Let's Talk About Art
I know, I know, it's beyond hypocritical of me, mere days after lecturing folks on why it's fine to discuss the art market on this blog...how it doesn't have to distract artists from their work...how doing so doesn't warrant comparisons between me and Dick Cheney (I mean, really!), but the contrarian in me responded to the article in today's New York Times (and I agree with Tyler here that it belonged in the business section, not the arts section [yes, yes, it's another meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society, what can I say...Tyler's consistently there with the goods]) by wishing that whatever impact the turbulence of the stock market might have on the art market would just happen already so we can get back to talking about art.
Wish in one hand and piss in the other, as my Aunt Janet used to say...but yesterday's absolutely brilliant thread on originality and religion and pop culture and fine art was exactly the sort of dialog that attracted me to the art world in the first place. It's up to 115 comments now (prompting Bambino last night to protest he wasn't going to read all that now), although I think half of those were by Chris. ;-)
Don't get me wrong, I can talk for hours about the market as well (and did, just last night), and have a good enough sense of cycles to know that in additional to potential pitfalls, many opportunities lie ahead, but I can recall, back when things were much tighter and we were too depressed to discuss the market, we talked about---surprise, surprise---art. (It's a luxury only the poor can afford, I guess.)
So, again, I'll second Tyler's sentiment and suggest that, in the arts section of the paper, at the very least...let's talk about "art," shall we?
Wish in one hand and piss in the other, as my Aunt Janet used to say...but yesterday's absolutely brilliant thread on originality and religion and pop culture and fine art was exactly the sort of dialog that attracted me to the art world in the first place. It's up to 115 comments now (prompting Bambino last night to protest he wasn't going to read all that now), although I think half of those were by Chris. ;-)
Don't get me wrong, I can talk for hours about the market as well (and did, just last night), and have a good enough sense of cycles to know that in additional to potential pitfalls, many opportunities lie ahead, but I can recall, back when things were much tighter and we were too depressed to discuss the market, we talked about---surprise, surprise---art. (It's a luxury only the poor can afford, I guess.)
So, again, I'll second Tyler's sentiment and suggest that, in the arts section of the paper, at the very least...let's talk about "art," shall we?
Labels: arts coverage
posted by Edward_ at
9:13 AM
77 Comments:
Here I am, late again, but in a nod to Edward's post about talking about art, I'll add my own thought about yesterdays megapostfest and ignore the art market for one mnore day.
I think Paglia's argument is completely backwards, but may contain a kind of truth. She argues that by returning to religion artists (believers and non-believers, if you can believe it!) will be reinvigorated. But I think art doesn't lead, culturally. It reflects the time. So I think she might be right: the next great artist might be a devotional one. I think in our conservative times, we are ripe for it. I will add that this makes me unhappy.
About today's post:
I've been wondering if it's really possible for an artist to create non-market based work. This may be the promise of art, but, is it possible if art is going to be a public act?
The art vs. entertainment discussion came up a few times yesterday. I'm a big believer in making the distinction. Art does (and should) function much differently than entertainment in our culture.
There is a problem with this idea however. I prefer not to use 'art' as a qualitative term ('she's made an art of pasta!'). But some works that are created as entertainment somehow becomes art (or accepted as art in the art world)... how does this happen if art isn't qualitative???
I'm confused :-)
I think art should lead, culturally, and I think when the art world is healthy and strong -- and when the culture is, too -- the very best art does lead.
I think our culture and our art world are not very healthy at the moment.
I do think it's possible, though, that somewhere there's a group of talented, dedicated artists who are even now crafting our future, and we just don't realize it. A hundred years from now historians will be writing about them, not us.
No one really answered my question from yesterday, though: What should fill this blank? "Our culture is enjoying a period of high _______."
And I don't mean to say what would be true of our current culture. I mean, what should fill that blank that we can use as a worthy measure of our culture and any others?
I've been wondering if it's really possible for an artist to create non-market based work.
This notion has always bothered me, from Smithson on down. Creating a non-market based work for the sake of creating a non-market based work is STILL responding to the market even in its attempt to defy the market. In the end, I see no difference in the essential problems that brings to mind than I do in the problems of work "made to sell." No?
Molly asks:
This may be the promise of art, but, is it possible if art is going to be a public act?
