#10 - Richard: Because it fails to meet the fundamental

[mokkyukkyu]

Hello,

So I was not sure between D and E.
I thought in D, Richard says Yes, because he says "aberration" directly, and Jung-Su will say "No" because it says "mainstream"...I thought mainstream and aberration are the opposites, so I thought they disagree with this idea...or can something be aberration at the same time as mainstream?
for E, I thought Richard will say "No" because it says "fail...represent" and Jung-Su will say Yes, because it says "choose to represent"...
What did I miss here?

Is it because it says "whatever others might come to say"?
So Jung-su does not think it is aberration, but mainstreat, but she does not care others call it as aberration. This makes D wrong because Jung-Su might agree with this too...

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi mokkyukkyu,

"Aberration" is not necessarily antithetical to "mainstream" - you're making a dubious assumption about polarities. It's entirely possible that an aberration eventually becomes mainstream, just like something we consider mainstream today could be seen as an aberration in the future. Furthermore, Jung-Su makes no claims about how abstract art will be seen in the future: her argument concerns the present only, arguing that abstract art is part of the artistic mainstream today. Will it come to be seen as an aberration in the future? Who knows! While Richard would certainly agree with answer choice (D), there is no evidence that Jung-Su would disagree.

We can easily infer a disagreement over the position expressed in answer choice (E): Richard believes that abstract art fails to represent, so he would disagree with this statement. By contrast, Jung-Su claims that abstract artists choose to represent the formal features of an object: so, she would agree with the claim in answer choice (E).

Hope this clears it up!

Thanks,

[altheaD]

Hello
The explanation was very helpful. However, I want to ask why B is not correct also. Richard states abstract art "fails to meet the fundamental requirement of art -- that it represent" and Jung-Su says abstract artists DO represent as if to endorse Richard's assertion. Is it because there is nothing EXPLICIT that Jung-Su says whether or not she sees it as "fundamental requirement" or not? B suggests there is tension over how "representation" is exactly defined... as does E, I thought. Is that not relevant?

Thank you

[Adam Tyson]

Exactly right, altheaD - we don't know what Jung-Su would say about the fundamental requirements of art, only that abstract art is representational and is therefore part of the mainstream. If anything, that might suggest that the two actually agree about that fundamental requirement (if being "in the mainstream" means "meets the fundamental requirements"). Since we do not know for sure what Jung-Su believes about the fundamental requirements of art, we cannot pick answer B as the thing about which they disagree.