To draw or not to draw
FundyMaine
I don't know about you, (yes, you) but to me, expression without structure
is noise.
John Owen
Satterlee
I think we can all agree with this statement. It seems that the debate
is about the definition(s) of structure. In the Duchamp thread, the
issue is whether the dada/Pop aesthetic is a valid structure. In the
Twombley thread, the issue is whether color- and form- field painting is
a valid structure. In the Guston thread, the issue is whether the
fauve/expressionist aesthetic is a valid structure.
I, for one, think they are.
amos
Philip Levine
FundyMaine wrote:
>
> I don't know about you, (yes, you) but to me, expression without structure
> is noise.
trashed during the heyday of all kinds of "cutting edge" art. But the
great pioneers and independent thinkers (or painters) always had the
background of fundamentals. its only been lately that people have gotten
further out into space and more lost. You can see the Max Beckman show at
the Guggenheim in SOHO and although he is not what one would call
traditional, there is an incredible unity in his work through his
intuitive use of color and composition that its hard not to respond on an
emotional level. Most of the pioneers really wre grounded in
fundamentals, its their followers wanting to take shortcuts thats screwed
things up..
drookes
John,
Very simply and nicely put. Noise. But such a statement could get
you in a heap of trouble around here. I've got the scars to prove it
and I only just arrived. With compliments and condolences,
HB
Neal Weiss
John,
would you like to talk about pictorial structure? Perhaps elaborate upon
what that might consist of and why?
HB,
If your scars are from your responses....well...just relax...
Close your eyes and go to Siam: put on WB's saffron robe and smoke some
opium....glide for a while on a velvet cloud of love and...drop right back
in!
Here, I'll cheer you up:
Artist are the last to be fed, they are always forced to beg and plead.
$$$$$$$$$$$$
-N
-----------------------------------------
Neal Weiss
Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
D.E. Williams
In article <19961228224...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, fundy...@aol.com (FundyMaine) wrote:
>I don't know about you, (yes, you) but to me, expression without structure
>is noise.
> John Owen
John,
I tend to agree with you. However, 'structure' is often quite evident
to an artist, but nearly invisible to the viewer. On the other hand, some
artists get so involved in structure as to practically obscure their
expression. In some cases this may even be the point of the work - to obscure
via structure (or lack thereof), to evoke something particular in the viewer.
_____________________________________________________________
Cogitare! Deus ex machina! Mindspawn
http://www.mindspawn.com Webmaster
drookes
Neal,
Speaking of Siam, you come across as the proverbial twins. Good Neal
and Bad Neal. The good one probably likes to kick back and throw some
ideas around with the best. Give and take; what could be better, right!
The other, darker Neal, has a few axes to grind. For whatever reason
that is lurking the those dark recesses.
Still, over time, I'll put my money on the good and positive Neal. He
is the one who will make the mark. HB
drookes
So now that Marcel D's famous urine receptacle has been bandied about,
what about Jeffy G's INfamous 6 basketballs in an aquarium tank, (let
alone his imitation of the urinal trick)? Or Dali's mustache painted on
the Mona Lisa. Or Christo's Umbrella caper or wrap-arounds?
Are these too much for one posting?
Is there just not enough cyber-space to describe their significance?
Here's another one that we really had a go at in art college:
Warhol's Brillo package. Oooooooooooooo!
How about if I give you a fresh one right now, just off the top of my
head. Here goes: How about a severed pig's head dangling from a rope
in the middle of a ball room. Call it "Chandelier." No, no, we can't
use that, it is merely aping Duchamp's "Fountain." Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
O.K. how 'bout this: in this exhibit you are standing in a empty
room, there is nothing in it save for a simple wooden door on one side.
Above the door is a sign with red letters spelling out "HEAVEN" Just
below the words in smaller letters, "OPEN 24 HOURS." We try the door
and find that it is permanently sealed; there are no hinges, no latch or
knob. In fact, they never were there! Just one more thing......
Let's say that this exhibit was a lost Marcel Duchamp work. Just
recently discovered. We must try and imagine that we have just read
about it in Art News. It will be put on display, just as described,
this spring at the Whitney.
Would anyone with a good amount of visual imagination and a healthy
thought process be kind enough to give its meaning.
In 50,000 words or less.