I think it's possible but difficult in our current climate. Capitalism has triumphed the world over -- even the Commies are capitalists now -- and that makes it hard to imagine any alternatives -- even though we're working on one of them right now. (How many people are being paid to comment on blogs?)
Of course, our version of capitalism is deeply twisted. Think of how much of what you pay for a Coke goes to subsidizing magazine publishing through advertising. Is that really a smart way to spend money?
Anyway, what this means is, in a purely capitalist system, art making must be a profitable enterprise. Breaking out of that mindset is extremely difficult, especially if the artist has to feed and clothe a couple of ungrateful kids.
Ed sez:
Creating a non-market based work for the sake of creating a non-market based work is STILL responding to the market even in its attempt to defy the market.
I think it's possible for people -- artists included -- to simply not take the market into account at all. The third option.
Neil Peart may have written "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice," but I think that's purely semantic. Not deciding is not a choice -- it's the denial of the (usually false) choice being presented.
I've been wondering if it's really possible for an artist to create non-market based work.
Yes. Make net art :-) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_art)
Making art on the web (or of the Internet) wasn't a response to the market in my case. But it is completely unmarketable.
You go to war with the art you have...eeww, bad flash back. We're not quite at the, American Art Idle stage, are we? There is plenty of great work being produced in all mediums, tv and painting, etc.. One conflict I see is we have so many options to chose from. You almost need to plan your day, am I painting today or photographing/photoshopping/
flickring/blogging/printing/videoing/
drinking/driving my daughter to college, ahhhh :(:::::.
But it is completely unmarketable.
Famous last words, I suspect, twhid. ;-)
One conflict I see is we have so many options to chose from
I think that's at the crux of the current confusion about quality, actually. There is great art being made right now, but we're so bombarded by information and calls for our attention that we don't/can't permit ourselves to slow down long enough to see much of it. I'd recommend the remedy to that is to stop viewing art anywhere other than my gallery for the foreseeable future, but I suspect that might meet a bit of reistance. ;-)
Our culture is enjoying a period of high _______.
Overthinking. Also called "persistent morbid meditation".
I agree, Henry, insofar as overthinking is certainly one of my problems.
Ed says:
In the end, I see no difference in the essential problems that brings to mind than I do in the problems of work "made to sell." No?
Indeed. Art for Art's Sake is an ideal. Unfortunately, at some point, if an artist is going to get her work out there, she will be faced with the market. The market will take her or leave her. So, if art is going to be a public act, it has to deal with the market. Nothing new in that thought. Just wondering if the artist can somehow dictate the market instead.
Molly sez:
Unfortunately, at some point, if an artist is going to get her work out there, she will be faced with the market.
It's exactly this assumption that must be questioned. It's hard to do it, but it must.
Just wondering if the artist can somehow dictate the market instead.
I think they do, to a certain point. Successful artists do, anyway. I just read (most of) Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art, and in it Michael C. Fitzgerald makes the argument that Picasso joined forces with a succession of art dealers, forming partnerships to create the market for his art.
I'd imagine most, if not all, of the really successful artists working today -- working for the past century -- have followed that model, more or less.
"Our culture is enjoying a period of high________."
co-dependence via the internet.
Argh...all I want is one serious answer!
It's not a serious question Chris (too many assumptions go into any suggestion that it has a definitive answer). Perhaps if you rephrase it.
Scratch "via the internet", then.
If we don't believe art has any sort of sublime potential, then we don't make or perceive work as having intrinsic value. We co-dependently expect fulfullment/value assignment from the social and/or market circles in which we spin.
I do think it's a serious question and I'm not sure how to rephrase it any better, but Carla does give a serious answer here. Although it's still not what I'm looking for.
What I want to ask is this: If we (as Ed suggested last post) aren't going to use "originality" as our measurement for the quality of art in our culture, what should we use?
Of course any measure of the quality of art is going to be subjective; and of course it's going to involve more than one aspect. And it's not something we're going to define definitively here in this forum (or anywhere, most likely).
But I think it's a worthy question to bat around because so many people seem willing to say that originality doesn't count for anything -- or, more, that there's no such thing as originality in art at all.
So, okay, let's posit that originality doesn't count in art. What does?
In other words, when Camille Paglia castigates our culture for not producing original, creative art, she's missing the fact that our art today is...is what?
What I'm not looking for is a criticism of contemporary art.
