Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Philosophy recovers itself...
John Dewey wrote that "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers for dealing with the problems of men."
What happens when we substitute art and artists for philosophy... Art recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of artists and becomes a method, cultivated by artists, for dealing with the problems of people.
Are we at a point, culturally, where this idea resonates?
What happens when we substitute art and artists for philosophy... Art recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of artists and becomes a method, cultivated by artists, for dealing with the problems of people.
Are we at a point, culturally, where this idea resonates?
Art as Cultural Production that extends beyond art...
The confusion of terms is immediate, but putting those aside, the concern for me is the for art to function beyond the professionalized world of art production, it need to provide points of access beyond the art historical or the "professional" debates of insiders that, while they ostensibly claim to be grounded in a larger cultural politics, are very often specialized, hermetic and, to the "laymen," indecipherable as to their relevance to the "real world."
As you know one of my common points of reference are the ideas of the philosopher Richard Rorty, who sought to move beyond what he saw as the paralyzing debates of both continental and analytical philosophy by a) reinvigorating American Pragmatism and b) more importantly seeking to transform what it is that philosophy does. By that I would argue that Rorty's project was to return philosophy to its origins grounded ultimately in action in/for/with the world and not, as it seemed to him, to become mired in highly esoteric debates on minutiae related to the continental or analytical philosophical traditions.
One hope I have for this forum is that we (or at least I and the rest of you :) ) can work towards applying this idea to art. To explore where and how art can engage culture more actively while still being good "art." To figure out how to locate work so that when it "works," it's effect is more durable than just a momentary disruption that fails to leave the site of professional art because it's interests (or reception at least) is grounded so narrowly in professional art structures. There is certainly work that does this, but I think it is fair to say that most doesn't or perhaps cannot because it cannot escape the market, cannot escape its "thingyness." Maybe there are no more compelling markets for art to function in (ghettoized in its own house so to speak) so some argue it is fatally undermined by its exchange value. (I don't agree with this necessarily, but I think we need to address this idea in order to produce in the face of reductive economistic moralism.)
I think we begin by agreeing on terms. What is a cultural product? What is a critical cultural product? What is the intersection between cultural products and cultural politics? How is "art" like other cultural products (like philosophy) and how is it different? Must art engage the market to reach other cultural sites of interest?
Please add more if they come to mind. I apologize for the stream, but I like the blog as a place for thinking out loud...
Peter
As you know one of my common points of reference are the ideas of the philosopher Richard Rorty, who sought to move beyond what he saw as the paralyzing debates of both continental and analytical philosophy by a) reinvigorating American Pragmatism and b) more importantly seeking to transform what it is that philosophy does. By that I would argue that Rorty's project was to return philosophy to its origins grounded ultimately in action in/for/with the world and not, as it seemed to him, to become mired in highly esoteric debates on minutiae related to the continental or analytical philosophical traditions.
One hope I have for this forum is that we (or at least I and the rest of you :) ) can work towards applying this idea to art. To explore where and how art can engage culture more actively while still being good "art." To figure out how to locate work so that when it "works," it's effect is more durable than just a momentary disruption that fails to leave the site of professional art because it's interests (or reception at least) is grounded so narrowly in professional art structures. There is certainly work that does this, but I think it is fair to say that most doesn't or perhaps cannot because it cannot escape the market, cannot escape its "thingyness." Maybe there are no more compelling markets for art to function in (ghettoized in its own house so to speak) so some argue it is fatally undermined by its exchange value. (I don't agree with this necessarily, but I think we need to address this idea in order to produce in the face of reductive economistic moralism.)
I think we begin by agreeing on terms. What is a cultural product? What is a critical cultural product? What is the intersection between cultural products and cultural politics? How is "art" like other cultural products (like philosophy) and how is it different? Must art engage the market to reach other cultural sites of interest?
Please add more if they come to mind. I apologize for the stream, but I like the blog as a place for thinking out loud...
Peter
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
October 1st
Something we’ll work on together to produce some traction in this conversation
Start with the notion that you are all making art
Why make art question is important if it’s already being asked in the practice.
If you’re not making art already – what are you making
If it’s not necessary to ask set it aside
If it is necessary – IT IS NECESSARY
That necessity speaks to that notion of what we want to get into
What is the difference between that which is critical to the practice and a critical practice
Why make art is not a first principle but rather a question in play
Moving away from criticism because there is something generative about critical as crisis, urgency, etc…
This implies a position which is not stable or secure – and this is different than a position which is so stable and outside that it can offer criticism.
