Art For The Moment

«Graffiti, furthermore, is temporal in a way that is basically contradicted by the practices of preservation in the fine art world. You've got to expect your work to be removed by the authorities or overpainted by other artists, or simply to weather away. The amazing art of Navajo sand painting is a similar case: the painting is destroyed in the ceremony for which it is made. Such practices have the effect of a relentless emphasis on process; you can't be aiming at an eternally available work that can be displayed and absorbed through the generations. The work is a work of and for this moment, a work whose point is that it was made, and how it was made, and why it was made rather than in the arrangement of lines itself. Graffiti, we might say, is its own reward, and that in germ is the ideal condition of all the arts.»

Crispin Sartwell