On the Limitations of Art: Conceptual Impressions, Natural Expressions. The Artist and his Creation Based on Michel Houellebecq’s “The Map and the Territory”

Abstract

The author explores the limitations of art based on the potential sources of inspiration for Michel Houellebecq’s The map and the territory. The dialectic of art is questioned upon its links to capitalism, the sustainability of art and the artist when it comes to the confidence of realization of one’s ideas. The map-territory relation creates space for expressing the dynamics between the idea itself, its representation and what it entails when it comes to existing or perceived notions of delineation between the natural order (substance, materialization) and modernity (abstraction, impression). Houellebecq’s character gives precedence to the idea, and as in non-art, its serving as a conduit for natural expression, at the same time sets a limit to human expression, culminating in nature overcoming culture. Suggesting that both nature and (idea) art deriving from it can be brutal in their own ways. The inquiry consists of trying to unearth the identity of an artist and doing so by using biofictional practices to draw a connection with, but not limited to, a conceptual creator, Douglas Huebler. Intersection of the conceptual modes of reality with the reality itself in art is inevitable. With art, the onus is in respecting the two worlds with their separate qualities, bonding the differences without negating nor assimilating them; stretching the limits of creation both in the artist and what constitutes art as a whole. Hence, the border, as John Ruskin would say, lies within the mystery of life and art.