Art doesn't exist.

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Art doesn't Exist. Really?

Summary : Two friends meet to discuss an art project. What's the project about? Whether art actually exists. For if it didn't, to quote Nietzsche, we would have to ask the question, Why?

“I am of the school that questions arts’ existence.”

“Oh, you do,”

“Yes,  I believe we have naïvely realistic assumptions about works of art.”

“Yes, well, could you expand on that?”

“I mean that we fall into a kind of transcendental realism when we look at words of art. For looking at art works is a subjective experience like taste.”

“As I was saying, I would argue that art works are works of fiction.”

“And how can that be, sir?”

“Because they are dependent upon the perception and imagination of the observer.” 

“Not sure I, or the rest of the people here, quite understand that. Do we?” he appeals to audience. There is a swell of a ‘no’ from the audience that smack of an angry lynch mob.

“Well, I will explain if I may?”

“Well thank you for allowing me to continue. Yes, well, as you look at a piece of art it is a contemplative and for some aesthetic experience neither of which constitute existence. Works of art are the product of the imagination; the existence or reality of a completed work of art continues to depend on the make-believe or imaginative activity of the artist or some other subject, such as the observer or reader who conjectures the work as a work of art.”

“Please,” and the Lecturer proffers an inviting hand. I inwardly groan.

 “Although artists, critics, and you art lovers are likely to think such a claim is absurd we have to attribute so called existence of art to other modes of being. Because they are observer

relative.”

“What we undergo as we look at art works is a kind of ‘conscious self-deception’ and this conscious self-deception is necessary to both the creation and appreciation of art. So our commerce with art is a kind of lucid illusion.”

“And so what then your view on the beauty of art.”

“Beauty comes about through it irreducability. It is not a thing that exists.”

 “If we applied more self-reflexive awareness we would realise that something is being imagined when looking at art works, as opposed to believed. When we look at a Ruben’s or a Poussin they may have the capacity to contribute to a subjective appearance of beauty but this does not constitute existence.”

“No, so what does it constitute?” Comes back a very peeved looking lecturer.

“It constitutes subjective idealism. The painting, the wood frame, the paper, the paint, obviously figures amongst the real entities of the world, but if you then extract from these material things, the work of art, and see it as a bearer or locus of beauty and other aesthetic properties, then clearly work of art cannot be the material object in itself so we have to questions its existence.  Take this building it is a material entity of bricks etc. But if we then deem the building to be majestic or grandiose or see this ceiling here as beautiful, or the dome of St Pauls as a work of art then you are engaging in the imaginative apprehension of fictional qualities.”

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