Saturday, October 02, 2004
Contemporary Art
I forget where I originally read a very thoughtful art commentary. But the person was making the point that no one has to be told to like Monet or the earlier masters. But we have to be told the collection of dots is a work of genius. That trash, literally, in the middle of the room is wonderful.
Now, in my email inbox I have a commentary about art criticism from Chuck Colson:
"It turns out that a famous portrait of four little girls is really a representation of sexism, slavery, and oppression in general. A religious and deeply moral artist was secretly obsessed with cross-dressing and conflicted about his own gender, as you can tell just by looking at his work. And a simple painting of a man in a boat, surrounded by sharks, is filled with symbols of everything from racism to misogyny to castration.*
If any of these statements sound familiar to you, you have probably been reading contemporary art criticism."
I forget where I originally read a very thoughtful art commentary. But the person was making the point that no one has to be told to like Monet or the earlier masters. But we have to be told the collection of dots is a work of genius. That trash, literally, in the middle of the room is wonderful.
Now, in my email inbox I have a commentary about art criticism from Chuck Colson:
"It turns out that a famous portrait of four little girls is really a representation of sexism, slavery, and oppression in general. A religious and deeply moral artist was secretly obsessed with cross-dressing and conflicted about his own gender, as you can tell just by looking at his work. And a simple painting of a man in a boat, surrounded by sharks, is filled with symbols of everything from racism to misogyny to castration.*
If any of these statements sound familiar to you, you have probably been reading contemporary art criticism."