Thank you for your cooperation in this shining brand new year. HB
drookes
Euphemism wrote:
>
> drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
>
> > So now that Marcel D's famous urine receptacle has been bandied about,
> > How about if I give you a fresh one right now, just off the top of my
> > recently discovered. We must try and imagine that we have just read
> > about it in Art News. It will be put on display, just as described,
> > this spring at the Whitney.
> > Would anyone with a good amount of visual imagination and a healthy
> > thought process be kind enough to give its meaning.
>
> your fantasies?
>
> This reminds me of radio sports fan call-in shows "...wouldn't it be great
> if the Bulls had Shaquille and Jordan was younger and the hoop was raised
> to eleven feet and Oscar Robertson was still playing?"
>
> How can we use this to further the "post-Urinal" conversation?
Almost a good question. But no cigar. And can you at least take that
serious look off your face. RIGHT NOW!!! Okay, now.........
There is a difference between my fantasy, (Mr. Tough Guy) and
historical fact. But no difference between my fantasy and historical
fantasy. I'll bet this answer has your blood pressure popping.
Dumb question gets a dumb answer. Thanks for answering. H.B.
drookes
wsparker wrote:
>
> drookes wrote:
> >
> > So now that Marcel D's famous urine receptacle has been bandied about,
>
> readymade aided "L.H.O.O.Q" (rough tr: "she has a hot ass") Mona Lisa
> mustachioed. That would have allowed the drawing contingent here greater
> comfort with the discussion.
>
> So I will now, for your amusement, critique the artists you mentioned.
> This would be for is for fun, since we have some posters here recently
> who are are doing an excellent job of loosening up this newsgroup and
> actually helping us all learn something new! Great work! I can't add
> anything to what they say. What a relief!
>
> Here goes:
>
> > what about Jeffy G's INfamous 6 basketballs in an aquarium tank,
>
> fashioned psychological description of his affliction. Though if he were
> a hollywood actor he'd make a good one-season sitcom.
>
> > Or Dali's mustache painted on
> > the Mona Lisa.
>
> "L.H.O.O.Q," which is still in the courts.
>
> > Or Christo's Umbrella caper or wrap-arounds?
>
> his interview where he says in regard to questions about his art, "If
> you have to ask questions, you'll never understand it." I guess that
> applies to situation comedies, so he is right! He's a performer and his
> performances are about waste and overstatement to me, but I am closed
> minded about him!
>
> > Warhol's Brillo package. Oooooooooooooo!
>
> say he was a connsumate asshole (i use the word correctly here). After
> the 80's though he is starting to make sense to me as the distinctions
> between art and spectacle have been downed. Also the migration of art
> and entertainment (hollywood style) help me rehabilitate him in my mind.
>
> > How about if I give you a fresh one right now, just off the top of my
> > in the middle of a ball room. Call it "Chandelier." No, no, we can't
> > use that, it is merely aping Duchamp's "Fountain."
>
>
> I don't know about that, the society of today and that of the 19teens
> can't be compared. You really have to use alot of mental energy to
> imagine what it was like back then and how it felt to deal with the
> "Fountain" over the years starting then. It was actually rehabilitated
> in the 1960s where Duchamp got a second and most justified
> rehabilitation.
>
> I think the pigs head would be okay today as long as it didn't drip
> blood on people's evening dress, think of the lawsuits! Seroiusly, we
> are immume to shock value of alomst anything. Though, a while back I
> saw at an anarchists bookstore (just went in curiously) a book on how to
> torture people, and one on how to kill them in the process. Other
> excellently shocking (literally disgusting) books!
>
>
> > O.K. how 'bout this: in this exhibit you are standing in a empty
> > room, there is nothing in it save for a simple wooden door on one side.
> > Above the door is a sign with red letters spelling out "HEAVEN" Just
> > below the words in smaller letters, "OPEN 24 HOURS." We try the door
> > and find that it is permanently sealed; there are no hinges, no latch or
> > knob. In fact, they never were there!
>
>
> over a protracted length of time. Seriously. Sounds like a point of
> departure for Kienholtz, an artist whom I admire.
>
> > Just one more thing......
> > Let's say that this exhibit was a lost Marcel Duchamp work. Just
> > recently discovered. We must try and imagine that we have just read
> > about it in Art News. It will be put on display, just as described,
> > this spring at the Whitney.
