Art is art is art

I must say that this book has been one of my favorites so far and I have only read the first part. Last year in my art history class we discussed the 20th century trends etc but I just remembered that one of the artists we studied, Jeff Wall, actually recreated the preface of Invisible Man and made his hole with all the light bulbs, in 2000. I am very interested in this because it really gives an accurate depiction of what the hole looks like and I also got excited because it ties into Gertrude Stein a little (stay with me) because she collected art, and here our next protagonist has had art made after him.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/image/roomguide/rm6_invisible_lrg.jpg

“In my hole in the basement there are exactly 1,369 lights. I’ve wired the entire ceiling, every inch of it. And not with fo]florescent bulbs, but with the older, more-expensive-to-operate kind, the filament type. An act of sabotage you know” (page 7).

Anyways so I ended up going through my notes and the significance that I found for this exact piece of art was that it is an example of the rejection of straightforward reality that many Postmodern photographers were attracted to at that time, so the camera was made to lie. Photography not a recorder of reality but just constructs our concept – we are forced to see what the photographer sees. But I am really intrigued by this idea of the rejection of realty that the post modernists were attracted to because it definitely mirrors the protagonist’s alienation from society and his conviction of his invisibility.