jason pierce wrote:
i think it is a mistake to try to define anti art or art in general in regards to intent.
simply, "intent" and "result" are often so unrelated. intent is also difficult
to apply any empiricism to, simply it is practically unobservable as any
dicsussion of intent by the artist him/herself lends itself to just our witnessing
the RESULT of his/her attempt to communicate intent. so it's the exact same thing
as viewing art. for example
but what if his statement was a failure
to execute his intent as well? see, only the result is observable and perhaps
that is the only thing we should concern ourselves with in evaluating art or anti art.
but, as you said before, the artist's statement is a 'result' as
well... why shouldn't we concern ourselves with language as an observable
phenomenon as well? clearly many people 'should' because they agree with
what you said earlier. In the sense that both are a communicative gesture,
an attempt at articulating something (through words or a grammar
of painting), both are 'the exact same thing'.
so it doesn't matter what van gogh said he intended to do or wanted. it is
more important what he actually did.
again, what is the difference between what he 'said' and what he
'did'? are his letters to his brother any less 'things' that were 'done'
than his notes, drawings, or paintings? If anti art is, as you say, 'anything
produced outside the preconceived societal [pre]conceptions of art that
communicates or operates within the artist - spectator milieu'... then
vanGogh's writings are more 'anti-art' than his paintings because they
were/ are not generally seen as art (although they operate very prominently
in the 'artist - spectator milieu').
by your definition, anti art would seem to be anything that an artist
does, so long as it is observed (by someone other than the artist?), and
that it is not generally conceived of by the observer(s) to be 'art' as
such. The artist's observable behavior, clothing, and especially speech
or language (certainly including communicated 'intent') fit into this category.
so why not concern ourselves with the artist's 'express intent'?
But, as Ann expresses, why stop there? since meaning is created collectively. this includes the artist's 'express intent'; recorded documents concerning the various responses by critics and other viewers at the time; 'myths' that have been passed down and have or haven't 'stuck' (including stereotypes that have spun off of, and grown with these myths); various critical views of these myths and stereotypes (whether they are post structuralist in the linguistic sense, postmodernist in the literary sense, deconstructionist in the sociological sense, historical revisionist, or any of these in any interdisciplinary sense); transactions of actual documents, letters, drawings, paintings, etc.; various subsequent interpretive 'historical' books, essays, dissertations, biographies, catalogues, television shows, etc.; continuing blockbuster museum exhibitions and continuing responses from each viewer to each artwork, the show it is a part of, and all of these other inseparable factors (to the extent that the viewer has come in contact with some version of any of these). Not only 'should' we not concern ourselves solely with the art object as a directly observable phenomena (disconnected from expressed intentions or otherwise), we most certainly have no ability do so, whether we are aware of this or not.
One more thing before I'm off to bed... isn't it possible to see an artwork in the context of documented declarations of intent by the author(s) of the work without necessarily believing that we either have access to the artist's 'real' motives, or that this is all that the artwork 'is' or 'means'? Many artists over the last 50 years have dealt with these issues so explicitly that this kind of criticism has become fused with the current definitions of 'art'. in fact, as 'artists' we are all doing our job very well by maintaining this dialogue. since 'critical discourse' is written explicitly into the actual job description of 'artist', it is difficult (and highly suspect) to find anything 'anti' about any art that criticizes art, or any discourse that criticizes either art or art discourse.
Also, as questionable as they are, looking at artwork in terms of intentions (among other things) is so interesting. it is also inescapable. The more elusive they are, the more compelling intentions become. intentions are also not to be scoffed at, as they are often potentially dangerous (although less directly in art than in other forms of communication, artists are still responsible for the consequences of their cultural production). But artists' intentions might be most interesting in that they continue to be a locus of possibility... not to be overlooked or unexamined
yawn, g'night
scott
