The Blog of Lewd Enlightenment: Déni

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

"The role of the artist is to disturb."

—André Gide

* * *

Discuss.

MsAPhillips said...: Agreed.

"If a work of art or a new style disturbs you, then it is probably good work. If you hate it, it is probably great."
Leo Steinberg (who also writes:

I find myself constantly in opposition to what is called formalism; not because I doubt the necessity of formal analysis, or the positive value of work done by serious formalist critics. But because I mistrust their certainties, their apparatus of quantification, their self-righteous indifference to that part of artistic utterance which their tools do not measure. I dislike above all their interdictory stance — the attitude that tells an artist what he ought not to do, and the spectator what he ought not to see.)
http://www.artchive.com/theory/steinbrg/steinbrg.htm; 10:15 AM
MsHellion said...: Dammit. I thought the work of an artist was to BE disturbed. I should read this stuff more closely.

You always know you've hit a nerve when you get a rise out of someone. It is quite rewarding.; 10:34 AM

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