'Art Dumb'
Art is a very tiring and tiresome activity. One is forever spending one's energy in making something out of nothing, writing something out of nothing, doing something with nothing. It is an activity of monstrous proportion that is continually devouring all the energy that makes up the activity we call 'Art'. Such is its fun and its tedium.
The fun is in the activity itself. The tedium is in all the space around the activity, all the distance that the activity travels. Most art is a dull journey - but only because a notion of travelling is deemed necessary for the propulsion of the art. Some art is, in fact, static: art that wears the guise of a stubborn mule when confronted with boring, meaningful modes of criticism and interpretation. Such art presents itself as its own activity - and nothing else. The recourse to making 'something' out of it is blocked by its awareness of itself as being 'nothing'.
As we stand in front of Art (in the space around its activity) we are poised in readiness for our interpretation of it. Craned necks; squinted eyes; strained ears. Some art is designed for such an interface. Some art - the stubborn mule variety - speaks through us standing in front of it. Whilst we try to articulate a 'context' for it (and ourselves) it stays sitting within an environment that is much more pervading and existent than our measures of interpretation will ever be, confounding our points of perspective with its awesome vanishing point.
Dumb Art would be so called because it makes us dumb. The art itself, in its status as activity, is not dumb because it does not need (or feel the need) to speak to us. It is already talking elsewhere. And we're not part of the conversation.
— Philip Brophy
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