One job of the artist is to engage the viewer, to wake up the observer, to get the witness to pay attention and think. If one trusts the artist, meets the artist on her own turf and accepts the sincerity of the work, it’s alchemy. If Picasso hangs a set of bicycle handlebars on a wall and calls it art, I think a smart person should say, What’s going on here? and engage with the work. In the Rothko chapel are fourteen monumental canvases painted in variations of… black. Blueblack, Purpleblack, Blackblack. I don’t think I ever really paid attention to blackness till I saw them. I’ve spent more than a few hours there, embraced, cocooned, spellbound in darkness.
A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon, but it IS a finger pointing at the moon.
Sometimes the best we can do is find a wonder and point at it shouting LOOK! LOOK!
One job of the artist is to engage the viewer, to wake up the observer, to get the witness to pay attention and think. If one trusts the artist, meets the artist on her own turf and accepts the sincerity of the work, it’s alchemy. If Picasso hangs a set of bicycle handlebars on a wall and calls it art, I think a smart person should say, What’s going on here? and engage with the work. In the Rothko chapel are fourteen monumental canvases painted in variations of… black. Blueblack, Purpleblack, Blackblack. I don’t think I ever really paid attention to blackness till I saw them. I’ve spent more than a few hours there, embraced, cocooned, spellbound in darkness.
A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon, but it IS a finger pointing at the moon.
Sometimes the best we can do is find a wonder and point at it shouting LOOK! LOOK!