Mini Semester Blog Post 1
I liked most of the text-based artwork we viewed in class. I think that the reason that I and many of my classmates liked the black-and-white art less as we saw more of it is because at first, the dropping of letters in a word to make another word seemed very clever and seemed to offer deep insight into the artist’s thought process and worldview. However, once it became clear how many similar works the artist had done, it seemed more like clever wordplay, and less like meaningful and expressive art. However, I think that it is unfair to assume that these works of art are not very significant to the artist simply because there are a lot of them. I think that the works would lose some value if it turned out that they were simply concepts and wordplay that the artist was playing around with, but it is entirely possible that deep thought was put into each and every work, or that they have some meaning that is not obvious simply by looking at photographs of each work for a few minutes.
Likewise, I think that the “LIVE” work that used shadows is interesting, but that it would hold more value to me if I knew the artist’s specific intent or thought process. I like to know the meaning behind artworks, although sometimes the intent behind pieces is to allow the audience to draw their own conclusions. In those situations, I think that artwork is best viewed without explanation, although I think that historical context or knowledge about the artist still adds to the overall effect of an artwork.