Liberating limitations

I struggle with Formalism. I like stories. I like art for what it represents. I enjoy learning about the history and potential motivations of an artist. I like to analyze what a painting or photograph or structure means.

The idea of “Art for Art’s Sake” doesn’t appeal to me. Formalist theory is described as when “artists attend to compositional aspects sometimes to exclusion of any other concerns.” I can appreciate the composition, structure and form of an work of art, but I don’t know if I can turn off my brain from trying to find deeper meanings. In Why is That Art?, it discusses formalism as  liberating for artists from the traditional storytelling aspects of Expressionism and Realism.

Agnes Martin "Stars"

However, formalism does seem to posess its own challenges and limitations. It can’t be easy to paint “without representation” as Agnes Martin says. If I have difficulty turning off my brain to look at formalist art, I can’t imagine trying to create it. The examples given throughout the chapter seem to suggests these difficulties, as artists like Andy Goldsworthy discuss many expressionistic motivations behind his environmental structures.

Postmodernism is interesting in its desire to defy the traditional ideas of what are art and beauty. It is liberating in a different way than formalism. Instead of making art devoid of meanings, it instead focuses on representing subjects outside the norm. It is about ignoring the established ideas and creating without fear of unsettling the critics or the audience.