Horizontal Infinity

9frames

shortened vers. of GIF by thekraken.

From Boris Groys' Art Power, pp. 16-17:

The artist of the ancien régime was intent on creating a masterpiece, an image that would exist in its own right as the ultimate visualization of the abstract ideas of truth and beauty. In modernity, on the other hand, artists have tended to present examples of an infinite sequence of images--as Kandinsky did with abstract compositions; as Duchamp did with readymades; as Warhol did with icons of mass culture. The source of the impact that these images exerted on subsequent art production lies not in their exclusivity, but instead in their very capacity to function as mere examples of the sheer variety of images. They are not only presenting themselves but also act as pointers to the inexhaustible mass of images, of which they are delegates of equal standing. It is precisely this reference to the infinite multitude of excluded images that lends these individual specimens their fascination and significance within the finite contexts of political and artistic representation.

Hence, it is not to the "vertical" infinity of divine truth that the artist today makes reference, but to the "horizontal" infinity of aesthetically equal images...

See also, Portrait of Boner, A Young Man, 2010 (by timb, Boner, anon., etc)

Update: Another Boner portrait, though they really need no augmentation.