This week’s reading – Arthur Danto’s The Transfigurations of the Commonplace, turns out to be a certain homage to the great art critic and philosopher as, just a week ago, he passed away at the age of 89.
Danto starts his work creating an “exhibition”. He assembles work of art to his terms of how they should be put together, for their best coexistence, there is no thematic coherence but he talks about the richness of an art work. This is interesting, he discusses the relevancy of an art work, of its theme, its title, its appearance.. He explains that “things lack aboutness and artworks are about something.” He then approaches an issue of an art work, by saying: “It cannot be simply because J is an artist, for not everything touched by an artist turns into art.” What is art, when does it stop being a thing and turns into an art work? Even Danto himself doesn’t have an answer “The nature of the boundary is philosophically dark.” The art history has a lot of examples when the art work, shown for the first time, hasn’t gotten understanding, has raised these same questions. Sometimes it is a matter of time – when something novel with potentiality has been created, it can take time to find its stable position within art framework, for instance, Pablo Picasso’s paintings, Luis Bunuel’s films or Nan Goldin’s photography – none of them were accepted straight after making their art.
One of the things I’ve been doing for the last few years is photographing the sea every time I went for a run (when I was living in Latvia near the sea). I have a whole collection of the images of the sea. I love them because, like snowflakes, you can never find two sea views the same. Still, I also cannot decide if this work is anything else, on which side the border should be drawn – thing or art.
A much as he mentioned different theories, at some point, he sums up that one of the most appropriate ideas on art would correspond with Wittgenstein’s thought that the art cannot and shouldn’t be definable. I think that leaves more space for an artist, although an institution can put a framework to, at least, its needs. Danto continues to explore his idea about the idea in the artwork and the need to question if an artwork questions or not. He gives an example of J who exhibited a mirror. It is interesting that he mentions how the public didn’t even question if the mirror was an artwork or not. The contemporary world is indeed used to see anything in the gallery, thus anything could be an artwork but I agree that there should be some thinking, some idea behind, it cannot be a thing on its own presented in a gallery, namely, it is too little to put a thing on a wall and let the audience to understand or think about it. It is almost as using the contemporary art as a self-evident tool, that it can “work” without any further involvement of the artist himself.
Danto proceeds with discussing the theory that the art is a mirror of reality; it is quite restricting though. He continues: “if nothing more were asked of an artwork than this, there would be no criterion for distinguishing mirror images, which by common consent are not always artworks, from more routine instances of mimesis.” He questions the necessity of pure realistic images, a copy of reality as the reality is behind our eyes. Nevertheless, Danto states that Socrates had forgotten one very important thing, that the mirror serves a an important tool as seeing ourselves, thus as an instrument of self-revelation. In this context, Danto talks about the Berkeleyan philosophy and Sartre’s Pour-soi and Pour-autrui, explaining that Pour-soi without Pour-autrui would be “metaphysically sideless”.
Also, Plato’s theory of forms and things is worth considering – “only forms are real, since things may come and go but the forms these things exemplify do not come or go – they gain and lose exemplifications but they themselves exist independently of these.” Also, Plato’s theory includes the thought that philosophy and art are antithetical and that mimetic art is a substitute activity. To my point of view, art as duplicate is not truly topical but the other idea of art as a gap between life is more current.
It is interesting to follow the further arguments of Danto that resemblance does not make one an imitation to the other and that imitations contrast with reality, summing up that “the art lover is not like Plato’s cave dweller, who cannot mark a difference between reality and appearance: the art lover’s pleasure is exactly based upon a difference he is logically required to be able to mark.” I think it comes not only with intellectual knowledge but also with the training of the eye – by seeing a lot of art one develops certain qualities, not only the proficiency. Effectively, it is proved that children who are trained in arts from an early age develop a lot of skills, problem solving, focusing and dedication among others.
Danto goes back to J’s bed as art, explaining that anyone knows what to do with a regular bed but when it comes to a bed as an artwork, it creates confusion. I understand why. There is a funny story about that kind of contemporary art. Once in an art gallery, a man was going around the exhibition, looking at artwork and stopped at the extinguisher; the gallerist approached him to ask what he thought of the exhibition and the man, still looking at the extinguisher, said that it is very intriguing. The gallerist had to disclose that that particular extinguisher was really only a extinguisher. This is a good point to discuss when talking about the uses of the contemporary art.
An interesting thought is rendered, mentioning Nietzsche – that “it is not art unless it defies rational explanation, and unless its meaning somehow escapes us.” I think this is another extremity – one is to say that art is a mirror of the reality, the other that art has to be incomprehensible to be art. There must be something that a viewer could relate to or be intellectually challenged. It doesn’t have to be a duplication of something, the most abstract art can bring a meaning. Here I think of one of my favorite painters Mark Rothko whose paintings have brought revelations in my life.
One thing is sure – not every new thing produced becomes art. There are many inventions that don’t have anything to to with artistic expression, even though many inventions demand mind alike the artist’s. At the same time, a simple thing that anyone would consider an real object, within the context, could become an artwork. As defined by theoreticians – artwork as Purposiveness without Specific Purpose. Still, this bring us back to the starting point, i.e., there is no true premise that would define an object an artwork or not and the border between them is brittle.
Thoughts on Photography 