After reading “So Much Longing in So Little Space' by Karl Ove Knausgaard, in this episode we ask the same question he did in the book: what makes a work of art good, really? My position in this episode is that the 'good' or even great art object cannot be one which you experience but then go back to life as you've known it, as it's settled around you. Arguing from a more radical position, I suppose, I claim the great work of art upsets everything, shakes all that the viewer thinks they know to their very core—and, likely, hopefully, makes it impossible for the one who experiences such a great work of art to then return to life as normal. The contention I dwell on in this episode is whether the art community today really wants such art objects which shake the foundations of the known world; instead, perhaps they prefer works of art which merely accent their days spent living a late-capitalist ideal of the good, secure, stable, comfortable life.

 

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