VERBOXIOUS: the trouble with words. Post #5, 2007.05.08

a feature of LitBoy.com about the trouble with words

HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO FEEL SMART.

Is this art, or a collection of objects?

OK, now how about this one?

And finally, how about this one?

Can you explain your choice?

Post a comment, if you please.

(Oh, one rule —Any of these you think equal art, you gotta give 'em a title. Eric's exempt cuz I didn't add this rule till later.)

In any case, I'll let you be anonymous, if you want. Just let me know.)

---

Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

 

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Comments

[Eric]

1. No
2. Yes
3. You're not smiling

Does Hawai'i have Cypress?

[Bill Brent]

Eric: re #3, right now I'm LMAO.

Hawaii does not have Cypress, AFAIK. I inherited this clock from my grandmother, who hung it for years in her living room in Silicon Valley.

[Bill Brent]

NOTE: I'm posting this here because it arrived in email from a long-time artist friend with a well-formed opinion on this topic (i.e., he has thought a lot about the philosophy of art [via Arthur Danto, etc.] over the past couple of decades.

- - - - -

Bill--

It's an issue of context. It could be art as per the Dada aesthetic, but even so, it wouldn't really matter as chance meetings of objects have been done so often as to render the idea trite.

- - - - -

...So, according to my friend J., image #1 above is trite art.

--BB

[Bill Brent]

NOTE: Here is further commentary from my artist friend J:

- - - - -

Bill--

Interesting: These images work well as a narrative. Once you get to the third shot, the subject matter and narrative completely change. First, the bottle is upright; then it is emptied into the nest; then you see the photographer. At that point, the objects become part of the artist's vision and he has a relationship to the objects that is open for interpretation. Also, the objects change from a chance meeting to things that are potentially used by the man viewing them. Knowing you as I do, the garlic and the concept of time take on an eerie tone, especially considering your serious expression.

The Dadaists did a lot of stuff with the chance meeting of objects, so that angle, as I said, doesn't carry punch. But when you put the photos in sequence, it goes from a "so, what?" to a sort of "oh, dear!" And that means that the third photo becomes quite punchy, consideiong the benign, almost funny, nature of the first two shots.

Possible titles:

3-2-1

Until

So Little Time

Extension

Take care--

J

- - - - -

What's funny to me about J's observations is that it shows me how little my primary preoccupation (with time running out) has changed over the years. Here is my first "significant" poem:

meditation at 16

So much to do
And so little time
So little time
To make up your mind
To know what you want
To want what you find
And then you've reached
the end of the line.

5 June 1977
8:58 a.m.

--BB

[Lori S.]

I think they're all art, but I have a very (deliberately) loose definition of art.