Rob Scholte – The intellectual Conscience of Art: Kindly
Dear Ms. Balkema,
You ask me to contribute to your project “The Intellectual Conscience of Art”. You say you would highly appreciate my participation. Well then, I am afraid I must disappoint you, because art is neither instinctive nor emotional; it is without conscience. You cannot blame it for that. You see, it does not have any properties or morals. That does not mean that the creator would not have any intentions, beneficial or malicious, but rather, in any event, that the product of this imagination is innocent and defenseless. Of course, you can read all kind of things into it, view it in a multitude of ways. You are free to do that. Fortunately.
What we call history is really just a short pause in the light of eternity. Everything can be understood in any number of possible ways. Nothing is impossible. Backwards. As a black plane. Three girls playing with a hoop on a cinder track. My letter as a declaration of war. / Your name as a practical joke. / The gallery as a car dealership. / Japan in the Security Council. / An inhabited Mars. / Hunger oedema. / A stiff westerly wind. / Chromosome. / I can go on like this for a very long time. / Hopefully you will understand me fairly wrong.
Kindly,
The Intellectual Conscience of Art, Annette W. Balkema and Henk Slager (eds.), L&B (Lier & Boog), Series of Philosophy of Art and Art Theory, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam/Atlanta, 1996, Volume 11, page 36, ISBN: 90-5183-900-6, ISSN: 0925-8191-01