I just finished an interview in which I spoke about the melancholy of my art. The fullness of lived experience must include melancholy, a sense of loss as well as the sense of promise, of optimism. We live in the paradox of loss and gain. There may be other more superficial ways to symbolize life, but they are not art. Art aims at the deepest core of being. Anything less is entertainment, sentimentality, kitsch, pop culture, and those things have a huge portion of the everyday attention. Why should art piddle with such shallow and over-represented trivia? WC
--- On Thu, 1/22/09, Chris Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> > Subject: Melancholy photographpy > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, January 22, 2009, 4:55 PM > Here's a style of photography that seems no more > melancholy than William's > paintings: > > > > http://chatoyance.blogspot.com/ > > > Could we call this "abstract photography" ? -- > (even though we can clearly > recognize familiar objects like doors, clouds, cars etc.) > > Mostly -- I agree -- and I do feel something morbid about a > photograph --- > unless it's passing quickly by (in a film) or offering > views of good figure > sculpture. (which were, after all, carefully designed to be > perfectly still) > > > > >I think it was Benjamin who raised the idea that > looking at photos always > involves a degree of melancholy because the photo > necessarily images a past, > irrecoverable, moment. Even if the photo records a joyful > moment, it is a dead > moment, and thus a reminder of one's mortality. > > > ____________________________________________________________ > Click now and find the cable accessories you've been > looking for! > http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/PnY6rc2ULseT2MMiZmxaG0FBm5A0OM > YOHFZXVHkTcxb0iBNi10xWc/
