air geetar (julia mcAlee)
"In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning." - George Orwell With some of our previous reading, I was reeeeeally feelin' Orwell here. However, Dave Hickey has gone against the norm and pleasantly surprised me with his essays. I find them a lot more compelling, engaging, and relevant to my own life than most other tootie-fruitie art criticism stuff I have read. Considering pop culture phenomenons as art is, I think, really refreshing and (dare I say) almost revolutionary. I think he's going back to the whole "life as art" philosophy, by sharing all these personal anecdotes. It really makes me think of how I want to think of life as art and art as life more, and try to surpass the artificial barrier society has created between the two. Going along with the discussion on the commodification of art, I'd like to reiterate how important I think street art really is, and how it can truly be a positive and powerful force that changes society and politics. Ultimately, I think that when people try too hard to create whatever their idea of art is, it will fail. Instead, we just need to be real and honest, and create for the sake of creating. Artists should create because a story, a truth, needs to be told. When someone's being genuine, that usually stands on its own as being valuable, at least in my opinion- and people really do appreciate it (because there are a lot of fakers, dontcha know it)! I am a big nerd and was looking at all these quotes just for fun, so here's another quote. I think it sums up what I'm trying to say in that last bit: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original; whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence about how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." -CS Lewis