Carla sez:
If we don't believe art has any sort of sublime potential, then we don't make or perceive work as having intrinsic value. We co-dependently expect fulfullment/value assignment from the social and/or market circles in which we spin.
I think this is an excellent point, though. If our worldview can't admit the idea that art is worth something beyond the material -- beyond a price tag -- then we require validation from the market.
I've been wondering if it's really possible for an artist to create non-market based work.
Sure. Live in a non-market based society (if there are any left). But if you're here in the US, or Europe, or whatever, the market is part of our daily reality. Whether you embrace that or reject it, you're still responding to it.
The other option of course is to marry into money.
I will try Chris...
Most art out there sucks. Middle class bull with a side of Marxist ideology and lots of rethoric. Art from Europe, Asia and Latin America, the same.
Right now in NY/Chelsea/Willia/Broo/ and other areas, less than 75 artists are worth looking at. What we have is a huge art scene, period. Very distracting and irrelevant. (I am talking about the ones selling for less than $25,000.00. I use this amount to simplify things.)
For example: Look at the SVA, Levy-Strauss will head a new Department. In other words, more of the same; tired, vomitive, left ideology politics and very little about art. We have lost our way, nothing is moving forward. Art can't lead when you have no leaders and new thinkers.
To those who made it above the $25,000. I hope you saved your money. Is going to be rough and is time to get another job or go into academia. Try before you are forgotten. We became like everything else, we (art) are now part of life under a declining democracy. Macy's and art, the same.
Museums feel the same way. Just a scene and leisure, no more about the best or moving forward with ideas. A very selfish bunch indeed.
To the rest: Waited out. Re-group. Move to the net.
Anonymous (11:46),
Which of Chris' questions does that attempt to answer exactly?
What I want to ask is this: If we (as Ed suggested last post) aren't going to use "originality" as our measurement for the quality of art in our culture, what should we use?
Well, for avante-garde art, that's a moving target. Prior to Modernism, it was mainly technical skill; with Modernism it was primarily originality; with Post-Modernism it was deconstruction/social-commentary. Many people (myself included) think we on to the next art movement, but it isn't clear what it is.
As I mentioned in yesterday's thread, I think that a reconnection with the general public will end up being the defining aspect of the movement--but who knows, I could be way off.
I see Process Art as an attempt at that--it's easy to appreciate the sheer obsessive effort that goes into Sarah Sze's or Tom Friedman's work. Social Practices art, such as what Harrell Fletcher does, is another attempt at this via centering the art on social interaction. I think Internet-based art, though its networking & interactivity, is also tackling this issue.
A few of them. Past and present.
Furthermore, I want to remind you,
removing quality, authorship, originality, genius, etc. from the understanding, history and criticism of the arts are all Marxist goals.
Well anonymous at 12:28, you've certainly accomplished the alleged Marxist goal of removing authorship via anonymous posting. ;)
Anon sez:
removing quality, authorship, originality, genius, etc. from the understanding, history and criticism of the arts are all Marxist goals.
While putting them back in is an Objectivist goal.
Of course, it's my goal, too -- but I'm not an Objectivist.
It may not be possible to avoid making market-based work because (as Ed describes) by going against the market you are responding to it. But one can decide how much mental involvement one wants to take. What percentage of your art making decisions are influenced by the market? That may be difficult to determine because there can be subconscious motives at work.
I personally enjoy the situation and get a kick out of it all. I like at that makes fun of it and is fun. Partly because, as a teacher, i see every side to it: the academics, the art marketers, the young newbie artists, the old codgers. All these agendas- its so beautifully silly.
i meant "i like ART that makes fun..."
Most art out there sucks. Middle class bull with a side of Marxist ideology and lots of rethoric.
Hi MLS, good to hear from you. Are you suggesting that better art would come from the Lower class, or the Upper?
I think one problem with a discussion about "the market" is defining what we mean by "the market". Does it mean "an audience"? Does it mean "a mass market"? Does it mean "NY collectors"? Most of the art throughout history has been involved with some market. At what point are we kidding ourselves if we think we can avoid that?
When I say "market," I mean it in the sense of Economics I. An audience is not a market (unless they're paying).
So I'd say we can avoid a market in that sense.
