Goodreads has posted a C Magazine article by Emily Vey Duke titled "Suffering, Empathy, Art and the Greater Good." I love Vey Duke's writing for it's open-heartedness and genuine striving. I like that she is casting around for ways to better connect art with a non-art-educated public. I disagree, however, that there is something inherently wrong with teaching Duchampian nominalism. Also, I believe a healthy suspicion of art tropes about beauty and truth is not only a beneficial trait, but imperative to a genuine and communicative expression of either beauty or truth. In my student days it was an over-reliance on emotion, direct expression, machismo, and navel-gazing therapeutic personal brain barfs that seemed to be dragging art into a murky and inaccessible quagmire. Now I see Vey Duke calling for us to value the "explicitly emotional in art as highly as we value the ambiguously clever" and my instincts are to cry out No! Gawd, spare us the myopic whinging and purging of a bunch of young artists' personal angst.
At the same time I recognise what seems to be a systemic lack of rigour and ambition (and I would not exclude my own practice, especially considering a recent rash of afternoon napping). I chalk this up to the legacy of post-modern slacker-type despair ... in which making anything at all was seen as somehow heroic in the face of the perceived (I've always believed incorrectly) abject meaninglessness of all symbols. Furthermore, a crappy-looking aesthetic was required as a sort of apology, an acknowledgement that the artist was aware of the sheer audacity of saying anything at all. After the cold brash onslaught of deconstruction, an intimate personal approach was necessary..."please don't take my little art offering too seriously, it's just my two-cents worth of pain and insight."
Fortunately artists like Vey Duke and others have taken up symbols afresh as considered and effective tools for art communication. Hearts are back on sleeves and this is probably a very good thing. I am just wary of current trends of creeping anti-intellectualism. Expertise has become a bad word in the art world, and this is a problem. If you believe in your work, then there is nothing wrong with working really hard to achieve excellence in your field.
For the most part, I agree with Vey Duke. My plea to artists (and I plead with myself here as well) would be: don't be ashamed to work hard for your art. Don't sell yourself short by presenting self-effacing shoddy work if you have in you an idea that is excellent. Don't hold your own intelligence in check, and be brutally honest with yourself and apply your own criteria to determine what is good enough.
Emily's essay left me wondering -- Am I a bad artist because my art does not aspire to these humanist/humanitarian sentiments? And it's just not this particular writing, many others, including an essay in the current Parachute magazine by Stephen Wright, raise these kinds of questions of what art's usefulness is (this particular essay, offering examples of art-related alternatives to the artist/author centric practice that we have come to know throughout much of the history of art). It all leaves me wondering, along with my first question, has art just lost all relevance and evolved into these new forms of practice; practices that are humanitarian in nature; that empathize and try and design models from which to implement and affect change? In such a case, does a terms like art even apply or begin to describe these kinds practices? Nicolas Bourriaud gives us a perspective on this question in the form of a small glossary at the end of his book, Relational Aesthetics (published by "les Presses du Reel", Dijon, France, 1998, 2002):
Art.
1. General term describing a set of objects presented as part of a narrative known as art history. This narrative draws up the critical genealogy and discusses the issues raised by these objects, by way of three sub-sets: painting, sculpture, architecture.
2. Nowadays, the word 'art' seems to be no more than a semantic leftover of this narrative, whose more accurate definition would read as follows: Art is an activity consisting in producing relationships with the world with the help of signs, forms, actions and objects.
Interesting food for thought, but it still leaves me wondering... Maybe that's a good thing.
Howdy!
So if I say "black." You're gonna say "white," right?
Anonymous, when you say that Vey Duke's essay left you wondering if you are a "bad" artist, I can't tell if you think that is a good thing or not. I'd say, not knowing you or your work, that it's probably a good thing to be challenged in your practice. But I don't actually 'get' the connection you make between art having a humanitarian agenda, and losing all relevance. My take on it is that while I don't think we've quite wrung all the juice out of the art-for-art's-sake dishrag, that project does seem as if it might be winding up. Hence ideas like relational aesthetics. One of my favourite artists, Raphael Lozano-Hemmer, refers to himself as a relational architect. It is very provocative and exciting when people allow the term 'art' to drift away from their practice, and I think that sometimes letting go of the term allows people to pursue more engaged, relevant cultural work. Maybe we are talking about the same thing, Anonymous, but we disagree on whether we like the phenomenon or not.
