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#11
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 11:06:05 AM
Quotep 36-37

. . . in what way did Andy's Factory-made boxes differ from factory-made boxes? That is, what differentiating visible properties separated them? . . . but . . . Externally, both sets were alike.
   My sense is that, if there were no visible differences, there had to have been invisible differences--not invisible like the Brillo pads packed in the Brillo boxes, but properties that were always invisible.

Quotep 37-38

In my first book on the philosophy of art I thought that works of art are about something, and I decided that works of art accordingly have meaning. We infer meanings, or grasp meanings, but meanings are not at all material. . . . Semantics uses external relations like "denotation" or "extension." But the kind of relationship art depends on is internal. The art embodies the meaning, or partially embodies it. . . . The artwork is a material object, some of whose properties belong to the meaning, and some of which do not. What the viewer must do is interpret the meaning-bearing properties in such a way as to grasp the intended meaning they embody.

ah, so Danto here is a dedicated author-is-alive-er.
#12
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:57:56 AM
Quotep 20

Bringing reality into art, when reality had been what art was to represent, changed the way people through of art. It brings us to the substance of the question of "What art is" today. But there are issues I need to address before I can take on that question philosophically.
#13
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:56:57 AM
in the preface, Danto promises that "The first and longest chapter may feel like art history, but it is not."

i am skimming this chapter. i don't think that it is only art history, but in reading a chapter so dense with historical events, i am skimming. i am in a hurry, i am impatient.

what's art, Danto?

he touches on many ideas of what art is, many experiments, many hidden things. the moving picture, John Cage's 4'33", an old idea of art as literal representation -- at a time when accurate representation was so far from achievable.

what's art, Danto?
#14
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:40:33 AM
CHAPTER ONE
WAKEFUL DREAMS
#15
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:40:19 AM
PREFACE

QuoteIt was basically decided by leading aestheticians that art was indefinable, since there is no overarching feature. My view is that it has to be a closed concept. There must be some overarching properties that explain why art in some form is universal. . . . I have tried, using Duchamp and Warhol to achieve my definition of art, to outline examples from the history of art to show that the definition always has been the same.

well, i'm interested. this is a good preface. it's short (4 pages) and in this space addresses the title of the book, promising: yes, we are actually here to realize the title of the book.
#16
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:37:40 AM
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#17
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:37:19 AM
i did not get any philosophy books because it turns out they had all been taken already. the man offered me many other items of lower value at no charge, and these items all burden me to this day. (they also burdened me all the way back home in a more physical, embodied sense. some of these lower value items were heavy.) but the one thing of real interest that i took away was a hold on a library book called What art is, on his recommendation. he knew the author, he said, Arthur Danto, and seemed to hold him in high regard.

i don't hold Danto in high regard, he's just a guy who i heard about once, but i'm ready to begin reading his book, What art is.

let's go.
#18
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:34:43 AM
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#19
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:33:40 AM
when i met Moose, it turned out he was a man named Mustafa, which immediately explained most of the name (like -- when i met a guy who was wearing a shirt that said "burger" (well, it was "borger," but close enough, there was a picture of a burger) and it turned out his nickname was "burger" and the next time i saw him he was wearing a different shirt that said "burger" (and had a different picture of a different burger) -- but in reverse) and we performed the prophecied transaction. he handed me $40 (one twenty and four fives, i think) and then looked at the book i was reading at the time, ART & FEAR, and asked something like, "do you like philosophy?" to which i of course responded by looking at the book i was reading at the time, which i now realize is mainly about the fear of not being as brilliant or well-regarded as Mozart but had not at the time quite realized that, and said something like, "yes."

so the man who was buying the yellow sling bag from me, or Moose, or Mustafa, asked me if i wanted to go into another room with him to look at a bunch of philosophy books that he and one or more other unknown people (i did not know much about Moose-or-Mustafa, but i knew more about him than i knew about these one or more unknown other people -- he used only the collective pronoun "we," as in, "we are trying to get rid of all these philosophy books") ("for free," he added, seeing the suspicion on my face or whatever other reaction i was having) were trying to get rid of.

i said sure.
#20
Close reading / Re: What art is
Last post by droqen - July 07, 2025, 10:23:13 AM
i had been walking for about and hour to meet a person who my partner had found on a local stuff-selling app (like craigslist or kijiji, but this one was called karrot) i knew this person only by

1. the transaction we were to perform at the appointed hour: $40 for a yellow sling bag -- which we had received essentially for free from the manufacturer on the grounds that we wanted it only for parts -- they even made us prove that we had purchased the bag previously by providing an order number before selling it to us for an extremely reduced price -- but then discovered
   a. the only thing wrong with the bag that they were selling "for parts" was a bit of dirt or makeup or something
   b. the bit of dirt of makeup or something was easily and completely washed off
   c. my partner didn't actually want to do the thing with the parts that she thought she wanted to do --

and 2. the person's username on karrot, which was "Moose."