***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 23:35:56 +0200
   [From]: "Ami Isseroff" <ami_iss@netvision.net.il>
     [To]: "Cultural Exchange via Internet" <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Re: discussion about sensation - art & politics


Dear Anne,
When one quotes little parts of discussions successively, they get farther and farther away from the original context, and so less relevant to the original intent.
Originally I had written something else entirely that does not appear below, but has to do with mediocrity - I did not condemn anything at all. The other person
used that wording, and I replied that most of anything is usually pretty lousy and I think it is true.
Undeniably and almost by definition, the vast majority of anything is mediocre. If you judge and reward art according to criteria other than whether it is good art then you will most likely get mediocre art. It will be art that is politically correct and pleases the politburo or Giuliani or the Nobel committee. but it will not necessarily be good art.
If you judge and reward art according to how much of a sensation it makes in the press then you will get the kind of thing exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum - not necessarily good either. All of the above should be pretty harmless stuff and self-evident, but I suspect that in two or three letter cycles someone will have distilled out some insupportable essence of it - which I will be asked to defend.
Best,
A-



----- Original Message -----
From: ANAT-Anne Robertson <anne@anat.org.au>
Subject: [forum1] Re: discussion about sensation - art & politics