Thanks for the definition from Bourriaud's excellent glossary. It's online here. Check this bit out: Society of extras
The society of the spectacle has been defined by Guy Debord as the historical moment when merchandise achieved 'the total occupation of social life ', capital having reached 'such a degree of accumulation' that it was turned into imagery. Today, we are in the further stage of spectacular development: the individual has shifted from a passive and purely repetitive status to the minimum activity dictated to him by market forces. So television consumption is shrinking in favour of video games, thus the spectacular hierarchy encourages 'empty monads', i.e. programmeless models and politicians, thus everyone sees themselves summoned to be famous for fifteen minutes, using a TV game, street poll or new item as go-between. This is the reign of the 'Infamous Man' , whom Michel Foucault defined as the anonymous and 'ordinary' individual suddenly put in the glare of the media spotlights. Here we are summoned to turn into extras of the spectacle, having been regarded as its consumers. This switch can be historically explained: since the surrender of the Soviet bloc, there are no obstacles on capitalism's path to empire.It has a total hold of the social arena, so it can permit itself to stir individuals to frolic about in the free and open spaces that it has staked out. So, after the consumer society, we can see the dawning of the society of extras where the individual develops as a part-time stand-in for freedom, signer and sealer of the public place.
Zeke, I'm sure we've agreed on something in the past, and we'll probably agree on something again in the future!
For instance, I agree with you about Roadsworth, who is somewhat relevant to this discussion. His work is beautiful and 'relational,' it adds something of value to the fabric of the city and he should not be persecuted.
Hey Zeke, did you say something?
I guess I'd like to see it better proposed and argued as to the what exactly works by "Miranda July, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Benny Ramsay, Althea Thauberger, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and so forth" represent a shift away from and how they have come to be representative of that shift. I think it would have been less gratuitous than the diary entry about running over the kitten, even though I have to admit I did feel really sad after reading it.
I forgot to sign my name.
J, I agree. I neglected to mention that while I like Vey Duke's probing and experimentation, the diary entries from her brother did not work for me. They are good stories in their own right, but the fact that the writers are siblings is not enough thematic connection to provide the kind of art refreshment that I think Vey Duke was striving for.
the 'losing all relevance' was in reference to the use of the word or concept of 'art' as a defining term in the discourse and practice of cultural production today; that all these new relational models, activist models, etc. have made this term obsolete... really I'm still trying to understand and writing it out and getting feed back from others helps.
Thanks, Anonymous. Writing it out and getting feedback from others helps me too. I gotta go read that issue of Parachute now!
related discussion at artsjournal: Is there a Better Case for the Arts?
Thanks for that, Dave. It's an excellent, sophisticated discussion between people with years of experience advocating for art in USA.
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Goodreads has posted a C Magazine article by Emily Vey Duke titled "Suffering, Empathy, Art and the Greater Good." I love Vey Duke's writing for it's open-heartedness and genuine striving. I like that she is casting around for ways to better connect art with a non-art-educated public. I disagree, however, that there is something inherently wrong with teaching Duchampian nominalism. Also, I believe a healthy suspicion of art tropes about beauty and truth is not only a beneficial trait, but imperative to a genuine and communicative expression of either beauty or truth. In my student days it was an over-reliance on emotion, direct expression, machismo, and navel-gazing therapeutic personal brain barfs that seemed to be dragging art into a murky and inaccessible quagmire. Now I see Vey Duke calling for us to value the "explicitly emotional in art as highly as we value the ambiguously clever" and my instincts are to cry out No! Gawd, spare us the myopic whinging and purging of a bunch of young artists' personal angst.
At the same time I recognise what seems to be a systemic lack of rigour and ambition (and I would not exclude my own practice, especially considering a recent rash of afternoon napping). I chalk this up to the legacy of post-modern slacker-type despair ... in which making anything at all was seen as somehow heroic in the face of the perceived (I've always believed incorrectly) abject meaninglessness of all symbols. Furthermore, a crappy-looking aesthetic was required as a sort of apology, an acknowledgement that the artist was aware of the sheer audacity of saying anything at all. After the cold brash onslaught of deconstruction, an intimate personal approach was necessary..."please don't take my little art offering too seriously, it's just my two-cents worth of pain and insight."
Fortunately artists like Vey Duke and others have taken up symbols afresh as considered and effective tools for art communication. Hearts are back on sleeves and this is probably a very good thing. I am just wary of current trends of creeping anti-intellectualism. Expertise has become a bad word in the art world, and this is a problem. If you believe in your work, then there is nothing wrong with working really hard to achieve excellence in your field.
For the most part, I agree with Vey Duke. My plea to artists (and I plead with myself here as well) would be: don't be ashamed to work hard for your art. Don't sell yourself short by presenting self-effacing shoddy work if you have in you an idea that is excellent. Don't hold your own intelligence in check, and be brutally honest with yourself and apply your own criteria to determine what is good enough.
