Reading Response #4

In Glen Brown's essay, he brings forth the notions of intervention, interaction, and the will to preserve. At first, I was confused by his first concept of intervention but soon came to realize that it is essentially the role museums and galleries play within the art world. An artist can spend so much time and effort to create a spectacular work of art for the sole purpose of having it temporarily placed on display in a controlled and neutral environment, where it will later be phased out. As he stated- we are addicted to it! For some strange reason, we as both humans and artists are obsessed with the notion of dedicating a special type of arena to directly display and represent our art, but what is overlooked is that even through all the effort, the work is stationary and will later be removed to repeat the cycle.

I enjoyed the points he brought up about preservation. In historic ceramics, the creators crafted works with functional intentions- ergo if something is to function, it should function for as long as possible. Today, we still thrive on the concept of preservation, and making our work eternal in a sense. However what does this accomplish other than personal reassurance that our work is valued in some sense. Valued in a way that people would take extra care to preserve and maintain the condition of the work rather than letting go in a sense of that attachment. As Brown stated "...attributes at the expense of a functional vessel's immersion in life is surely akin to embalming an animal for display rather than permitting it to live out its existence in the wild, or even in captivity." With that said, I think it endorses the idea of severing that lively attachment we develop to our work , and instead just let the piece function in the world- let it experience life. I would venture to say that the more life a ceramic work experiences, the more experiences it has to offer to life.