dialogical aesthetics

you have Red Leicester in the USA???? our local cheese

I'm with Osso and Farmer in that I find such writing utterly boring and pretentious. Sorry.

Portal Star has voted in on that direction also.

I am not so sure where I land until I actually read the thing. Busy this last few days...
I may agree with the actual point of view, past the prose of it.

art speak
i think i'm sorry i ever bothered you all with this. but put yourself in the shoes of an average educated (BA in Art Studio at a liberal arts college) american white male artist/administrator who fully embraces the "those who can't, teach" aphorism: there is a huge, unshakeable part of me that knows that the real value in life often lies not in the high-brow pontifications of intellectualism and art theory, but in the everyday, like in literature of Richard Brautigan--but I haven't given up on it yet--the wordy stuff that demands that I have a dictionary in one hand while I read the primary source in the other.

Should I stop reading books like Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985? No. I like them. But it seems like everytime I try to speak or correspond with Anyone about stuff like this I get shot down like a arrogant imbecile. I can't even talk about contemporary art with my girlfriend, so I look for a community on-line, and find similar yawns and wariness of its value. Where the hell are the all the people who can empathize with me--and my gullability, my naïve self-indulgent obsequiousness to the institutionalism that I think planted this seed to begin with? I posted a flyer here in town, inviting people to meet and talk about art, possibly watch films by Matthew Barney and Warhol, and discuss them. Nothing. No one here has heard of Barney, and well yes we all know Warhol.

Next topic--Kester's dialogical aesthetics aside, how about Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another: Site-Specific art and Locational Identity in relation to the market economy motives behind public art?

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_2_30/ai_93612089

I know this essay is dense,but if you can get past this and offer feedback, I would be interested in reading what anyone thinks.

Art-Liker, I've been neglectful and not read the dialogical aesthetics piece yet (packing to move, using a2k for non-intellectual reasons.)
Don't give up on us.
Start a new question with Site-specific art and locational identity in the title and we may get some google hits on it.
Is there any clear relation to market economy motives for someone like Heizer? It's a wide field, heh, or has become so in the past decades.

I'm up to my eyes in end of term paperwork and the brain cells are fried - can't take this in at the moment! (also busy trying to get a new series of paintings done and do not talk about me doing!)

Art Liker, Don't give up on trying to share your deep interests. I am interested in siting, and I'm sure many other people are, too. However, when I visited the link on ONE PLACE, the style of language I found there dampened any potential enthusiasm. It's not that I cannot read it; it's that when I read anything so convoluted in syntax, I find myself feeling annoyed that the writer didn't take the time to write with clarity. Very complex ideas can be expressed in clear language. A great example would be Wolfram's A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE. It took this author a decade to write the book; then, he spent a full year, rewriting it so that a non-scientist could easily comprehend it. I vastly admire that kind of effort at clear writing. My feeling is that, if one has something he/she feels is worth saying, it's worth putting in the effort (sometimes considerable) to make it readily understandable--and somewhat appealing in style!

I am not anti-complexity. For instance, books like Sebald's AUSTERLITZ or Cortazar's HOPSCOTCH are delightful in their syntax, but their complex syntax is artfully formed, evolved for readers' enjoyment through many months of hard work. Immediately, there is significant communication with the reader. This immediacy is a species of clarity. By contrast, when I encounter the language at the ONE PLACE link, I sense no craft, much less art. Essay and other non-fiction genres need the same attention to style and clarity as is paid by the authors of good short fiction and novels.

Perhaps, you might try expressing your reactions to ONE PLACE in your own words. You write well! In fact, I like to read your writing. Why not cut to the chase and tell us what you're thinking about siting in your own good language?

And Cortazar is atop my bedroom dresser, as they used to call it. Blow up and other stories is sitting at the top of the book stack...

Not that Blow up and other stories is equivalent, exactly, to Hopscotch, which I seem to remember being mentioned by Fbaezer.
Fb doesn't post on a2k all that much, but he is a poster I always listen to; he has a wide background and finally, humor, which, while rarely expressed, shows his perspective.

syntax, semantics, pin tacks, romantics
Miklos7, I appreciate your empathy and support. I left myself in a bit of a vulnerable position with my last message under this topic, and I thank you for not taking advantage of it. Exposing my vulnerability while openly expressing my values is really what keeps me interested in this field.

