By: michael hampton

michael hampton — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:59:19 +0000

Of course as we are life, then it is impossible to stand outside of life and evaluate it, therefore no great seriousness can be attached to a value judgement declaring that life is worthless or worth less than nothing. When life itself is deified and indeed reified then we must accept that no bid can secure either its quiddity or meaning, since our fleeting bio-molecular existences are validated by what we choose to do, to assert, avoid, negate, join, celebrate etc. But in themselves these are just ontological positions. Naturally from the perspective of death, or the dead, then life might be weighed, appraised, sentimentalised, but as Wittgenstein put it so memorably “death is not an event in life”. Without doubt, the burden of making something of life, giving it value is the only truly worthwhile task, so ironically even though life might appear to have zero value in our corrupt and degraded times, this work still goes on, and the artist if he/she is worth
critical consideration must pass a test to determine if they have addressed the supreme difficulty of existence, whilst still keeping their options open with regard to life’s continuity via practice and its artifices.

Comments on: Gonzalo Lebrija. Life Isn’t Worth a Thing

By: michael hampton