>
> lack of intellectual value, It is a publication seriously pandering
> "cult of the personality."
>
> > Would anyone with a good amount of visual imagination and a healthy
> > thought process be kind enough to give its meaning.
>
>
> I would be thrilled with the discovery of YET ANOTHER (though one was
> enough "Etant Donnes") Duchamp work that he created in secrecy and was
> only to be revealed after he died!
Mr. Parker, Sir,
I don't want others to think that this competition is fixed or
anything but it looks like you have a good chance at the prize. (Gulp)
Which would have been a year's subscription to, er, Art New!!!
You answers were right on the mark: fresh, cogent and full of
wonderful irreverence. We need more of that! HB
drookes
Euphemism wrote:
>
> w...@olympus.net wrote:
>
> > Warhol is/was my pet peeve. Though younger people just hate me when I
> > say he was a connsumate asshole (i use the word correctly here). After
> > the 80's though he is starting to make sense to me as the distinctions
> > between art and spectacle have been downed. Also the migration of art
> > and entertainment (hollywood style) help me rehabilitate him in my mind.
>
>
> Seems to me that our shared understanding of Duchamp is "through" Warhol,
> who made explicit some of the potential of MD's work.
>
> > ["Fountain" ] was actually rehabilitated
> > in the 1960s where Duchamp got a second and most justified
> > rehabilitation.
>
>
> It seems to me that Duchamp's centrality in the last twenty-five years of
> contemporary art dialogue (the way in which he has replaced "Picasso" in
> the big Oedipal shoes) is largely because of the intervention of Warhol
> and, subsequently, the feminist critique of culture.
Euphmis,
Do you really believe that all the artists in question get into the
heaviosity that is exhibited here. Or is it (my suspicion) that they
just go about their business having fun doing things and the rest of us
lay weighty labels and pronouncements on it all? Just asking. HB
drookes
> > say he was a connsumate asshole (i use the word correctly here). After
> > the 80's though he is starting to make sense to me as the distinctions
> > between art and spectacle have been downed. Also the migration of art
> > and entertainment (hollywood style) help me rehabilitate him in my mind.
> >
> > > head. Here goes: How about a severed pig's head dangling from a rope
> > > in the middle of a ball room. Call it "Chandelier." No, no, we can't
> > > use that, it is merely aping Duchamp's "Fountain."
> >
> > Not really, though if there were aping and aping aping, maybe.
> >
> > I don't know about that, the society of today and that of the 19teens
> > can't be compared. You really have to use alot of mental energy to
> > imagine what it was like back then and how it felt to deal with the
> > in the 1960s where Duchamp got a second and most justified
> > rehabilitation.
> >
Although you are still being much too reverent with MD's
Fountain/Urinal. I believe he would be piqued at all this
adulation. HB
wsparker
Euphemism
drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
> So now that Marcel D's famous urine receptacle has been bandied about,
[...]
> How about if I give you a fresh one right now, just off the top of my
> head. [...] Let's say that this exhibit was a lost Marcel Duchamp work. Just
> recently discovered. We must try and imagine that we have just read
> about it in Art News. It will be put on display, just as described,
> this spring at the Whitney.
> Would anyone with a good amount of visual imagination and a healthy
> thought process be kind enough to give its meaning.
What is your point? Is there no difference between historical facts and
your fantasies?
This reminds me of radio sports fan call-in shows "...whaddaya think would
happen
if the Bulls had Shaquille and Jordan was younger and the hoop was raised
to eleven feet and there were only ten teams in the league and Oscar
Euphemism
w...@olympus.net wrote:
> Warhol is/was my pet peeve. Though younger people just hate me when I
> say he was a connsumate asshole (i use the word correctly here). After
> the 80's though he is starting to make sense to me as the distinctions
> between art and spectacle have been downed. Also the migration of art
> and entertainment (hollywood style) help me rehabilitate him in my mind.
WSP, you suprise me!
Seems to me that our shared understanding of Duchamp is "through" Warhol,
who made explicit some of the potential of MD's work.
> ["Fountain" ] was actually rehabilitated
> in the 1960s where Duchamp got a second and most justified
> rehabilitation.
