How BIG is Meta-art?
‘With which we come to the shocking conclusion that it is essentially impossible to see a Meta-painting for what it really is.
It is too complex. Too paradoxical.Too layered. Too much a unity, despite all its contradictory tendencies.’
From the chapter What is a Meta-painting 2, from the book Meta-art, Mick van Schooneveld, 2014
Minor work of art
Mediocre work of art
Great work of art
Meta-art
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Looking at a minor work of art or even a mediocre work of art puts us in a position in which we look at something that draws our arwareness automatically to our daily narrow-sightedness. There are no secrets, no riddles that will puzzle us. What you see is what you get: the obvious or something that too obviously tries to leave the obvious behind - in the case of a mediocre work of art...
Looking at a great work of art our awarenss is taken way beyond its usual grasp; there is a widening of our focus. There is almost always something secretive about a great work of art, some riddle (or even two, or maybe three...) that ‘begs’ to be solved. But there is still a sense of boundaries that our awareness more or less fits in, no matter how far away they may seem.
Looking at Meta-art our awareness is taken to a dimension that is way too vast to fit in any boundary we might be familiar with. We see the grandness of Meta-art like a huge wall in front of us, of which we do not at all see where it starts and where it ends. There is even the awareness that it just doesn’t start and end somewhere, but goes on for ever. Each Meta-painting is secretive in every respect. And behind every riddle there are only new riddles to be found. Much of what is to be found in Meta-art is ‘off the radar’ - untill we find some of it, looking better than we already did...