I've been taking notes on Kwon's essay. I'm not sure if you can find the whole thing unedited on-line. I have it in a book.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_2_30/ai_93612089

There are few ideas that I'm interested in knowing more about from your/everyone's point of view. Here's the first idea to discuss:

Kwon states that "the distinguishing characteristic of today's site-oriented art is the way in which the artwork's relationship to the actuality of a location (as site) and the social conditions of the institutional frame (as site) are both subordinate to a discursively determined site that is delineated as a field of knowledge, intellectual exchange, or cultural debate."

First of all, Kwon's use of the phrase 'today's site-oriented art' leaves me wondering how she can envelope such a widespread phenomenon with a total reprioritization of the field's intent--shifting from site as physical environment, to site as institutional critique, to a practice that only now is "verified by finding convergence within an existing discursive formation" i.e., some other global topic unrelated to specifically to the field of art. As a public art administrator 'today,' I personally work with artists that are still all about the environmental/phenomenological effects of the site, the corporeal elements--the solar path, the landscape, the visual history of the site, it's relation to existing structures, etc. I only WISH I could find an artist whose work could liberate itself successfully, and I mean this sincerely, from such temporal "stuff." But maybe Fort Collins isn't ready to allocate the 'discursive' as the value in producing public art.

Kwon gives an example of work done the artist Mark Dion, in an art project he completed with one of the two art/cultural institutions in Sala Mendoza. She mentions his work in relation "cultural representations of nature and the global environmental crisis."

Kwon's statement, "sometimes at the cost of semantic slippage between content and site" serves as a justification for her theory that asserts the reprioritization of 'today's site-oriented art,' as quoted above. But then I wonder if this 'slippage' and her theory are one and same thing, and therefore, speculative. I just read a scathing review in which a reviewer of Kwon's work identifies her among the many art historians with hegemonic motives, along with her mentor Hal Foster, and other contributors to the October journal. I feel like Kwon may be championing some kind of avant-gardism, if there really is such a thing. James Gaywood maintains that there really cannot be, since the social/cultural impact of postmodernism.

In Relative Values [(BBC Publications, London, 1991) p. 74.] Louisa Buck states that "present day entrepreneurs may be nostalgic for some notion of the 'avant-gardist" experimental in art, but that art often now has the status of orthodoxy."

Do you think Kwon's theory is a nostalgic attempt to establish avant-gardism? It kinda sounds like it to me. I support Kwon's theory if she had not asserted it as 'today['s]' site-oriented art. Because I think we all know there is a lot more going on than what she cites. I think the academic/pedantic word for this is... pluralism (just thinking of the word leaves my breath somewhat stale).

What can Kwon mean by " semantic slippage between content and site" ? It is such obscure usage that leaves my breath stale. Does the phrase refer to a contradiction of meaning between a work of site-specific art and its surroundings? If so, why not say so?
I, for one, am refreshed by the pluralism proclaimed by writers such as Arthur Danto. What art seems to have finally achieved is freedom for the individual artist from art-historical programs. Each artist is now able to invent, find, or realize his own inspiration, but not as an avant garde shamanic leader of an esoteric movement, with a spoken or unspoken manifesto. I should hope we are done with such romantic mystifications. Nevertheless, every artistic endeavor IS, in a sense, an esoteric phenomenon insofar as the deep subjectivity of the work AS THE ARTIST SEES AND FEELS IT is not objectively/publically available to a viewer. The epistemological-aesthetic reality is that every viewer joins with the artist to construct a distinct private experience. At best the experience has elements of inter-subjectivity but not joint-subjectivity (in the "Vulcan" sense). Art is inherently subjective and mysterious, requiring no mystification. I hope my writing is clear.

Art Liker, After reading--very carefully--your quotations from Kwon, I could come only to these conclusions:
1) Kwon's writing is so thoroughly imbedded with slippery jargon that it's impossible for me to pin down what the author might be trying to say.
2) When a person writes as obscurely as Kwon, one cannot help but wonder if he knows his own mind on the issues he is purporting to explicate.
3) When a writer cannot express his ideas clearly, one cannot
possibly discuss them sensibly.

