Artwork +/- Context

Art history or art lessons could inform a piece for an experiencer in a way to make it different than for those who do not understand. But still we have docents and we used to have religious leaders and we had clerics and historians and we had other people who would provide some arcane language or knowledge.

So a game teaches as you play often. So the learning could be something OTHER than what you bring to it. You could teach your audience the embodied language of the game/art and not just expect that they bring it or that recognize to use it or that you only communicate with those that already know. This could speed up the learning process — cultural evolution — memes.

I mention how pop art, warhol, could be pulling on this shared information, these myths, these stories, these heroes, and he could count on all the viewers being an ‘educated’ audience — not in light and dark and art terms or art history — and he would then be able to put it into new context and still be able to communicate with them.

So just as how a piece went up in a temple and those viewing it would be members of that temple and so would have that sacred language, shared, then pop culture was a shared language for a large segment of society.

So where are we now in a post modern art movement? So when we see an oil painting now, like a Waterhouse, it’s a myth. Or I look at other art that I love, and they are often illustrations or magazine covers, or stories or characters. The painting of the girl mourning her lover whose head has been cut off and is in a jar now and she must keep it secret. And I didnt know that story when the piece initially moved me, but it made me want to find out more and I think that the experience of the art does not have to include these contexts, but it CAN. It is not wrong to learn more and to have that alter your experience.

I was thinking about how we read about some painter guy being a complete douche and it did change how I saw his work, but I thought it was neither wrong for me or others to find out more about him and to then not like the work, nor was it wrong for others to either not be affected by that knowledge or to simply not want to know. After all the knowledge was not current truth, it was passed on history and only a window of knowledge.which may not have been accurate anyway and certainly not the whole picture. So I understand that both having a context or not having a context are valid ways of experiencing art.

Regardless as an artist, you are trying to communicate this message and taking elements from a story or language where you are trying to create this by knowing there are people out there that will understand this language and then might be able to understand the artist’s specific thought on it, feeling about it.

Slavery is horrific. The holocaust was horrific. Rape is traumatic and damaging. We can make a difference as a community aligned.

And then I realize who got my message and who did not. I recognize if someone gets the message but does not respond the same why I do. “Yes, I see that you think the holocaust was horrific, but it is too remote for me and I have no real visceral response to this painting.”

I go back to thinking of Pollock and his communicated message which can be very visceral. But also his was very much more than just a 2D image — his actions and his interaction, and his persona were all PART of each piece he made. The context was more than context, in this case I would say it was a part of the art itself.