art criticism - belgium

+++ Culture/ Belgium: Léon Doyen and artistic criticism

Belgium - La Libre Belgique. "Can art be anything?" asks Léon
Doyen, the honourary ambassador to Belgium, as ArtBrussels, an
International Contemporary Art Fair, opens in the Belgian
capital. "Someone twists a concrete reinforcing bar: that is
art. A pizza is smashed against a wall - that, too, is art. ...
What is going on? Philosophers have spent ages thrashing about
the question of art and everything has undoubtedly been said.
But in practice, one might well acknowledge that the decline
of art began in earnest in the last century with the critical
flogging that greeted the first impressionists such as Monet.
This error of judgment seems to have subsequently led critics
to accept - and even extol - everything! ... We have reached
the point where one no longer dares to voice a negative opinion
or evince criticism without seeming uncool, indeed cruel
towards artists whose freedom is thus undermined. This is the
dictatorship of artistic freedom!" +++

http://www.lalibre.be/
http://www.artbrussels.be/

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