WANTED: Someone to restore Arteri and give it 2nd life. Interested? Email: mail.sharonchin.com
Ok, well apparently it kind of is a beauty pageant on ARTERI at the moment (minus the swimsuits). Watch out for Part 2 of the most important art world poll ever (forget Art Review’s Power List) And we are also loving declarations of pure indulgent arty love and since its Vally Day soon it feels like the planets are in alignment for my next editorial musings on….Beauty.
I was in Bangkok last weekend (again) and talking to an artist friend about an experience he was having with a gallery about a show. Said gallery was being an insensitive unprofessional pain, ignoring his requirements (both logistical and conceptual) and so he told them ‘You know what… this isn’t a beauty pageant ok?’ Genius. So this started me thinking about beauty. Should art be beautiful anymore? Does it need to be beautiful? Or is beauty in art a guilty pleasure limited to how we decorate our homes or those special moments when we discover our favourite works? FYI my favourite painting in the world is this , something I saw at the National Gallery in Washington DC, where I would go for my lunch break when I was interning at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. I would go to the Gallery just to stare at this work simply because I think its beautiful. Its a sweet sentimental piece and I am not ashamed to say I love it. But I don’t want to be clever about why, I just do and that’s that.
Image from here
Beauty can be a dirty word in some smarty arty circles, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder which means it is subjective, and something associated with emotion. Instinctive, individual (pheromonal) emotions. And so beauty becomes a form of indulgence, rather than a necessary component for Art. Being purely beautiful seems superficial. It’s not as smart as say reading Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation and then looking at a work of art and feeling very clever because you are thinking about it within a theoretical framework. This process of analysis then reduces the image to a series of semiotic signifiers rather than being a sublime and important thing in itself unless it is very arresting in some way or another to disturb your brain from thinking to much. And if there are conventional components of ‘beauty’ in a work of art whatever that may be (nature, women, colour, flowers, lots of painterly marks) then in order for it to be post modern, or contemporary it has be be self reflective about it, to be somehow aware/cynical and able to problematise notions around beauty. Language therefore is important in validating beauty, we have to be able to talk/ read/ write about it to appreciate the importance of the image. And its definitely a Western sense of language made up of dense, at times non sensical, bodies of text that uses words like semiotics… Academic/social anxiety (the obsessive need to classify and write about everything, to abstract the real/simple and transform it into something, very very complicated) has meant we are not allowed to simply experience, we have to be reflective at the same time.
Can’t we just enjoy artwork without thinking too hard about it? And if we do, are we able to intellectually validate it even though its not conceptual/intellectual? Is this kind of work important, and why? Or is it ok to be beautiful and superficial? I do like work because its fun, or visually striking to me, but I wonder what is the role of beauty in contemporary art in KL, in painting, sculpture, photography, new media, and more? There are certainly a lot of beautiful images, but is this great art or pretty pictures? Let us know and send us links of your own favourite artworks too ya? :)
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(EM)
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my favourite http://www.famous-painters.org/Pablo-Picasso-paintings/pablo-pikasso-gallery/5.jpg
hey dill
thats also my favourite! high five!
hello munkao. why you want to kill my father?
i dont want to high five you. eee.
no la. im just referencing my favourite movies, which i will not list down, cos this is about fave art.
but its probably obvious.
… i have an emoticon that looks exactly like my facial expression now, but out of respect for this thread, i shall not reveal it.
show la your favourite art work. surely it cant be the same as mine.
show la. plis. hik hik.
I like this statue of Balzac by Rodin….
http://gordon.shecket.org/images/Sculpture%20Gardens/Hirshhorn/11%20Rodin%20-%20Balzac.JPG
it’s like me when i’m gripped by inspiration… unkempt and probably stinky if I’m not made of bronze.
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/being-a-man/articles/67/title/beauty-brains-celebrity-babes-with-high-iqs
gotta have it all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLsKM_EWGzw
I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth,–the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
Emily Dickinson
《殉美》（I Died for Beauty）的两种译本
我為美殉身――在墓中
剛適應不久
便有一為真理殉身者，
被停放在鄰室――
他輕輕問我「為何陣亡」?
「為美」，我回答――
「而我是為真理―美和真理原一體
那我們是兄弟」，他說――
所以，如同親人相見在一個夜晚
我們隔牆交談――
直到青苔長到我們唇上――
且淹沒了我們的名字――
或
余光中译：
我为美死去，但是还不曾
安息在我的墓里
又有个为真理而死去的人
来躺在我的隔壁。
他悄悄地问我为何以身殉？
“为了美，”我说。
“而我为真理，两者不分家；
我们是兄弟两个。”
于是像亲戚在夜间相遇，
我们便隔墙谈天，
直到青苔爬到了唇际，
将我们的名字遮掩。
Emily Dickinson 狄金森
I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
I thought I’d be rewarded
For such a lonely choice
And surely she would answer
To such a very hopeless voice
I practiced all my sainthood
I gave to one and all
But the rumours of my virtue
They moved her not at all
I changed my style to silver
I changed my clothed to black
And where I would surrender
Now I would attack
I stormed the old casino
For the money and the flesh
And I myself decided
What was rotten and what was fresh
And men to do my bidding
And broken bones to teach
The value of my pardon
The shadow of my reach
But no, I could not touch her
With such a heavy hand
Her star beyond my order
Her nakedness unmanned
I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
– L. Cohen
I like a lot of pwetty things. Especially from here:
http://www.itsnicethat.com/?c=Photography
pwetty.
what is beauty but another form of grotesqueness?
Beauty is Harsh (Ancient Greek: Χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά “Khalepa ta kala”)
It stops your thoughts, it makes your thoughts run amok with the idea of it.
The arresting nature of beauty is never really one dimensional,and I’m sure you know that. :)