----- Original Message -----
From: "William Conger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: "The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves but in
ou r attitude towards them."
...I am very committed to art
that reflects the renewed spiritualization of
autonomous or individual identity. I would prefer
visual art to be more like poetry, about particular
human experience, and less about matching itself to
mass culture and the commonplace. .....> WC
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I study poetry with Jack McCarthy http://www.standupoet.net/ and try to read
at open mics when I can. Jack is a populist as poets go. He has a knack of
enlivening the common experience. There is a kind of artistic range that
slides between the subjective and the objective. The superficial and common
experiences are on the objectives side. I'm not sure that an artistic
perspective from either end of the continuum is necessarily better. Rather,
I believe that each artist will find her/his voice somewhere along that
continuum. (And there may be many voices at different points or different
points staked out in a career as the voice evolves.) Poetry that is ultra
subjective can reach a point where it seems to pander to its own obscurity.
Which is to say that subjectivity is not a guarantee of success in poetry.
I love Andy Warhol. http://www.mikemallory.com/warhol.htm I also found The
Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce,
Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel
http://www.amazon.com/Substance-Style-Aesthetic-Remaking-Consciousness/dp/0060933852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211682932&sr=1-1
to be mind expanding. Warhol legitimized an aesthetic of surfaces. He
helped us to understand the texture of replication, mass production and
celebrity. I don't recall Postrel specifically discussing Warhol, but she
does offer some theoretical legitimacy for an aesthetic of the shallow. She
reminds us how shallow we really are and then helps us to not only feel okay
with it, but to appreciate the shallow surface of things. It is after all
the texture of our culture.
I love Rothko. I see Rothko and Warhol to be at opposite ends of the
subjective-to-objective continuum. I can't say that one is right and the
other wrong. Each stood his ground and depicted what he saw to be
important. As the philosopher, Ken Wilber, points out with his holonic
approach to identity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holon_(philosophy) Each
of us is both an individual and a member of various groups: family,
community, society. I do not see a need to privilege the autonomous
identity over the communal.
I can appreciate that painting kittens for kitchens or sand dunes for
tourists will probably not lead to greatness. (And I will admit, using a
bicycling metaphor, to have done my share of "drafting" as a painter. no pun
intended) My point is that the appearance of the commonplace, routine and
even mass-produced can be utterly important and every bit as "worthy" of
subjecthood in art as the subjective experience of despair or triumph.
By the way, to me the term "spiritual" represents a state of important
connectedness to life, other people or perhaps even something beyond one's
self. And that is how I took the word.
Mike Mallory
