As a homosexual atheist whose life style has been labeled hedonist and useless, why care? But passionately, I do. All of man’s history supposes a belief or cosmology. Most are human-exocentric. That is to say, propose a system exterior to human existence-an outside force to be reckoned with often in a binary system of good or not good, white or not white, or right or not right, and reward or punishment in some after death, life.
Several times have come forward people that question received values. Socrates, Einstein taught that no “truth” was to be accepted without being tested in the mind’s laboratory. To the question, “Why”, the answer, “Because I said so.”, is a non-answer. What man believes or even that man need’s to believe is not a contention here. Man’s history, even the ideas, history, language or art, are the product of man’s need for “The Sacred”.
A chat room I visit, Sculpture.org, has posed the question, “What is the function of the artist” The question is of course much broader: “What is the function of art; what the function of symbol?”. The function of the artist is to manipulate materials in a non-verbal language, symbol, readable by the targeted audience. Non-verbal does not exclude words. The European group COBRA made use of words as a material-as did the DADAist and Surrealist*. I suppose that non-verbal means no ordered vibration of the air or imposed patterns of sound waves. But even that is belied by the soundscape installation.
Comes forward from time-to-time a new word or a new language. But, more often, it is a pedestrian reworking of the referential “O.E.D.”. The corollary is, there comes forward a new material and/or technique that spawns new words. But, if these newbies are self-referential and have no target, they have a best a season of fashion.
Poets were members of all three groups*, so, words are an acceptable material. And, here-in lays the heart of the argument: Words strung together, “See Dick run. See Jane run.”, or the Frenchman Fernandel’s “Les condamnées a’ mort ont la tète coupées.”, without the embellishment of body language or illustration, or history or reference, are only raw materials, at most self-referential-”A is (not) for Apple”, neither “P (n’) est (pas) pour une Pomme.”. A pot of paint; is a pot of paint; is a pot of roses only as a reference. And, so, art.
-Robert Derr
Posted by James Fryer 
