3rd Person Omniscient People

3rd Person Omniscient People

The people who write the “cue cards” for displayed works of art in museums have the most interesting job. They have to straddle the silence/participation balance delicately — giving enough context to produce greater appreciation/thought, but not enough to cause premature cognitive commitment, as Frank would say.

Further, their words are wholly authorless, and in fact, have the position of being God-like. There words are not portrayed as being the creation of opinion, but rather simple state fact that is inherent in the state of existence, as fundamental as an atom or a mountain.

What a powerful, difficult and thankless job. I’d love to meet such an artist/critic — they seem to be an example of someone who is “far enough from me to be stimulating, but close enough to be consumable“. Admittedly, though, I would lose respect for them if they themselves did not feel to be an artist at heart — thus upsetting the silence/participation balance in their personal lives.

I’d start with one who works for the San Francisco MoMa.

And PS – Why is it that the use of superlatives always undermine an assertion? Or should I say, sometimes?

One Reply to “3rd Person Omniscient People”

  1. Anonymous Danielle said…
    I so liked your comment. The expression “premature cognitive commitment” applied to this context is so very it. Often, I have wondered about these artists of the word, of the craft of synthesis. When well written, these cue cards never enter into one’s thoughts pattern, but circumvene a space and a context into which spreading our wings becomes one with inspiration.

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