Posts Tagged Arthur Danto

Danto Sitting Around With Some Chick

Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Web Detritus on June 3, 2010

For the second entry in the New York Times’s series of online philosophy discussions, our friend Arthur Danto has posted an article about the MoMA’s ongoing display of veteran performance artist Marina Abramovic.

It describes this odd piece of performance art, wherein Marina sits on a chair in the museum with an empty chair across from her, and patrons can sit for as long as they want in the chair (one at a time, of course, leading to very long lines) and just sit with the artist, not talking, and this is apparently a potentially religious experience.

The piece is as usual beautifully described by Danto (don’t just go with my flippant description here), such that, like the avant garde works we discussed in our Danto episode, you get the conceptual point of the piece without having to actually be there; your imagination is likely better than the thing itself, I guess, given the posters’ complaints about the noise and crowds and all.

The respondents on the NY Times site are of course divided, and many are entirely dismissive of the piece described. Moreover, there’s some of bitching there about how Danto’s article is really not philosophy, and consequently the NY Times people in choosing him are doing philosophy a disservice. Well, I actually did post a response to that, though it should sound familiar already to those who listened to our episode.

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Episode 16: Danto on Art

Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on March 4, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:13:28 — 122.3MB)

What effect should the avant garde have on our understanding of what art is? We read three essays by modern, first-rate American philosopher Arthur Danto, all published in The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986): the title essay, “The Appreciation and Interpretation of Works of Art,” and “The End of Art.”

I understand you may not have heard of Danto, and you may think modern art is goofy, but you’ll definitely enjoy this discussion and the reading anyway. Danto gives a picture of philosophy and art at war throughout history: philosophy says that art can’t get at truth and is otherwise useless, yet philosophers like Plato seem afraid of the power of art to corrupt. What’s the deal?

Also, Danto claims that art is over; the end of art has happened. So suck it, artists. (Actually, artists can keep on doing what they’re doing; they’re fine, yet art is still over.) Plus, can you stare at a urinal and thereby make it art? What if it’s in a museum? Danto loves them crazy ass post-modern artists, and thinks that their work shows that art was not what we thought it was.

Plus, Seth talks about the plane crashing into the IRS building near his house, and we respond some listener postings.

This work is unfortunately not available free on the Internet, but is worth purchasing.

End song: “This Night Before the End,” by Mark Lint and the Simulacra, recorded mostly in 2000 but finished just now. Here’s more info about the song.

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