Saturday, October 24, 2009

So how was it for YOU?

Not all of Robert Grigolov's work convinces me. Some of it seems like simple tricks pour épater les bourgeois. But isn't part of the fun about discovering the value something has for you when taking out of a context which isn't necessarily one you appreciate?

Why does the above installation have the title Dollar Bill? I don't know. I have some ideas, but I don't think I want to follow them. And, just as Daniel Pennac's 10 Inalienable Rights of the Reader, so any spectator has similar rights, among them, to decide arbitrarily where the work begins and ends for her.


This doesn't need to mean any sort of glorification of ignorance. However, it does accept it as part of the deal. After all, the spectator is no less free than the artist, is he?


This should be a very obvious question. Aesthetic relativism is something seemingly accepted. Yet the contemporary art world seems to specialize in "right" ways of looking at its creations.
Anything goes - yet there is still plenty of exciting space for dialogue. Tastes are indeed something we discuss and shape, aesthetic experience is a beautifuly shapeable thing. And yet one of the most difficult things is to stay within the play of common value-seeking and exploration of personal experience, and not move into the discourse of competence, the universe of authority, which might sustain a big chunk of what the contemporary art world is about, but is hardly enjoyable for those of us who like their artflesh stupendously raw and intimate.
(via)

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