Bert Olivier on art and more.

Art may and sometimes does carry with it great economic value — while Van Gogh was penniless during his short life, his paintings (paradigms of art that transcended the shortsightedness of his time) are today repositories of “safe” investment amounting to millions. Their value as art remains untouched by this, however — whether one owns a Van Gogh (or a Monet, thinking of the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair), or whether one contemplates it in an art museum, its value remains the same as art.

Thus, the art value of a pile of bricks is the same at a building site as in an art gallery. And the art value of a can of soup remains the same on the supermarket shelf, absent Warhol's signature.

The paradox of art is that, in Heidegger’s idiom, it “preserves” its dislocating, defamiliarising capacity even when it is not being apprehended by viewers, a capacity activated as soon as viewers enter into a sensory and cognitive relationship with it.

Is placing some word in quotes required when referring to Heidegger? It seems to be a trend. Does Heidegger actually say that art is permanent, independent of its observer? The Greek temple preserves something for observers over the ages, but art is not immune to thanatos, as this review notes:

Heidegger says art died (and turned into aesthetics and business) because it was unable to preserve its “world-soliciting force”. This means the work NOT as a re-presentation of the world but as the revelation, the disclosure, of that world in the first place.

  ¶ 7:51 AM