My answer was extremely serious. People today obsess over absolutely everything, and are critical to the point of paralysis. We can't make art any more without worrying whether Jerry Saltz, Camille Paglia, Tyler Green or Roger Kimball are going to lambast us, for which we prepare in advance to find our comrades and take up arms. Society today has become paralyzed by an absolute inability to act in the face of mountains of fear, confusion and questioning.
We are a paralyzed society, unable to act, and unwilling to cooperate with anyone whose views are "impure" next to our own. We've all become Puritans. So my answer was deadly serious, Chris. Paris Hilton is one of my heroes, and that's not a joke. I spent the first three or four decades of my life trying to be a brooding intellectual and I realize I've wasted my time. If I could do it again I'd do the Paris Hilton thing in a heartbeat. The world seriously needs to lighten up and just get on with doing whatever it is they want to do.
P.S. If an audience is not a financial market per se, it's still such a leading indicator that it might as well be the same difference. Someone isn't going to buy an unpopular painting. And speaking of markets, the other day the Dilbert Blog said capitalism is such a crazy system -- 9 of every 10 new business is guaranteed to fail. But in my opinion that's infinitely better than the system where 10 out of 10 philosophical discussions accomplish nothing and lead nowhere. Discussions are fun and they can be edifying but at the end of the day something needs to get done without constantly agonizing over it.
Perhaps down the road we'll see more artists making work that succeeds through the "long tail" model that is transforming music for a lot of less "commercial" bands - the use of the internet to find a small but passionate niche interested in the kind of thing you do.
Though not avoiding market, it is redefining access to market(s), and perhaps changes whatever calculations artists need to make when trying to get their music/art out into the world. . . .
I think we're right on the edge of seeing really interesting work that takes advantage of that new model.
Henry, it's not so much that your answer was facetious -- although it did sound that way -- as much as it didn't answer my question, which I hope I formulated better later. What I'm not looking for is a critique of what's wrong with art today; I'm looking for a way to measure the art today to determine if it's healthy.
With all the caveats that go along with that, of course.
Regarding fear and uncertainty: As I've mentioned, I'm (still) reading a bio on Picasso, and it points out that Picasso was wracked with doubt his whole life. He was never sure of what he was doing; the reaction of his friends and dealers to the "Demoiselles d'Avigon" affected him badly enough that he refused to sell it, took it off its stretcher bars and rolled it up, banishing it to a corner of his studio.
I'd say it's okay to be afraid and confused about your art. It might even be good to be that way. But you can't let it stop you.
Jerry Saltz said in his talk to us at SVA: Nothing in art was ever accomplished by thinking about it. It's all accomplished on the canvas.
Just as sex and advertising can't be separated and one should add money, since the 90s and the dot.com rage, money and art can't be separated, and one can go all the way back to when popes and kings pillaged so that coffers could be increased which then supported artists, composers, and mistresses.
When I say "market," I mean it in the sense of Economics I. An audience is not a market (unless they're paying). So I'd say we can avoid a market in that sense.
Chris, then I guess that means avoiding much of the art of the past bunch of centuries. I kind of liked some of those commercial Renaissance painters. But they all got paid. Didn't even Picasso sell a few pieces?
If I could do it again I'd do the Paris Hilton thing in a heartbeat.
Henry, that's fine, but please let us know when you're out driving around.
This is a dark time.
Art is not healthy. The stuff is not "aware" of the reasons for existing. Most of it follows ideologies or schools without knowing why or even undertandig where they come from.
Doubt is healthy. Stoping making art because you are not good at it even healthier unless is art therapy.
David, you misunderstand. Molly asked if we could create art that was not market-based. You asked for a definition of "market." I gave one. I'm not interested in avoiding the market and all market-based art; I'm simply saying we could, if we wanted, avoid creating market-based art.
If I could do it again I'd do the Paris Hilton thing in a heartbeat.
Oh, do, Henry, do! Pretty Lady did! It's so much fun! Except somehow the bimbo act got all discombobulated with Serious Content, and now she is the Bimbo of Arcane Rhetoric and Esoteric Philosophy!
Pretty Lady asserts, with deep solemnity, that she is Quality Internet Art, and she defies anyone to contradict her.
Does can get away with things no stag could.
Oh, I can't tell you how much I enjoy this thread... And particulary Henry's rants.
