dialogical aesthetics

Architecture of the Evicted
Vivien that is absolutely hilarious! Thank you for starting my day with a good laugh!

Back to the grueling subject of art theory, I just finished another essay, by Rosalyn Deutsche, titled "Architecture of the Evicted." It's about the redevelopment of New York City and the inevitable gentrification/class separation of the local community as a result. And of course, the role of public art in the process of redevelopment is key to her arguement that such municipal or state programs eliminate the very public sphere that such programs seek to establish in the name of progress, however economic, cultural, or whatever. She cites a case in point on the public works of artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, who projected still images of icons/symbols relavent to the evicted communities on public art/edifices (such as the ever so nostalgiac/sentimental bronze figures representing national diplomacy) at Union Square which, on a populist level, are meant to symbolize a stability of the "public" sphere, through the preservation of such neoclassical aesthetics. Deutsche asserts this "preservationist aesthetic," especially in the field of architecture, as a rather ignorant, capitalist driven and indeed comdemning pratice in the field urban development today.

Deutsches written 'dialogue' is a little pedantic, but not nearly as much as Kwon, Kester, or Gaywood. Actually I think it's pretty well written, with a few urban theory concepts that I still've yet to fully discern. I can't seem to find a copy of the essay online but it is listed as


She argues that the redevelopmet of parts of NYC, through the practice of a "historic/preservationist aesthetic," reinstates a contridiction within this 'unified city/homogenous urban society' initiative, in that it refuses to acknowledge and further marginalizes members of the community that don't have the political power to control how "public" space is represented and defined at all. Deutsche alludes this recent local situation to Baron Haussmann's city plan for the redevelopment of Second Empire Paris (which included the destruction of the "Vendome Column," revered by the Paris Commune, calling it a monument to barbarism") which gradually forced an entire working community to the northeastern periphery only to lay a red carpet for the rising bourgeosie class.

Wodiczko addressed this issue in NYC in 1988-89 through the creation of structures that "call for" rather than "provide" an architecture of the evicted. His Homeless Vehicle Project, is one of these strtuctures.

http://architecture.mit.edu/people/profiles/prwodicz.html

Do any of you see this 'evictory' process taking place in the redevelopment of your local community? If so, how? Have any of you witnessed the relationship between municipal public art programs and the gentrification effects of capitalist redevelopments?

I'm not really close enough to talk about the "evictory" processes of urban re-development, but one of the largest problems I see (in my more "suburban" view) is that public space is quickly being re-placed by corporate space.

Vivien, that was hilarious. Where I come from the counterpart of the scarf was underwear and "forgetting" to return greetings.

You're in southern CA, right Vince? Were you able of read all the essays in Theory in Cont Art Since 1985, or was it selective, designed for class topics? What kind of artwork do you do, as you say this book offers you ideas that helps/informs your practice?

I've grown up around to L.A. area. I've spent the last year living in San Diego which has taught me how spoiled I was for contemporary art up there.

I've probably read about half the essays in your favorite new book. Like I said before, I really don't remember them that well. In fact, I mostly remember that I read them and not much else. I really should order a copy and re-visit some of those essays.

My real area of critical/theoretical expertise is the "End of Painting". I'm actually an abstract painter, which makes me kind of a schlock in certain critical circles. The main thing I get is a kind of philosophical depth that keeps me from being satisfied with any easy answers.

...I wouldn't say it's my favorite book, just one on theory that I think I can disuss with informed convictions. I'd like to read more of your expertise on the "End of Painting." I just read some news on a bunch of painters in Europe who are supposedly beyond this "death" (cough cough). I know Danto and Kuspit have written a lot about this, and also Terry Eagleton. Are you a Malevich fan? Most importantly, what has the theory offered your practice as an abstract painter? What do you think of Pollock, Richter? Or Auerbach? Are you saying that the discussion of concepts within the "End of Painting" and absract painting give you the philisophical depth that other theories and practices can't? Not doubtful, just curious.

