Hm... I don't know enough about what goes on in these discussions to pass
judgment. Yes, art has ways to express ideas... On the other and, I wonder
if it must be its primary concern. After all, we already have politicians,
pundits, prophets, lawyers, philosophers, advertisers, all of whom are in
the business of expressing ideas of some sort or other. And it is not clear
why the artists' ideas should be taken more seriously than anyone else's.
Even if ideas are being expressed, I would think that the manner of
expression is what matters more, here. But that's just my opinion.
Oh, it just occurred to me, let's paint the proposition that Shanghai is
not the capital of China. It looks like it might well be. (If anything it
probably looks more metropolitan than Beijing.)
O.K.
On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 6:06 PM, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
We can agree that one needs to understand a language to know what might be
expressed, that abstract expressionism, for example, is opaque to many, and
that someone who has never arrived in a capital might have trouble
distinguishing Mombasa from somewhere else. But surely these are arguments
about fluency or comprehension rather than capability? In a few weeks I'll
be sitting in thesis orals in the art college where I work. Students will
try to explain what "idea" their work aims to explore. My colleagues'
notion of an "idea" and a philosopher's may differ, but if it's impossible
that an assembly of this and that or a performance or an ever-looping tape
can express an idea, then the students are being asked to undertake what
cannot be done, which doesn't reflect well on us.
David
On Apr 8, 2015, at 8:50 AM, Omar Kusturica wrote:
Eh, it's not clear to me what 'abstraction' is. Arabesque may beabstract in the sense that it is not representational, but that is probably
not what is meant. I wouldn't take it for granted that paintings of
abstract concepts exist, as opposed to paintings that provide concrete
examples of these concepts. For example, Munch's "Melancholy" is a painting
of a melancholic face, not really a painting of melancholy. At the very
least, it is something that can be assumed without discussion.
capital of France, I strongly suspect that these 'hints' will be readable
About a painting that will tell me by way of hints that Paris is the
only by one who knows it already, and quite a few other facts about Paris
and France besides.
Perhaps we can take Mombasa instead and see how you lead me toward it byhints that must surely be understandable to us both.
O.K.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
