1999
"After we see an object several times, we begin to recognize it. The object is in front of us and we know about it, but we do not see it---hence we cannot say anything significant about it. Art removes objects from the automatism of perception.....In the case of Tolstoy, he makes the familiar seem strange by not naming the familiar object. He describes an object as if he were seeing it for the first time, an event as if it were happening for the first time." Victor Shklovsky, in "Russian Formalist Criticism"
Shklovsky goes on to discuss the "defamiliarization" of the art object, the ability of the artist to make something "strange". Is this not exactly what Magritte does in "La Clef des Songes", in making us question the relationship between what is pictured and what is written? Is it not what Max Neuhaus does in "Suspended Sound Line" and other works, when we experience a space in a different way than we had previously? That space becomes "strange": we recognize it, but we do not see it as before. We hear it as well.
©MNE