Tuesday 4 November 2008

Art, life

'Make your life a work of art'. (Substitute any word you like, there, for 'life': state, sport, crime).

The opposite has its place in aesthetic theory ('make your art a work of life'); but the other two corners are surprisingly removed, ideologically speaking: from the radical gay 'lart pour l'art' of 'make your art a work of art' and the born-again-Christian 'make your life a work of life'. I do not understand why these last two have the ideological codings they do; or more specifically, since the other three are all, to one extent or another, conservative positions, why l'art pour l'art doesn't just fall into line over on the Far Right and leave other creators to create without particular references to the vivid or artificial.

'Vivid'; 'artificial'. The two words at the bottom of the New Right-Wing! poster

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