Postmodern art -- Any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in fact, art.
Or any art that is conscious of the fact that it is, in fact, product.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
value inversion
Andreas Gursky - 99 Cent II Diptychon (2001)
The work became famous as being the most expensive photograph in the world when it was auctioned at Sotheby's on February 7 in 2007 for a price of US$3.34 million.
museums compete with mass media
As mass culture became steadily more spectacular and immersive - with larger high-definition TV sets and vast cinema screens, with the enclosed and carefully calculated spectacle of the shopping centre or theme park - art had to compete. It could do so, as we have seen, by feeding off the allure of mass culture while adding its own aesthetic and estranged edge. It could compete by reversing the norms of mass culture: to take video as an example, it could produce slow, portentous pieces without camera movement, narrative, or obvious meaning, to set against the standard moral tales and visual incident of TV. It could provide impressive, nonfunctional objects and environments that, unlike those of the mall or resort, were not geared to selling (or at least not to the vast majority of their viewers).
- Julian Stallabrass
mystical bullshit
I would simply ask why so many critics, so many writers, so many philosophers take such satisfaction in professing that the experience of a work of art is ineffable, that it escapes by definition all rational understanding; why are they so eager to concede without a struggle the defeat of knowledge; and where does their irrepressible need to belittle rational understanding come from, this rage to affirm the irreducibility of the work of art, or, to use a more suitable word, its transcendence.
- Pierre Bourdieu
Thursday, July 14, 2011
the original facebook profile pic
Hans Holbein - The French Ambassadors (1533)
Oil paintings were one of the first objects to enter the magical world of branding. We often forget that most oil painting done before the rise of Romanticism was done by journeymen who were told where to paint, how to paint, and especially what to paint. Then their works were often discarded or painted over because the canvas was often more valuable than the images. That's one reason why frescoes were so popular. They were cheap and easy to reuse. As the English critic/novelist John Berger argued first in his BBC television shows and the companion text Ways of Seeing, oil painting became so popular precisely because it was one of the few ways to tell stories about yourself (self-branding), and once you lost interest or were gone, the painting essentially lost value. Now, of course, just the opposite is true. The age of a painting often generates part of its perceived value. In fact, the patina itself is an augmenter of value as it testifies to weathered age.
making things special is what museums do
"Reverence for the experience will replace reverence for the object."
"All department stores will become museums, and all museums will become department stores."
The museum experience, like the religious experience it mimics, is carried in an aura that implies the unique. There is no copy. That's its brandstory. In other words, art is the story we tell about an object and getting the object into the museum is an important part of the story. Perhaps, that's why the museum and the machine develop concurrently. They depend on each other. If the machine says, let's make the same thing over and over, the museum says let's not.
The museum experience, like the religious experience it mimics, is carried in an aura that implies the unique. There is no copy. That's its brandstory.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
culture is signaling identity
art is about aspiration. art is a means of becoming who one wants to be.
i want to be classy. therefore i should listen to opera. i love opera now.
i want to be cool. therefore i should listen to rock. i love rock now.
i want to be sophisticated. therefore i should enjoy abstract impressionistic art. i love rothko now.
technology killed Art
To Walter Benjamin (whose "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" encapsulates early modernist anxiety), originality was the be-all and end-all of culture. Repetition denies the very concept of the unique. From the Greeks, who knew only founding and stamping, to the woodcut and graphic art of the Renaissance, to movable type and lithography, to photography, then to film and sound film, the central concept of "authenticity" was being effaced. In a melancholy aside, Benjamin even notes that the worst staging of Faust is superior to the best film version of Faust in that the stage play more nearly imitates the first performance at Weimar and hence expresses Goethe's intent. Art loses its aura of ritual once secularized; its cultic value and fetishist power are depleted when shared with the hoi polloi. Mechanical reproduction means mass production, and mass distribution means mass consumption, and anything that the rabble has is, by definition, without value. Beneath this cultural Ludditeism lurks the dog-in-the-manger mentality of exact1y that kind of elite that the Marxists supposedly abhor. But Benjamin has a point: if everybody hears Beethoven, then Beethoven becomes vulgar. Print the Mona Lisa on a washcloth too many times and she loses her allure. As Huysmans observed, "The loveliest tune imaginable becomes vulgar and insupportable as soon as the public begins to hum it and the hurdygurdies make it their own.” Familiarity even breeds ignorance. We all know that the William Tell overture precedes The Lone Ranger, not Rossini’s opera.
Art is all about exclusion, artificial scarcity.
Art is show business. Authenticity is irrelevant. A copy is as good as the original. Is it compelling, have I pulled the veil over the audience and persuaded them of its value? Is the NARRATIVE there?
The story makes it special...it re-sacralizes the copy, the Eucharist: bread/wine is the Museum/Critics: art
Friday, July 8, 2011
conclusion of the good, beautiful, and the true
Indeed, for many young people (and some who are no longer young), the actual truth value of statements is no longer privileged. These persons are interested principally in authenticity (Does the speaker seem real, committed, engaged?) and in transparency (Does the speaker reveal where he or she is coming from, or does she dissemble or hide?). Should these trends continue, then sheer truthfulness may become less important. Still, the idea of transparency rests on the assumption that there is an underlying truth, which one either foregrounds or shields. Transparency depends on—indeed presupposes—tests of truthfulness. In the end, a position that brackets truth harbors its own destruction, if not its own self-contradiction.
Moving on to our second virtue, we have survived the period in which "beauty" was effectively banished from the lexicon of "art talk." (To be sure, it was never banished as a personal experience, as can be testified by anyone who has ever eavesdropped on visitors at a museum of fine arts, a national park, or a venerable tourist attraction.) For nearly all individuals, emanating from nearly all groups, certain objects and experiences—family portraits, evening entertainment, athletic contests, high art—will continue to hold a special place, a place in which interestingness, memorability of form, and pleasurable feeling somehow come together and invite further exploration. However, the kinds of experiences that are judged to be beautiful, by individuals and by groups, will vary, often unpredictably, because the history, culture, technologies, and
Before the fact, who could have predicted the revolutionary effects of of Picasso's paintings, T. S. Eliot's poems, Igor Stravinsky's compositions, Martha Graham's dances—and the speed with which they absorbed into the canon? In other words, I would put my money on the Survival of Beauty long before I put my money on the Science of Beauty. At the same time, beauty per se has probably relinquished, for all time, its preeminent position in determining membership in pantheon of Great Art.
Our notions of goodness, in the individual moral sense, are far entrenched than our conceptions of beauty. What we expect of friends and neighbors, and what they expect of us, has not fundamentally altered over the centuries—though we are perhaps more tolerant in some ways and less tolerant in others. In an era of many weak and virtually unrestrained mobility, we may well be less accountable than we once were; but the basics of the Golden Rule and the Commandments need not be recalibrated.
The realm of "the good" is threatened by antipodal forces: a mindless absolutism, on the one hand, and a feckless cultural relativism, on the other. We cannot legislate goodness from on high, but we also should not throw up our hands in resignation and simply declare "Whatever." Postmodernist critiques are appropriately cautionary and occasionally devastating, but they cannot be allowed to become decisive. The digital media can play a positive role in exposing us to a range of alternatives, in presenting for debate the diverse views of "the good," and in modeling practices that have proved effective beyond our borders and outside our consciousness. An abundant supply of "best practices" on the part of the media may be necessary, but it cannot suffice.
Ultimately, we require a deep and continuing dialogue between citizens, on the one hand, and media practitioners (who aspire to be professionals), on the other. To the extent that citizens call for broad and well-rounded presentations of alternatives, this message pressures or frees media to be even-handed and comprehensive. But to the extent that citizens do not fill their roles responsibly—are indifferent or fixated on celebrities or interested only in dredging up support for their opinions and prejudices—the media will simply expand the fog of ignorance and prejudice.
the definition of art
Increasingly, aficionados of the arts seek out material that is interesting, engaging, exciting, and unexpected, reacting positively when material that satisfies those desires is present. Many artists have responded to this demand—and perhaps they have helped to create it—by fashioning exotic objects or carry out sensational activities and making sure that these activities are 'performed in galleries and observed by critics. At times, and for some people, the object or experience may be awful; at other times, for other persons, it is awe-inspiring. But at the very least it elicits interest.
Why create interesting objects, or perform interesting actions? A whole branch of experimental aesthetics documents how, whenever a sight or sound becomes familiar, individuals avert their eyes or tune out. And, as a contrast, when deviation from the "new norm" emerge, these attract attention instead, unless they have become so complex that they cannot be assimilated. But once the new stimuli become familiar, they too lose the capacity to command attention. Therefore, to maintain interest, one must continually raise the ante, though not always in the same direction. That is, when interest in A has piqued, one moves on to B, and then to C, but sometimes a return to A proves more attractive than a continuing movement in the direction of D, E, and F. In a version documented frequently by experimental psychology, over time individuals prefer to look at polygons with increasingly many sides (say, more than twelve or twenty) until a peak is reached, at which point preference reverts to simple, classic geometric forms having a small number of sides.
These "trajectories of interest" transcend the experimental laboratory and emerge across the range of art forms. Consider the evolution over the centuries of serious orchestral music. Following the classical work of the Mozart-Schubert era, romantic composers like Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt began to challenge the supremacy of tonality. Then, in their respective ways, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg created alternative systems of sound. Thereafter, as twelve-tone classical music became ever more complex and recondite, minimalist forms of music—constituting the sharpest possible contrast—gained in attractiveness. In the words of minimalist composer John Adams: "In comparison to the flamboyantly Baroque display at the New Complexionists [a self-styled intricate musical style of the middle of the twentieth century], the matter-of-fact notation of my own music was like a pup tent squatting next to the Chartres Cathedral. I had to move away from this setup and had to remind myself of how the notion of 'complexity as progress' is in fact a posture, an intellectual house of cards and always has been." Comparable forms of minimalism arose in the literary arts (Samuel Beckett) and in the graphic arts (Donald Judd), with much the same line of justification as that proposed by Adams.
Interestingness in itself, of course, is not particularly symptomatic of the arts—if it were, then mere newsworthiness would qualify an object or product as artistic. For me, this stretch does not compute—a single symptom signals neither a disease nor an objet d'art. But once the element of interest is embodied in a form or format sufficiently powerful or evocative that it will be remembered in that form, one has clearly moved toward the arts. In this way, we approach the possibility of experiences of beauty.
Conceptual art provides an intriguing example. It might seem that conceptual art is about an idea, and it suffices just to repeat or paraphrase that idea. But that is not the case. In One and Three Chairs Joseph Kosuth presents a chair and a photo of that chair alongside a dictionary definition of a third in a whimsical version of a classroom punishment of earlier decades, John Baldessari has his wayward pupil repeatedly write: I will not make any more boring art. In each case, a potentially interesting idea-what is a chair, how to avoid boring art—is wedded to a format, that is itself memorable, even unforgettable.
Joseph Kosuth - One and Three Chairs (1965)
John Baldessari - I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art (1971)
With memorability of form, the artist distinguishes herself from an epistemologist or an exhibitionist. An intriguing example comes from the contemporary performance artist Marina Abramovic. In one of her flagship performances, Abramovic sits motionless in a chair facing whichever visitor to the gallery chooses to sit in the second chair; the visitor can sit as long as he likes and the artist remains essentially immobile for seven hours. This unusual behavior certainly elicits interest. While anyone with fortitude could assume the Abramovic role, this artist takes consummate care in selecting the color and style of her costume, her head and hand positions, the expression on her face, her bodily posture. Not only does Abramovic stimulate us to reconsider what it means to attempt to have a relationship to a startlingly unreactive fellow human being; her appearance and behavior often remain unforgettably poignant for the participant and those who view the encounter. More casual, informal, or ill-considered choices could undermine the effectiveness of the artistic performance. Just as actor Laurence Olivier long "owned" the role of Hamlet, Marina Abramovic sets the parameters for others who would hope to emulate her seated performance.
The third antecedent of the experience of beauty is the impulse, the inclination, the desire to encounter again, to revisit the object, scene, or performance. What I'll term the invitation to revisit can arise from each of several factors: One likes the experience, one has curiosity to learn or to understand better, or one has a feeling of awe—which can derive from wonder, scintillation, overpowerment, or uncanniness. Absent a desire on the part of an audience to revisit, an experience does not qualify as beautiful—immediately or ultimately.
pomo and art
In the West, the arts themselves have meandered, or sometimes deliberately ventured, in directions distant from a traditional notion of beauty. In the West and increasingly elsewhere, the high arts no longer try to document reality faithfully: That assignment has long since been assigned to the realms of photography and audio recording. The high arts no longer feature poems that neatly scan, or musical compositions that contain textbook harmony and regular beats; nor do they give pride of place to literary works with a classic "heroic" plot comprising a protagonist, an obstacle, the obstacle overcome, and an ending in which all—or at least the good guys—live happily ever after. Importantly, these artistic trends unfolded gradually, over many years. Far from being a consequence of postmodernism, they were catalytic in its emergence and its choice of name.
This state of affairs across the arts has led to a dismissal, on the part of many authorities, of the concept of beauty. Consider the testimony of fine-arts scholar Laurie Fendrich: "We who live in this speedy, diverse, more or less democratic society are, deep down, fairly suspicious of beauty. Beauty is based on a hierarchy that labels some things undeniably 'beautiful' and others irretrievably ugly. Most serious, inventive, and 'alive' contemporary artists do not want merely to reiterate elements of this established hierarchy." And indeed, post- modernist sympathizers like Fendrich are justified in challenging "beauty" as the sine qua non of all artistic experiences. But we should not, dismiss the concept because of the particular powers that happened to invoke or to banish it.
true, beautiful, and the good
Our classical virtues have been pummeled by developments in our era. In the West, in recent decades, conceptions of the true, the beautiful, and the good have been subjected to considerable, perhaps unparalleled, strain from two unexpected quarters—both quite new: the ideas that we describe as postmodern and the ever-expanding, ever more powerful digital media.
From one angle—a philosophical one—postmodern critiques emanating from the humanities have questioned the legitimacy of the trio—the good, the beautiful, and the true. According to this skeptical account, assessments of what is true or beautiful or good reflect nothing more than the preferences of whoever holds power at a given moment; in a multicultural, relativistic world, the most to which we can aspire are civil conversations across often irreconcilable divides. And so, for example, the mild postmodernist might challenge my characterization of Impressionist art as beautiful, claiming that I am just yielding to an account of painting that, by an accidental set of circumstances, has come to dominate textbooks. The more aggressive postmodernists would throw out the term beautiful altogether—claiming either that the concept is meaningless or something even more venal: shorthand for stating that I have ascribed to myself the right to determine merit. So, too, my statements about truth and about goodness would be seen as arrogant, subjective, or meaningless.
From a quite different angle—a technological one—the new digital media have ushered in a chaotic state of affairs. Thanks to their predominance, we encounter a mélange of claims and counterclaims; an unparalleled mixture of creations, constantly being revised; and an ethical landscape that is unregulated, confusing, indeed largely unexamined. How to determine what is truth—when a statement on Wikipedia about who I am and what I am doing can be changed by anyone at any time? Or when we can all present ourselves on social network sites any way we want? Or when blogs can claim without evidence or consequence that the current American president was born in Kenya? How to ascertain what is beautiful—when a photograph by a once acknowledged master can be endlessly edited on Photoshop, or when judgments of works of art rendered by a majority vote are given more weight than those offered by experts? How to arrive at goodness—the right course of action—when it is so easy to circulate unsubstantiated rumors about another person's private life, or when nearly everyone downloads pirated music even though it is technically illegal to do so.
relativism in art
Just as these eras yielded very different kinds of human beings, they also valorized very different works of art, with contrasting notions of beauty, ugliness, sublimity, and bathos. Just compare public art such as Civil War monuments of the past (the solid and stolid military figure mounted on his favorite horse) with the Vietnam War Memorial (a list of over fifty-eight thousand names arranged on two rectilinear black-granite walls). It is as difficult to imagine nineteenth-century viewers being moved by the Vietnam memorial as it is to imagine contemporary viewers savoring an equestrian rendering. Likewise, in the eighteenth century, residents of France considered mountains to be repulsive. According to historian Graham Robb, "To those who gave the matter any thoughts, mountains—and the people who lived there—were remnants of the primitive world." Similarly, novelist Orhan Pamuk describes how differently tourists and residents of Istanbul experience the city: "A cascade of domes and rooftops, a row of houses with crooked window casings—these things don't look beautiful to the people who live among them; they speak instead of squalor, helpless hopeless neglect. Those who take pleasure in the accidental beauty of poverty and historical decay, those of us who see the picturesque in ruins--invariably were people from the outside."
art as lie
Of all lies, art is the least untrue
- Glaubert
Many knowledgeable people speak of the truths of the arts,of a work of art as being true to life, or even of great art as laying bare the deepest truths of the universe. Returning once again to the realm of statements, some commentators have proposed a felicitous way of thinking about works of art—as "authentic" or "inauthentic." We should not think of plays or poetry or paintings as attempting to capture life in the manner of a physicist or a reporter. Rather, we should think of these works of art as capturing some aspect of life, the world, the human condition, in a way that is effective and powerful and (as I'll argue) beautiful—even if the particular vehicles happen to have been contrived or invented out of whole cloth. I resonate to the words of Pablo Picasso:
We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
mediated reality
Warhol's Marilyn Diptych shows us that when media becomes our primary reality, we lose sight of the distinction between illusion and reality; we feed on surrogate, second-hand experience. The media gives us the illusion of knowing directly, when in fact we encounter only what passes through it selective filter. Reality is mediated for us by someone else; we can know nothing directly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)