On a more serious matter: the "healthiness" of any country's art is judged by the presence of a "scene", different groups of artists who hate each others guts just because they think their opponents don't know a thing about art. And not because someone got in some international exhibition
The Post-Blogger
I guess if it is for sale the work is for the market at some point, even when the artist is dead.
and to make work outside the market, is it possible? of course it is, even more in cities outside NY, where people from the big art centers, curators and collectors just don't pay attention to or look or care.
This made me think of Spiral Jetty and other "geographic" art works (the names and categories of which I can't remember right now), and that made me wonder: Does Christo and Jeanne-Claude's work qualify as non-market based? Because they're not for sale -- although the artists do raise funds through selling works ancillary to the main work.
Interesting question.
Working in arts you have to take risks, it is not for cowards, you cannot play safe. You should do artwork as if you were a millionaire. But for many years you may need a job that earns just enough to keep you going, an easy humble job that does not suck your forces. Don't think of selling for the first ten-fifteen years. If you can endure it, maybe you will succeed. Thoughts of market will not disturb.
I was thinking recently, due to the death of Max Roach, that the period right after WW2 into the 50's was a very fertile period for a lot of the arts.
In music you had Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Diz, Ellington wrote some of his best music then, Sonny Rollins, Coltrane.
Dance: Martha Graham,Merce Cunningham,Jerome Robbins,
Paul Taylor.
Art: Willem de Kooning,Jackson Pollock,Mark Rothko,Rauschenberg,
Helen Frankenthaler.
literature and poetry:Allen Ginsberg,Kerouac,Gregory Corso, Charles Bukowski,Philip Roth,
James Baldwin,Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, John Updike,Saul Bellow, Edward Albee to name a few.
Someone take my keys away!
What I'm not looking for is a critique of what's wrong with art today; I'm looking for a way to measure the art today to determine if it's healthy.
The problem is that art today always seems to be a critique of this, a commentary on that, an exploration of something else, or a meta-analysis of all of the above. Between critiques, commentaries, explorations and meta-analyses, where does measurement come into it?
Post-war art is almost immeasurable by design, and anything produced after the '60s, forget about it. Success can be measured any number of ways -- sales, reprints and licensing, personal popularity, academic popularity, number of days in jail without crying -- but the art itself cannot.
Henry said,
"The problem is that art today always seems to be a critique of this, a commentary on that, an exploration of something else, or a meta-analysis of all of the above. Between critiques, commentaries, explorations and meta-analyses, where does measurement come into it?"
This is a result of university art education of the last decade or so. The introduction of heavy-duty theory above all else, and the "new professionalism" of the art world demands that artists often write their artist statements before they even figure out what their own work is about. The manifesto comes out as the work is still being made, still developing.
I think that this question was answered several weeks ago by Franklin, in another post. I have it verbatum because I printed it out and put it on my bulletin board:
"Art can be made to do just about anything, but the only thing it does inherently, and the only thing it does especially well, is serve as a repository for visual quality. We respond to form with feeling, and to extraordinary form with intense feeling.... But for several reasons the current milieu of contemporary art is predicated on visual quality as a subordinate concern. There is heavy philosophical investment against the primacy of visual quality: people actually become angry if you suggest it. The market has to justify a lot of inferior work in order to function the way that it does. This climate pushes superior work into the background. It doesn't celebrate greatness - it flatters inferior taste in a manner that lets it think of itself as superior taste. Taste and talent, particularly in high concentrations, remain rare.
This will remain the case until individuals, in whatever way they interact with art, insist on greatness, and don't settle for cleverness, irony, contrived awkwardness, and all the other false marks of sophistication."
I've been trying to convince Franklin to put his essays into book form...
don't forget museum curators that make endless references to text and literature instead of art and art issues. Those are the ones that don't look for quality or singularity but easy art that's about literal interpretations of somehting else...and it goes on forever.
Those are the most common today...and that's why we have biennials that repeat artists for years. It's easy and market friendly because all you need to do is read the curator's essay to understand its supposedly social and cultural value.
That's also very boring and dry land for the intellect.
I do like Franklin so very much.
What I'm not looking for is a critique of what's wrong with art today; I'm looking for a way to measure the art today to determine if it's healthy.
Honestly I don't see why one would care. Really, how much do you think the "health" of art ever varies? In bad times 10% of art is healthy (whatever that means)? In good times 20% of art is healthy?
