Artworks don’t manage knowledge—they channel it. It takes time and attention to understand an artwork’s meaning. Each piece demands a process of reconciliation, and a merging of two contexts: the artwork’s own history and the viewer’s private knowledge network. When it’s placed in a new context, its meaning evolves and expands elastically. It store... See more
Willa Köerner • A Personal Philosophy of Shared Knowledge
The function of art is also clear: Artists propose new ways of doing things and perceiving the world, which if successful, become conventional.
What is Culture? Part Four: Conventions
4. Ever wonder about the vast universe of critically acclaimed aesthetic masterworks, most of which you do not really fathom? If you dismiss them, and mistrust the critics, odds are that you are wrong and they are right. You do not have the context to appreciate those works. That is fine, but no reason to dismiss that which you do not understand. T... See more
Tyler Cowen • “Context is that which is scarce”
This curator dynamic treads dangerously close to “gate-keeper,” systematically narrowing the range of perspectives being promoted to the masses. Curatorial power in the hands of a privileged elite has never not been problematic.
Beware the Curators
Artists do not create contexts; they work within them. Context is the web of complex circumstances in which artists work in relation to their physical environment, historical trends and traditions, social movements, cultural values, intellectual perspectives, personal commitments, and more. Art originates from within a context. Likewise, art is rec
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