Zensee
Posts: 1564
Joined: 9/4/2004 Status: offline
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Sex and death have changed places in this century. Used to be, sex was private and death was public. A person probably died in their bed at home, tended by family and visited by friends. The body was prepared for burial there and removed in the plain sight of neighbours, if not displayed for a wake. I wonder what the reaction would be if a couple were to occupy a bed in a gallery, offering the possibility that the public might witness intimacies of a similar nature to dying (i.e. the "little death")? Probably not nearly as shocked and outraged. That would be an understandable voyeurism, in today's society. The fact that just the proposal for this exhibit has sparked a lively discussion is a success in itself. Imagining the terms of participation, what the motives of a potential participant might be, how their wishes and those of their family might clash or be resolved, how one might feel attending and observing, how one might feel to be there at the moment of death or what you might feel if the subject survived your time in the gallery (relief, disappointment?)... All quite fascinating. I used to be pretty cynical about abstract and conceptual art. There is a degree of appeal to elitism "dare you to not get it" but the opposite is true of representational art in a way (are you just too stuck up to admit that mass produced, black velvet Elvis is art?). As my understanding has increased my appreciation has too - I think I can tell chalk from cheese. I was one of the "Jackson Pollock paintings are just a bunch of mindless squiggles" crowd. Now I see his work very differently and, if you like, I can provide scientific proof that he was no wanker. Z. PS: Does art have to be about beauty?
< Message edited by Zensee -- 4/24/2008 12:39:27 PM >
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"Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." (proverb)
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