For me, part of the fun of going to an art exhibition is that you never really know what you are going to find until you are there and often even after you have been there. There are so many kinds of artists, so many different kind of personalities, so many different kinds of sensitivities and so many different kinds of "artwork"! .
One of the most frequent questions we ask ourselves when we find ourselves before an "artwork" is "what does it mean?" as if it must "mean" something or other before it can make some kind of "sense" to us. We "see" or "read" a work of art AS IF it were a sentence in a paragraph in or an entire prose essay, a letter, an email, an office document, a news article or a scientific or a financial report. I often ask myself, what does this question "what does it mean" itself mean in the context of our looking at an artwork? What kind of "meaning" or "sense" do we have in mind when we ask the question "what does it mean"? Surely not the kind of sense we mean when we ask the question : "what is the purpose of this set of knife and fork, this set of table ware?" Answers like "to help us propel food into that orifice in our face we call our 'mouth'." may serve as a good answer in this context. Its meaning is purely functional and empirical. For a woman, the set of knife and fork and table ware may mean something like "by using this particularly beautiful set of cutlery and tableware which I don't normally use, it means that I wish to honour my guests by putting them on the table". Its meaning is social. Do we expect this kind of answer to our question when we interrogate an item of so-called "artwork"? Surely not.
So what is it that we're after when we ask that question of a piece of "artwork"? That it be something "beautiful"? If so, then in the usual sense of the word "beautiful", many "artworks" we find in art galleries, exhibitions, museums would surely be disqualified because the kind of qualities they embody can with little difficulty be qualified as "ugly" in the sense of not smooth, harmonious, well-proportioned, balanced etc. and if so, they can't have any "meaning" for us.
Do we want an "artwork" to be something "pleasant"? Something which induces in us a feeling of an agreeable pleasure before we'd say that it's "meaningful"? If so, then again many "artwork" will also be "disqualified because if the relevant meaning is "negative" eg. when it induces in us a feeling of fear, of annoyance, anger or disgust, then it can't be "meaningful" for us at all.
Do we want an "artwork" to deliver a "message" like "China is a country worthy of respect and honour" or "this work shows us the natural creativity of our working class who have the capacity to lead our society into that glorious future predicted by the prophecy of scientific socialism proclaimed by Marx and Engels as perfected by the thoughts of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Teng and the current leaders of the CCP?" or show us the "glory" of God of the glory of man, or that of a particular community. If so, then if it doesn't carry any such revolutionary or political or theological "message", it' d immediately become "meaningless. Does an "artwork" necessarily have to carry any such message or any "message" at all before it can be "meaningful" ?
Can an "artwork" not simply be an "expression" of whatever it is that the artist may want to "express" by it? If so, how can we tell what it is that the "artwork" is intended to "express" by the relevant artist? Do we have to rely entirely on what's supposed to be the artist's 'creative intention"? If that is the case, are we sure that in every case, the artist himself/herself has any clear ideas what it is that he/she wishes to do? Do they always start out with a clear plan of what it is that they want to do when they started out the process of creating the relevant work of art and then simply go head to execute that plan, like an architect building a public monument? Or is it more likely to be the case that the relevant artist starts out not having any clear idea of what it is that he/she wants to do when they have in front of them a pile of raw materials like various paints, an easel, a canvas, some wood, metal or other "art" material and that the relevant "idea" becomes more and more evident and takes on a clearer shape as and when the creation process proceeds and that sometimes, the artist would be as surprised as we may be upon the "completion" of his/her artwork to see or discover what in fact he/she has "created" so that even after its completion, he/she is still wondering what the relevant piece of "artwork" may "mean"? Is the artist driven to create by some subterranean or unconscious urge to "create" the true source of which he/she may be ignorant or only vaguely aware? if so, what can the relevant piece of "artwork" mean if even the artist himself/herself has no clear idea of such?
Is the relevant piece of artwork something "independent" of the state of mind or emotion of the artist once it's "completed" and is before the public's eyes? If so, where does the "art" of the "artwork" reside? In the artwork itself or in certain qualities of that "artwork" and if so, what? Or does it reside in the eyes/sensitivity/imagination/feeling/attitude of the spectator? If so, what then is the "meaning" of the relevant piece of "artwork? Does the "artwork" then only have such "meaning" as the spectator is prepared to bestow upon it?
What is/are the true answer(s)? In the end, do the relevant 'artworks " express merely their own brute "existence"? Are they both entities presented for "appreciation" and the "material embodiment" of their own "meaning" ,whatever the word "meaning" may itself mean? Are there any "true" answers? Whatever the answer(s) to such questions may be, here are some more samples at the exhibition.
plastic strips of various colors rolled into various shapes and each illuminated by a light source
A set of farm implement all dressed up with neckties and collars for a party?
A reflecting disc reflecting the ceiling partitions of the convention centre itself. Which is the "correct" viewing angle? is there one?
A glum looking woman with disproportionately huge head and relatively undeveloped body by David Hockey
A sculpture by Miro
silk-string wrapped human skull hung on metallic vice
silk-string wrapped human skull stuck with a drill
Another such human skull cut but with a round metal lampshade for the cranium bone
Another skull with what looks like a metal sewer cover for mouth
Another human skull fitted on another metallic vice with its mouth wide open laughing or crying?
A wooden human figure with all kinds of "flags" or "sticks" stuck on his body
Another view the same figure
museum box with various figure in different postures by Sergei Shekovtson 2013 (?)
A pair of feet on stilts beside a blue corduroy pillar by El Zorro
最後幾張好多無明魔鬼哦, 啦屎一張最有趣.
