Page 6 - TOP 10 CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS - Volume II

Where are the great sages of art?
Reflections on the art of today

Essay - Fiction

In the queue of the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris move, stylish, shoes with high heels, a short skirt, a little
to buy the ticket on the first Sunday of October, 11 am. above the knee. I doubt whether to look at the lady or the
Exhibition: Arman. works displayed in the exhibition.
- Who is this one? Here the mind cannot be passive and I wonder, what
I hear someone saying, right behind me, referring to a would happen if this same exhibition were presented
poster in front of us: Arman. elsewhere without the glamor of the Pompidou and under

Only the considered great artists are invited to exhibit an unknown artist name? What reactions would the visitor
in this center, those that are accepted as the superstars have? Most of them, myself for instance, wouldn’t have
of contemporary art, the headlights that illuminate the come. What would this exhibition have been in a space
so-called contemporary aesthetic or, better yet, the without prestige? And the sage who says he understands
contemporary artistic conceptuality. so much? He would only enter to see the exhibition if he
Once inside the exhibition, after having, obviously, paid for had accidentally passed by and had time for such banality.
my ticket, I see that there are all kind of visitors. There is one Anyway, he would say: this is art.

a little stunned watching the exhibited works as if he was My desire to understand all this forced me, after having
discovering something from another galaxy. There is also visited the entire exhibition, to go back to start over and
another one that seems to know everything. There’s also see everything again, thus, slowly trying to reflect deeply.
the neophyte who says he doesn’t understand anything. - Today, there are those who talk about aesthetics without
I am also there. Another one, without being a sage of art, knowing exactly what it is. What does Kant say about
seems to have his own idea of art and states that this is aesthetics? Have they read it? And Hegel? And all the 20th
not art. Suddenly, I hear a very beautiful young girl saying: and 21st century scholars who understand a lot of art?
is this art? This is a question of the unbeliever, would say a Surely, they haven’t read it. This one says something that
sage of art. - But don’t you see that it’s being presented as the other denies. And what he says is called into question

an art exhibition in this important center for contemporary by everyone else. This dialectic, believe me, is what gives
art? Answered a young man who seems to be very much meaning to many aspects of contemporary art.
in love with her. All this was said by a lady who was seating next to me
I go from one room to another, looking right and left. Title when, after discovering a bench to sit on, I aesthetically
of the work? Of course, although we see it, the artist placed my ass on it and so I could rest from the artistic
titled his works, for the case that someone couldn’t see it. effervescences of that place,
Colère de Mandoline (a crushed and destroyed mandolin), - Have you heard of psychological aesthetics? And of

Poubelle des Halles (all kinds of debris inside a glass box), phenomenological aesthetics? And of analytical aesthetics?
Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens (thirty ancient Said the lady to a man who was seating by her side.
fly-sprayers). Accumulation of machines à écrire dans une All these reflections on art and specifically on aesthetics
boîte en bois. I think again that I don’t know why he puts are certainly complex.
a title if we can see it. Butterfly Variations (a violin carved And the good lady went on to say:
and butterfly-shaped on a wooden board). I liked this one: - There are those who talk about American analytical
Le Fauteuil d’Ulysse (a half-burnt armchair). A little tired aesthetics, and cosmetic surgery and evacuation
of reading so many titles .... Goodness me! what beautiful aesthetics.
legs! In spite of not being a young girl, she wants to show Ah! sorry, I did not hear good, she said: evaluative

her impressive body today. She looks like she is be between aesthetics
forty and forty-five years old. Perfect! She knows how to - In addition, we find a lot of expressions such as aesthetic