From: David Tetzlaff (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2008 - 17:06:36 PST
I found Robert's comments on this topic very eloquent. Moving. Artful
even.
I'm not sure, though, exactly what he means when he says:
> The point being, that our making is a gift,
Do we think of this only in the traditional sense of having the
ability to do creative work as a gift we have received by dint of
luck or Providence. Or do we also think of this as a form of 'paying-
it-forward', that in the act of showing our work we are offering a
gift to others. Gift-giving is never purely selfless, we put out work
out into the world because it offers some form of gratification to
us, just as giving away clothes that no longer fit us can offer the
satisfaction that we have helped someone in need. Is it presumptuous
to say the world is in need of OUR art? Of course. But it certainly
needs some creativity. And once we have warmed our own hearts or
soothed our own neuroses by placing that thing we made out on view —
that thing that is both a part of our cultural inheritance, the
fruits of the gifts we received, and a part of our own minds, hearts
and souls — we have, in fact, given a gift back to the culture. It's
bad form to imagine that gifts we have given still belong to us
(Shall I walk into Goodwill and demand those pants back because I
just found out I'm going to be out of work myself soon?
If you want to be an aesthetic Scrooge or Harpagon, keep your movies
to yourself. Fred's on the right track when he says "When someone
makes, and exhibits, a work of art, that work enters, however
marginally, into art history." I would go farther and say
(figuratively, anyway, and that's more important than legally), the
work, once exhibited, BELONGS to history, and not just the history of
'Art' whatever that is, but the history of culture, or whatever we
call the repository of all the resonances in our individual and
collective minds/hearts/souls, like Robert's lost recording.
> Is it not selfish of me to say simply "It's Mine! Don't touch it!
> Go Away!", and to disregard what may be a genuine thought or
> feeling on
> their part?
>
> I don't have an answer to this question.
Yes you do.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.