I. Today we have arrived
the level where we can redefine the concepts concerning art after
radical transformations and turbulences of the 20th century. Today
art waits to be defined. Art and theory have gone hand to hand
for a long time. During this interactive companionship theory
trickled into art and art leaked into
theory, shadows have mixed into each other. In this environment
of indefiniteness the explanatory power of theoretical approach
weakened and had a crisis. It must be highlighted now that theory
is an effort to understand and to explain. Sociological/theoretical
approach directed towards understanding art, even if it is included
by arts now and then, has to act for comprehension of artistic
productions, praxis and movements.
II.
Art resists to be understood; desires it, but resists at the same
time. This situation is based on the charm of power provided by
being closed as well as art’s common past with sorcery.
III.
Contradiction between power and resistance has lost its manifestation
coming from the past. We live in an age today that everybody takes
a portion from the strength. Some artists intends to share the
sovereignty offered by art, some others try to save their power
and sometimes the game of sharing becomes a strategy of power
itself.
IV.
Art is everywhere: in art galleries, museums, streets, theaters,
books, garbage cans, restaurants, TVs, beds, bodies, houses, social
relations, situations, conditions, tastes and all other perceptions.
People who desire and do not desire art, who like and dislike
it are exposed to art and perform it at any moment.
V.
Art is like a journey that you experience without a map. This
journey has got a flexible route that is determined by conditions,
environment, artist’s will and choices of art audience. Nobody
can envisage and predetermine the route from the beginning.
VI.
Beauty is important still. However the measures on beauty provide
an endless diversity.
VII.
Artist is a social subject. Artistic behaviors even which are
considered as the most individual and unique ones happen in an
interrelation with social structure and social relationships.
VIII.
Human of today is afraid of consciousness. Being so much widespread
of drugs is because of the fear of people about consciousness.
Dilemmas of modern society do not offer any opportunity for solution
to people. On the one hand art operates as a medium to paralyze
consciousness and on the other hand it serves as a perfect catalyst
to be more consciously.
IX.
Art, if still we talk about it, is seductive (Baudrillard) and
therefore one of the most feminine elements in social field.
X.
Money is seductive as well and art world is seduced by money on
a large proportion. Some art guerrillas (Alexander Brener) who
resists against this rotation appears as a different social phenomenon.
XI.
There are thousand of creatures dancing around us. We call these
creatures as concepts or images now and then. We do not know what
are they exactly; they are maybe beings between concept and image.
We realize through a smoke that we have started to dance too as
these concept-images drive us into dizziness.
XII.
The total pictures that we have intended to construct are escaping
from us, as the mirrors are broken.
XIII.
Work of art is open (Umberto Eco). All attempts to close work
of art will be absorbed by its openness and profundity entirely.
XIV.
There is transversality between other types of artistic expression.
No story finishes at all in the same land where it began.
XV.
Sometimes dark streets are more secure than broad squares. If
the aesthetic thought would not like to go out from the universe
of ideology, this is just because it would be dissolved as meeting
pragmatic realities of the age.
XVI.
It is not possible to make exact separations between society and
state. We were talking about the ideological apparatus of state
(Louis Althusser) in the past, today, the societal ideological
apparatus work like states themselves and art is trapped by them
usually.
XVII.
The specters that were told by Karl Marx are not haunting over
Europe and the all world anymore. But specters, new ones are everywhere.
Human beings should love specters because their way passes by
art galleries too sometimes; their some marks are seen on paintings,
sculptures, videos and installations.
XVIII.
Sociology that was born to analyze and to orientate modern societies
seems that being has completed its function on a vast scale today.
Sociology of art also may be considered as a refugee camp for
sociologists from whom society does not expect any noticeable
service more.
XIX.
The world had an era when European culture has been spread through
the help of American cultural production media. Even Europe itself
has become a “specter” haunting over the world. In our age, the
media that has served to spread European culture and which is
also a western product itself can provide a proper ground for
more democratic exchange and communication of world cultures.
XX.
An evident bridge is built between consumer society and art with
Pop Art. Nowadays a lot of consumption objects are so artistic
that they can surpass Pop Art works of the past. Millions of young
people who have never heard even Andy Warhol’s name have an artistic
pleasure themselves from the bottle designs of energy drinks,
CD covers, concert posters, perfume cans, etc. without any substantial
intellectual background.
XXI.
Academies are pressed between the dilemma of traditions and adaptation
to the age. The academy has realized that its existence depends
on a transformation process. It needs a new face to be able to
exist, but the melodies it sings will remain the same with this
new appearance.
XXII.
Art market is a tremendous machine. This machine spread the canals
where artistic pleasure flows and one-dimensional readings will
not be able to give us any knowledge about the general structure
of this machine. This market, as all markets, has some rules too
and also it is manipulated despite these rules often. Art market
has got a masculine character obviously as well.
XXIII.
The main aim of human thought is to draw some planes over chaos
(Deleuze). Art appears, as one of these planes as well as it is
a version of chaos itself.
XXIV.
The Western thought is in tendency of classifying, dividing and
limiting time and space. However time and space overflow that
kind of interferences. Aesthetic meaning exists with this overflow
together. Aesthetic thought is one of the perfidious children
of the West.
XXV.
Repetitions kill the meaning. Our age is hurt with repeated themes
just like it is performed in a piece of techno-music. Today the
rhythm is a trap.
XXVI.
Always a divine light is observed in art. This light is not a
compass and we should not expect that it would orient us towards
the right art; because there is not anything that might be called
as “right art”. However, this light seems sometimes as the unique
truth.
XXVII.
Announcing death of art is one of the biggest lies. All murder
attempts against art have been concluded with failure. Art is
alive still.
XXVIII.
The magical value and power of art are in the agenda now again.
It is indefinite that if this would be a white or black magic.
XXIX.
Nowadays it seems that everything is tried. Maybe now the virtue
is that trying to rediscover modest harmonies of the past rather
than participating the race of searching new things always to
experience continuously.
XXX.
Art has got a nostalgic characteristic part always.
XXXI.
The unexplainable excites people. Secular narratives do not get
societies excited anymore. There is an inclination again towards
the mystical. It is possible to see numerous examples in cultural
lives for this process.
XXXII.
Clamor is everywhere. Maybe in the near future becoming silent
will appear as an artistic style rather than expressing yourself.
XXXIII.
According to me, Dalibor Martinis’ The Finally Dinner provides
productive associations concerning the matters of art, society
and culture. A similar of Jesus’ Last Dinner represented in this
video-installation. The table is decorated to resemble the original
last dinner with its real candles; but dishes and eating hands
are projected on it. This projected record is from a performance
that the artist did before with his friends as focused on the
same subject. Audience may listen with headphones the sounds of
Andy Warhol, Mickey Mouse, Marilyn Monroe and the other figures
from the 20th century. Martinis’ work shows us how the icons about
and from the modern society have taken the place of religious
images of the past. At the last dinner of art the artist, audience
and the modern figures included make finite one become eternal
in protection of the work. Also there is a traitor around the
table, a traitor who wishes to announce death of art maybe; but
art will exist too as the work remains. Moreover, in Martinis’
installation each seat is free surrounding table and everybody
could experience any position as seat the place he/she would like.
The border between fidelity and treachery has been left to the
choice of audience. The last dinner of art continues as an endless
feast.