That's an interesting article. I was at the Expo. I agree with many of the comments in the article. However, I find it ironic that the author seemed to value the artworks dealing with social themes much more highly than tose that didn't, all the while implying and even saying that it's the elusive other stuff, the ineffable emotional stuff, the aesthetic content buzz that really counts.
There's nothing easier to trivialize that art, and maybe love or blind faith. None of those most human aspirations and needs can withstand a criticality based on pragmatic utility. So it doesn't matter what the author said about art quality (and who can really do that?), what counts is what he said about social conditions, as one might expect from a socialist newsletter. I thought some of the best art there was 'conceptual sculpture' as few pieces mentioned by the author. My favorite was Inigo Manglano-Ovalle's "Dirty Bomb". This is a perfectly crafted (by fabricator pros, of course) made to measure replica of the first atom bomb. It has a gleaming white surface, a little suffused, like flesh, and can set you on a metaphorical journey that takes you to every idea about war and power you can possibly imagine. A masterpiece. Sculpture has been in deep trouble for a long time. It can't survive any longer with big steel beams, jagged metal parts, stuck on doo-dads, and all the rest, 3-D-ing painterly methods. But conceptual sculpture has come of age, maybe peaked, in a far more powerful place than conceptual painting ever did. I don't know why, except that the primary condition of sculpture is public whereas the primary condition is private. Conceptual art survives on its publicness (being in the round and thus addressed to many at the same time) and painting survives on its intimacy, its being a private, frontal and face to face with one person at a time. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, September 27, 2012 1:57:40 PM Subject: "Expo Chicago: Money and art mingle, with little benefit to art" http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/expo-s27.shtml
