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October 14, 2004
truth is boring
It’s not enough just to do what you do. Art is not a mirror to the world – we can see the world how it is anytime. What art must do is illuminate the world, art should be a lens which distorts the world, exaggerating elements that have gone unnoticed.
The artist's job is to be the eyes of the people and to peek between the gap in the billboards and throw some light onto our lot [and what it lights up might not be pleasant and pretty, but then life ain’t always either].
Expression needs an input as well as an output. It isn’t enough just to do it, it isn’t enough just to be ‘honest’. A lot of art today is just a splurge of emotion with little or no effort to make it work. By work I mean communication. If the piece needs a lengthy explanation to understand it then, in my book [third shelf down five along, next to Infectious Diseases of the Honey Bee], it isn’t working.
Time was there was too much effort and not enough truth, but in those days the artist was a craftsman who was not asked to deliver the truth.
Now all we have is the truth, which quite frankly, is boring [see Big Brother and its ilk]. The artist must needs process the truth and come up with a better version. Ugly, maybe; shocking, almost certainly; but ultimately illuminating.
Posted by john at October 14, 2004 09:40 AM
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