Great art creates attentional situations, not just artifacts

Evidence

The works of art that last—the ones that end up on the walls in homes and museums, the ones that enter the pantheon, and to which people return again and again—are not just “made from” attention; they create attentional situations. They convene attention, engage it, and produce in us (when they work, when we work) attentional trances that come from where they came from—and reach out in rings well beyond that point of origin. What does the work of art say? Attention can be contagious caring. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 383

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines lasting art functionally by what it does to attention, not what it is made of.
• XREF: connects to: Great modern art combines fragile illusion with opening to the excluded — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2725; Attending to a work can itself constitute an artistic act — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 437; Both creating and receiving art demand skilled labor on attention — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 435 (+2 more)