The giant white cube is now impeding rather than enhancing the rhythms of art. It preprograms a viewer's journey, shifts the emphasis from process to product, and lacks individuality and openness. It's not that art should be seen only in rutty bombed-out environments, but it should seem alive.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the limitations imposed by conventional art spaces on the experience of art and its appreciation.
Jerry Saltz argues that the contemporary art environment, symbolized by the 'giant white cube', restricts the viewer's engagement with art by following a predetermined path, thus prioritizing the final product over the experience of creation. He emphasizes the need for art to feel dynamic and vibrant, suggesting that it should be experienced in a context that reflects life and creativity, rather than being confined to sterile, uninspiring settings.
In practice
This quote could be used in an art critique discussing modern art galleries.
'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world was coming into being.
Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating long-term artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm.
I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste.
In art, scandal is a false narrative, a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we don't know what we're seeing, we overreact.
I don't often go to curator or artist walk-throughs of exhibitions. For a critic, it feels like cheating. I want to see shows with my own eyes, making my own mistakes, viewing exhibitions the way most of their audience sees them.
Don’t go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. There are ecstasy machines. Follow your eyes to wherever they lead you, stop, get very quiet, and the world should begin to change for you. And if you see me, say something! We can talk about it together.
I was growing up and maturing at a time where we were invisible, man. We were nowhere except negative. Any time you saw a Latin person in Hollywood or on TV, they were some sort of negative character.
It is only by presenting those portions of the race in my pictures, in the light and backround of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights.
Everything comes out in blues music: joy , pain , struggle . Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance.
My #1 job as a thriller author is to give readers the best white-knuckle thrill ride I am capable of. I am first and foremost in the entertainment business. If that suspenseful ride is also terrifying because it hits really close to home, then I am once again doing what I am supposed to do as a thriller author.
Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry. I tell people it involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person.
A musical is what happens when text collides with motion collides with song collides with spectacle. And spectacle can be the human heart; it doesn't necessarily have to be a helicopter crashing.
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