Can't stand any more the postmodern curatorial comstockery à la Danto and Co. : vivid colors, consensual political criticism, level-0-philosophy and big international art fairs surrogating real life. As if Jeff Koons was an ... artist! As if Ai Weiwei's was creating ... Political Art! Urrrghhh!!!!! One more word about Mr. Danto: the only thing more ridiculous than a ,,professional artist'' is a ,,professional philosopher''. If Mr. Danto pretends that Cage 4'33'' (silence) has to be played by a ,,professional musician'', this is simply danto-dantesque nonsense and a beautiful expression of the arrogance of a ,,professional philosopher''. In other words: Mr. Danto's very stupid (and void) texts about Contemporary Art actually had to be written by a ,,professional philosopher''. Every single word Mr. Danto is telling us about a so-called philosophy of Contemporary Art (Dubuffet would have called it: art par et pour les cons c-à-d. con-art) is actually driven by vanity. I explain: if Andy Warhol did not have the terrible vanity of reproducing Brillo, nobody would nowadays neither remember Brillo nor the ,,pieces'' of all those who imitated Warhol. The 1001 ,,analytic differences'' Mr. Danto is lavishly describing between different copies of Brillo simply do not exist. They are vanity-generated-fata-morganas of Mr. Dantos professional-philosopher-brain. In other words: if we do not pay attention to the Pussy Riots, there are no Pussy Riots. These so-called political artists have evidently been victims of their own vanity + the very poor idea that by making riots in an orthodox church, they probably would become stars within 10 seconds. Actually these so-called political artists were very surprised to have partially lost the bet and to find themselves for 2 years prisoners of posthistoric GULag. Is this Mr Putin's fault? Cleary not! Is it Mr. Danto's fault? Evidently so: if art critics become victims of their own vanity, so do artists. Most artists are stupid persons, they lack education (at least, if we believe Delacroix ... ). On the other hand most professional philosophers are very cultivated persons. Their education gave them the most sophisticated means to rectify all abuses of vanity. Are they doing so? No!!!! Quite on the contrary. Professional philosophers think, they are themselves ... ,,artists''. More exactly: ,,professional artists''. Frenchmen call this since 1927: ,,la trahison des clercs'' (Benda). And so on: Curators are thinking they are ,,professional philosophers''. Ergo... And so on.


****


,,Wie flogen wir vor einem Jahre einander, in Dresden, in die Arme! Wie öffnete sich die Welt unermeßlich, gleich einer Rennbahn, vor unsern in der Begierde des Wettkampfs erzitternden Gemütern! Und nun liegen wir, übereinander gestürzt, mit unsern Blicken den Lauf zum Ziele vollendend, das uns nie so glänzend erschien, als jetzt, im Staube unsres Sturzes eingehüllt!... Höre, ich will Dir was sagen ... Ich kann ein Differentiale finden, und einen Vers machen; sind das nicht die beiden Enden der menschlichen Fähigkeit? ... Geh nicht weiter auf dem Wege, den du betreten hast. Wirf Dich dem Schicksal nicht unter die Füße, es ist ungroßmütig, und zertritt Dich. ... ''

Heinrich von Kleist (an Pfuel, 1805)

,,Tu murmures et tu dis: comment des peuples infidèles ont-ils joui des bienfaits des cieux et de la terre? Comment des races saintes sont-elles moins fortunées que des peuples impies? Homme fasciné! Où est donc la contradiction qui te scandalise? Où est l'énigme que tu supposes à la justice des cieux? Je remets à toi-même la balance des grâces et des peines, des causes et des effets ...''

Volney (Les Ruines, 1792)

,,Ah, love, let us be true /
To one another! for the world, which seems /
To lie before us like a land of dreams, /
So various, so beautiful, so new, /
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, /
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; /
And we are here as on a darkling plain /
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, /
Where ignorant armies clash by night.''

Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach

Белеет парус одинокой
В тумане моря голубом!..
Что ищет он в стране далёкой?
Что кинул он в краю родном?

Играют волны, ветер свищет,
И мачта гнётся и скрыпит…
Увы! Он счастия не ищет
И не от счастия бежит!

Михаил Лермонтов

… Read More