>Terrence writes;
>
>I find it sad how many artits are taught to be so critical. They seem to
create
>under such burdons and with theortical restraints. I am anti bordom.
>
If you aren't critical, though, you will just repeat the past -- and
actually you will only repeat the outward appearance of the past, without
getting to the true essence of things (if I can put it that way).
Being critical, as I understand it, is trying to understand the past and
realize the best potential that is in it. That is what Buren is saying in
the passage below. He says that Duchamp was great, but because he didn't
take into consideration the context that he was working in he did not fully
realize his intentions -- or his intentions were subverted.
Perhaps Duchamp wasn't in a position to appreciate the limits of his work,
for various reasons. Now we can see those limits, so if we want to be true
to Duchamp, then we have to be critical. Duchamp was the ultimate "critical"
artist, I think.
Buren is saying that he is trying to realize what is best in Duchamp....
>Everyone born a child. I can see more clearly what is ahead as I respond to
>what is before me not behind. Why relive what is done? Art is techne.
Humans
>are tool makers, use them. Just play. Be observant. Poke fun my mon.
>
Criticism is often seen as intellectual, and opposed to spontanaeity and
being "natural". I don't think it has to be seen that way. Being "critical"
is just trying to understand and respond to one's situation in as full a way
as possible.
The future is a product of the past, so we are always reliving it in one way
or another....
Just some quick thoughts....
cheers,
George
>terrence kosick
>artnatural
>
>George Free wrote:
>
>> >What did Buren say ? In relation to Duchamp.
>> >
>>
>> from an interview:
>>
>> B.M. According to you Duchamp's path leads to a cul-de-sac. In a way he
>> wanted to be the last artist. Is this what you criticize?
>>
>> D.B. In its time this position was interesting. But subsequently,
Duchamp's
>> radical criticism of art has becomes the opposite of what Duchamp himself
>> criticized. Duchamp was able to decontextualize an ordinary object --
thanks
>> to the gallery, where the context contradicts the object -- but the
context
>> itself was not thought about in any critical way. It didn't take long for
>> the effect; the banal object is fetishized. The context and place exerted
>> their influence. The object placed there to destabilize painting became
like
>> a painting, a work of art with the rest. And, in this case, obsolete.
>> Duchamp thereby introduced a form of production which is no more, and no
>> less, than the mirror image of what he criticized. For the last twenty
years
>> I have been against Duchamp in my work, I never took an 'anti-art'
position,
>> even if some people would have loved to find this so. One of the
fundamental
>> and serious questions I ask myself is: "What is art?" Of, if you will,
what
>> are the processes which operate so that a work becomes -- or does not
>> become -- a work of art? And if one finds these rules, or, if not, how do
>> they fluctuate? And under what pressures? Duchamp gave a deliberately
>> comfortable answer to these questions. For myself, they are still
unresolved
>> even if a solution appears from time to time in my work.
>
>