If I recall correctly, I liked Kuspit's psychoanalytically-framed critique of avante gardism. I've never appreciated Danto's excessively philosophical conception of the essentially philosophical nature of art--i.e., his appreciation of Warhol's "revolution"--the Brillo box challenge--leaves me cold. My view regarding the "end of painting" is that Clement Greenberg's implicit teleology led to what many theorists consider its "end." To me that is nonsense insofar as I and tens of thousands of painters continue to enjoy the activity. If some theorists think we should succumb to an awareness that we are in some art-historical limbo, that's their problem, a problem of their own making. As I see it, painting will always have priority over and be apart from thinking about painting

art and ideas
JL, I totally appreciate your disagreement with Danto on art, but do you never find yourself wondering how a work of art is what it is--aside from the psychoanalytic associations with the maker? Or maybe the pyschoanalytic approach you refer to with Kuspit's writing doesn't have anything directly to do with the maker/artist. I actually appreciated Danto's essay on Warhol's Brillo Boxes, maybe more than Warhol's work itself!... maybe. Honestly when I saw the work in LA about 6 years ago, I didn't get the sense of enlightenment that I received from Danto's writing--which reminds me of something I read about Kantian aesthetics, in the time of Enlightenment, where the viewer is supposed to be able become enlightened solely by looking at a work of art, and then be able to engage in more sophisticated discussions... something like this anyway, some one please articulate more if they are familiar with what I am vaguely referring to. I have read Kant, but he's not one I tend to remember very clearly.

Vince is the only one to respond to my question about Deutsche's essay, which makes wonder if most of you may think it's just another waste of paper? I dunno, maybe it's too hard to respond to without actually reading the primary source.

Well, it's almost too hot to function today, but I am organizing my shed into a studio, or I should say, sauna!

Art Liker, I guess I resist the philosophical-analytical effort to "grasp" the meaning of Art because I feel no need to demystify what I consider to be inherently and wonderfully mysterious. Art is for me similar to what reality is for mystics, a mystery to experience, indeed to relish, not a puzzle to unravel intellectually.

No one (not even Douglas Crimp) was saying that painting as an activity has ended, it clearly hasn't. On the other hand painting no longer has the privileged place at the center of critical art discourse it had for the past several hundred years. It seems that many people (artists and critics) use paintings persistence as an activity to as a reason to ignore the arguments that painting has ended as an important critical discussion. I've read too much, and understand the arguments against painting too well to simply ignore them.

Probably the best analysis I've read is Yve-Alain Bois's "Painting, the Task of Mourning" (which can be found in Painting as Model as well as the catalog for Painting at the Edge of the World, which was edited by Douglas Fogle). Bois examines three different deconstructions, or "ends", of painting represented by Duchamp, Rodchenko, and Mondrian, which he loosely ties to Lacan's Symbolic, Real, and Imaginary. Instead of scathing against these deconstructions, Bois admits that they are valid while pointing out how they are incomplete.

JL--your response takes me back to a critique I was attending in honors painting years ago. My professor actually stopped the discussion at one point because he felt that the painting being discussed had reached a threshold with the group. He only did that once.

I don't mean to express this opinion as somehow unique, but for me art in general is impregnated with all forms of intellectual, spiritual, and corporeal excitement. I would hope that everyone that uses the word art in this forum would include these fields of practice, and more within with the meaning of the word--beyond the axis of evil/holy trinity: painting, drawing, and sculpture. I'm sure most of us do.

You write that you enjoy the psychoanalytic reference to art offered by Kuspit, so when 'you' look at someone like Joespeh Cornell or Beuys, or Kahlo, you can't help but explore the life of the artist. But when you look at Duchamp, Warhol, Barney, Katerina Fritsch, or Kosuth, you can't help but get a little intellectual. And in exploring this ok, cerebral facet, I usually end up with a sense of satisfaction that is mystical, or mysterious, because of what it magically offers to me on a personal level. And I never assume that I totally "get it" with an artwork--that's too linear for me, though critical writing on art is different in this regard. I always hope that what I "get" with artwork is just a fragment of the larger, more unshakeable mystery in the work. If it's anything less, and I guess I could call it propaganda.

Being acquainted with the late artist Morris Graves, I felt like I experienced one of the more 'profoud' "Mystics of Northwest Art." 'Transcendental' is often used in reference to his work, but I see that term often used pejoratively with art these days. Maybe that's just a big word for what has become the status quo with art's communicative capacity. Graves stopped painting images to do with anything other than beauty in the 70's, because he said he was tired of the "BLAT!" of it all. I understand this. He didn't start with this conclusion of course, he arrived there only through an investigation of many other, sometimes cerebral facets of art. I think it's safe to say that for my age (and cultural context) my understanding of art reflects my prioritization of life concerns--which tend to be cerebral. But then again I am working on a traditional landscape watercolor at home right now (it's pretty), and an image of the way the French made their beds in the 14th century. I also have a 25' sq. installation of shredded redwood and theological writings, photographs of industrial and religious institutions, and vaseline (go Barney) nicely set-up in zip-loc bags with cursive text. I'm definitely not out to champion an intellectual reform in art, or any other kind of ideology. For me an 'unraveling' is natural to my experience with art. I also know that 'natural' is just as much of a construct as 'contrived.' My partner says I'm too critical of art. I could change, but I don't see a reason to right now. Someday I may get tired of it and just focus on the work again, where it all started for me.

