{"id":629,"date":"2017-09-07T17:07:28","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T16:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/?p=629\/"},"modified":"2017-09-08T10:46:38","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T09:46:38","slug":"the-perplexed-object","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/en\/2017\/09\/07\/the-perplexed-object\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perplexed Object"},"content":{"rendered":"

A work of art addresses its time. A work of art engages in a dialogue with its time as part of a dialogue with Time. And as part of a dialogue with History. A work of art engages in a dialogue with the succession of presents that constitutes History. A work of art engages in a dialogue with the histories and the simultaneous presents of the subjects that view it. A work is not univocal. Artists may believe they are creating univocal works, but while the artists are contingent, their works transcend them. A work is not mineral; it is an organism in constant mutation. Its mutation is not biological; it is perceptual and cognitive. Its mutation is invisible and intangible. It may be single or multiple. Time informs the mutation, but there are no historical or universal mutations. All mutations are original and can be replied but not replicated. A work of art is not conceivable without mutation, because a work of art is inconceivable without a subject of confrontation.<\/p>\n

The concept of a work of art <\/em>cannot be applied to any specific work per se, whereas it can be to a specific work covered in a patina of countless layers of invisible gazes. A work of art is not a work of art always and under any circumstances. An ignored work of art is only potentially a work of art. The sine qua non<\/em> for any work of art is mutation. No work of art can be described, because it is impossible to compile all the mutations it has undergone. A work of art is dynamic, because its nature is rooted in mutation. A work of art does not address everyone, it addresses each individual. Each subjectivity is diverse and irreducible. The gaze, the questioning is also diverse. And it is unprecedented. The experience of the gaze \u2013 the instant, or the interval, or the duration of the questioning \u2013 is unfathomable and impossible to convey. The unique confrontation of an object with a subject constitutes the transitory morphology <\/em>of a work of art.<\/p>\n

A work of art is hence the unique, unrepeatable experience, both infinitely arguable and impossible to replicate, of a non-transferrable, subjective mutation.<\/p>\n

A work of art is neither the body nor the scars of time imprinted or sensed on the body, but rather the inspection of those scars, a diagnosis with no testing, with no precision instruments. It is the circumstantial examination of recent wounds, not yet cauterized; the visual inspection, the naked-eye examination of the body.<\/p>\n

A work that is not scrutinized is a useless, perplexed object.<\/p>\n

Let us take a look at a few examples of this perplexity (the list could go on forever, because a work of art stored away in a warehouse is not a work of art, because a work of art in the dark night of a museum is not a work of art, because an unpublished manuscript for a book is nothing more than a ream with the scribblings of an insomniac):<\/p>\n

– The seventeen Olmec colossal heads found in the Gulf of Mexico, buried during three thousand years. Astonished or melancholic, these faces continue to show the stupefied gazes of zombies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Source of the image<\/a><\/p>\n

– A large part of Robert Walser\u2019s 526 manuscripts \u2013 the microscripts \u2013 perpetrated in compressed crypto-calligraphy. \u2018Like a timid escape from the public\u2019s reach\u2019 (a revealing explanation by his friend and guardian Carl Seelig), resist coming out of the coma induced by the author.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Robert Walser, Microscript 131<\/em>, April, 1926. Source of the image<\/a><\/p>\n

– The marine lethargy of the Riace Bronzes, their self-absorbed, ahistorical non-existence in the vast Mediterranean aquarium, at the mercy of the currents. Centuries of starvation have emaciated them.<\/p>\n

– Nancy Holt\u2019s Sun Tunnels<\/em>, a set of huge cylindrical tubes placed in the midst of the Utah desert, stunned between winter and summer solstice.<\/p>\n