Thursday, October 25, 2012

Inscrutable text

I hate to be cranky but reading exhibit information like this makes me cross::

"Material Engagements" presumes that materials and their manner of manipulation and presentation function as carriers of meaning as much as sign, symbol, and representation. It presumes an aesthetic activism, an intentionality of content. It intends to interrogate occupations, intersections, erasures and spaces of complex messy positionings."

Why can't they write in clear English what they mean? It starts OK but then goes downhill fast. Is the second sentence even a sentence? and what does it mean to " interrogate ..... spaces of complex messy positionings?"

If "It" means materials" exactly how to they ask questions if I understand the meaning of interrogate? And they lose me completely at " complex, messy positioning". 

I will hazard a wild guess and suggest they have asked artists to take disparate material and present them in a new way  assuming that " aesthetic activism" is another way to describe creating art...

1 comment:

Sandra Kaplan said...

I so agree with you. Sometimes just reading some art magazines nearly makes me nauseous.