File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1996/avant-garde_Feb.96, message 10


Date: Sat, 3 Feb 1996 16:36:26 -0600 (CST)
From: Kenneth Elliott <kelliott-AT-utdallas.edu>
Subject: Re: public


On Sat, 3 Feb 1996, Michael Thomas wrote:
 
> It seems the artist who destroyed the installation has learned quite well
> to be judgemental and was most certainly playing his own quality card.
> 
> Could someone expand on why these pieces are "art but not very good art?"
> Thanks.
> 
> Michael Thomas
> 
> Michael Thomas
> lpierre-AT-mcs.com

Perhaps because the pieces were too easy?  In its broadest (?!) sense, 
art is artificial -- created by humans.  Good art would be something 
uniquely human, would even push the limits of human possibility in the
(combined) defining features of humanity.  Good art would require the 
rigor of sapient thought 
interwoven with an intense spiritual dimension and excellence in physical 
execution.  A person chained to a doghouse does not require much in 
the way of thought and negates the uniquely human spiritual intensity by 
suggesting that, despite appearances, humans are dogs.  
	Destruction of an artwork does not even require a central nervous 
system.  A fluke electrical fire would have been no more or less effective.  
I'm sure I'm missing a pointed message about brutality from an artist who 
destroys another's work, but then humans are not the only brutal forces 
of nature.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth Elliott - kelliott-AT-utdallas.edu | `I used to dig up bones so white
H: (214) 692-7877   W: (214) 883-2062   |  and pure they would break your 
http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~kelliott	|  heart.'   -Tiernan Alexander-
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