Art personalizes the general.
That’s the opposite of abstraction, I concluded in my blog of November 2011. And I still maintain the
accuracy of this statement. But I also
maintain what I said in the concept-page of this website: that there is no
certainty but uncertainty, nothing is what it seems to be, and everything is
one, two, three.
Therefore I think it’s time to turn to the reversal, which is equally true: Art generalizes the personal. It raises the volatility of an anecdote to the validity of a parable. Doesn’t that mean that art still is abstraction after all?
Therefore I think it’s time to turn to the reversal, which is equally true: Art generalizes the personal. It raises the volatility of an anecdote to the validity of a parable. Doesn’t that mean that art still is abstraction after all?
No, I don’t think so.
Abstraction is only possible by depriving the subject of sentimental, emotional and individual
features, in order to reduce it to a general, impersonal meaning. Whereas art is only possible when it
enables anybody to identify personally with it, by kindling feeling and
recognition. That’s still the opposite of abstraction. Abstract art still doesn’t
exist and never will.
