"It was a matter of silence, not words." -Don Dellilo

“It was a matter of silence, not words.”  -Don Dellilo

To me, art seems like it’s usually a matter of silence.  It makes statements with its aesthetic qualities.  And, from what I’ve experienced, it’s usually most effective in its silence.  But if art is in the everyday aspects of life, then sometimes people take it for granted and end up ignoring the importance of it.  It might not be that they’re ignoring it; it might just be that they’re missing the point.  And if they can’t figure it out on their own, then maybe they need to be given the answers.  Sometimes people need others to give them a wake-up call; to bring them into the light.  Everyone needs help every once in a while and you shouldn’t be afraid to give them it.

This can be a touchy subject because some people don’t know how to tell others who might not understand something as well; it might hurt their feelings to be told that they’re missing the point.  Like with me; I am horrible at telling someone I need my space, or that I can’t do them favors anymore, or that they are annoying the heck out of me.  I think that’s why I like art so much, because it isn’t actually loud!  It’s all in your head; in the way you interpret things.  The definition of a work of art is all up to the viewer!  This means that art is loud.  Art is loud in terms of expression and content; in other words, form and value.

This week in my Art 111 class, it was all about form and value.  At first, I couldn’t understand why everyone was so focused on “form.”  What is the “form” of art, really?  Then I thought of the word “perform” and it all made sense.  The guest speaker from class today was Tannaz Farsi, an innovative sculptor who teaches at the University.  She said that, in art, she was mainly interested in her “form becoming a carrier for content.”  She talked about how she was more invested in the process and the ideas of her work, and not as much with the final product.  As I thought about that, I wondered how I felt about the process of how I create the art that I make.  I realized that my process is very involved, because when I draw, the perfectionist in me comes out.  I obsess over every detail and try and make my work as real as possible.  Sometimes I take that for granted, I know that the process is essentially what makes my art so special to me.  My form is my art.  The final product is simply that; just a product of my form, of how I work.  With Tannaz, she focused a lot on the strategic placements of her many objects.  All of her art seemed to deal with matters that meant a lot to her.  Hopefully that’s what all art deals with; the way in which one person views something.  Then those views are put out into the world for other people to interact with and to respond to.  So in a way, it’s historical.  And if it’s historical, then doesn’t that make something political?

This leads me into the reading this week.  It was a conversation with our author, Suzi Gablik, with a professor in the Performance Studies Department at New York University named Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.  K.G. talked about the political formalism of art.  This means that the form of art is, essentially, political, no matter how you look at it.  She is exactly right, art and the performance of it will always be political.  It will always be debated and there will always be a group of people trying to make a collective decision about every aspect of it.  The making of art, the ideas that come before art, the viewing of art, the idea of art in general, the galleries or institutions of art.  I could go on forever.  It is an intense subject and the largest I have ever tried to give my opinions towards.  

The last thing I wanted to talk about was how both Tannaz and K.G. thought that everyday objects were important to them.  With Tannaz, it was in her work.  She said that she wanted to “take pedestrian objects and make meaning out of them.”  With K.G., she described it as “the arts of living” (417).  She says that the arts of living involve everything.  Every little detail of life is included into this idea.  Tannaz takes this idea and forces people to recognize it.  She wants people to think about the value of everyday objects; to look at them in multiple ways, as art.  What do the objects imply?  How does it relate to the piece?  All of these questions enter my head when I look at her work and I am forced to be involved in what she creates.  It definitely makes you not take things for granted and to think about them a little bit more each time you see them.