Page 5 - WOA9-eMag

ARMAN, BOOM! BOOM!
1960, PLASTIC WATER PISTOLS
IN PLEXIGLASS CASE 8 1/4 X 23
1/4 X 4 1/2 IN. | 21 X 59 X 11.2
CM., CREDIT: GIFT OF PHILIP
JOHNSON, COPYRIGHT © 2020
ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS),
NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS

times of the triumph of aesthetics. Do you follow me?
heels, a short skirt, a little above the knee. I doubt whether to
look at the lady or the works displayed in the exhibition. She continued asking to the man seating next to her and,
Here the mind cannot be passive and I wonder, what with pompous pride, her cheeks swelled of knowing so
would happen if this same exhibition were presented much on aesthetics. I was already completely lost, but I
elsewhere without the glamor of the Pompidou and must confess that for a moment I believed that the lady
under an unknown artist name? What reactions would understood a lot.
the visitor have? Most of them, myself for instance, The consciousness of the individual, in conjunction with the
wouldn’t have come. What would this exhibition have artistic environment, forces us to reflect on the knowledge
been in a space without prestige? And the sage who says that art experts manifest without any clairvoyance and often
he understands so much? He would only enter to see the confusion.
exhibition if he had accidentally passed by and had time The knowledge of the so-called contemporary art is shaped
for such banality. Anyway, he would say: this is art. by many reflections, studies and readings. The artist himself,
My desire to understand all this forced me, after having unsure of the path to follow, often becomes a pasture
visited the entire exhibition, to go back to start over and see of doubt until, finally, he manages to achieve conceptual
everything again, thus, slowly trying to reflect deeply. stability in the artistic way he has decided to pursue. From
- Today, there are those who talk about aesthetics without that moment on the artist himself conforms as an absolute
knowing exactly what it is. What does Kant say about truth the style, line or concept of the artistic principles he
aesthetics? Have they read it? And Hegel? And all the 20th has decided to follow.
and 21st century scholars who understand a lot of art? After making profound reflections, this gentleman,
Surely, they haven’t read it. This one says something that bourgeois tie, said:
the other denies. And what he says is called into question - Art is in decline today!
by everyone else. This dialectic, believe me, is what gives These two, let’s call them spectators, were talking and talking
meaning to many aspects of contemporary art. and I, stunned, listened to them.
All this was said by a lady who was seating next to me - You see the simple destruction of a violin.
when, after discovering a bench to sit on, I aesthetically Continued saying the man.
placed my ass on it and so I could rest from the artistic There was one smashed on a wooden board, under glass and
effervescences of that place. with a frame.
- Have you heard of psychological aesthetics? And of - It is presented as a work of art!
phenomenological aesthetics? And of analytical aesthetics? A few meters from where we were seating, submerged in
Said the lady to a man who was seating by her side. a kind of resin, detritus that the artist had gone searching
All these reflections on art and specifically on aesthetics are for in a damp.
certainly complex. - Don’t think art is in decline.
And the good lady went on to say: She resumed.
- There are those who talk about American analytical -The mere destruction of an object or the accumulation of
aesthetics, and cosmetic surgery and evacuation aesthetics. debris inside a box can never be considered a work of art.
Ah! sorry, I did not hear good, she said: evaluative aesthetics The lord answered. And he continued:
- In addition, we find a lot of expressions such as - You told me about aesthetics. What kind of aesthetic do
aesthetic attitude, theory of aesthetics, aesthetics of you find here? Aesthetics is a part of philosophy that is
the existence, aesthetics of perception, of appreciation, about beauty.
aesthetic regime, aesthetic experience, aesthetics of the The lady, her hair very short, answered again:

WORLD of ART 5