“So, while many are keen to talk things down, the reality is more nuanced. Indeed, this isn’t the first time the U.S. art market has asked itself such questions. ‘The art world has an enormous capacity for reinvention,’ said Robb. ‘We’re all creative. We’re representing creatives. We’re creative in our own ways. This is an opportunity for some exciting change to take shape.’”
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) isn’t an art movement originally, but a philosophical framework that’s had influence in contemporary art and theory.
Here’s the gist:
What it is: OOO is a branch of speculative realism, developed mainly by Graham Harman, Levi Bryant, and Ian Bogost in the early 2000s.
Core idea: Objects exist independently of human perception. A chair, a rock, a virus, or even a fictional character has its own reality that isn’t reducible to how humans experience or use it.
Why it matters for art: Traditional Western art has long been human-centered — even abstract or minimalist works are often framed around human meaning or perception. OOO pushes back against this “anthropocentrism.”
In art practice: Artists influenced by OOO often explore the agency of objects themselves, how materials interact with each other, or how nonhuman entities (machines, ecosystems, algorithms) shape reality. This can look “anti-human figure” because the focus shifts from people to things.
Examples in art influenced by OOO:
Installations where objects “confront” viewers as independent beings.
Works that emphasize materiality — like how steel, plastic, or digital code behaves on its own.
Ecological and post-humanist art that treats humans as just one actor among many.
So in a sense, OOO isn’t anti-human like Suprematism or Constructivism were, but it de-centers humans — making the human figure no longer the default subject of art.
According to information provided by the Human Rights Foundation on 7 August and verified by ArtReview, representatives of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (the main funder of BACC) accompanied by Chinese embassy officials visited the exhibition on 27 July, three days after it opened, and flagged several works as ‘problematic’. Works by Hong Kong artists Clara Cheung and Gum Cheng Yee Man, Tibetan artist Tenzin Mingyur Paldron and Uyghur artist Mukaddas Mijit were removed or obscured and the names of the artists were blacked out.
“I still think science is looking for answers and art is looking for questions.” ⠀ Quinn sees the skeleton as representative of an everyman, an abstraction of a person since it is the part of the body which transcends death. The sculptures Angel and Waiting for Godot take the form of a praying skeleton and are an ironic reference to the idea of waiting for answers – or for some kind of external power to guide our life. ⠀ Marc Quinn Waiting for Godot 2006 Patinated bronze 77h x 37w x 76.5d cm
