Danto's "After the End of Art" Response- Reanne

     Danto discusses Verver's experience of art involving "...the stirring thought that beauty and truth were identical, and that 'release from the bondage of ugliness' meant release from the bondage of ignorance, and hence that exposure to beauty was equivalent to a curriculum of knowledge." He thought of art as something that both exposes and redeems the "bleakness of ordinary life." Hence, art opened doors to greater personal knowledge, one need not have any specific predetermined knowledge in order to understand a work of art.
     The author states that such experiences of art make the existence of it worth while, even if those experiences never come to be. A piece of art affects different people in different ways, and even the same person can be affected differently, at different times, by the same art. "This is why we go back and back to the great works: not because we see something new in them each time, but because we expect them to help us see something new in ourselves."
     Danto relays that the museum itself was meant to make such experiences possible for everyone. People searching for "an art of their own", or "community-based art", are in fact exemplifying the belief that art belongs to everyone. This common art is in response to the present day American life in which people are searching for meaning. The author gives an example of such a piece that has impacted his life in a grand way- by merely taking so much time contemplating his experiences of it.

Artist: Andy Warhol
Title: Brillo Box
Taken from http://www.artnewsblog.com/2008/01/art-collector-with-800-andy-warhols.htm