Oh, Alan, I understand for most people the work is liberating and exciting. That's fine with me, really. I am just saying for myself it is very oppressive. It is the same drums being played a slightly different way. Then it becomes a brand name. Power, theory etc: I mean the language in it and the ways in which it presents itself to be recognized is a power situation. I see those works and I feel like I am supposed to salute. Truly! And I refuse to salute. To me it is telling me how to be liberated etc. The feeling in it to me is one of an eltistism. "I know better--and you know better, too, because you see this in me." The "alternative spaces"--Franklin Furnace etc--are part of the world they are "alternative" too. It does for me have to do with "goodness". It is all very ethically edifying for all concerned. "It's not only good, it's good for you". It is a very American mission in many ways. Or, of a certain ethical sort--I can see why it does represent the USA in Venice. It shows what a free and good society we are I suppose.
Again, I do know many find it the ways you do, exciting and liberating. I just know for myself, it is very oppressive. I feel like I am being told how to be good in my thinking and what is good for me and al the rest. In a funny way I feel like it is trying to tell me it knows how oppressive all this set up is--and will liberate me--so that I will see in it (the works) the truth. (And the light and the way for all I know.) I will be very excited and grateful about this. But I am not. I do not fully know why, it is just a feeling from deep inside. I don't have any quarrel at all with people who feel the other way. I just know for myself the works are really oppressive and confining. I see them and walk the other way. I don't want to march in (their) line, that's all.
>From: Alan Sondheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: "WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: Rebus 01--became what it beheld
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 02:47:30 -0400
>
>Wow this is incredible. First of all Holzer showed for a long time
>only in
>alternative spaces like Franklin Furnace which had nothing to do
>with art
>world theory or power at all. She distributed work for free at that
>point.
>
>My take on her work is diametrically opposite yours; there's nothing
>unfortunately to talk about... except to say that she has excited
>numbers
>of people in the past and present; I think she's an absolutely
>brilliant
>writer.
>
>- Alan
>
>( URLs/DVDs/CDroms/books/etc. see
>http://www.asondheim.org/advert.txt -
>revised 7/05 )
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