2021-07-15

Contemporary spectatorship in art, losing your mind?

contemproary spectatorship is anti-madness

One can not deny the inscrutability of artworks. And the interpretation of art seems impossible to give because of the complicated art matters. One might stumble upon a pile of trash that is, in this case, a valued art piece. 'Try not to ruin the art with your negligence.' one might warm you as you step into art exhibitions. 

Art in contemporary times is no longer in place. Rather it is represented in various forms and matters. Decontextualization, in Benjamin's words, features the current ecology of art. In situations like this, art is not evaluated in the way like before. Consequently, the creation of art seems to have gone capricious. It challenges the traditional spectatorship in which the course of viewing was carried out with certain aesthetic principles. The arbitrary artmaking seems to lead contemporary spectatorship astray. How to view art becomes a complicated question that seeks answers in vain.

Given the craziness of artmaking, should contemporary spectatorship go mad as well?

It is not uncommon to hear suggestions like ' Take it easy, you can interpret the artwork in whatever way you like'; 'It just a piece of random creation'; or 'perhaps you can ask some experts' in galleries and museums. But such suggestions add more complexities to understanding art. 

Indeed, contemporary spectatorship is not to interpret art in a given way but to find your ways in viewing artworks. Those ways anchor to one's self that harbors in the reflection of art. 

Therefore, contemporary spectatorship should not be delineated in madness. Rather a healthy ecology of contemporary spectatorship ecology should be as such: the course of viewing art pieces makes one more aware of one's self and one's surroundings. This is the anti-madness that contemporary spectatorship achieves. And it is not to be conceived elsewhere, due to reflectiveness found only in the nature of art.