Black Bucket Essays
Volume 2, Issue 1
“The value of art is in the observer."
- Agnes Martin
Billy Friebele
In Bali, Indonesia I learned that originally there was no word for art. Creative
making was apparently a part of everyday life – a thing that everyone did. From
elaborate carvings and paintings, to arranging canang sari daily prayers offerings,
spatial and pictorial expressions were engrained and passed down through
generations.
This made me wonder, what does this un-delineated space for visual aesthetics do
for the act of observing? If no division exists between everyday experience and the
possibility for transformational viewing of an art object, how can we speak of value?
Or is value then spread wide across the spectrum of experiences?
Here we prefer to categorize our experiences. Special viewing experiences (of
higher value) are preserved for white-walled galleries and museums.
In a review of Agnes Martin’s retrospective at the Guggenheim museum in The New
Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl commented that, “looking at Martin’s art is something of an
art in itself. Motivated by continual, ineffable rewards, you become an adept.”
Schjeldahl goes on to describe the time-based experience of looking at Martin’s
structural grid paintings. “If you look long enough…your sensation-starved optic
nerve may produce furtive impressions of other colors.”
What is described is a series of visual impressions or overlays that occur when
staring unfocused into space, or at a stucco ceiling. Could the same effects be
gleaned from staring at a window screen for several minutes? Likely, yes.
We labeled the object in front of us as art, and thus we increase the level of value
placed on fleeting impressions. The human brain is a filter, and when it is allowed to
open the gates and perceive itself in the act of perception (apperception), the
potential for valuable or transformational experience arises.
The question of value then becomes how one can effectively trigger this encounter.
It requires telling ourselves that we are looking at something worth paying
attention to in order to enter this open state. So, the ‘value’ of art, I believe, lies in
the viewers’ ability to utilize a particular visual as a tool, to step into a realm
wherein the observer is just that, one who is caught in the act of observing with a
heightened awareness of this processes as it unfolds.
Schjeldahl, Peter. “Drawing Line: An Agnes Martin Retrospective” The New Yorker
Oct. 17, 2016: pg 106-107. Print.
Volume 2, Issue 1
“The value of art is in the observer."
- Agnes Martin
Billy Friebele
In Bali, Indonesia I learned that originally there was no word for art. Creative
making was apparently a part of everyday life – a thing that everyone did. From
elaborate carvings and paintings, to arranging canang sari daily prayers offerings,
spatial and pictorial expressions were engrained and passed down through
generations.
This made me wonder, what does this un-delineated space for visual aesthetics do
for the act of observing? If no division exists between everyday experience and the
possibility for transformational viewing of an art object, how can we speak of value?
Or is value then spread wide across the spectrum of experiences?
Here we prefer to categorize our experiences. Special viewing experiences (of
higher value) are preserved for white-walled galleries and museums.
In a review of Agnes Martin’s retrospective at the Guggenheim museum in The New
Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl commented that, “looking at Martin’s art is something of an
art in itself. Motivated by continual, ineffable rewards, you become an adept.”
Schjeldahl goes on to describe the time-based experience of looking at Martin’s
structural grid paintings. “If you look long enough…your sensation-starved optic
nerve may produce furtive impressions of other colors.”
What is described is a series of visual impressions or overlays that occur when
staring unfocused into space, or at a stucco ceiling. Could the same effects be
gleaned from staring at a window screen for several minutes? Likely, yes.
We labeled the object in front of us as art, and thus we increase the level of value
placed on fleeting impressions. The human brain is a filter, and when it is allowed to
open the gates and perceive itself in the act of perception (apperception), the
potential for valuable or transformational experience arises.
The question of value then becomes how one can effectively trigger this encounter.
It requires telling ourselves that we are looking at something worth paying
attention to in order to enter this open state. So, the ‘value’ of art, I believe, lies in
the viewers’ ability to utilize a particular visual as a tool, to step into a realm
wherein the observer is just that, one who is caught in the act of observing with a
heightened awareness of this processes as it unfolds.
Schjeldahl, Peter. “Drawing Line: An Agnes Martin Retrospective” The New Yorker
Oct. 17, 2016: pg 106-107. Print.