This is the problem
Instability that is generative of the necessity to make art.
Is there a relationship between making art and crisis.
That crisis could be generative of art or it could not be
But it is a worthwhile thing to explore
Critical thinking is winded at the top of a hill and as we pass it, it is wheezing and telling us to push on.
Developing critical thinking faculties isn’t our primary means of engaging our question.
A lot of critical thinking was about the unfixedness
But the language of the theorists or interpreters became fixed
Lacan, derridda, barthes,
Inadequacy of critical language does address something that has a heartbeat.
We are thinking throught he language we have and the practices we have available and trying to find a valuable, productive “alliance(?)” between them.
We have a dislocation between the modes of discussion and the need to work.
When artists can no longer be in dialog with their work and around their work – it fundamentally disrupts the circuit around which contemporary art has been built.
Artists have been asked to be in dialog with a market – market not a good conversationalist – answers back with only one answer.
Is there something like a Pavlovian discourse in the art market.
peter
A disappointment with what art can be
I can barely tell the difference between artforum and vogue
Kathrin
Sometimes you can’t differentiate between the ad and the art
Peter
I was totally befuddled
In art school you – john knight said the purpose of art is to engage the world critically
That mode itself can become ossified
This is as “mediumistic” as being a painter
Searching for a place to have a conversation
Warhol, koons, engage the market
Cletus
What we’re doing here
Art does something
Does art do anything –can you say art does art
One other questions is art a parallel discourse,
Greenberg made a very strong and industrial case for artists to specialize
His argument for modernist painting could have been given to any car part maker in Detroit in 1951
Get known for one thing in modern culture – it’s how you survive
Kosuth said – art should just do art
Barry
What’s the point in engageing in a conversation where the participants are etched in stone
Peter
Art is a space which is different than any other space you can occupy
It isn’t business or social science- it engages in parts of these but it moves differently and uniquely
Barry
Inherently within the rules of art – is the rule that it can never be fixed
As soon as art is assigned a fixed meaning it ceases to function as art
What is the means by which meaning is fixed
(if it’s ever actually fixed)
peter
does anything ever get fixed?
I was interviewing sociologists
When the catholic church in Europe started to spread catholocisim – paeganism was alive and well so what we have now is an amalgam of Catholicism and paegaanism
Barry I would agree that maybe there are voices who say that things aren’t fixed
Cletus
Art is made in the unfixing of meaning
Art is occupying this space which is distinct from other fields because it is enagaged as an agent of unfixing
Kathrin
I think we have to shift the position
I think it’s not so much an authoritative voice
How the art object functions – the art object functions as an authoratitive voice or tries to fix meaning
This leads back to criticism
The modes of production in contemporary photography
Criticism literally fixes meaning
Work that works
This actually depends on a misrecognition
I know what that is and then it’s not
Early greek thought on art
Episteme - knowledge - law
Techne -craft of the making, degraded because it wasn’t making law
Poesis means transformation – where poetry comes from- used in medicine transformation
Episteme is most noble
Law – criticism
You can never remake the ready made
If you think of the ready made – the mode of the ready made is choice
I choose to put this here – the difference between choice and making – doesn’t matter if you made it - you chose it
The written piece that accompanies “fountain” explains it – Duchamp's apologia perhaps
is there a repetoire of meanings or techniques which enable artists to unfix meaning
The lesson from kosuth is that the artist’s choice gives meaning
That’s not duchamp
Choosing vs. making
Not choosing not making
Antagonism between choosing and making
The power of that statement – of that work
Is that duchamp establishes a relationship between making and choosing
That’s why klein groups – looking at krauss and jameson is helpful
What’s important for us is that there is nothing important or necessary or rational about the initial binary relationship
On our part there is a necessary relationship of two terms
In the case of krauss
Landscape ------- architecture
Work ----------play
Unpredictability------------crime
Non crime--------------predictablitity
Dilemma – problem between two parties
Trial between three
Quarrel implies four
Nothing necessary about relating choosing to making but that’s where duchamp went
Choosing← →making
Not choosing ← → not making
How do we work out of the notion of crisis
Something we’ll work on together to produce some traction in this conversation
Start with the notion that you are all making art
Why make art question is important if it’s already being asked in the practice.
