31/12/2016

Do you believe in art?

There are two important aspects western art has developed:

it means (signifies) and has content.

Art has developed out of religious rite or religious practice and at some point it was in fact the very same practice (which divided later on) and this is why we speak of art practice.

There lays a certain contradiction as we so desperately try to understand art and clearly believing and understanding cannot go together.

We ask ourselves or are asked if we understand the work of art, but the ‘mystery’ of art (or rite) is not ‘mysterious’, it rather refers to a liturgical actio and so performative or even happening quality of the work of art where the actors are the work of art itself and its audience.

The art’s characteristic is that it is essentially an actio, which means an action or a performance. Understanding lacks performative character, but certainly not believing.

To participate in the liturgy (in the church) one needs to confess ones belief – not ones understanding.

I pose questions rather than statements because the quality of the question is not finite (on the contrary to that of a statement).

In the context of art after readymade and the work of art in general the question of belief is resurfacing as pivotal: after all for a work of art to be only two prerequisites are necessary – belief of the artist and of the spectator.