- sally mckay 3-14-2005 3:37 am
Emily's essay left me wondering -- Am I a bad artist because my art does not aspire to these humanist/humanitarian sentiments? And it's just not this particular writing, many others, including an essay in the current Parachute magazine by Stephen Wright, raise these kinds of questions of what art's usefulness is (this particular essay, offering examples of art-related alternatives to the artist/author centric practice that we have come to know throughout much of the history of art). It all leaves me wondering, along with my first question, has art just lost all relevance and evolved into these new forms of practice; practices that are humanitarian in nature; that empathize and try and design models from which to implement and affect change? In such a case, does a terms like art even apply or begin to describe these kinds practices? Nicolas Bourriaud gives us a perspective on this question in the form of a small glossary at the end of his book, Relational Aesthetics (published by "les Presses du Reel", Dijon, France, 1998, 2002):
Art.
1. General term describing a set of objects presented as part of a narrative known as art history. This narrative draws up the critical genealogy and discusses the issues raised by these objects, by way of three sub-sets: painting, sculpture, architecture.
2. Nowadays, the word 'art' seems to be no more than a semantic leftover of this narrative, whose more accurate definition would read as follows: Art is an activity consisting in producing relationships with the world with the help of signs, forms, actions and objects.
Interesting food for thought, but it still leaves me wondering... Maybe that's a good thing.
- anonymous (guest) 3-14-2005 5:25 am
Howdy! So if I say "black." You're gonna say "white," right?
- Zeke 3-14-2005 5:30 pm
Anonymous, when you say that Vey Duke's essay left you wondering if you are a "bad" artist, I can't tell if you think that is a good thing or not. I'd say, not knowing you or your work, that it's probably a good thing to be challenged in your practice. But I don't actually 'get' the connection you make between art having a humanitarian agenda, and losing all relevance. My take on it is that while I don't think we've quite wrung all the juice out of the art-for-art's-sake dishrag, that project does seem as if it might be winding up. Hence ideas like relational aesthetics. One of my favourite artists, Raphael Lozano-Hemmer, refers to himself as a relational architect. It is very provocative and exciting when people allow the term 'art' to drift away from their practice, and I think that sometimes letting go of the term allows people to pursue more engaged, relevant cultural work. Maybe we are talking about the same thing, Anonymous, but we disagree on whether we like the phenomenon or not.
Thanks for the definition from Bourriaud's excellent glossary. It's online here. Check this bit out:
- sally mckay 3-14-2005 5:54 pm
Zeke, I'm sure we've agreed on something in the past, and we'll probably agree on something again in the future!
- sally mckay 3-14-2005 5:56 pm
For instance, I agree with you about Roadsworth, who is somewhat relevant to this discussion. His work is beautiful and 'relational,' it adds something of value to the fabric of the city and he should not be persecuted.
- sally mckay 3-14-2005 6:02 pm
Hey Zeke, did you say something?
- Jatsimpleposie (guest) 3-14-2005 7:37 pm
I guess I'd like to see it better proposed and argued as to the what exactly works by "Miranda July, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Benny Ramsay, Althea Thauberger, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and so forth" represent a shift away from and how they have come to be representative of that shift. I think it would have been less gratuitous than the diary entry about running over the kitten, even though I have to admit I did feel really sad after reading it.
- anonymous (guest) 3-14-2005 8:03 pm
I forgot to sign my name.
- Jatsimpleposie (guest) 3-14-2005 8:04 pm
J, I agree. I neglected to mention that while I like Vey Duke's probing and experimentation, the diary entries from her brother did not work for me. They are good stories in their own right, but the fact that the writers are siblings is not enough thematic connection to provide the kind of art refreshment that I think Vey Duke was striving for.
- sally mckay 3-14-2005 8:26 pm
the 'losing all relevance' was in reference to the use of the word or concept of 'art' as a defining term in the discourse and practice of cultural production today; that all these new relational models, activist models, etc. have made this term obsolete... really I'm still trying to understand and writing it out and getting feed back from others helps.
- anonymous (guest) 3-15-2005 5:34 am
Thanks, Anonymous. Writing it out and getting feedback from others helps me too. I gotta go read that issue of Parachute now!
- sally mckay 3-15-2005 10:00 am
related discussion at artsjournal: Is there a Better Case for the Arts?
- dave 3-15-2005 6:13 pm
Thanks for that, Dave. It's an excellent, sophisticated discussion between people with years of experience advocating for art in USA.
- sally mckay 3-15-2005 10:58 pm