'work', understood as craftsmanship, doesn’t necessarily imply ‘art’, even though a shoemaker’s work can be artful and even artistic. In this sense work can also be the transformation of an object into something useful. But art, as we saw with Heidegger, seems to work the other way around. Yet not every object is art nor beautiful, otherwise why bother making art? I think what Heidegger’s idea of verfremdung points to, is that art isn’t necessarily about taking things out of context, but more about human relations. By taking away the usefulness of an object, in this case of the peasant shoes, Van Gogh reflects on the role they play in human experience. And experience, as phenomenology has shown us, is always directed at something, that is: in relation to something.

¶ 1:16 AM