Re: [-empyre-] self and others
gh comments below: On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:15 PM, Christiane Robbins wrote: it seems that we always keep landing on this flea ridden canard – “what is art ?” What is Art? Flea ridden indeed! Analyze the question and you get the premise for an avant-garde. No-one asks that question anymore everyone even philistines know what art is and knows what they like. I'd pose the question differently and ask what is the difference between art and craft or maybe what is the difference between art and a theory of art. Anyway, given the question I'd say that art making is part of the human psyche or mental structure. It 's related to and may even be the first shift to abstract thinking before the emergence of human language around 30,000 years ago. There are of course painting elephants but they've been taught by humans. They do really nice Abstract Expressionist paintings but they don't paint portraits of other elephants. My favorite quote or definition of art is from Magda Sawon who says that an artist takes something and transforms it and then transforms it again. The second time it turns into art. I've said in other posts that the support system for art is what defines art. There have always been artists in human society. Looking at for example a tribal society you might get shamanistic masks or maybe carved stone tablets of tribal laws and an arch to carry them around in. It seems there's always cross over or cross reference or commingling of art and religion. Here's some more pertinent questions for the 21st century artist. Who do you make your art for? What market are you trying to capture? Is your art an extension of your life style? For example do you believe in Art=Life? Do you need a college degree to be taken seriously as an artist? Is there a path to professional advancement as an artist? Do you think of your art making as a career? I could go on but you get the point. My observation is that the current art system and type of art being made around the world except maybe in traditional or tribal societies is supported by a series of small cults or interlocking rhizomatic marketing systems. It reflects global capitalism. Each artist/ gallery/museum gathers supporters who are essentially their clients or customers. The art that they exhibit is a variation on a number of personal obsessions or life style choices. People who agree with that lifestyle choice use the money exchange system to buy art that reinforces their choice. It's like fetish masks but in this instance art functions in a small tribal clique of consumers with disposable income. This is the patron of the artist that I had alluded to in an earlier post when I quoted Rimbaud. The other part to this system is the theoretical or linguistic system that verifies art and its value. It also certifies that an artist is indeed an artists and that what they produce is art. This is of course the University or Academic system that gives out diplomas and produces many theorists and critics to write about art. This is the poet Rimbaud refers to whom Rimbaud refers. So if you want to answer the question what is art there are two answers. Art is anything that is exhibited and sold in an art gallery and art is anything that a critic or art theorist defines as art. As an artist I try to operate outside this system or make proposals that break apart the structures of art. I like to challenge the precepts and principals of the existing structure. This doesn’t garner me much support because I think of art as a liberation and transformation of the psyche. It’s essentially an anti-marketing position. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] self and others
it seems there has always been an unnameable economy, Bataille referred to as the 'general' economy...we, quite powerfully, modulate such an economy; socially, technically - for better and worse. An interesting biological aspect of this economy,Tata referenced via Margulis' work on symbiosis. The ontological complicity of us all - I think of it as - for living things, that this unnameable economy substantiates our first metaphysical principle...that of capital. Bataille connected it to the Sun - and in a sense, he was right, because of the Sun's primary connection to life. The further theoretical connection is our human consciousness of capital, and its particular currencies we identify and trade - artistic, political, and otherwise. The negotiation and reconciliation you invoke between pleasure and work, Christiane, seems beholden to a first principle complicity - that of the unnameable economy, which gives rise to a metaphysics of capital, to which we all subscribe, by virtue of our membership in life. Another, perhaps second principle complicity, revolves around what Dienstag identified as the 'first' thought - that things could be otherwise. I would say that the extent to which we are willing to activate the first thought - that things could otherwise - directly denies or affirms our ontological relation to our first principle complicity. As you can see then, one can approach the escape velocity of complicity as a limit, but never completely achieve it, in life. Perhaps that is the perfection of martyrdom, death and God. One's perfect fidelity to an idea or complicity can never again be challenged by the facts of one's material existence. Nicholas Ruiz III, Ph.D NRIII for Congress 2010 http://intertheory.org/nriiiforcongress2010.html Editor, Kritikos http://intertheory.org - Original Message From: Christiane Robbins c...