If you’re not making art already – what are you making
If it’s not necessary to ask set it aside
If it is necessary – IT IS NECESSARY
That necessity speaks to that notion of what we want to get into
What is the difference between that which is critical to the practice and a critical practice
Why make art is not a first principle but rather a question in play
Moving away from criticism because there is something generative about critical as crisis, urgency, etc…
This implies a position which is not stable or secure – and this is different than a position which is so stable and outside that it can offer criticism.
This is the problem
Instability that is generative of the necessity to make art.
Is there a relationship between making art and crisis.
That crisis could be generative of art or it could not be
But it is a worthwhile thing to explore
Critical thinking is winded at the top of a hill and as we pass it, it is wheezing and telling us to push on.
Developing critical thinking faculties isn’t our primary means of engaging our question.
A lot of critical thinking was about the unfixedness
But the language of the theorists or interpreters became fixed
Lacan, derridda, barthes,
Inadequacy of critical language does address something that has a heartbeat.
We are thinking throught he language we have and the practices we have available and trying to find a valuable, productive “alliance(?)” between them.
We have a dislocation between the modes of discussion and the need to work.
When artists can no longer be in dialog with their work and around their work – it fundamentally disrupts the circuit around which contemporary art has been built.
Artists have been asked to be in dialog with a market – market not a good conversationalist – answers back with only one answer.
Is there something like a Pavlovian discourse in the art market.
peter
A disappointment with what art can be
I can barely tell the difference between artforum and vogue
Kathrin
Sometimes you can’t differentiate between the ad and the art
Peter
I was totally befuddled
In art school you – john knight said the purpose of art is to engage the world critically
That mode itself can become ossified
This is as “mediumistic” as being a painter
Searching for a place to have a conversation
Warhol, koons, engage the market
Cletus
What we’re doing here
Art does something
Does art do anything –can you say art does art
One other questions is art a parallel discourse,
Greenberg made a very strong and industrial case for artists to specialize
His argument for modernist painting could have been given to any car part maker in Detroit in 1951
Get known for one thing in modern culture – it’s how you survive
Kosuth said – art should just do art
Barry
What’s the point in engageing in a conversation where the participants are etched in stone
Peter
Art is a space which is different than any other space you can occupy
It isn’t business or social science- it engages in parts of these but it moves differently and uniquely
Barry
Inherently within the rules of art – is the rule that it can never be fixed
As soon as art is assigned a fixed meaning it ceases to function as art
What is the means by which meaning is fixed
(if it’s ever actually fixed)
peter
does anything ever get fixed?
I was interviewing sociologists
When the catholic church in Europe started to spread catholocisim – paeganism was alive and well so what we have now is an amalgam of Catholicism and paegaanism
Barry I would agree that maybe there are voices who say that things aren’t fixed
Cletus
Art is made in the unfixing of meaning
Art is occupying this space which is distinct from other fields because it is enagaged as an agent of unfixing
Kathrin
I think we have to shift the position
I think it’s not so much an authoritative voice
How the art object functions – the art object functions as an authoratitive voice or tries to fix meaning
This leads back to criticism
The modes of production in contemporary photography
Criticism literally fixes meaning
Work that works
This actually depends on a misrecognition
I know what that is and then it’s not
Early greek thought on art
Episteme - knowledge - law
Techne -craft of the making, degraded because it wasn’t making law
Poesis means transformation – where poetry comes from- used in medicine transformation
Episteme is most noble
Law – criticism
You can never remake the ready made
If you think of the ready made – the mode of the ready made is choice
I choose to put this here – the difference between choice and making – doesn’t matter if you made it - you chose it
The written piece that accompanies “fountain” explains it – Duchamp's apologia perhaps
is there a repetoire of meanings or techniques which enable artists to unfix meaning
The lesson from kosuth is that the artist’s choice gives meaning
That’s not duchamp
Choosing vs. making
Not choosing not making
Antagonism between choosing and making
The power of that statement – of that work
Is that duchamp establishes a relationship between making and choosing
That’s why klein groups – looking at krauss and jameson is helpful
What’s important for us is that there is nothing important or necessary or rational about the initial binary relationship
On our part there is a necessary relationship of two terms
In the case of krauss
Landscape ------- architecture
Work ----------play
Unpredictability------------crime
Non crime--------------predictablitity
Dilemma – problem between two parties
Trial between three
Quarrel implies four
Nothing necessary about relating choosing to making but that’s where duchamp went
Choosing← →making
Not choosing ← → not making
How do we work out of the notion of crisis
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