Frankly, we can't even really judge it except in hindsight. Once we have a better perspective of what are of the early 21st century is characterized by. The 1950's could have been the highpoint in history of old masterly style painting--but it wouldn't matter because it turns out that Abstract Expressionism was the movement that mattered.
You could turn that around and say, "Yes... that's what I'm asking, what is today's art movement." We might be able to make an educated guess about that... but then of course today would be healthy (in varying degrees) in terms of its own movement.
In a sense we can't really talk sensibly about modernism. As Mao put it when asked about the effects of the French Revolution: 'It's too soon to tell.'
Periodic swings between extremes of 'retinal' and 'intellectual' art will happen. Leonardo may have said 'Painting is a mental thing' but his still looked good. So did Picabia's.
What matters is that you do something you're really into rather than something you think other people want.
Oh, and I reckon the main purpose of art is to enable the free play of our cognitive functions and skills, to use our imagination and knowledge. My working definition is 'art is physically manifesting symbolic thought in a highly allusive and self-conscious manner'. Form reinforces content and vice versa.
(Finally, on ya, Ed, for two fine threads in a row!)
I appreciate the appreciation.
1. The art market is more interesting than the majority of art being produced within it. The thrill of the auctions, the exchange of outsized sums, winners and losers, gossip, rumors, backbiting, business conducted in a manner that would invite SEC charges in any other field, the unholy collusion of private and public spheres (a phenomenon that Tyler has cleverly started calling "fluffing"), the occasional scrupulous gallerist braving the wilds of Manhattan (hi, Ed_) - what great fun even to observe, although I've never been a fan of soap operas myself. How much art out there is so good that it can make all that go away for a moment?
2. There is a lot of argument about art's nature and function. There's little argument about the art market's nature and function. It is much easier to have a conversation about the art market than art for that reason alone.
3. Writers, being writers, like narratives, conflicts, descriptions, ideas, dialogue, and backstory. None of these elements are intrinsic to art, but there is a widespread misunderstanding among art writers that they can use these literary terms without harm. This attitude has crept out into the larger art world; if only I could have a nickel for every time an artist was said to be in a dialogue with this or reacting to that or questioning this other thing or investigating whatnot. The art market characterizes these literary activities as inherently good. Just by admiring and repeating their terms, one is doing the market's bidding.
I'm going to run right over to my artists statement and add that my work is "investigating whatnot."
Looks like I'm destined to enter this one a bit late...
I've been reading Walter Benn Michaels work recently, and the argument there is what we're missing, what art, politics, etc. is missing, is ideology, because only ideology allows for disagreement, and particularly the kinds of true / false ajudications that "we" enjoyed prior to 1989, but which came into question at least by 1967.
It's not a bad argument, as long as you keep in mind that what Michaels is calling for is not a return to ideologies of the past--i.e. modernism, communism, socialism, etc. but present commitments to beliefs that allow for disagreement, which is what fosters the kind of criticisms it seems everyone here thinks are lacking in art.
Yesterday's thread was a great example of this. (And here's where I get to respond a bit.) Prettylady and I pretty much have completely contrary beliefs. I believe I am write in my views on religion and science, and she believes she is right. Perhaps these are the two ideologies that we have to work with. Regardless, our task is to demonstrate, advocate, persuade and, at the end, to win the debate by demonstrating that what we believe is, in essence, superior to what the other does.
It's this kind of conflict, this kind of commitment, that art is lacking at the moment. 6:45pm NYC
What's missing from art isn't ideology, but pleasure. My clue to this is that art is unique in the degree to which poor form can be taken so seriously. If someone says he's a dancer, you expect good form; likewise if he claimed himself a writer or cook. You might not only expect good form, but you'd still expect good form. Whereas if he was an artist he might be up to anything, and winning recognition for it. Consequently the system above all else rewards audacity, which at least carries a visceral charge.
I've been looking at Epicureanism, which had only one principle, that pleasure is good, but the idea is to make pleasurable a wise, sustainable activity, not an orgiastic explosion. (Epicurius himself was celibate.) Wikipedia says that we have "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the Constitution because of Thomas Jefferson's high regard for Epicurianism. Something about this has important implications for art at the present.
Jonathan,
perhaps i could do this without disagreeing with you, but then again when i say that i disagree that ideology and disagreement are what is missing in art, it illustrates the idea that every argument already contains its antithesis.
If there is something missing i think its far more likely to be a radical productivism. Brian Massumi suggests that the negative critique must be used sparingly and tells us that that "when you are busy critiquing you are less busy augmenting".