@mindspring.com To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Sent: Wed, January 13, 2010 2:15:57 PM Subject: Re: [-empyre-] self and others Indeed, its been an energetic few weeks on empire. As such, it hasn’t been easy to keep track of all of the issues on the table. However, it seems that we always keep landing on this flea ridden canard – “what is art ?” Most specifically to this list - how do we think of it and what forms does it – can it take”? The domain of art practice seems to be broadly accepted as a given. There are references upon references to “great works of art” and that we should be concerned with these significant works ( primarily masterworks of the 19th/20thc). A pivotal question is left begging- what guarantees these works of art their centrality – as an ontological constant - within this discussion? Without question, it is simultaneously dynamic, provocative, insightful and, at times, frustrating when what art is … and isn’t … are bandied about, professed and sanctioned by experts from disciplines from sociology, law, computer science, literature, etc. Within these posts there often seems to be an offer of a bifurcated, inherently contradictory notion of contemporary art practice(s). Art has been positioned ( and beautifully articulated ) as an endeavor which seems ensconced in this utopian, self-referential, romantic, nostalgic, mournful exercise of self-expression. I think it was Lyotard who said sometime ago that there was an element of “sorrow in the Zeitgeist.” In the positioning of such a sense of loss, I see a jettison of the framework and substantiation of the late-20thc capitalist directive of the “professionalism of the field” – of an art practice that streams itself as a “career path” within capitalistic economies and systems – such as the academy. I, too, find making art pure pleasure - incredibly so at times! Much to my chagrin, I also realize that pleasure can sustain one only so much . So please forgive, and humor, my own naiveté to ask you all this question, how then does one negotiate and then reconcile these seemingly disparate tracks - pleasure and professionalism ? This may ring particularly relevant in revisiting notions of complicity – as its been parried about during the past few weeks. On Jan 13, 2010, at 6:36 AM, Johanna Drucker wrote: Nice turn to these exchanges. I also really appreciated Gabriela's point and the follow-up by others. If we think of art as the act of form giving, we recognize that forms partake of symbolic systems. As social creatures we 'interpellate' (hideous theory word) shared symbolic systems (signs, stories, genres, dance moves, rules of the game etc.). But of course collectively and individually, we shift those symbol systems (for better and worse--think of personal choice and fashion trends). I've fallen from my pure structuralist beliefs. I no longer think we are only 'subjects.' Individualism may be a founding mythology of western
Re: [-empyre-] self and others
The support system for art can operate as either a positive or negative influence. In the West today it includes an art market that doesnt care much about art as anything other than an investment. best g From: empyre-boun...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-boun...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of gh hovagimyan [...@thing.net] Sent: January 14, 2010 8:35 AM To: soft_skinned_space Subject: Re: [-empyre-] self and others gh comments below: On Jan 13, 2010, at 2:15 PM, Christiane Robbins wrote: it seems that we always keep landing on this flea ridden canard – “what is art ?” What is Art? Flea ridden indeed! Analyze the question and you get the premise for an avant-garde. No-one asks that question anymore everyone even philistines know what art is and knows what they like. I'd pose the question differently and ask what is the difference between art and craft or maybe what is the difference between art and a theory of art. Anyway, given the question I'd say that art making is part of the human psyche or mental structure. It 's related to and may even be the first shift to abstract thinking before the emergence of human language around 30,000 years ago. There are of course painting elephants but they've been taught by humans. They do really nice Abstract Expressionist paintings but they don't paint portraits of other elephants. My favorite quote or definition of art is from Magda Sawon who says that an artist takes something and transforms it and then transforms it again. The second time it turns into art. I've said in other posts that the support system for art is what defines art. There have always been artists in human society. Looking at for example a tribal society you might get shamanistic masks or maybe carved stone tablets of tribal laws and an arch to carry them around in. It seems there's always cross over or cross reference or commingling of art and religion. Here's some more pertinent questions for the 21st century artist. Who do you make your art for? What market are you trying to capture? Is your art an extension of your life style? For example do you believe in Art=Life? Do you need a college degree to be taken seriously as an artist? Is there a path to professional advancement as an artist? Do you think of your