Praeterita

For once, I found something useful on Wikipedia. Under 'Art', it provides a broad ranging and useful summary of the different functions of art. They are: non-motivated functions of art (basic human instinct for harmony, balance and rhythm; experience of the mysterious; expression of the imagination; universal communication; ritualistic and symbolic communication) and motivated functions of art (communication through illustration; art as entertainment; art for political change; psychological and healing purposes; social inquiry, subversion, or anarchy; propaganda/commercialism). There’s no question in my mind that art of the non-motivated kind is vastly superior to the motivated kind. How to identify the different kinds of art that one sees, and deciding where to place them on this sliding scale, is an unending process of evaluation and response. The categories are not mutually exclusive, either. Pure aestheticism (pretty pictures of flowers to put in the bathroom) can be as...

Fiona Banner is an artist who takes text as her medium in a way that some artists use clay, or paint. In the 90s she produced a 1,000 page book called Nam, which was the result of her sitting and watching, back to back,  four Vietnam movies - Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and the Deer Hunter -  and writing down what she saw, in real time. NAM , Fiona Banner Black Hawk Down , Fiona Banner Banner has also created word drawings where she sets up an easel before a nude model, but instead of depicting the model with lines, she writes a description of what she sees, and how she is experiencing what she sees. Sometimes she does this in front of a small audience, turning the action into a form of performance. This is an artist who definitely writes at length, but not in a way that encourages prolonged reading of what she has actually written. A phrase that crops up a lot in interviews and writing about Banner's writing is "frustrating narrative expec...