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Guy YedwabWriting The EssayPerspective (#8)There is a sort of literacy surrounding art which, when lacking, can impair your ability tounderstand the art almost as much as a lack of literacy prevents you from understanding the writtenword. Without a background in art, a piece of art can only be seen in one way: how it looks. When Ifirst ran into
2001
, that's all I had: how it looked. It looked round, it had interesting colors and a niceshine, and held my attention for about all of two minutes.As I wandered around Doris L. Freedman Plaza, the Grand Army Plaza across the street, thePulitzer Plaza across the street from that, and (later) up and down 5
th
Ave, nothing held my attention for a very long time aesthetically. No single object, in fact, held my attention completely. Yet at the sametime, I found that I was wandering the plaza for over an hour, finding new things to look at andcomment on. I filled my digital camera to the brim with pictures, and kept returning to
2001
to haveanother look.The relationships
between
objects: those are what captivates my attention. And as I began tolearn various new lenses and ideas about what those objects might be imbued with—as my artisticliteracy began to grow—I began to find new and more complex relationships between the objects. Iwas fascinated by Ngugi's discussion of performances of power and artistry; by Kwon's discussion of integrationalism and interventionalism in art. In short, the language by which the essayists discussed artgave me a language through which to understand the art I was looking at.I believe that we cannot understand things fully until we have some way to put it into words, because once we discuss it we find ourselves with new deeper understandings. By attempting to use Ngugi's words to discuss the difference between
2001
and
General Sherman
(artist and government performance), I found that he his ideas fell short of discussing the beautiful Apple store-front. But withhis language, I could create my own language (corporate performance) to describe the phenomenon.And once the phenomenon had made me question Ngugi's language, I strove to break down the
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