In the case of productivism the emphasis is on what you add (however small that addition might be) to the 'discussion'. I think this is also an antidote to the vague anti-theory sentiment that seems to be floating around in some of the posts.
When thought of as addition rather than explanation "theory" can be genuinely enriching to both the creative practitioner and the viewer of the work.
Yes, Jonathan, and when we look at this disagreement between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, we see how constructive disagreement results in valuable distinctions and perhaps an ability to move forward. But what I run into (on blog chats, and in the "real" world) is an inability to agree on the structure of debate itself. If I use a certain language or terminology deemed "academic", my points are invalidated because I am using some sort of false, repressive, obfuscating language. I am not upset by that but feel it a shame because I want to be influenced by others' ideas as much as I want mine to influence. I just find that cross-pollination difficult when folks cant even agree on what words to use.
when i say that i disagree that ideology and disagreement are what is missing in art, it illustrates the idea that every argument already contains its antithesis.
incredibly clever ben! :) And yes I would say that theory should be seen as an additive or augment. And in that debate i linked to about Chomsky would be the augment since, as he states, the intellectual must both critique current status and present an ideal future. I love Foucault, but perhaps the bad rap POMO theory suffers stems from a focus on his inability to allow for a (flawed) vision forward?
I love Foucault, but perhaps the bad rap POMO theory suffers stems from a focus on his inability to allow for a (flawed) vision forward?
We could start with that.
Didn't sum dude say something about not having to believe in art bur better to believe in artists? That sum dude is ________
I did it again. Thank me later.
We agree...a dark time, indeed.
Be aware, from now on, nothing should come out of your studio unless it is aware.
Nothing can be outside the market. The wealth of our the world is infinite. Don't bother, don't try. It serves no purpose or is necessary.
Franklin, a book please.
..when you stand in front of the work and you cannot tear yourself away from it, and it is still haunting you, days later...
This potential effect of great art has been happening for centuries, and will continue to happen, no matter what the popular or academic trend for discourse about the object happens to be at the time.
Gah, it's Epicurus and Epicureanism, not my poor spellings above.
Schopenhauer writes of the "positivity of pain", and how its cessation (or the satisfaction of a desire) is a return to neutral. Art, aesthetic appreciation, though, as it does not concern the individual will, does not relate to achieving personal desires, supplies a different kind of relief, an end "to the possibility of suffering" or desire, and is a 'truer' or 'higher' kind of pleasure, for that reason. He and Epicurus should hang out.
Mark, I love that Chomsky/Foucault debate video. I want the Kids in the Hall to reunite, and do a spoof of it, just because I think Noam, in his younger days, looks so much like Mark McKinney (and Bruce McCulloch would make a good Foucault, perhaps by slightly modifying his "Guy with a cabbage for a head" character).
The skull sold.
Is in the news everywhere.
100 million pounds...
Good for him!
The skull sold.
Like I said, the system above all else rewards audacity.
I've check the news everywhere and see no stories on the skull. Can you point to one?
That should be 50 million pounds (approximately 100 million dollars)... so much for the rewards of audacity ;)h
See http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL3080962220070830 for skull article.
sold to an investment group
hmmm...HMMMM....
Oops, here's a more clickable link
skull
Yes, 100 million dollars. Sorry.
I agree with the other comments: Both Franklin and Ed could write a book. I'm not sure what books are worth, exactly -- have you seen how many of them there are these days? -- but it would probably be neat anyway.
"I agree with the other comments: Both Franklin and Ed could write a book. I'm not sure what books are worth, exactly..."
They could always cover them in diamonds...
Holland Cotter today in the NYT:
"The arena has expanded. Although economically powerful, New York is increasingly just one of many art centers doing their local thing. Most work that turns up in Manhattan galleries has little connection with, or pertinence to, what artists are doing and thinking about in Africa or India or even in the Bronx. And what’s happening in those places apparently holds little interest for Manhattan.
The average Chelsea artist — white, male, middle class, born in the United States and a graduate of one of four or five powerful art schools — is a preapproved art-world player, as are his dealers, collectors and critics, who mostly fit the same demographic."
Sounds familiar?
Sounds familiar?
If that's being asked of me personally, I'd ask you to read yesterday's post.
Hyperlink test. go here
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