Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Good website: www.oneartworld.com
So I have to come up with my own concept art and here it is: I take a paper bag, put something in it, and write the following on the outside of the bag:

Contains: One painstakingly painted and delicately rendered miniature picture (depicting a particular flower found on the south-east end of the lawn at noon by the artist) which may or may not actually be in this bag and may or may not actually exist

(That is also the title of the piece)

The jargony explanation for it is:

The fact that this work of art is hidden and even acknowledges its ambiguous state of existence works to divorce the concept of the object from the object itself. The title specifies and creates in the mind of the viewer imaginative possibilities of existence but these can never be confronted with any kind of reality. In this way the piece works in the opposite direction of new realism. New realism sought to reunite actual objects with people’s conception of them and thereby elevate the status of the concrete object. This piece downgrades and downplays the importance of the object. The painting itself is so unnecessary that it might as well not exist. Greater interest is placed is placed on the imaginations and opinions of the audience: what kind of flower is depicted? How is it painted? Does it exist? The bag is the only object that confronts the viewer but it works as a necessary barrier to further perception.

Whatever. This just goes along with what I posted earlier about much art being one-upping nonsense. But it is a little amusing.

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