This project explores the idea of virtuous difficulty, as it relates to the making, the creating and the reception of a work of art. Here the word difficulty refers to questions, problems or conditions that command my attention as the artist, and which demand attention from the spectator, that require us to do the work of the work of art. What matters is the difficulty itself as it persists in generating questions that, while they may remain unsolved or even unsolvable, give impetus to the exploration of new possibilities, propositions, or experiences—to the exploration of the conditions and contingencies of our encounter with images. This is the virtue of such difficulty—it gives vitality to the work of art. Here the word virtuous is used to describe the act of creating formlessness, as opposed to producing pre-ordained ideas. In this respect it is moral in the sense that it provokes something of uneasiness or difficulty that it gives rise to the impetus, to continue, to explore new possibilities and experiences.
