I’d like to open up a discussion on John Dewey’s Art as Experience
To begin I’ll open with a quotation from page 1:
When an art product once attains classic status, it somehow becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life-experience.
The more I read Dewey’s book the more interesting I find his arguments. The book is a bit dated but still relevant nonetheless. Responding here to what Dewey is talking about, I would extend his comment to not just art in museums but all art. What makes a piece of art interesting is the union of concept, emotional content and materials. Artists when they are working regardless of their process or materials are engaged in this project. When they have completed a piece though, the art object stands on its own and is experienced as a relationship between the viewer and the object and for the most part the artists and their experience that went into conceiving and making the piece are out of the picture. The viewer brings their own history and expectations that colors the interaction. Some artists embrace this other artists fight against it and try to force viewers to read manifestos or other statements that explain the piece of work.
g-spanker, you should start a bookclub. unfortunately it will be a while before I can read this one because I just bought that mark rothko book. -jimmy