Scorpio, 2/5

Our class discussion about Lyotard was very interesting. After class, I thought a lot about society, art, and the need to move aesthetics from “taste” to historical “problems of existence”. As viewers in this postmodern world, we are consumed by the notions of “like” and “dislike”. For example, last night I attended a just-released movie at the theater. Sitting in the audience, I couldn’t help but to look around at my fellow movie-goers (I admit I enjoy people watching). I found it a little comical that even though the movie was packed with young and old, males and females, every race, perhaps difference in sexuality as well, once the previews started, EVERYONE became a movie critic. I find it hard to believe that a 30 second preview can take into account an entire film and yet there were people whispering after every end clip if they enjoyed the content or not. I relate this back to Lyotard because I can now see that audience perception to art has shifted into like and dislike instead of the appreciative nature that art brings.
I attend a reading by the Nobel Prize winning poet Derek Walcott (as part of Winter With The Writers, 2009) on Thursday as well. With Lyotard fresh on my mind, I listened to Walcott recite poems about culture, Africa, the sea, and even Barack Obama. During the question and answer portion of the night, Walcott expressed his ideas about poetry. When asked who he believes are the best poets of the 20th century (post-modern era), he could not answer just a few names. He went on to say that if you asked an artist how many pieces they truly thought were works of art, they might say only a small percentage of their creations. For poets, Walcott said, may only pick 5 or 6 lines as their best work. He also said that if we combined theses lines, the world might have only 4 pages of actual art that was exceedingly wonderful. This answer surprised me, because Lyotard would have agreed that art is only great once somebody puts a price sticker on it. In addition, Walcott stated that if he only created 6 lines of pure art in his life, he would be content with his contribution to the greater world of artistry.