The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication.
Hans-Georg GadamerRead
It is one of the primary motives of modern art that it wants to abolish the distance which the viewer, the consumer, the audience maintain vis-a-vis a work of art. There is no doubt that the leaders of the creative artists of the last 50 years concentrated their efforts mainly on eliminating that distance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses the intention of modern art to close the gap between the artwork and its audience, making them more engaged.
Hans-Georg Gadamer highlights that a fundamental aim of modern art is to remove the emotional and intellectual distance that viewers often feel when confronted with a piece of art. Over the past fifty years, artists have focused on fostering a more intimate interaction between the audience and the artwork, encouraging viewers to engage with art on a deeper, more personal level.
Themes
Modern ArtAudience EngagementArt ExperienceIntimacyCreative Artists
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about the evolution of art during a gallery opening.
More from Hans-Georg Gadamer
All quotes →The essence of the question is the opening up, and keeping open, of possibilities.
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For both art and the historical sciences are ways of experiencing in which our own understanding of existence is immediately brought into play.
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We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said...Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.
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It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition.
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A cultured society that has fallen away from its religious traditions expects more from art than the aesthetic consciousness and the 'standpoint of art' can deliver. The Romantic desire for a new mythology... gives the artist and his task in the world the consciousness of a new consecration. He is something like a 'secular saviour' for his creations are expected to achieve on a small scale the propitiation of disaster for which an unsaved world hopes.
Hans-Georg GadamerRead
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