The Idea Of Subjectivity

When it comes to Art, I do suppose you’ll always find me at a question.

Be it any form of art whatsoever – it always has the ability to bamboozle me out of my wits like nothing else I have ever seen.

And so, when it comes to the question of what I like and why I like it, you will again find me at a standstill.

This one Tuesday found us faced with the task of picking out five separate installation artists that we particularly liked, in addition to giving a few examples of their works and then elaborating on exactly why we liked them.

After long hours of perusal through Google’s innumerable possibilities, I finally came down to five names that I believed were suited to what I was looking for.

Given my love for splendor, I don’t suppose it’s a surprise to find that the first artist that won me over was a man named Richard Wilson. This man’s works are characterized by plays on architecture and spatial illusion. He seeks to ‘tweak or undo or change the interiors of a space… and in that way break or unsettle people’s perceptions of space, what they think space might be.’

(this work is called 20:50, and is one of my favorite works by Richard Wilson)

And then we also have Claire Morgan, who seeks to explore that balance between human and nature, between movement and stillness, between solid and indistinct. Most of her works include individually suspended natural elements that are a direct relation to her experiences. When it comes to her works, what I appreciate the most is firstly, the delicacy it involves, and secondly, the raw meaning behind every single thing she does.

(Claire Morgan - Fluid. Probably one of the most awe-striking installations I have ever had the pleasure to come across.)

Following soon after is a man named Berndnaut Smilde, who is famous for incorporating science into his methodology in order to create his famous indoor cloud that exists for no more than a single moment - 

-and then we have Zimoun, who explores the relationship between visual element and auditory perception by using sound as a communication enhancer, making use of items like cardboard boxes and DC motors in order to generate the sounds he wishes to incorporate.

Every single artist is distinct in his or her approach to what they believe art is. And every single artist is equally as brilliant in their process and execution.

I don’t know why I like them all, nor do I favor one’s perspective over the others.

Their ideas are unique, their reactions even more so. Their ideologies complex beyond comprehension, their process undeniably breathtaking.

Every single artist I was exposed to on this particular Tuesday was brilliant in his or her own way. Not only mine, but also the ones the others displayed. And as I sit here in front of my computer, I can’t seem to make it clearer that I am no one to judge whose works are better than whose, because art is an incredibly baffling concept and every single person’s rendition of what it means is equally as special as the one right next to him. I don’t know what it means to be ‘better’. I don’t know what it entails to ‘have a favorite’.

I am a firm believer in the idea of subjectivity, and my likes and dislikes are in no way a direct indication of what I believe is superior or not.

Superiority, I think, has no place when it comes to art.

Or am I just naïve?