Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Brattell" <alex@zetetic.co.uk> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2000 12:35 AM Subject: Re: [Leica] Crap-o-la > : "Julian Thomas" <mimesis@btinternet.com> wrote > > Does that invalidate 'art' that reinforces your current world view? I think that even if your world view is confirmed, your place in it has changed throught the confirmation. > A Doctor of Aesthetics - wow! > Is it the job of an aesthetist to wake people up? No it means that having spent too much time reading too many books I still can't answer a basic question such as 'what is art'.!! > What I am saying is that all that matters is a sense of the genuine - I > don't get that with Cindy Sherman, loathe her work, or with so many recent > art darlings. I hate Sherman too - her 'concepts' seem to be leading nowhere. Something that relies on having something else to parody will eventually chase itself up its own anus. Art should indeed be transformative, but most of > the work that feeds the art industry is a construct, created to feed an art > career and is therefore zombie or vampire. There is a German philosopher call Theodor Adorno who I have a love-hate relationship with. Amongst other of his impenetrable sayings he said that without capitalism (the market) there would be no need for art. he also pointed out that art has never been 'free' - it has always been in the service of something else (state/church/Murdoch). It is amazing how much good art is made despite all this. Thinking of the market - one of the saddest parts of Don McCullin's autobiography was how he returned to the Sunday Times having been injured getting photographs in some trouble spot, only to be told that they wouldn't be used as they no longer fitted the 'lifestyle' slant of the paper. Julian