Vince:



i'm glad you've reminded us that this shift has been perceived not as a literal death, but a critical one.

Vince, most of my reading has been of the by-now "classical"
commentators (e.g., Clement Greenberg, Cllive Bell, Herbert Read, Meyer Shapiro, Harold Rosenberg, Hilton Kramer, Donald Kuspit, Barbara Rose, and more recently, my favorite Robert Hughes, and, very recently the spoilers, Julian Spaulding and James Gardner). Most of the writings since John Cage and Marcel Duchamp have striven for a DISCOURAGING anti-aesthetic cleverness (perhaps an affectation of revolutionary depth). As such, I have read and been inspired by commentators who have ENCOURAGED the enterprise of painting. This would suggest that I have been innoculated against the influence of the post Duchamp/Cage "deconstructionist" arguments.
You say that because you have "read too much, and understand the arguments against painting [you] are unable to "simply ignore them." Great confession; similar to mine.
I must (respectfully) smile at your comment that, while no-one is saying that painting itself has ended, what has ended is ts location in a "privileged place at the center of critical art discourse." Paradigm shifts in the world of critical art discourse should have no real impact on the very separate world of actual painting. Nor should such shifts within the world of actual painting. I no longer care as much as I used to for the art school representational "pictures" of life drawings, portraits, landscapes, still lifes, etc., preferring still the neo-modernist work descending from the days of Abstract Expressionism. But the more traditional painters have my blessing. In saying this I am not making an intellectual argument in the nature of "critical art discourse." I am merely making a statement of personal values and taste. THAT is what living art is about: deeply personal inclinations. What the intellectuals say is very secondary, as I see it. If they have said anything I value, it is their pronouncement (e.g., Danto) of the reality and validity of pluralism and relativism. No more teleology (a la Greenberg) or manifestos regarding the irrelevance of easel painting and beauty.

The problem is, if Art is nothing more that taste, a preference for a particular style or medium, then all of Art History means nothing and Art is little more than a rareified entertainment for the viewer and a hobby for the artist.

You say, Vince, that: The problem is, if Art is nothing more that taste, a preference for a particular style or medium, then all of Art History means nothing and Art is little more than a rareified entertainment for the viewer and a hobby for the artist.

I think I can take the sting out of your statement with the following bloated paraphrase:
If Art is nothing but the individual's deep response to particular forms (and types of forms) of creative expression, then Art History is principally the recording (as opposed to interpretation and validation) of such patterns of preference through time and across cultures, and Art is a form of profound, indeed spiritual, re-creation for the viewer and an intrinsically valuable activity for the artist (i.e., it is not just an extrinsically valuable way of making money or gaining prestige).

My last post may have been a little terse and confrontational. I am too quick to dismiss the important personal and spiritual relationships people have with Art. Still, you mention the extrinsic forces of money and prestige as possible reasons for creating art. Throughout history significant developments in Art have come through critical dialogs between artists and patrons, institutions, other artists, or just about any extrinsic force you can imagine. On the other hand, very little art has been created in the name of spiritual recreation alone. (I'm not denying spiritual recreation as one of many possible factors.)

Art History does more than just record changes in style across time and cultures. It decides which forms are important, which artists are important, and even tells us why they're important. If Art History was merely a record, why are so many artists forgotten, while a handful loom over the entire discipline? Art History exists to explore the changes in art forms and how those changes are tied in to social, cultural, political, and technological changes.

This is my problem with criticism like Kuspit's The End of Art; while he gives some interesting criticism of post-modernism he fails to analyse the social changes that led to the post-modern condition in the first place.

