I can't follow Saul's syntax. I understand his views re the discourses, etc., but let's ask if working artists can make much sense of such discourses. I know some can but so many, many more cannot and there's no proven correlation between the evident success of their work and their articulateness with the "economic, social, and cultural circumstances" (and what is salient to each of those categories?).
Very few, way too few, MFA artists are even modestly familiar with the most basic literature in art history, let alone in other fields like economics, sociology, and whatever culture-ology might be (popularly termed culture studies). How does the typical illiteracy among MFAs assure any "mark of success" in amalgamating and making transparent the circumstances of culture? Mostly they don't and instead rely on the preachings of incomprehensible theorists to tell them what one-liner to illustrate today. Besides, it's a simple truism to say that art deals with the economic, social and cultural circumstances of its time. What doesn't? The statement cannot be falsified. I am one of those who is horrified by the general thrust in MFA education that seeks to validate artists by how well their work suits some pre-existing, vague and ill-informed summaries of culture. Contemporary art has become illustrational, a means to a separate verbal and lesser end. It is a common and inevitable result of exaggerated academic infestation of studio practice. All religious and secular art follows the same path to decadence. What is needed now is a break from the talk, the over-verbalization that was ushered in by those who mistook Duchampian wit for serious "discourse". A new, incoherent -- unplanned and just going from hunch to hunch -- beginning is needed. It's got to happen In the studio, away from the talkers who prefer empty walls and many chairs. I'll smugly guess that there's not a single artist alive who can purposely engage the discourses of societal circumstances beyond the most ordinary popular --and thus misleading -- newspaper/magazine levels. What artist comprehends economics as fully as an untenured prof at a second rate state school? Or astrophysics, or neurobiology, or even, nowadays, art history? When art serves something outside of itself, it remains behind something else and is diminished by it. I prefer the belief that art serves nothing, has no purpose, no meaning, and no justification and therefore cannot be diminished by extrinsic utility. It is as-if a surrogate human, creating its own purpose, meaning, justification by existing. Call this Existentialism! Whatever purpose, meaning, justification art attains is simply itself -- ignudo -- made extrinsic as symbolic. And that becomes the symbol of societal, economic, cultural circumstance. If it's any good, art shapes the other more than the other shapes art; if not, it's illustration, a puny, decadent cousin of the real thing. WC ________________________________ From: Saul Ostrow <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 2:07:27 PM Subject: RE: Heidegger and Singularity-string this is anecdotal information - it does not extend from the object - nor i does this aspect ability to identify something the economic, social, and cultural circumstances of its audience be a mark of its makers success - this is another Miller shell game - bait and switch - using the part rather than the whole - because he could not deal with the whole - which had to do with the successful work of art - and its ability to reflect the the economic, social, and cultural circumstances of its audience - in which is often centuries after the fact its been fun - to know that nothing ever changes here ____________________________________________ Saul Ostrow | Visual Arts & Technologies Environment Chair, Sculpture Voice: 216-421-7927 | [email protected]| http://www.cia.edu/ The Cleveland Institute of Art | 11141 East Boulevard, Cleveland, OH 44106 Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 12:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Heidegger and Singularity-string I think Miller is right to claim that any made object can reveal or point to the societal context to which it belongs. He has an indisputable position. For instance, in the 18-19C, before paper clips, people pinned their notes together, using long pins. No doubt there were many pricked fingers. So there was a context begging for a useful object. We should not assume that the object precedes the context; often, the context precedes the object. Art can precede its context or be at one with it or follow it. How do we make those distinctions? WC ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 10:53:35 AM Subject: Re: Heidegger and Singularity-string Miller writes:Saul, can you offer, as example, a single manufactured object that does not "continue to identify something the economic, social, and cultural circumstances of its audience"? Radiator brushes,button hooks,pencils,paper clips aren't quite universal enough. They presuppose steam heat,boots,a need to write things down, and a need to separate piles of paper,itself a manufactored object. Wouldn't something like string be less identifiable? Also, Miller's question has no pertinence to the problem at hand,which is the way he usually conducts his arguments. I am surprised at the improvement in his prose, one might almost think he had engaged someone else to write his responses. Kate Sullivan ************** A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220572846x1201387511/aol?redir=http ://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072& hmpgID=62&bcd=Aprilfooter427NO62)
