There can be meaning in originality beyond novelty

There can be meaning in originality beyond novelty

You and I would have similar trouble making <a class=’internal-link’ href=’/Art%20AI%20Can’t%20Make%20Yet/Untitled%20(Portrait%20of%20Ross%20in%20L.A.)’>Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)</a> as a machine – we would be making it in a world that includes Torres’s artwork already. So if we made exactly the same piece, it could not be read plainly without an awareness of Torres’s work – just as [[ After Walker Evans | Sheri Levine’s photos ]] cannot be read as transparent depictions of their subjects. It would also be read as rather creepy of us.

We are free to use Torres ideas in our own ways. It is a beautiful way to memorialize a loved one. To make an homage is to build upon meaning, but that requires understanding of the subject you are inspired by. Were we to expand its methods according to our own personal meanings, it would become a ritual rather than a single art work. Piles of candy or other beloved snacks, placed like shrines, by specific people for specific reasons, transmitting specific loss and love.