Work of “object” art

Susanne Langer mention about many specific thing about make and present art at the book of Problems of Art. One thing  is interested to me in this book; “WORK OF ART” . Many philosopher and art theorist have researched and still move on about work of art after Mrs. Langer. Especially in the last century, art world was encountered many different way for to be different.  I want to give an example on that: The book, The Fang Family, has about parents, which have two children and dedicated their lives to the performance art. They ask this question: “If I punch your face is that art?” At this point Mrs. Langer offer some tricks to us. How will artists do produce a piece work of art and present to the viewer? What is the language of art? This is what to main idea of the book.  I think if we base on her book, we exactly answer this question: “If I punch your face is that art?”  Maybe, if she read The Fang Family, she will have to answered like that: Yes. Why not?, but if you touched on the right point. And I think we can do this with work of art, which is to equal the art symbol. Before mentioning work of art and the art symbol. Must be noticed the similarities between language and art.  How similar language and art to each other? Both of use symbols. Language use symbols and have used limited, but the art has a wide variety of materials, which is use symbols and create new symbols with together concepts and ideas. “The symbol in art is a metaphor, an image with overt or covert literal signification; the art symbol is the absolute image – the image of what otherwise would be irrational, as it is literally inneffable: direct awareness, emotion, vitality, personal identity – life lived and felt, the matrix of mentality.” ( Langer, page:139) I agree with that.  When we can create symbols, we are create  awareness too. Nietzsche has used the words as tried to create awareness, and announced that: “God is dead”. Because people are created many changable reality and their experienced reality is not truth and eventually they are lose awareness.  If we kill the god, we have to create a new reality; in this way we would be more close to truth. The world we live in we have many images that are causing us to lose our reality.  It is getting harder to distinguish between reality and fake reality. Luckily art is helped us to find the reality itself.  An artist use symbols; sometimes use a recognised symbols in art, sometimes they can creating new symbols along with the art. Creating new symbols with concepts its mean creating awareness which is she said above; this would be create the symbol art.

An artist can isolate “known world” in own his/her mind and does this with images, but it convey to the viewer they should materialize again and it needs a form. Artists can benefit from ready-made objects when creating a form, an object needs an aura for transform a work of art. Required for aura are at the forefront of creativity and Mrs. Langer gave this example: “The difference between creation and other productive work is this: an ordinary object, say a shoe, is made by putting pieces of leather together: the pieces were there before. The shoe is a construction of leather. It has a special shape and use and name, but it is still an article of leather, and is thought of as such. A Picture is made by devoloping pigments on a pieces of canvas, but the Picture is not a pigment and canvas structure. The Picture that emerges from the process is a structure of space, and the space itself is an emergent whole of shapes, visible colored volumes. Neither the space nor the things in it were in the room before. Pigments and canvas sre not in the pictorial space; they are in the space of the room, as they were before, though we no longer find them there by sight without a great effort of attention. For touch they are still there. But for touch there is no pictorial space.” (page:28) At this point if the shoe is taken from by the artist and when converted to a work of art with the concepts, its finally get an aura. According to Walter Benjamin, aura is refer to reality; work of art is uniqueness, presence and in essence have a reality. An object, which mean is a work of art, when  its can offer to reality to viewer, its gettting be succesful.

“A work of art, tough it may be called a symbol, is not a product symbolism, or conventional system of symbols.”  (page:68) Langers says. There existed one separate feature of it and that’s the “idea”. And idea can be formed via intuition, that is about artist’s perception. It depends on how an artist perceived life? Artists perceives the world as intuitively concepts in order to produce creative ideas.

Notion of illusion is very important in the process of creativity, Langer describe illusion as pure and  virgin. The illusion, one of the most important principles, is a tool to make visible and abstraction of art. The artist who use the illusion  provide the creation of the work with everything. However in today's world is different than the concept of illusion, visible world is an illusion and an artist will need another filtering, abstraction for creating a work of art “Artistic abstraction, being incidental to a symbolic process that aims at the expression and knowledge of sometihng quite concrete – the facts of human feeling, which are just as concrete as physical occurrences – does not furnish elements of genuine abstract thought.” Langer touched on abstraction and Oğuz Adanır Oğuz Adanır connected  abstraction and illusion to each other: “Art must be taken the world in which we live and change it, transform it, cloak it another costume and clothing and it should be presented in a brand new, very different way. The approach which attempt to exact same reproduce of real or reality, is according to Baudrillard, devoid of illusion is nothing more than a reproduction. (Adanır, page:39)

Likewise, a work of art that without illusion haven’t any aura. Baudrillard said:  “The universe becomes a factual one, a matter of fact, positive, operational, never to be contested anymore, and which no longer even needs to be true. As factual as a ready-made. So to speak a "fountain" : the most famous ready-made of Duchamp is the emblem of our modern hyperreality, as a result of a violent countertransfer of all poetic illusion onto pure objectal reality - the object transferred to itself by feedback thus cutting short any possible metaphor.”(Baudrillard, page: 1)

The surprising effect of the industrial revolution, with to wrap indicator our environment, an artist instead of negation object of industry, benefit from the energy of the object creating work of art. The multitude of worthless objects and with the uniqueness of the art object has created an allegory. Well then if an artist use ordinary object at the art, how to consume a work of art? What happens when audience encounter a work of art?

Mrs.Langer “A work of art is an expressive form created for our perception though sense or imagination, and what it expresses in human feeling. The word ‘feeling’ must be taken here in its broadest sense, meaning everything that can be felt, from physical sensation, pain and comfort, excitement and repose, to most complex emotions, intellectual tensions, or the steady feeling-tones of a conscious human life.” (Langer, page:15 ) I think, rather than innovation, to express and to convey  to viewer  is more important. Esthetics is not major, only a concept that become prominent in here. This will be enough to impress the viewer. Artist through the internalized issue for achive to integral using original genius, the context of the material want to use, relaying to indicators to gathering, should be make ‘real’ work of art. We can support Langer’s says: “In stating what a work of art is, I have just used the words from esxpressive, and created; these are key words...” (page:15) While art is ensured whole connected to us and ensured communicated to with others.  After this process work of art now at viewers memory and is being get consumed by viewers. We can idetify with Langers concept of “Living form”. “For a work to contain feeling, as that pharase is commonly used, is precisely to be alive, to have artistic vitality, to exhibit ’living form’.”(page:45)

And certainly, If I punch your face, this would be the art. Because I touch the rigth point. my masterpieces is a live and I created a living form. As an artist, I do  this without a new form, I just use known my body which is my ordinary object and the other known, fetish and industrial object. I allows you to see the object as a symbol. Now you can detect an object in this way, you may question the value of your life. Because I threw a punch on your face and perception. I produced a stunning and surprising work. Convert mediocrity for you, I've isolated and I've integrated you.

References:

Langer, Susanne K. (1957). Problems of Art, USA

Baudrillard,Jean, Integral Reality,

Adanır,Oğuz, (2008). Simülasyon kuramı üzerine notlar ve söyleşiler, İstanbul: Hayal-et kitap