I think you are being very generous when you make the assumption that Kwon's poorly-shaped ideas are worth discussion. Was this book recommended to you by someone whose judgment you respect--or did you read Kwon's book simply because it's related to your field and, therefore, you felt you should give it a try?

If you read Kwon out of a sense of duty, I think you may be living too hard! There is a constant stream of new books published in my primary areas of interest (art, poetry, hard science), and I continually scan book store and library shelves for interesting reads. Of the books I pull down to look at, many I set aside right away, because they are poorly written. Why should I waste precious reading time with authors who cannot write with clarity and grace? Also, there are often writers who meet the clarity-and-grace requirement, but who turn out to be presenting ideas that--although they are well-formed--are unintentionally irrational, contradictory, or just plain silly. Books of criticism on art and poetry seem especially given to pretentious silliness. In a very good year, I might read two books in each of these areas which are written well and which break significant ground. These four are plenty, I find, to keep my mind in enjoyable motion. If I were to try to "keep up" with art criticism alone, by reading everything that might have a few thoughts in it, I'd go mad. There needs to be a triage process before I start reading a book. I'm pretty sure that the Kwon book, had I come across it, would be assigned to the "hopelessly moribund" category rather than to
"vital: examine this work now." Also, when it comes to art and poetry, I prefer to spend most of my time experiencing it rather than reading someone else's thoughts about it. If a book is going to take me away from time spent with art, it needs to be a book of truly compelling interest.

I cannot help but wonder if you'd find much more pleasure and stimulation through your own study of siting than you might by struggling with the slippery--and inevitably second-hand--thoughts of a Kwon.

Please understand that, if there is one clear idea from Kwon that you'd like to discuss, I would definitely still be interested.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

When I stress the inherent subjectivity of art, I am thinking more of music and painting (especially the less representational forms of painting and sculpture). But I also refer to all experience. To me every life is in a sense a secret. There is the saying in Mexico, "Cada cabeza es un mundo" (literary: every head is a world), which sometimes is said to denote that people are secretive (that's how a peasant once expressed it to me) and sometimes it denotes the inherent privacy of experience. We spend our lives trying to share our experience, to break out of our ego-shells, and perhaps art is one of the major expressions of this effort. But no matter how much I feel that I have communicated an experience, I know that language, paint, sound have only scratched its surface.
I remember the struggle I had coming to love Kandinsky. Kline and deKooning required very little effort. Gauguin, Van Gogh and Daumier, none. Gradually, Kandinsky's work appeared to be increasingly marvelous. I know that it was not Kandinsky who improved; it was I. I developed the ability to "make something of" Kandinsky's images. My eventual appreciation of his work was my own creative achievement. This is what I mean by the inherent subjectivity of art--in the artist and in the viewer. Inter-subjectivity (a kind of mutual stimulation, if not sharing) is what all artistic communication is about.
Do I overstate my position?

JL, I most definitely do not think you overstate your position on the inter-subjectivity of artistic communication. This is, to my mind, THE core artistic experience.

Just as you learned to enjoy intense subjective inter-connection with Kandinsky, so did I--perhaps, embrarrassingly slowly-- learn to connect with Matisse of the 20's and 30's, whom I persisted in viewing as primarily decorative. I did know that there was something else, highly significant, going on--friends whom I respected could see it, and each would try to explain his version of it--but it wasn't until I put in a lot of time with the paintings that I came to connect in my own heart with Matisse of this period. As you put it so well, "it was I" who had improved, not Matisse. And this improvement in vision was very little developed by books; rather it evolved mostly through a great deal of time in the presence of the actual paintings.

Once I had found a communication with Matisse, I could then refresh the connection by looking at good reproductions--when only reproductions were available. Also, once I had my own relationship with the artist, I could appreciate--if not always agree with--what other "communicants" had written about him. I don't think this process can be run backwards: I don't believe one can initiate a deep connection with an artist through studying reproductions or reading the words of others. One needs to establish his or her own inter-communication with the paintings first; then, this relationship gives life to reproductions and written observation.

Books about art, no matter how well-written, are always secondary to one's own "live" experience with art. And I say this without hesitation, even though I have written books about art! People who are kind enough to tell me that they have enjoyed what I've written about a particular artist are primarily informing me that they, too, have a relationship with this artist, and, hey, let's talk about him or her--not my writing. I understand this completely! At best, my writing is an aide-memoire or a provoker of conversation. The real action is in the art--and in the seemingly infinite number of inter-relationships it can inspire in the viewer.

reading about art
To be honest I bought the book on art theory on amazon.com

I saw the impressive credentials of the editors, and the fact that an art educator (Zoya Kocur) and artist (Simon Leung) collaborated on the putting the anthology together, so I bought it. And to my knowledge there aren't any books out there other than this that specifically cover contemporary art theory since 1985. My passion for the subject was my only drive to buy the book.

Miwon Kwon is an Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History (post 1945) at UCLA.
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/arthist/faculty/kwon.html

The essay she wrote is in the book I own, mentioned above. She's also a recipient of the Professional Development Fellowship for Art History through the College Art Association. She does use dense language, but her ideas are not "poorly shaped." Really, I think that accusation is poorly founded. I thought I had clearly extracted one of her assertions from the essy to dicuss in this forum--what she theorizes as "today's site-oriented art." Was it just too simple of a topic to discuss? God, sometimes I wonder if I do have a real problem. It seems that no one really wants to discuss contemporary art theory, or at least what I have read about it. It is the majority of what I read. I read literature now and then, and I read and write poetry too. But I always push myself to understand new ideas in contemporary art theory. I do go mad sometimes, it's true. But that was more in college when the ideas of authorship and deconstructivism in art first hit me. I went mad because reading this kind of stuff is usually aimed at epistemological change, which I think is eventually very enlightening, and fun, actually. It allows me objectively explore the relationship between culturally determined values and how they form concepts such as art. Being engaged with art this way allows me to be both more sincere and lighthearted, believe it or not.

I'm not trying to say that Kwon is good at writing. I'm just offering one of her ideas as a discussion topic. I know you all think she is obscure, but is that it folks? Maybe I should just write to her... But I can't help but wonder, why would UCLA hire a woman with no apparent writing skills(according to this forum) to teach at one of the best schools in CA, if not the US? Nevermind, I think this question is just begging for trouble.

I may feel more at home when I go back to school. I miss people who are more optimistic about this stuff, yes the academic bubble, I know it! Thanks for your feeback.

You know, Art Liker, it is most likely that Kwon has well developed ideas but that her writing style has put Miklos and me off--I am an alumnus of UCLA and, as such, would gladly give the benefit of doubt to her department. But it may also be that her style is requried by the culture of her discipline. I am not objecting to her ideas but only to the fact that she does not communicate them to me. I am presently reading a book on the ideas of Nietzsche by, of all things, a political scientist (also an assistant professor), Leslie Paul Thiele (the book is "Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul"). My wife--who is the Nietzsche buff in this household--and I have been reading the book with rhapsodic appreciation of Thiele's capacity to give vibrancy to Nietzsche's thought (that is after an excessively dense introduction). I strongly recommend it: a great example of how subtle thought can be presented clearly and gracefully. And, of course, Nietzsche provides a liberating experience.

Miklos, I agree wholeheartedly that "books about art, no matter how well-written, are always secondary to one's own "live" experience with art. To deny that would be analogous to equating the reading of a cookbook with the eating of a good meal. Although I remember when my wife decided to desist from eating pasta I purchased an Italian cookbook with great pictures and attained some measure of gratification perusing it with a nice glass of vino tinto. This experience was remotely like a reading of your poem on Marsden Hartley (:Katahdin:1942) or your Van Gogh as crow "sweeping up into the opening sky." (by the way, one of our A2Kers bought a painting of mine which attempts to capture this sweeping of crows into the opening sky). Here we see that you are not merely capturing or mimicking these artists; you are using them to create your own art, just as I learned to create my appreciations of works by Kandinsky.

