Is aesthetics dead? Not while I'm alive.
On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 6:02 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote: > From the lack of breathing on this list one would think that aesthetics is > a > dead idea. But I think not. Aesthetics has just slipped from object to > artist. > It's not an idea anymore but someone. Don't you wish you were that > someone? > > The art world, deeply immersed in oily decadence is due for a frantic swim > to > cleaner waters. The nadir of contemporary art is not marked by the > banality of > particular artworks but by the eagerness of artists to embrace the > strategies of > mass marketing that define popular taste. One of the most heavily used > strategies is to link the ordinariness of an idea or product with the > rarity of > celebrity. By doing so the ordinary actually acquires the unique > effulgence of > celebrity and its presumed magic, rivaling the transubstantiation of the > host > into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Nothing new in that, certainly, > and > it's the staple of mass selling since the earliest days of Wheaties and and > Ivory Soap. > > You have noticed how the beautiful actress on TV sells her new perfume > (remember, it's polluted water) by holding the little bottle with the tips > of > her fingers right next to her cheek. So it has finally come to art, now > naked > and unlovely in its new identity as the "everyday" and "commonplace" as > explained by steeply aging art critics who will not need to witness the > future > they define. Art may indeed be the everyday and indistinguishable from the > the > glut of material banality but, ah, those artists, and oh, that wonderful > delight > of their celebrity, fame, genius, fashioned instantly, seemingly from > nothing, > by the metamorphic magic of electronic media and behind-the curtain > manipulations and money, money, money, that's the thing. > > So we have Bravo, the Next Great Artist ready to concoct another winning TV > season. Similar forms of art as mass entertainment/celebrity made to the > reality show template, are being pitched even as I write this on an early > Saturday morn. The artwork now is incidental, like the little pile left on > the > sidewalk by your odd breed doggie (with Yale or Columbia MFA) and of course > the > doggie's the prize, not the pile. > > Some people have discovered the depressing fact that not only are artworks > like > doggie piles but the artists, too, very often look and act like doggies. > They > are ill bred, uncombed, bad mannered and poorly trained. They need to be > transformed into slick celebrities. Here is a whole new business for > failed art > dealers and plaid-jacketed sales-promotion folks and smart MFA theorists > who > have run out of metaphors. They are conducting seminars and courses > designed to > turn shy, introspective, marginalized artists into the sort of people who > can > hawk wares like a door-to-door Fuller Brush man and be mistaken for a movie > or > rock-band mega-star. Hey, if you can't make art, be an artist! > > Be a business-artist, be "Professional", be sucked down the drain of mass > marketing. Never mind the old-timey moralists. Align yourself to the > entertainment game world. Forget about that hard stuff, aesthetics, ideas, > content, meaning. Focus on the commercial. (Who hasn't noticed how TV is > just > one long commercial after another with boring pauses for the so-called > program?) > So it has also become for art. Art is just the boring pause between > episodes > of entertaining, charismatic, celebrity artists. Aesthetics? Who is > Aesthetics? Is she here tonight? Is Mr. Aesthetics with her? Wow. > > wc
