My first encounter with Susan Sontag was in pages of a Latvian arts / intelligence / wise thoughts magazine. Annie Leibowitz had taken several photos of Sontag during her last moments / weeks / months. I am definitely not a huge fan of mortifying / morbid images like that. Quite opposite. The photos and the article did serve its purpose, and got me totally obsessed with Sontag’s writings, particularly her essays and diaries.
Recently, I had a chance to lay my hands on the 2nd volume of Sontag’s diaries, “As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh”. What makes the diaries so special and invaluable is the fact that they are usually not written to be read and as such they exhibit pure , raw thought.
I want to focus on what art is, and these pearls of wisdom come from the 2nd volume diaries (written 1964-1980).
‘Art is a consciousness’ (42). We breathe it, and we live it. Art is all around us, complementing us and we, in turn, are complementing art, being catalysts of some sort. In the contemporary society art has taken on a cognitive turn, art is on every step of our busy lives. Go to to Tate Modern, and you will see there are something really trivial. Jut take some everyday items and put them on dis[lay, and you will get Art. Old mattress and old newspapers? No problem. Just put them all in one pile, and you are sorted. No sarcasm here intended. You also do need talent to make a tidy pile, though.
I once read an article / report of someone who took his glasses off and put them on the floor, and everyone else started approaching this unintended performance as a piece of art. Standing ovation. Lots of Instagram stories to follow. Perhaps.
‘Art - making concrete abstract and abstract concrete’ (91). Art is a constant game between the abstract and the concrete. Take something really concrete and make it into an umbrella of Abstractness. Here you go - that’s Art because let’ s face it - it is all about seeing the biggest picture, it is all about the perspective and viewing the world from a different angle.
‘Art is the grand condition of the past in the present (architecture). To become ‘past’ is to become ‘art’ (100). I cherish the art of the past - without plunging into bouts of nostalgia, that is. Current stuff feels like a concoction of the past - being the remix of bits and pieces. That saying, it is not anything bad - but somehow the past, especially for the photographer side of me, feels so much closer. It is in photographs that we see he world as it used to be providing us with proof of things long gone.
‘Art is a situation. Art is the biggest antique business going. Art as cultural souvenirs’ (155)
