Just in case you all want to chat online about art, but don’t have time — per my post on Oct. 19 about the Guggenheim Forum — I went back to the website to see what this iteration, which was about spirituality in art, had yielded. The Forum/chat was triggered by the Kandinsky retrospective now on view, prompted by his belief that art “belongs to the spiritual life.” A transcript of the one-hour chat, which took place on Oct. 22, is posted on the Guggenheim’s website (here).
This chat, hosted by Krista Tippett, of Speaking of Faith, seemed to be more substantial than the last one, which was on design, but I noticed the same problem — people talking all around an issue and at cross-purposes. It’s the nature of online discussions.
Here are some interesting quotes drawn from the transcript, but missing the connective tissue (NB: my listing them here does not imply agreement!):
At 2:20: I like this line in Louis’ last post: The artist is a tuning fork for an out of tune and unlyrical society…
2:21: I feel like people are realizing that materialism and attachment to things didn’t bring them meaning or happiness. Art often awakens parts in people that have been dormant for a long time and remind them that there is life right now in them.
2:27: I look at the work of Jeff Koons & some of it really makes me smile… there is something divine going on there.
2:30: a lot of the art with humour in it comes from a place of suffering indeed – whether mental, physical, spiritual, whatever -but ‘drawing in black’ so to speak/type, is quite easy… it’s letting the light in that’s hard.
2:36: beauty is not the same as pretty and pleasant. The magnitude of death and war carries
an inherent beauty, too.
2:46: if there is presently a renaissance in spirituality and romanticism in art, are there distinct differences on how it will differ from its historical counterparts?
2:52: I even think about younger people returning to more orthodox ways of practicing faith, as they long for the beauty and return to ritual. The Moneo cathedral in L.A. fuses these two worlds in delightful ways, concrete and digital tapestries.
2:52: I feel like museums have become too separate from everyday life and people.There is a need for more accessible venues for viewing and experiencing art, isn’t there?
2:53: In a time like ours, is art a supplement to religion, or an enemy, or an antidote?
2:53: Museums should allow for inspirational, transcendant experiences to take place.
2:58: walter benjamin has that haunting observation that even in the late 19th century a person could have a long look at a painting pretty much alone. it enabled meditative, close attention. the age of tourism, mass transportation and mass audience has altered the museum experience. (imagine touring the vatican at night by candlelight in 1767!). is that why we move outside the museum to enable the museum’s work, perhaps? that said, i still had a transcendent experience at the kandinsky show, amidst the pulsing crowds…
Tippett often really tried to develop the conversation, btw.
The Forum included other postings, and here’s the wrapup.
Photos: Improvisation 28 (bottom); both Courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum