I keep running accross references to Plato's Cave these days. (A quick refresher: the world is a cave with a bunch of people constrained to stay in it, all facing one way. Shadows flicker on the wall from the doorway and the constrained cave dwellers mistake those shadows for the real [ideal] forms that generate them, because the shadows are all they know, and all they are capable of seeing.)
Some people are both frustrated and motivated by the philosophical (some would say physiological) impossibility of seeing the world as it is. I love very much this passage below from Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1977. pp.70. I see it as an elegant attempt at the impossible task of finding words to describe something that cannot even be properly perceived.
He squinted hard, sorry that he hadn't had time for an hour's nap before his important business. And then it hit him. [...] It was as though he were in a different world. A million odors cascaded in on him at once—sharp, sweet, metallic, gentle, dangerous ones, as crude as cobblestones, as delicate and complex as watch mechanisms, as huge as a house and as tiny as a dust particle. The air became hard, it developed edges, surfaces, and corners, like space was filled with huge stiff balloons, slippery pyramids, gigantic prickly crystals, and he had to push his way through it all, making his way in a dream through a junk store stuffed with ancient, ugly furniture...It lasted a second. He opened his eyes and everything was gone. It hadn't been a different world—it was this world turning a new, unknown side to him. This side was revealed to him for a second and then disappeared, before he had time to figure it out.
Canadian curator Xandra Eden is showing "The Cave and The Island" at White Columns til June 20. Crystal Mowry has written an excellent essay on the work of Michelle Allard (upcoming show at YYZ in Toronto, Extruded, Expanded, opens June 16) that refers to Plato's Cave as a foil for Allard's specific use of material. In Dot Tuer's upcoming anthologoy, she makes reference to Michael Heim's suggestion that the "virtual representations produced by computers [are] the potential realization of Plato's idealized forms." Tom Moody made reference recently to the film a Beautiful Mind, quoting an imdb critic, "Nash's madness was almost certainly caused by his 'breaking' his mind by straying too far from reality to get outside th[e] large problem he was working [on]."
notes from the underlined
Hi Sally,
Aside from the fact the show is entitled The Cave and the Island, how is Xandra Eden's exhibition at White Columns a reference to Plato's Cave?
Well okay The Plato's Cave reference specifically came up in a conversation about this show, not in the writing about the show itself, nor in a direct experience of the show (cause I haven't seen it). Someone I know who knows the curator was telling me about it and I just assumed (and we all know that assume makes and "ass" out of "u" and "me" ). But if you read the blurb about the show linked above, it does sound like a plausible reference. "...the exhibition presents formal, conceptual and symbolic manifestations of two types of isolated ecologies to examine the way successive generations utilize and re-interpret the iconography of art history in their work."
wow. thanks for the very very excellent link, Bill. Will be looking to read more things by Marshall Berman very soon. A small quote from the Harvard Design Magazine article "Notes from Underground: Plato's Cave, Piranesi's Prison, and the Subway," by Marshal Berman:
"For Plato, the passage from the cave into the sunlight signified an escape from enslavement to democracy. The railroad not only gave Plato’s vision a democratic force, but also transformed it into a democratic rite. The subway’s dirt-cheap fares spread the democratic horizon even wider. Today, with “accessibility,” virtually everybody can join the crowd underground. The subway is a modern agora; it carries the democratization of transcendence about as far as it can go."
Sally,
"...the exhibition presents formal, conceptual and symbolic manifestations of two types of isolated ecologies to examine the way successive generations utilize and re-interpret the iconography of art history in their work."
To be fair, I've not seen the exhibit either. But I think it's wrong minded to suggest an affinity for Socratic thought where none exists. While it may be plausible the curator intended a reference to Plato's Cave, it is by no means made clear in this (albeit cursory) text.
The way I read this phrase and in fact the entire link is that far from seeking understanding in a new and unknown territory - pushing the new and untested out into the light of the sun, these artists are specifically returning to the cave of art history and mining all the old gems of the past to cloak their work.
It sounds like Karen Azoulay plays the part of the new Judy Pfaff/Jessica Stockholder(!) Massimo Guerrarra comes out as a hybridized Bosch -Matta - Clark value pack and Damien Moppett is trying to get that monkey Anthony Caro off his back. Jennifer Murphy and Jay Isaaks represent the new kitsch. Far from a reference to the allegory of the cave, this seems like a trumped up way of saying "everything old is new again".
The part of Dave Armstrong Six is a little harder to pin down. The blurb on his piece in the show is down right opaque. "David Armstrong Six couples an examination of the mutability of thought with meditations of the subject of entropy. For this exhibition, the artist will produce a new quasi-Minimalist sculpture maquette and a new series of ink and gouache paintings". What on earth does that mean? Absolutely impenetrable - Maybe if we all say it aloud a couple of hundred times it'll start to make sense...do you think?
I realize your post is about more than just this item. But it snagged me.
I hear you Robert. I'm just getting the hang of this cave business, and I see your point. Though my impression (which could well indeed be wrong) is that in an art theory context the idea of Plato's Cave has morphed from a philosophical ideal to a fairly pedestrian catch phrase for the art phenomenon of an object standing in for a body of ideas. Ideas that remain opaque to the viewer without prior knowledge, and can't be gleaned from the object alone. that would apply here. But I'm nowhere suggesting that this means its a good art show. Maybe someone in NYC will go see it and make a report (hint hint, Joester and Tom).
yes. ditto -double hint.
