PAINTING AN AVERAGE UNIVERSE. I encountered the study of the average color of the universe from this article by Edward Tenner in the Atlantic about Jonathon Keats, a conceptual artist who has taken to heart the findings of the study. He has done twelve paintings, each in a flat coat of the average color. “As perceived by eyes adjusted to total darkness, the average color of the universe has the CIELab coordinates 97.7, -0.5, 9.” If you are curious about that average color, the article has photographs of some of the paintings. Keats calls for a Copernican Revolution, which would recognize that “the world is an average place, and that our place in the cosmos is nothing special.” Tenner says that: “The aim of Copernican art is to be the most average artwork in the universe.”
I agree with the character Tommy in my two minute play “Samuel Beckett Looks at the Stars” that most of us know that the universe is very big and we are very small. As I’ve expressed on several occasions in the last five years, my preference is for art that helps me experience my human world.