impermanence as an eternalizing element

i had a friend tell me once that the only art he really believes in is the kind you can't capture, the kind that happens and flickers and then moves forward. the oscillation of people through a subway car. a glimpse of sky through a tangled web of electric wires. the tint of your bedroom wall at sunset.

it makes me wonder a little about the importance of permanence in art, or whether the word permanent plays any link in art beyond the memory we have of it. it reminds me of the way tourists in a famous museum will go about excitedly from painting to painting, photographing every image they feel touched by (or have been told they should feel touched by). who looks at those pictures once they're taken? what does the image even mean once it's been isolated onto a 4x6 inch reprint?

while wandering about a contemporary korean art exhibit the other day, i came across a wall covered in mylar and black packaging tape by the burgeoning artist heeseop yoon:



i immediately cringed with sadness at the thought that all of the meticulous detailing would go to waste at the installation of the next exhibit, but just as suddenly wondered if its impermanence wasn't one of the greater factors in its magnificence. was it the actual piece that made it great? or the reaction it gauged in its audience? what was the eternalizing element?

on my way home, i walked through a puddle of origami papers that had fallen into a large swirling heap in the subway terminal. as i looked back, the wisps of color fluttering gently up here, congregating slowly down there in the breeze of passing footsteps filled me with a sudden and forceful -
oh!

without any sort of disrespect or disregard for the treasures of art that we keep in museums and study in books and pass about in our homes and in our hearts - if art acts as a metaphor for life, surely we can say: life is art.

*note: this post is a repeat from the transpacific sketch project, a collective effort by a divine group of people.