In a recent post (December 8, 2022) I discussed two ‘arts’. They were art and ‘not-art’.
I argued that anything that presents itself as ‘art’ by displaying features typically found there, is probably not art but only ‘bad art’.
The only art there is, is art that does not display features of earlier art. You cannot impersonate art as if by acting it out, that you will magically come to it.
It is more mysterious than that, more miraculous, and more difficult.
The only art is the art from which you cannot decipher the head from the tail.
My earlier post was summarily dismissed as unsustainable and ridiculous by avid blog readers, so I wanted to post the idea again, to show the idea cannot be summarily dismissed.
My editors here are rigorous but also open.
It’s a threatening idea, after all. It threatens the thinking of most artists whose practice is governed by conditional thinking.
Some art is so glorious, so irresistible, one cannot avert one’s eyes from it. Surely that would qualify, and yet,
No.
We are too easily persuaded to be pleased or agreeable or impressed by good efforts, by the presence of coherent structure, by high craft.
Surely we do not need to be more rigorous.
Yes.
It’s hard to hold the line, to not go soft and lose the track.
You always have to start from the beginning because all progress is delusional. There is only ever one point on the map and that is the beginning.
Only from the beginning do we have no idea where or how to proceed.
A lack of progress might be disappointing. We would prefer to imagine a journey had taken place along the road.
Just as we cannot imagine the point from which we begin, so also must we overlook the experience we have had, as if that was a guide.
PS. Everything that appears here on the blog is an attempt to articulate my experience.