Info & History

Art as Analysis, as analysis

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Section A.

Questionnaire.

1. Suppose the question, is this piece of paper an art work?

2. Then an individual proposition (idea) can be compared by a choice of its expression. Whether theoretical, historical or enigmatic.

3. It may be the case that this piece of paper contains similarities in each (context/ual) case. Perhaps some very general properties, they both make use of creativity and choice. But whilst this may be possible/true for all actions, whether artistic or theoretical, it is obviously not a sufficient property of it.

4. There are millions of propositions, all very similar to this one (before this discourse was (im)printed on it), all of which possess this property, but there is no assertion attached to them that they are to be counted as art works. (Although a formal precedent has been set in early post-structuralist works for an assertion such as ‘all post-modern “texts” are to be counted as art works’, to be taken up). However, this would eliminate all inter-texts-without-quotation-marks comparisons as non-art. The question remains what properties differentiate these works that are ‘allowed’ to be singled out as art works?

5. Is there a context possessed by some singular interpretation, which can be identified as art (as being art) or even the property of art (this is of course presupposing that art is a property of thought)?

6. If art is literally made by the artist (as long as it survives all kinds of delays), what is it that makes him an artist? If it is to have artistic thought and to impose upon the world his ‘Performative Act’, what then is artistic thought?

7. Intention or recognition, making or choosing. Is intention unison between body and mind (if there is indeed a separation at all). Or recognition and chance, recognition of something (art?), recognition of an intention?