I think it's fine to be humorous about art, and in
art. I've done some cartoons myself, including
rather bitingly mean-funny political art. But my
short fuse with the 1915 idiot reporter is that his
remarks, rather hokey, clunky and overreaching for
humor, is that the audience was a general newspaper
readership and could've/should've been better
served. His remarks are an insult to his readership
and certainly to artists and to art as a mode of
expressive inquiry, no matter how lighthearted the
artists of the abstract exhibition may have been, and
possibly ignorant, aiming for lampooning more than
art.
I admit to being a bit of a grouch about critics who
joke about art and artists. After several decades in
the art trenches, one is less and less ready to take
prisoners, or in military polteness, to "give
quarter". I have a grandiose view of art and artists.
Who needs the idiots? This is do or die, all or
nothing, not a joke, and the pretenders should go home
and stay there with their TV and movie magazines.
I do agree with Miller that an (visual) artwork needs
to grab your attention visually before you become
involved analytically. (As my late friend Ed Paschke
would say, "you gotta keep the viewing clock ticking".
I don't think it needs to be only satisfying in the
Derek "feel-good" sense. It may be just very strange,
shocking, repulsive, too. That involves a certain
satisfaction in stressing the separation between the
danger and frailty of the work and the viewer. I mean
sometimes we like seeing what we reject as a way to
affirm our opinions or values. Conversely, sometimes
we want to be appealed to by such work, we want to be
convinced and then we are "satisfied" by our
magnanimity toward it. And of course we often like to
see art that echoes, "satisfies" and materializes our
own values...and this can be done by means of formal
order or subject matter.
Since I'm an artist-egomaniac, I don't care at all
about audiences. I serve art and if an audience also
serves art, my work is a go-between.
WC
--- Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The 1915 newspaper that I quoted yesterday was
> reporting one of the first
> exhibits of abstract painting in America - coming 2
> years after the Armory
> shows in New York and Chicago.
>
> It may have been first ever group show of American
> abstract paintings - and it
> was certainly the first such exhibit in Chicago --
> and if you read a little
> more carefully, you'll see that the journalist is
> not
> being negative about his subject.
>
> (I also think Gene Morgan was a pretty good writer
> -- and would like to know
> more about his interests and background. He seems
> quite enthusiastic about
> modern, urban life)
>
> He thinks the show was a hoot -- but that's also how
> the artists were
> presenting it. "Michigan Avenue between Adams
> Street and 5 O'Clock" is
> actually a title of one of the pieces.
>
> The artists (from the Palette and Chisel Club) were
> having fun -- but no less
> so than with their other activities: the tableaux
> vivants, the outdoor nudes,
> parodies of operas, Salons de Refuses etc.-- to all
> of the which the
> journalism community was eagerly invited. (and
> indeed -- many members worked
> for the newspapers as illustrators)
>
> They were clowning around - but they were also quite
> serious about their work
> and careers, and many of them are currently
> included in histories of Chicago
> art and Chicago Modernism.
>
>
> William has suggested that "the aesthetic rush one
> gets from "abstraction" is
> the relation between unique formal presentation and
> its looking like other
> things or evoking unique ways to re-imagine other
> things." --- and that's
> exactly what this journalist was writing about.
>
> In 1915, abstract painting was seen as fun and
> exciting -- and this exhibit
> received as much (or even more) positive attention
> in the newspapers as had
> Arthur Dove's Chicago exhbit 3 years earlier.
>
> The culture war fought by Tribune columnist Eleanor
> Jewett and Mrs. Logan
> ("Sanity in Art") would come a decade later -- and
> the issue then
> would not be abstraction versus illusion. (but
> rather, paintings were
> attacked for lacking beauty or the proper ideals)
>
>
>
> But still -- when considering the "satisfactions of
> symmetry and abstract art"
> -- the relation between "its unique formal
> presentation and and its looking
> like other things" is not that relevant -- to me.
>
> (and yes, though Derek may be dismayed , I am
> obsessed with aesthetic
> satisfaction above all else)
>
> If something looks really good -- I begin to
> consider its relationships to
> other things. But if it doesn't look good -- I just
> don't care whether it
> looks like something else or not.
>
> (which is exactly the same way I respond to more
> illusionistic work)
>
>
>
> *************************
>
> Here's the quote again -- and perhaps it's this
> writer's disinterest in any
> serious purpose that really bugging William:
>
>
> "Imagine a picture which looks like nothing, yet
> everything, and which is
> entitled "Michigan Avenue between Adams Street and 5
> O'clock" At first glance
> you might think it was a soup can in a heavy
> blizzard. A second glance would
> almost convince you that it was J.P.McEvoy's new car
> embracing a barber's pole
> with its front wheels.
>
> You see, you can never tell what a futurist painting
> represents. Thats where
> the fun comes in.
>
> Generally, it represents its title like a
> congressman represents his
> constits.
>
> A futurist painting presents not ideas, but thought
> harmonies, soul tones and
> notes sounded by the vibrant emotions (It isn't
> every day you read stuff like
> that)
>
> The harmonies conveyed by these paintings are
> various. Each painting is an
> orchestra in itself.
>
> One picture may be entitled "Golf Lynx calling its
> mate" You look at the
