Saturday, May 15, 2010

Most art is porn

I found and adapted this entry by Angela Treat Lyon on Robert Genn's website, Painter's Keys.

The writer and philosopher Joseph Campbell described most art as 'pornographic' not because it featured anyone who was being taken advantage of sexually (or otherwise) in the content of the work, but in that it made you want to possess it.

He felt that 'true art' was beyond possession, that art that created what he called 'aesthetic arrest': that heart-stopping, beyond-weeping, deep-to-the-soul connection that absolutely rips away your awareness of your surroundings and makes you dive into that Place Within and stop there and BE and feel. That was the only 'real' art.

In the late '70s he gave a 3-day lecture series and projected 'real art' on slides every 30 to 60 seconds throughout the entire 3 days. It must have been staggering.

The photograph is of a sculpture by Andrew Goldsworthy whose work, to me, illustrates the above.


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