Black Bucket Essays
Volume 2, Issue 1
“The value of art is in the observer."
- Agnes Martin
Leah Cooper
To this day one of the best conversations I’ve had about art occured while eating tacos. We sat at a small plastic outdoor table, next to a taco truck located in a parking lot of a convenience store in Ft Collins, Colorado. There were three of us, myself, another visual artist, and a writer. It was an impassioned discussion about the power of art. By power I don’t mean art’s importance or strength, rather I’m referring to its association with the idea of agency. Miriam Webster defines agency as ‘the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power’. Perhaps, because we were and all continue to be makers, it was taken for granted that art does, in fact, possess agency. We agreed, intrinsically, that an art object’s agency was derived from its ability to impact an observer’s consciousness.
That is where our consensus ended. The main point at which our opinions differed was in relation to what, specifically, we thought the art was. Both the author and the other visual artist considered the object to be the art. The book, the painting, the video, the song, each individual entity was ‘The Art”. I was the outlier, for I asserted that these items were simply materials, literally. A book, a combination of paper and ink, a painting merely canvas, wood, and pigment, nothing more or less.
Perhaps my view can be characterized as unimaginative, too prosaic. However, I contend that my pragmatic approach leaves the most room for the potential of art’s agency. In my view, the transformation from material to art requires an additional ingredient, audience. With the addition of audience a string of words can tell a story. It is audience that activates the latent power of paint on a piece of canvas stretched around a wooden frame.
I will go a step further and argue, that even with an audience, the object continues to be inanimate materials. Art is the transaction. A- I contend art is the moment when an object’s agency is mobile. It is the point of transfer, when the maker’s intent with the materials impacts the awareness of the audience. For this reason I endorse Agnes Martin’s statement “The value of art is in the observer.". For when the book is closed, the gallery lights turned off, the symphony goes quiet; it is the observer who carries forward art’s agency. Art’s value travels as an intrinsic companion of the observer. A companion who’s bond is often fleeting, but at its best, enduring.
Volume 2, Issue 1
“The value of art is in the observer."
- Agnes Martin
Leah Cooper
To this day one of the best conversations I’ve had about art occured while eating tacos. We sat at a small plastic outdoor table, next to a taco truck located in a parking lot of a convenience store in Ft Collins, Colorado. There were three of us, myself, another visual artist, and a writer. It was an impassioned discussion about the power of art. By power I don’t mean art’s importance or strength, rather I’m referring to its association with the idea of agency. Miriam Webster defines agency as ‘the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power’. Perhaps, because we were and all continue to be makers, it was taken for granted that art does, in fact, possess agency. We agreed, intrinsically, that an art object’s agency was derived from its ability to impact an observer’s consciousness.
That is where our consensus ended. The main point at which our opinions differed was in relation to what, specifically, we thought the art was. Both the author and the other visual artist considered the object to be the art. The book, the painting, the video, the song, each individual entity was ‘The Art”. I was the outlier, for I asserted that these items were simply materials, literally. A book, a combination of paper and ink, a painting merely canvas, wood, and pigment, nothing more or less.
Perhaps my view can be characterized as unimaginative, too prosaic. However, I contend that my pragmatic approach leaves the most room for the potential of art’s agency. In my view, the transformation from material to art requires an additional ingredient, audience. With the addition of audience a string of words can tell a story. It is audience that activates the latent power of paint on a piece of canvas stretched around a wooden frame.
I will go a step further and argue, that even with an audience, the object continues to be inanimate materials. Art is the transaction. A- I contend art is the moment when an object’s agency is mobile. It is the point of transfer, when the maker’s intent with the materials impacts the awareness of the audience. For this reason I endorse Agnes Martin’s statement “The value of art is in the observer.". For when the book is closed, the gallery lights turned off, the symphony goes quiet; it is the observer who carries forward art’s agency. Art’s value travels as an intrinsic companion of the observer. A companion who’s bond is often fleeting, but at its best, enduring.
