Here's a new and provocative little book by linguist Roy Harris: The Great Debate About Art, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2010.
Harris sets up an argument by positing three Supercategories", Art, Religion, Science. These are a-priori in the sense that they are presumed as primary and are not subsets of larger categories. But his book is centered on the art category and the notion of "art for art's sake" the dominant art defining issue in modernism. He divides that notion into three units, Art and Institutionalism, Art and Ideocentrism, Art and Conceptualism. Our list has discussed these three topics over and over. We've been through the maze of the institutional theory; we've tried to avoid the ideocentric theory (art is a personal experience/judgment that can't be transferred); we've discussed the conceptualist theory (art as idea). Harris shows the weakness in all three approaches and underscores their reliance on language. Finally, he shows how the futile efforts to define art are really evidence of the the decay of the "supercategory of art. The supercategory of religion, he says, was mostly absorbed by the supecategory of science and now it is partially absorbing the supercategory of art but only in the weaker sense of the social sciences. The future of art, he proposes, will be not be one concept but a multitude of concepts -- and practices -- within various other fields. In one sense that truly is the end of art (already proclaimed by Danto, Belting, and a few others). I think there is something to consider in Harris' idea. We can see already that the diversity of art practices is so great as to defy any attempt to unify them by any stretched concept or to examine them except by means of disciplines once alien to art. it's as if we can't approach much of what goes on today that's regarded generally as an art practice unless we first of all examine the domain of knowledge it most adheres to. An example is the trend that's called Situational Art, whereby a socialized confrontation of some sort is set up and the "art" is the outcome. In a simple case, a "man on the street interviewer" could be a situational art event. One would have to be thinking within the domain of social science or psychological "polling" or provoking a novel reaction to approach the "art" quality of the event. I've been pursuing the idea that art is invading other domains and exploiting their fundamental methodologies and theories to support its own interests. I'm not alone. It's the dominant idea in the artworld (that "blurring of boundaries" cliche) and certainly in art schools as well. Harris, however, proposes that opposite is happening, that the other domains are subsuming art into their own methodologies and theories. In the same way, he mentions, religion has been largely subsumed by science (once miraculous events now explained as natural geological events, for example). Harris' book would make for great discussion (maybe more than my current favorite, Collins' Tacit and Explicit Knowledge, which is a very though but rewarding read). wc
