puptcrit.0709, message 233


From: Ed Atkeson <edatkeson-AT-earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:52:48 -0400
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Art as communication


m, >>> If a misanthropic architect builds for herself an exquisite  
house in the middle of a wilderness, is she trying to communicate  
something to herself? ;-)  And around this house she might create a  
beautiful garden, and tend to it every day - without any neighbors or  
even cats to admire it (all right, let's at least grant her a few  
rabbits and a bunch of bees).  And she might paint a bunch of  
exquisite paintings and put them up in her house - or not put them  
up, in fact - just for the joy, or out of the inner necessity, of  
painting them.  Are any of these activities any less artistic than  
the identical activities of someone who displays hir creations to the  
public?  And if the misathropic architect dies and her heirs make her  
house into a museum, is one now justified in claiming that the  
architect was driven by a wish to communicate, even if poshumously,  
with the people who come to the museum and who react, in one way or  
another, to the art she had created?   [And if you are in the least  
tempted to say "yes", then I will enhance my story by telling you  
that the architect stipulated in her will, in no uncertain terms,  
that the house should be destroyed upon her death - only the will was  
challenged by the heirs (on the basis that the artist was insane when  
she wrote the will, because no sane person would go through the  
trouble of making all this art without wanting to communicate with  
someone) and they succeded in getting it invalidated (because the  
judge, too, was a proponent of the "communication theory of art".   
Heh heh, *now* what?]

--------------
*Now* what? This is sillier than the plumbing metaphor. Prettier  
story though.

Can an artist be the audience? at times, yes. Can an art work  
communicate to the artist? yes.

But it's pretty obscure wouldn't you say?

I'm also worried that someone will trip over the damn flower on the  
sidewalk and kill themselves, so if you wouldn't mind...

best,
Ed
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