Vince, thanks for your gracious and thought provoking response. I agree that extrinsic factors have driven art throughout history. My focus on the personal and spiritually intrinsic function of art reflects in good part the fact that I have returned to painting after many years of working in a secure academic environment because art offered too few extrinsic values for me. Now that I'm retired, it has become a center piece of my life. But you are correct. Artists throughout history have used art not only as a way of life but as a way of making a living. And thank goodness for us the most talented of them have produced GREAT art even though their motives may have been less than "pure." The immense talent of those early painters came through anyway.
You acknowledge, however, that while "very little art has been created in the name of spiritual recreation alone" spiritual recreation may have been one of many possible factors. I would stress that underlying the commercial motivations, the "spiritual" dimension has been foundational for both the artist and his best viewers. Otherwise, we are confounding commercial and fine art.

Regarding your defense of the larger function of art history, I acknowledge that history is more than just reconstructing the past; it also constructs the past interpretively. But I do not grant art historians the critical function of telling me who was good and who can be ignored. The successful succeeded because of the way they were received by their historically situated audience. Historians can only report this reception and try to interpret for us the social cultural reasons for it. If many artists have been historiographically forgotten it should be because their publics ignored them, not because the historian (of a different time period) thought them unworthy of inclusion in the historical record. I really do not wish to grant the art historian the status of mega-critic.

I have little to say about Kuspit. If he fails to address the larger social and historical environment of the emergence of post-modernism, it might be (but I would have to revisit his work to say this with sufficient confidence) because of his psyche-centered Freudian approach. I don't know.

Whether the quality is specifically acknowledged or not, genuine art inevitably involves spiritual recreation. My hunch is that almost all of the significant evolution in art arises from artists' meditations on their work--or the work of other artists--rather than from external critical dialogue. Art is an intensely personal endeavor, and the best patrons, whether individuals or institutions, have respected this.

Art historians, many of them, would like to decide which artists and which styles are important; however, in this area, they must play catch-up. No matter what prescience they may pretend to, they are simply recording their take on importance that has already made itself known.

Alas, many good artists are forgotten by critics and historians, but not necessarily by their contemporaries. If you can talk with an artist about art, you'll hear many interesting names--and you may well be surprised at the importance to this artist of persons of whom most critics have little or no knowledge.

Sure, artists are affected by changes in the larger culture, but many of them seem most intimately affected by explorations which are not easily connected to specific external forces. Pretending they can clearly draw these connections is where a lot of writers on art get into trouble--and nonsense.

Whether the quality is specifically acknowledged or not, genuine art inevitably involves spiritual recreation. My hunch is that almost all of the significant evolution in art arises from artists' meditations on their work--or the work of other artists--rather than from external critical dialogue. Art is an intensely personal endeavor, and the best patrons, whether individuals or institutions, have respected this.

Art historians, many of them, would like to decide which artists and which styles are important; however, in this area, they must play catch-up. No matter what prescience they may pretend to, they are simply recording their take on importance that has already made itself known.

Alas, many good artists are forgotten by critics and historians, but not necessarily by their contemporaries. If you can talk with an artist about art, you'll hear many interesting names--and you may well be surprised at the importance to this artist of persons of whom most critics have little or no knowledge.

Sure, artists are affected by changes in the larger culture, but many of them seem most intimately affected by explorations which are not easily connected to specific external forces. Pretending they can clearly draw these connections is where a lot of writers on art get into trouble--and nonsense.

Miklos, that was worth repeating.
This conversation brings to mind the observation that there are many violin virtuosos who will never become known as soloists. They must content themselves with participation in chamber music groups or the task of laboring in symphony orchestras. I've wondered why some of the violinists I have known, e.g., Raul Vidas and other artists' artists, have not become better known. I suspect that much can be explained in terms of marketing logistics. How many names can the industry afford to put before the public before a "diffusion effect" occurs (before each name is weakened by sheer numbers)? By keeping the number of names down, each name becomes more salient. True, virtually all of the famous names ARE great performing artists, but they are also "attractive" performers. SO many greats are probably not considered attractive enough to attract sales. And music historians will probably not give them mention.

Please excuse the doubling of my post! There was a thunderstorm rolling through here when I sent it; perhaps, some of the electrons from my machine got rattled.

JL, I believe you are entirely correct about the packagability factor when it comes to deciding just which of many excellent performers will have their pictures on the covers of CDs. And with classical recordings comprising only 10% of the market--a figure that, very sadly, is falling--the diffusion effect you mention is kicking in earlier and earlier. A large number of highly talented players will never be heard on a disk--but they are heard by live audiences, by their colleagues, and, perhaps most importantly, by their students. Musician friends have told me that the students, who fully appreciate them, are a particular consolation.