From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: recognition of skill
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:37:25 -0800 (PST)
I can't respond to your questions or assertions because you present odd
situations. Again, and I can't keep on repeating this forever, the
subjective experience cannot be expressed. Period. Once expressed it
becomes something objective, a metaphor that likens the subjective
experience to something it isn't for the sake of making it public. Thus it
matters not at all what the concert goers said as relating subjective
experiences. Why? Because once expressed, they are no longer subjective
but objective re-creations of the subjective.
All your comments about how an artist's work is misunderstood are beside
the point. I don't believe any artwork can be misunderstood since any
reading at all is relevant if it's evoked by the work. Any work of art can
be relevant in multiple ways, as many different ways as there are
experiencers of it. There is no wrong way to encounter art. But some ways
are better than others with respect to the public appraisal and historic
significance of the work.
I don't even believe that the artist fully understands his or her work in
terms of how it can be experienced because no artist can have another's
experience. And the artist doesn't experience the work the same way from
moment to moment. The best one can hope for is magnitudes of ambiguity, of
possible experiental "meanings". I never worry about or anticipate how
anyone will experience my work. Whatever the experience is it is authentic
to the experiencer. I have been interviewed many times about my work. I
never try to say how it should be experienced. I can say what I thought
about or what notions came to mind, but these are not necessary to anyone's
subjective experience. Art is a gift of some mystery, both to the artist
and the audience. The better the work the more unfathomable its meaning as
experience.
I am never sad about how art is experienced. I am often annoyed by how it
is interpreted re its value and art historical/artworld importance, use,
roles.
Now I've been far too redundant in the past few posts. Please try to see
how I separate subjective experience from public objective analysis and
judgment. The fact that Chartres Cathedral has been judged a great work of
art over centuries has nothing to do with your appreciating an experience
with it or not. As a matter of fact, no matter how many times you've been
in Chartres, you have only a partial experience of the whole. So your
analysis of your own experience will likely rest on judgments you cannot
make yourself but accept or not from the public record. Same for all
artworks.
WC
--- On Sun, 11/16/08, GEOFF CREALOCK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: GEOFF CREALOCK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: recognition of skill
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Sunday, November 16, 2008, 9:02 PM
> William: Let me get this straight. You are claiming that,
> for example,
> coming out of a Chicago Symphony performance behind
> someone, you overhear a
> complete discussion of the evening, indicating that the
> overwhelming
> experience someone derived from the works performed had to
> do with the
> movements of a/the perfomer(s), you would find nothing
> either remarkable or
> sad about that information. Yes, it's wonderful that
> the individual had what
> MIGHT be termed an ae. But, assuming the presentation
> consisted of works by
> your favourite composers, you would find no aesthetic
> miscarriage in that
> reaction, no sadness in yourself that such art evoked no
> response (even
> outrage) in at least one listener?
>
> My sadness wouldn't be for the listener but rather for
> the composer, or
> aesthetics, as magnificent works would be for nothing (for
> that person).
>
> If a tree falls in the forest ... if no one appreciates a
> wonderful work....
> I am not advocating tears if someone decides that
> Matisse' work is trash.
> That would constitute a missed opportunity and opportunity
> is missed all
> over the place and we cannot grieve every failed
> conception. In any case, I
> think that it's ... unfortunate that more people
> don't share your tastes,
> though there's nothing to be done about this.
> Yes, different folks necessarily have different ae's.
> That is not the
> question.
>
> If it's quite satisfactory to the playwright, sculptor,
> or composer that no
> one cares about his/her work, I might agree with you. I am
> not claiming the
> point of the work is to receive recognition or caring. Once
> it's done (which
> can be a tough question for a playwright) I assume that
> part or all of the
> point has been reached. I retain the belief that some part
> of most artists
> is pleased to have a work be recognized and valued, if it
> happens.
> Geoff C
>
>
> >From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Reply-To: [email protected]
> >To: [email protected]
> >Subject: Re: recognition of skill
> >Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:19:51 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >No, I don't agree. Again, how can I judge
> another's subjective experience?
> > Can I logically say, "No, you didn't
> experience such and such the right
> >way, or your experience is lacking."? No, I can
> only judge the expression
> >or (necessarily faulty) recollection that person gives
> of his subjective
> >experience against the publicly validated or common
> sense judgments,
> >preferably based on quantitative analysis. To wit:
> Such and such a piano
> >performance fails to render the full range and timing
> of the composer's
> >score as it is written and as others have said it has
> been performed, etc.,
> >etc. Thus giving recoverable reasons for the judgment.
> All of this is
> >separate from the experience one has of the artwork or
> performance, etc.
> >
> >I had no discernable emotional reaction the evening a
> thug pointed his gun
> >at me, my wife, and daughter, then ran away without
> harming us further.
> >Both my wife and daughter were were physically ill for
> days afterward. So,
> >we had experienced the same historical event but we had
> very different
> >experiences.
> >
> >I can't budge on this one. I do champion
> evaluative judgments of aesthetic
> >experiences once they are placed against quantitative
> information, but then
> >the experience has been morphed into an objective
> remaking and the
> >subjective has been eliminated. For instance,
> Matisse's painting can (note
> >conditional) provide a powerful aesthetic experience
> because.....answer
> >with logical, observable, art historical, reception
> theory reasons. And
> >admit that those reasons, while perhaps easily
> understood, cannot guarantee
> >the subjective aesthetic experience.
> >