art making as a career? I could go on but you get the point. My observation is that the current art system and type of art being made around the world except maybe in traditional or tribal societies is supported by a series of small cults or interlocking rhizomatic marketing systems. It reflects global capitalism. Each artist/ gallery/museum gathers supporters who are essentially their clients or customers. The art that they exhibit is a variation on a number of personal obsessions or life style choices. People who agree with that lifestyle choice use the money exchange system to buy art that reinforces their choice. It's like fetish masks but in this instance art functions in a small tribal clique of consumers with disposable income. This is the patron of the artist that I had alluded to in an earlier post when I quoted Rimbaud. The other part to this system is the theoretical or linguistic system that verifies art and its value. It also certifies that an artist is indeed an artists and that what they produce is art. This is of course the University or Academic system that gives out diplomas and produces many theorists and critics to write about art. This is the poet Rimbaud refers to whom Rimbaud refers. So if you want to answer the question what is art there are two answers. Art is anything that is exhibited and sold in an art gallery and art is anything that a critic or art theorist defines as art. As an artist I try to operate outside this system or make proposals that break apart the structures of art. I like to challenge the precepts and principals of the existing structure. This doesn’t garner me much support because I think of art as a liberation and transformation of the psyche. It’s essentially an anti-marketing position. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] self and others
Nice turn to these exchanges. I also really appreciated Gabriela's point and the follow-up by others. If we think of art as the act of form giving, we recognize that forms partake of symbolic systems. As social creatures we 'interpellate' (hideous theory word) shared symbolic systems (signs, stories, genres, dance moves, rules of the game etc.). But of course collectively and individually, we shift those symbol systems (for better and worse--think of personal choice and fashion trends). I've fallen from my pure structuralist beliefs. I no longer think we are only 'subjects.' Individualism may be a founding mythology of western culture, absorbed in the most opportunistic ways into contemporary consumer culture, but I think it has grounding. You are not me, even though, to recap all the polit-theo-talk in Pogo's terms, We have met the enemy and he is us. A great deal of cult studs analysis comes to that. Life is short. One of the pressing questions is what does one want to spend time on? The term therapy seems to carry a dismissive tone. I find making art pure pleasure, but it is the pleasure of bringing something into being, an act of making-as-knowing, that intensifies awareness. I'm an awareness junky. Johanna ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] self and others
Yes, Johanna, thank you. I find making art pure pleasure, but it is the pleasure of bringing something into being, an act of making-as-knowing, that intensifies awareness. I'm an awareness junky. I was really lucky to attend Trisha Brown's early works performed (with Trisha herself in attendance) at the DIA Beacon in NY last November.. works of 'awareness junkiness' unfolded in pairs , each within a specific volume developed by a visual work. Self-not/, alone/community/ there/not there-- Trisha moves that edge with saturated minimalist spaces, with humor and generosity and irony. http://www.trishabrowncompany.org/ Falling Duet (1968), Leaning Duets (1970), Group Primary Accumulation (1970), Accumulation (1971), Spanish Dance (1973), and Locus (1975) In galleries dedicated to the work of John Chamberlain, Imi Knoebel, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol. naxsmash naxsm...@mac.com christina mcphee http://christinamcphee.net http://naxsmash.net On Jan 13, 2010, at 6:36 AM, Johanna Drucker wrote: Nice turn to these exchanges. I also really appreciated Gabriela's point and the follow-up by others. If we think of art as the act of form giving, we recognize that forms partake of symbolic systems. As social creatures we 'interpellate' (hideous theory word) shared symbolic systems (signs, stories, genres, dance moves, rules of the game etc.). But of course collectively and individually, we shift those symbol systems (for better and worse--think of personal choice and fashion trends). I've fallen from my pure structuralist beliefs. I no longer think we are only 'subjects.' Individualism may be a founding mythology of western culture, absorbed in the most opportunistic ways into contemporary consumer culture, but I think it has grounding. You are not me, even though, to recap all the polit-theo-talk in Pogo's terms, We have met the enemy and he is us. A great deal of cult studs analysis comes to that. Life is short. One of the pressing questions is what does one want to spend time on? The term therapy seems to carry a dismissive tone. I find making art pure pleasure, but it is the pleasure of bringing something into being, an act of making-as-knowing, that intensifies awareness. I'm an awareness junky. Johanna ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
