Art is Astonishment
When I say that art is astonishment, people react with surprise. We tend to think of art as something aesthetically beautiful, the fruit of delicate labour, but I would say that this is truer of craftwork. On the other hand, art, or the artistic gesture, consists in astounding the public. Obviously, "astounding" does not mean surprising by sudden and brash gestures.
We are said to be living in the information age. A huge amount of information is frenetically exchanged, and people delude themselves into thinking that obtaining just one more piece of information will give them greater success at work. Having said that, when we concentrate on the information we have before our eyes, it is clear that it is not possible to see what lies beyond. Just like in photography, if we focus on an object in the foreground, the background will be out of focus.
