Thursday, September 1, 2011

Truism #1

"You see, a document has a use, whereas art is really useless. Therefore art is never a document though it certaily can adopt that style."  - Walker Evans

1 comment:

Rolf said...

A friend (who happens to be an incredibly talented artist) responded to this on Facebook, and I thought he definitely has a point: "what else do you do with art but use it? For optical gratification or the provocation of thought or as the source of calm comfort like a cozy chair, or to receive the relaying of insight and memory... art has plenty of uses. Always thought the "Art Is Useless" angle was a smokescreen so only the rich could profit from it. It's certainly arguable that it's not necessary (although what's older than art? Humans have made it for tens of thousands of years) but it's obviously useful if only to decorate a blank wall. Or to make someone rich seem sophisticated."