Categories
Aesthetics

The Case For Complexity

Article at Guardian Online.

Complexity or difficulty are both effects of art with internal or contextual complexity. This is art that does something, or requires that you do something. Art that has to work for its living. The mute, evacuated objects so beloved of curators and essayists of the last forty years cannot engage aesthetically or critically with anything much, and are no better than the conservative Good Old-Fashioned Art that is their Other.

Art open to complexity and open to making demands on viewer and artist other than “questioning” sanctioned “problematics”. Art giving rewards other than the warm fuzzy glow of throwback Beaux Arts or Institutional Burlesque. Bring it on… 😉