by Steve Eddy, Brian Sewell and Anthony Quinn
“To read Tynan is to be thrilled into paying better and closer attention – which, in short, is the point of criticism in the first place.” Anthony Quinn, on “Theatre Writings” by Kenneth Tynan, Telegraph Review, 3rd February 2007
Quote of the year?
Let’s face it: 2010 will be rawer, more opinionated, more risqué, more in your face than ever before. Your audiences (who are by now thoroughly exposed to, well, anything, for which you can thank first and foremost the anything-goes online universe) can handle much more quirkiness, more daring innovations, more risqué communications and conversations, more exotic flavors and so on than traditional marketers could have ever dreamed of. In short: audiences in mature consumer societies no longer tolerate being treated like yesteryear’s uninformed, easily shocked, inexperienced, middle-of-the-road consumer.
So, in 2010, the question is how far you can/should go as a brand, when mirroring societal beliefs that are about anything but being meek. And no, we’re not saying you have to be rude or nasty or inconsiderate; this is about being a tad more daring and diverse if you want to move with the culture.
from Trendwatching
Kant on Beauty by Steve Eddy
Kant’s contribution to the understanding of art was the reverse of the approach of former philosophers who had asked ‘why are some objects beautiful?’ (eg. a warthog and a gazelle; a peacock and an ostrich; John Prescott and Julia Roberts). Kant asked, given that we organise our world in perceiving it, what is it about us that makes us perceive some things as beautiful and some things as ugly?
Steve Eddy, lecture “‘But is it art? The philosophy of aesthetics.” unpublished 2005
Brian Sewell on amateur artists
Many painters would have been appalled at how little time we took, (to select for the annual portrait award at the National Portrait Gallery 2005. ed.) their hours or days or weeks of labour dismissed in seconds – but, truth to tell, bad paintings do not improve with longer looking…I fell to wondering, yet again, at the vanity of painters incapable of even rudimenatary self-criticism and at the boundless conceit of amateurs.”
Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard 17th June 2005
