7 - Notes on the Work of Art as a Gift

Summary

As I say, everybody has to like something, some

people like to eat, some people like to drink,

some people like to make money, some like to

spend money, some like the theatre, some even

like sculpture, some like gardening, some like

dogs, some like cats, some people like to look at

things, some people like to look at everything.

Anyway someone is almost sure to really like

something outside of their real occupation. I

have not mentioned games indoor and out, and

birds and crime and politics and photography,

but anybody can go on, and I, personally, I like

all these things well enough but they do not

hold my attention long enough. The only thing,

funnily enough, that I never get tired of doing is

looking at pictures. There is no reason for it,

but for some reason anything reproduced by

paint, I may even say certainly, by oil paints on

a flat surface holds my attention.

Gertrude Stein

The vital principle of all art: to bring us closer

to things by placing us at a distance from

them …

(Diesem Lebensprinzip aller Kunst: uns den Dingen dadurch näher zu bringen, dass sie uns in eine Distanz von ihnen stellt …)

Georg Simmel

A work of art deserves attention and comment. It is meant to be noticed and to acquire a place in the world. A script that stays on the shelf, a story that is neither published nor read, a score that no one plays and a painting left in the studio are all failures. We believe that good art – art that is valuable and important – has a right to be displayed publicly. And everyone has the right to know and live with the art that carries such meaning. Good (not to mention great) art should be accessible to the public. In the civic society of the West this public openness and accessibility has been guaranteed by institutions such as the public library, the civic theatre and the museum, as well as by art history. According to this view, the artwork begins its career in the private space of personal creation: the desk, the workshop, the studio.