Crystal Mowry's exhibition essay on Michelle Allard's work is now online here.
Jennifer McMackon has linked to some images of Plato's Cavehere at Simpleposie.
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I keep running accross references to Plato's Cave these days. (A quick refresher: the world is a cave with a bunch of people constrained to stay in it, all facing one way. Shadows flicker on the wall from the doorway and the constrained cave dwellers mistake those shadows for the real [ideal] forms that generate them, because the shadows are all they know, and all they are capable of seeing.)
Some people are both frustrated and motivated by the philosophical (some would say physiological) impossibility of seeing the world as it is. I love very much this passage below from Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1977. pp.70. I see it as an elegant attempt at the impossible task of finding words to describe something that cannot even be properly perceived.
- sally mckay 5-28-2004 6:52 pm
Canadian curator Xandra Eden is showing "The Cave and The Island" at White Columns til June 20. Crystal Mowry has written an excellent essay on the work of Michelle Allard (upcoming show at YYZ in Toronto, Extruded, Expanded, opens June 16) that refers to Plato's Cave as a foil for Allard's specific use of material. In Dot Tuer's upcoming anthologoy, she makes reference to Michael Heim's suggestion that the "virtual representations produced by computers [are] the potential realization of Plato's idealized forms." Tom Moody made reference recently to the film a Beautiful Mind, quoting an imdb critic, "Nash's madness was almost certainly caused by his 'breaking' his mind by straying too far from reality to get outside th[e] large problem he was working [on]."
- sally mckay 5-28-2004 6:54 pm
notes from the underlined
- bill 5-28-2004 7:30 pm
Hi Sally,
Aside from the fact the show is entitled The Cave and the Island, how is Xandra Eden's exhibition at White Columns a reference to Plato's Cave?
- Robert C (guest) 5-28-2004 10:44 pm
Well okay The Plato's Cave reference specifically came up in a conversation about this show, not in the writing about the show itself, nor in a direct experience of the show (cause I haven't seen it). Someone I know who knows the curator was telling me about it and I just assumed (and we all know that assume makes and "ass" out of "u" and "me" ). But if you read the blurb about the show linked above, it does sound like a plausible reference. "...the exhibition presents formal, conceptual and symbolic manifestations of two types of isolated ecologies to examine the way successive generations utilize and re-interpret the iconography of art history in their work."
- sally mckay 5-29-2004 2:43 am
wow. thanks for the very very excellent link, Bill. Will be looking to read more things by Marshall Berman very soon. A small quote from the Harvard Design Magazine article "Notes from Underground: Plato's Cave, Piranesi's Prison, and the Subway," by Marshal Berman:
- sally mckay 5-29-2004 9:17 am
Sally,
"...the exhibition presents formal, conceptual and symbolic manifestations of two types of isolated ecologies to examine the way successive generations utilize and re-interpret the iconography of art history in their work."
To be fair, I've not seen the exhibit either. But I think it's wrong minded to suggest an affinity for Socratic thought where none exists. While it may be plausible the curator intended a reference to Plato's Cave, it is by no means made clear in this (albeit cursory) text.
The way I read this phrase and in fact the entire link is that far from seeking understanding in a new and unknown territory - pushing the new and untested out into the light of the sun, these artists are specifically returning to the cave of art history and mining all the old gems of the past to cloak their work.
It sounds like Karen Azoulay plays the part of the new Judy Pfaff/Jessica Stockholder(!) Massimo Guerrarra comes out as a hybridized Bosch -Matta - Clark value pack and Damien Moppett is trying to get that monkey Anthony Caro off his back. Jennifer Murphy and Jay Isaaks represent the new kitsch. Far from a reference to the allegory of the cave, this seems like a trumped up way of saying "everything old is new again".
The part of Dave Armstrong Six is a little harder to pin down. The blurb on his piece in the show is down right opaque. "David Armstrong Six couples an examination of the mutability of thought with meditations of the subject of entropy. For this exhibition, the artist will produce a new quasi-Minimalist sculpture maquette and a new series of ink and gouache paintings". What on earth does that mean? Absolutely impenetrable - Maybe if we all say it aloud a couple of hundred times it'll start to make sense...do you think?
I realize your post is about more than just this item. But it snagged me.
- Robert C (guest) 5-29-2004 5:35 pm
I hear you Robert. I'm just getting the hang of this cave business, and I see your point. Though my impression (which could well indeed be wrong) is that in an art theory context the idea of Plato's Cave has morphed from a philosophical ideal to a fairly pedestrian catch phrase for the art phenomenon of an object standing in for a body of ideas. Ideas that remain opaque to the viewer without prior knowledge, and can't be gleaned from the object alone. that would apply here. But I'm nowhere suggesting that this means its a good art show. Maybe someone in NYC will go see it and make a report (hint hint, Joester and Tom).
- sally mckay 5-29-2004 6:20 pm
yes. ditto -double hint.
- Robert C (guest) 5-29-2004 6:24 pm
Crystal Mowry's exhibition essay on Michelle Allard's work is now online here.
- sally mckay 6-03-2004 12:21 am
Jennifer McMackon has linked to some images of Plato's Cavehere at Simpleposie.
- sally mckay 6-04-2004 5:18 am