OK, I'm home from work and face a weekend - Sunday and Monday for me - with serious tasks. Sooo, what can I do instead? I'll read this dialogical aethetics thing, I'll read an a2k friend's city planning emails, and I'll add some more links to the threads I've started on architecture/design/land use, and art museum and gallery updates. That should work as procrastination.

I am not entirely bereft of academic art and lit terminology in my vocabulary, but am to some large extent. I'll look up a few words and then see how I really feel about the underlying questions, perhaps with a nice red wine.

I'm a ucla person too, but with a degree in bacteriology and years of med research for a ucla med dept.... speaking of jargon; and then a piece of paper, though not a degree, from ucla in landscape architecture, and years of doing that, speaking again of jargon city. Even did a land use exhibit under the ucla art dept aegis, a year of my time as coordinator. Unfortunately I can't brag about that, it was an unmitigated disaster, but very educational. Anyway, I love the damn school. It might bias me slightly to read the piece, I'll admit that.

I'm not an intellectual but I have interests in matters that intellectuals do, and I am interested in site specific art, environmental concerns, and the nature of city and regional planning, if not its details, and possibly other matters of discursive whatever. So... I am intrigued enough to find out if I am interested in this precise article past my original 'bletch'.



I forgot 4 years of art studio classes through ucla extension. I suppose I should buy a sweatshirt.

And edit to say that the architecture/design/land use thread has changed titles often, as I wanted to add everything from site engineering and building construction to, yes, land art; land art was in the first title and then I changed it to land use.

Back later with a link to the threads I mentioned. (Forgive me if I've added them before.)

Art Liker, UCLA is definitely a good school, but it seems illogical to assume that, simply because the college hired Kwon and she has won a fellowship, she, therefore, is worth reading. Kwon may be a whiz as a teacher, and her ability to create enthusiasm in the classroom is her strong suit; this, fortunately, does happen! However, these teachers whose primary excellence is direct inspiration of students are still required to publish if they ever hope to achieve tenure--even when they have no particular facility with written language. This is a long-time fact of academic life, and for some would-be professors I know, the publication requirements are a cruel burden.

Kwon deals with a particularly complex topic. If she has no particular aptitude for writing, it may have cost her a lot of blood and many hours to write the article you quote. If this is the case, I sympathize with her. But, my sympathy is not going to lead me to enjoy her style of expression.

You describe yourself as a reader who seeks enlightenment and fun. This combination pretty much describes me, too. If you were to apply a name to this pairing of tastes, I think you might call it "Augustan." Many of the first-generation Augustans (with the exception of Alexander Pope, who, for a variety of good reasons, could be very crabby) were people of wide interests and great tolerance. You seem to be a very tolerant and open-minded person--probably more so than me when it comes to reading. I still try hard to give every writer the most generous reading I can, but I am, I believe, considerably older than you, and I know that, sooner rather than later, I may be drooling onto the page. With this in the back of my mind, I am disinclined to read books written in what seems to be unnecessarily obscure language.

Also, when I look backward over my reading life, I honestly cannot name a single book in obscure style that I can say I'm happy to have read--or whose ideas I can remember. For thoughts to be stored in useful parts of our memories, they need to be clear. Thinking is all about making connections, and obscurely-stated ideas do not make good connectors.

You sound like an enthusiastic guy who enjoys thinking. You also write with obvious passion. And your writing has clarity. A serious suggestion I'd make to you is to gather some more first-hand experience with art and the siting of art--then, write your own book!

I really have nothing more that is useful to say about Kwon's writing. I assume that she is a dedicated professional; she is probably a good teacher; however, because of her writing style, I just cannot connect with her thoughts. This may well be my loss.

If you would be willing to paraphrase--in your own clear language--an idea of Kwon's you'd like to discuss, I'd be delighted to give it a go.

Re: reading about art
Artliker: I think the author is an academic writing to impress other academics and not for clarity.

I had a tutor who writes in the same way - his ideas are fascinating once you've translated them. It just seems silly to wrap things up in such unnaturally high flown tortuous and often meaningless language when fascinating ideas can be expressed and discussed with clarity. and I DON'T mean dumbing down as I hate that. It turns what should be a fascinating and challenging read into one that is merely tedious and challenging.