回覆刪除[版主回覆08/03/2013 08:48:39]最後幾張最好問吓無明魔鬼先，唔係以後唔睬你唔關我事架！
雪山飛狐哥哥果然是＂問題少年＂。一連串自問／反問的問題惹人深思。
回覆刪除撇開雕塑，單是繪畫就有很多＂派別＂，寫實畫因較客觀且具有形狀，自然不會引起觀者很多問題，變得容易＂審判＂。但＂美與不美---善或惡＂則難有一標準。畫个美人跟畫具屍體，其實同樣美。畫凤景與自殺流血的畫，其實也沒分別。畫家將他喜愛／關心／偏愛（不一定是常人認為美好的事物）的題材畫出來，表達出來以後，其它問題就是觀者而不是作者。
一些較為純粹的畫作，是作者於那時刻那思維率性畫／潑在畫布上，很多什至是無意識的，連他本人也不知畫中所＂描述＂的是什麼。又例如抽像畫，因把形狀抽去只剩色塊，觀者只能直接感受它所帶來沖激／美／惡／悶...等，相信更多人腦中會疑問：他畫的究竟是什麼。
有些畫需要思考，有些則不用（無從思考）。
大部份藝術家都不喜歡解釋自己的作品，要是能解釋清楚他就用不著去畫。當然亦有部份藝術家對自己的每張作品可洋洋灑灑寫論文股寫出很多哲理。有一年在巴黎龐比度藝術中心，其中一張很寫實的水杯鉛筆素描，但題名是：一棵橡樹。然後附了一大段解說。
我不讚同藝術只帶給人們喜悅、美麗、善.......除此之外，也該帶給被人們遺忘的一些人或事。世上光有喜劇，沒有悲劇，是不成立的，藝術也一樣。
[版主回覆08/08/2013 15:25:13]According to Danto, since Duchamp exhibited his urinoir and Andy Warhol painted his Brillo box on a few pieces of wooden boards and drew his Campbell soup cans, the boundary between art and non-art is abolished forever, leaving a completely new future completely open for all kinds of artists to do "their own thing". It's a "liberation" for artistic creativity. Henceforth, art is limited by little except the artist's own "imagination" and his ability to match his "work" with his own creative "intentions". To me, that's an excellent thing. It's an exciting period to be living now.
[亞執回覆08/03/2013 11:38:13]兩位的表達, 亞執獲益良多, 謝謝.
[版主回覆08/03/2013 08:56:09]Those who have to write about what it is that they are doing are normally what's been called "conceptual" artists. I agree that "art' should not only bring people attention to 喜悅、美麗、善......也該帶給被人們遺忘的一些人或事". Artists are our eyes and our ears and our hearts.
Many years ago, I took up pottery as a hobby. As usual with any impatient freshman, I plunged headlong into making all sorts of things without really learning the basic technique: vases, ashtrays, plates, pots, cats and dogs, etc. Over a period of time, I ended up with a heap of so called "art" but non to my satisfaction. One day, I decided to do a human head about the size of a tennis ball. I kneaded a ball of clay into the rudimentary shape of a head, then carefully carved out the features --- eyes, nose, ears, lips not forgetting even details of the wrinkles, eyebrows and the facial expression. After much ado, there in front of me was a piece of "art" but far from what I had wanted done --- so childish and so unsightly. Out of frustration, I angrily grabbed the "head" and gave it a hard squeeze, thinking of remolding the clay to start afresh. In a fleeting moment, I hesitated and gave the head a second look. And to my surprise, the pressure of that single angry squeeze of mine had totally transformed the expression of the head into a face of agony --- wrinkled nose, distorted eyes, twisted jaws and a gaping mouth that seemed to be shouting out to the world its protestation. So with one unintentional stroke I "breathed life" into a piece of humdrum, as if I had given it a "meaning", at least to me a new meaning.
回覆刪除Is artistic creation premeditated? What did God had in mind the moment when He breathed life into that piece of clay called Adam? Or was it merely a desultory squeeze like mine that molded the final human world?
[版主回覆08/03/2013 10:50:30]IF there is a God as posited by Christianity/Islam ( the Abrahamic religions) and IF he did create man as recounted in the tale of creation set out in the much edited versions of the Christian bibles, then most probably God didn't have any clear ideas of what he was doing. Otherwise, why did he have to send his own son (Jesus) (which curiously God "inseminated" on a virgin called Mary, already then betrothed to Joseph which tradition says Joseph never "touched" carnally) on earth later to die a most excruciatingly painful and ignominious death on the cross so that God can "redeem" man from his sins which God somehow finds it absolutely necessary by his own self-made and self-justifying and self-implementing but entirely arbitrary law, "must" be paid for by the most horrible kind of "punishment " in the form of what's presented to us as "hell". By having to cause the "incarnation" of his own son on earth through Mary to "redeem" , is God not "repenting" for his own initial mistake of creating the kind of Adam and the kind of Eve that he in fact was said to have created in the first place and by the same act "redeeming" himself? Perhaps you were not different from God? Perhaps you were "God" to your own "creation"?
A nicely argued philosophical monologue that reminds me of a singular question asked in a book about art in the 20th century - "What is art?" I read it 20 years ago but even till now I can't find a convincing and universal answer for the question. I may never find the answer and I have given up doing so. Then, I find the answer for "What is art for me?"
回覆刪除I like to rename the last artwork to "An attending person with polished nails". Hope you don't mind.
[版主回覆08/19/2013 09:14:45]Perhaps "art" means different things to different people and since there are not just one type of people and even the same person may have some very different experiences, sensations, feelings at different points in time in his/her life, the meaning of "art" must change accordingly. You can call that last "artwork"(?) anything you like. It's intended as a "joke"!