ART and ARCHITECTURE: Function.

From: IN%"[email protected]" "Art Criticism Discussion Forum" 26-JAN-1994
00:14:29.57
To: IN%"HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx" "Howard Lawrence"
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Subj: art & functin

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From: [email protected]
Subject: art & functin
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To: Howard Lawrence <HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Larry, as an acting artist in my studio, I am in agreement with you. But
that is not the arena in which reflection takes place...or argument. The
studio is the arena of action...and damned the torpedos, etc.. But we step
out of the studio; we consider what we have done; we consider what others
have done; and some of us teach (which places a responsibility on us that
transcends our own interests). As a result, there comes a need to discriminate
...To be very careful in our discriminations. That having been said, it is
okay with me if we call everything in our experience Art (after all, our
cognitive experience is not the thing, is it?). Then you can begin to make
sub-catagories of art. There can be eating-art, making love-art, going to
the bathroom-art, studio-art, illustration-art, non art-art, art-art, and one
and on. You know what would happen then, don't you. We would be discussing
the sub-catagories and their relative positions on our value scales. So, let's
have our discussion where we are. Functionality? Doors? Are the doors the
art? or is it that the art resides as scultural (?) images on the doors?
Manzu's doors are certainly art, but the doors qua doors are not art. If
you took function away (say welded them shut) the art would remain. The door
function would be gone. If you hammered out the bas-relief, the doors would
remain and the art would be gone. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is
surely functional (keeps the rain out---most of the time), but when we look
upon the work by the painter Michelangelo we are not contemplating the func-
tion of the architectural structure. We make a separation, do we not?
-
Then, if any object is tied to any end (whether it be function or not) that
interferes with the most appropriate and complete expression of the idea of
that object, then it is inferior to what might have been. I suppose that
is why some think that architecture is the most noble of the arts since the
function and the ultimate idea are one. I think that art occurs when the
function (and, OK, everything has some kind of function) and the ultimate aim
of the work have a coincidence or (better yet) are one thing.
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