Conjuro de obra y la Neocomplejidad

The choice of the work spell is based on questioning how, in contemporary art, the production of meaning has shifted towards an increasingly greater narrative density. The deeper the spell, the more the work distances itself from the immediate present, becoming a myth, argument or conceptual system. This text examines this drift: neo-complexity as a legitimizing condition and, at the same time, as a possible denial of the ontological simplicity of the artistic experience.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

There is something very interesting that César Aira raises in his criticism of contemporary art, which highlights the insufficiency of individual components:

“You cannot photograph a concept. (insufficiency) But the text that explained it would also lack something, (insufficiency again) (…) And the combination of photo and text, in a paradoxical multiplication, would lack even more” (more insufficiency). The insufficiency of the parts requires the Work Spell, a fundamental strategic act of will to generate value -spell- The spell is not about the aesthetic quality of the object, but about the density of the narratives and justifications that surround it, designed specifically for a subject who is no longer amazed by simple form, the neo spectator, a figure that emerges from technological and social acceleration and overstimulation, demands not only the work, but its story, its justification, its myth. This condition imposes new demands on art to be considered “valid” or “valuable.” Being immune to simple wonder, being legitimate involves offering a neo-complexity that justifies attention. It seems that we have reached a point in the maelstrom of acceleration where there is no longer any room for the traditional mystery of the work. The value of art no longer resides in the object as a formal enigma to be deciphered, but in the complex narrative that surrounds it. As Aira wisely defines it “narrative fetishism.” In the era of unlimited reproduction and story fetishism, where does the value of a work lie today? In the matter or in the story that supports it? Does the current artist create or simply conjure meaning? Is complexity a new mode of depth or a symptom of emptiness? These are questions that emerge every time I face the fantasy of assuming myself as an artist.

Literature FRICKE, Christiane. (1999). “Nuevos Medios”. En AAVV. Arte de siglo XX. Vol. II. München: Taschen, pp. 576-590. AIRA, César. ([2013], 2016). “Sobre el arte contemporáneo” en Sobre el arte contemporáneo. Buenos Aires: Literatura Random House, pp. 11-56. ARNS, Inke. (2005). “El código como acto de habla performativo”. En Revista Artnodes, Julio de 2005, ISSN 1695-5951.