Posted by J.B.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Talking with J.S. about Beuys and Joyce. Amazing thing about both of them is their ability to deal with the intense negativity of the world and work it into the huge construction of their work- somehow the result is always life affirming. And not the sort of gooey saccharine Hallmark-card type- but something deeply layered and encompassing. Their work always seems to inspire a feeling of living fully. J.S. says that its due largely for a deep concern for people- that such a concern is inscribed in their work. Perhaps relates to the David Foster Wallace excerpt posted by RJM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Beuys and Joyce both seem to take the world as a whole, with a sense of sympathy for each thing in it, whether persons, materials, cruelty, kindness, or time, as a meaningful part of a cosmos aware of itself. Wallace brings up the same idea of a cosmological sympathy at the end of his statement, but then immediately denies it to go back to emphasizing a willful choice to control perception through imagined, fictional alternatives, as opposed to a thorough belief in an interwoven universe where the mystical oneness of all things includes the inexcusable worst. Joyce and Beuys take the worst elements as natural ingredients in the chemical mechanics of reality without losing their essential sympathy for the whole.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone ever been to the Rothko chapel in Houston?
ReplyDeleteI've been to the Rothko Chapel. Why do you ask?
ReplyDelete