[MD] ART versus NONART

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Mike Craghead <mike at humboldtmusic.com>:

> Hi Marsha!
> 
> Allow me to (once again) recommend Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word," 1975.
> It's far less expensive (and probably less profound), but it's great fun 
> to read, another spin on the "what is art" question, arguing that art is 
> becoming (or has become) literature.
> Here's a related excerpt from a previous post of mine:
> 
> "Shouldn't work have inherent Quality woven into it's fabric, that any 
> viewer can perceive, not just the folks who know the artist's life story 
> or the history of the movement they're a part of? Those facts  may 
> sometimes convince us that a work has higher Static Quality than we 
> would have thought otherwise, but should those facts be crucial to 
> enjoying the piece? The cliche, "I don't know much about art, but I know 
> what I like," is far more valuable than the art critics would have us 
> believe: it's Dynamic Quality... only reaches us (as audience members) 
> when the artist balances it with Static Quality. Leaving all of the... 
> Quality bottled up in words (the descriptions, expositions, histories, 
> etc), is, in my view, a cop-out (for more airing of this particular pet 
> peeve, see Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word," 1975). But I digress...
 
I wholeheartedly second the motion. Wolfe's book is priceless. And Mike's
paragraph above is profound. When asked to sum up in one phrase the message
and meaning of the MOQ I answer, "I know what I like."

Thanks Mike.

Platt
   



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