Taking More Offense
By Adam Leipzig
Last week’s post attracted comments that are worth noting, and were not offensive. Too bad. I was looking forward to removing some.
Also worth noting is that Smithsonian Institution Secretary Wayne Clough will be speaking at TOWN HALL Los Angeles on Thursday (tickets here), and that there will be a street demonstration protesting museum censorship (information here).
Your comments further the discussion. “I’ve never found any attempt to “define” what art is satisfactory,” wrote Jack Grapes. “Art is what the artist does.” To which Lew Rosenbaum quoted Nelson Algren: “Literature is made anytime the legal apparatus is challenged by a conscience in touch with humanity.” Which is particularly relevant to San Taybi’s note that a new edition of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn has been published with the n-word eliminated.
“I have come to believe that the new generation has no idea what criteria to use when evaluating art, what’s art and what isn’t,” opined Brianna Barcus. “It seems that any type of “art” done for shock value (i.e.: the money coffins) automatically gets elevated to some higher standard without regard to content, process, or intention. There’s a whole generation which automatically buys into this as the definition of art – oooh, it’s ground breaking, ooh they risked their lives by climbing on top of that building, ooh they avoided the law = they must be a great artist.”
Contrast this with Garner Simmons’ telling of the Marcel Duchamp story: “ In 1917, the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, purchased a urinal, mounted it at 90 degrees from its intended purpose, titled “Fountain” and signed it “R. Mutt.” Calling it a “readymade,” he submitted it to an exhibition in New York City. The committee in charge refused to display it claiming among other things that since Duchamp had not physically made it, it could not be considered “art.” Defended by Alfred Stieglitz and Beatrice Wood, among others, this seminal work redefined art. In 2004, “Fountain” was voted most influential artwork of the 20th century by a consortium of British artists.
“Though the original was lost, Duchamp created eight replicas in 1964, one of which sold for $1.7 million in 1999. Even more ironic is the fact that at least three times in the last 20 years, different performance artists have entered museums where one of these replicas was on display and urinated into the “Fountain” — an act that each of these artists claimed Duchamp himself would have understood. And indeed he would. As for those who fail to appreciate it as art — piss off!”
Speaking of appreciating art, get ready for this coming Wednesday, when I will post my perspective on what has happened to American independent films. Hint: It ain’t good.
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Comments (1)
john steppling
January 16th, 2011 at 11:26 PM
Well, first, the bowlderized Twain is almost laughable, if it weren't so tragic (actually).
Art is NOT therapy, nor is it communication or distraction. Its meant to disrupt and awaken. (they go together mostly). Ive written a lot about this, but what continues to amaze me is that the prevailing wisdom these days, the master discourse on culture, suggests that art is just, you know, whatever you want it to be. The idea that one might appeal to history and politics, or even psychoanalytical templates — in other words that one might actually try to suggest art does not take place in a vacuum……….is to be considered a snob or an elitist. I think the weird democratization of art (over, say, the last sixty or eighty years) has taken an unfortunate turn and it means that with so much cultural product consumed the rules of the marketplace supersede the critieria and judgement of individual thinkers (and yes, of institutions).
And then identity politics and po mo thinking came along and suddenly one finds a good deal of mis applyed PC actions — (for example, bringing say African tribal masks to a museum. When really, one cannot seperate such work from its enviornment…from its practice as as ritualistic and religious artifact). To hang it on a wall in the Prado "is" Eurocentric………..but for some reason that term has become totally perjoritive. Bach and Goya are both European — they reflect something of their time and their cultural heritage. That is how art works. It uses those materials. For without them you arrive at the cul de sacs (various and many) of today's art world. Check who won the big prizes in literature and painting and, er, installation art. Its an absurdity — but another problem is the dwindling supply of good critics. We have reviewers, not critics.
One must educate. When i taught at the polish national film school in Lodz, my experience was that it took first year students almost the entire first semester to start to "see"a Bresson or a Fassbinder or a Melville……..or for that matter a Wilder. But once they sort of "got" it……….once they felt they understood the context , they began to download this stuff themselves. But I had to enforce attendance and many complained. Now, some returned to watching junk……thinking Lord of the Rings was great cinema…………but most came to embrace the Ozus, the Dreyers, the Hawks and the sam fullers. They saw what a Bruno Dumont was doing. Its the same in all mediums I suspect. Culture keeps us from barbarism. So thought Adorno. And his dialectical thinking on culture remains the single best reference for our time.
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