Friday, August 12, 2005
Common Sense
It would be easy to dismiss this op-ed by John Horgan as Reader's Digest Cream of Wheat. In many ways Horgan's attempt to affirm common sense speaks to our time better than elaborate theories or involved panaceas. The problem of our time, which is daily acted out in the shouts of the marginal members of mainstream religious communities and the marginalia of many other ideological groups — is a yearning for the normative — some firm footing in what seems right and real.
Horgan's article traces the path that led to the normalization of the irrational. The world of quantum physics and Einstein's relativity made it seem that common sense wasn't an adequate standard for determining the truth. Somehow this became: if it makes sense, it can't be true; if it doesn't make sense, it must be true.
This through-the-looking glass “absurdity must be good” paradigm applies to the art world as well. I sometimes wonder if people in the art world actually look at the work they are discussing with any honest visual attention. If there is any real emotional or intellectual connection with the work; rather it seems art is esteemed in its similarity to other work, its pre-approved status via resume, its having been shown in a status venue, or having been “written about” in a publication putatively about art but more often about reputation (aka the marketplace). I don't mean a connection with the intended meanings and the following discussion about the work. I mean with the work itself. It's just common sense to look at art and see what is there: does it have anything like the mystery and ambiguity of life? Is there a true energy in the work and a scope to the artist's vision? Simple common sense.