i have not had time to read all of the posts on this subject and I don't
have the time at the moment to give a full statement but let me just say
that anti art, as developed in the early dada days was a statement in
relation to a very certain and specific state of affairs of the time
period that anti art was developed in. This state of affairs has to do
with the whole dominate aristocratic/gentlemanly/achedemic/exclusivity
code of the day that all young, white, european men were being educated
with and who made 'art' or literature. It became so obvious to the
thinkers at a certain point that this was standing in the way of
progress which was overtaking europe at the time. The winds of change
were strong and the powers of the time - the aristocratic, exclusive
societies of the ruling families of europe and those that serviced them
were unable to deal with the explosive innovations in industry and trade
of the time.
So anti art was a stab at these antiquated powers and the
intellectual/artistic 'establishment' that condoned and cowtowed to
them.
At the time, with the 'new modern world' burgeoning on all sides as a
war fought with modern and extremely lethal machines such as machine
guns, airplanes, tanks and modern radio communications to coordinate it
all from a safe distance, such maihem brought things into crystal clear
view for those young men who had no investment in these conventions that
they had been raised to believe in. Mass media let them know, through
editorials that they were but mere pawns for these ruling classes and so
they would natually conclude "why should we buy into these sand castles
in the face of the rizing tide of Modern ideas that are calling for the
creation of a good life for the average man: affordable housing,
electricity, heating etc. for all. Every man working for the good of
everyman not for the few." This is what was the force behind, dada,
surrealism, de stijl, bauhaus, constructivism, international style,
theosophy, socialism, communism, etc. all of these were aspects of this
revolution going on at the time. The beginnings and foundation of what
has become a great massurreality - a mass media driven globally
intentioned drive toward the modernist utopian ideal (even if most of us
have either forgotten or never heard about it)
So in this context, something like duchamps wine bottle rack has a
deeper symbolic meaning. When the wine is gone there remains the bottle
rack or in other words, after the fall of the aristocrasy, there remains
the workers who from the begining were the foundation and support for
the glory of the glorious few. The bottles will break the iron rack
remains
all of this said, there no longer exists the condition that calls for a
similar anti-art. That which anti art was addressing has already been
swept away never to return. so any anti-art now can only be called
anti-anti-art. The call now should be for a clearer understanding of
what the main trajectories have been the last 100 years and toward what
iderals we should now be striving.
hi to all, cecil
http://ipdg.org/flux.mex.us/