Partly due to Johns/Rauchenberg, but largely due to Warhol as well, right?
Neal Weiss
'Duchamp proves to us that the rejection of traditional truths can also
lead to truth. He legitimates insurrection."
-Robert Lebel
Euphemism
drookes wrote:
> Euphmis,
> Do you really believe that all the artists in question get into the
> heaviosity that is exhibited here. Or is it (my suspicion) that they
> just go about their business having fun doing things and the rest of us
> lay weighty labels and pronouncements on it all? Just asking. HB
I think that all the artists in question (Duchamp, Warhol, Johns,
Rauchenberg--these are the ones you mean, right?) thought very seriously
about developing strategies for artmaking that would counter accepted
assumptions about art. Duchamp's "heaviosity," if by that you mean
intellectualism, is well established. (Although it was not "heaviosity"
in the sense of grim scriptural pronouncements--he had a very light,
ironic, touch.)
Johns wrote about the importance of Duchamp to his thinking, and I suspect
that Rauchenberg is on record about that somewhere, too. (Think of
"Erased De Kooning Drawing.")
Warhol did not engage in much straightforward theorizing, but he strikes
me as a very serious thinker about art. He understood the difference
between generating interpretations (criticism) and producing art objects
that generate interpretations (art). I have no idea whether he would have
recognized this distinction in my terms.
None of this precludes having fun doing things, or producing work intuitively.
It is just to say that they were working hard to make things that the rest
of us would "lay pronouncements" upon.
Neal Weiss
One post-modern attitude to the formal developments of art, is that art
has become either 1) a pastiche or, 2) a parody, of past art. This
alighned with the ending of the avant guard.
-N
Euphemism
Apropos my last post, here's a brief example of Warhol's writing about his
work before his persona was in place:
"I adore America and these are some comments on it. My image is a
statement of the harsh, impersonal products and brash materialistic
objects on which America is built today. It is a projection of everything
that can be bought and sold, the practical but impermanent symbols that
sustain us."
--Andy Warhol, in "New Talent USA" Art in America, 1962
drookes
Neal Weiss wrote:
>
> 'Duchamp proves to us that the rejection of traditional truths can also
> lead to truth. He legitimates insurrection."
>
> -Robert Lebel
>
> Neal Weiss
> Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
> Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
> Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
Neal,
Then what you are saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder.
Or that truth, like art or like love are not easily deciphered.
But I don't necessarily want to buy in to a truth as defined by
Duchamp or Lebel. Or any other particular person because as you say,
truth even Duchamps "truth" may eventually meet its insurrectors. And
so on and so on. Which revolution do we glom onto? How about the truth
of the moment and for one moment forgetting MD exclamation of the
urinal. What if you just happened to see a urinal in a men's room.
What would you think of it other than its immediate usage. Of course we
now know that Duchamp had a whale of a time claiming it didn't have to
necessarily be what we think it is. His revolutionary inclination has
given us much fuel to debate the matter. In a way his exclamation of
the urinal is correct: there has been a fountain of words pouring forth.
But truth? And according to whom? And if "whom," why necessarily
"whom." Do we trust that whom to have finally found the more profound
"truth." Wandering and wondering, HB
drookes
Euphamism,
The erased deKooning was a blast at the time. A big hoot! We all
thought what an idea! But then the "idea" died within a few seconds.
On to the next.
Of course Rauchenberg and the others (most particularly Motherwell)
loved to give grand discourses. What I am speaking of is that intuitive
moment when things happen. Without grand concepts and precepts.
Without a great holy ark to go along with whatever was being executed.
HB
drookes
Great! the words are fine and that is one man's opinion. Then he had
to go and put it into three dimensional form. And we all stood around
and said as one voice (ba-a-a-a-) ah, there is something exceedingly
meaningful about this moment in time. The "truth" accordingly to
Warhol. Kind of belabored a point that has been made too many times.
Even though in novel (not brilliant) form.
drookes
Neal Weiss wrote:
>
> One post-modern attitude to the formal developments of art, is that art
> has become either 1) a pastiche or, 2) a parody, of past art. This
> alighned with the ending of the avant guard.
>
> -N
>
> Neal Weiss
> Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
> Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
> Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
Neal,
How about rather than say "parody," a development from past art. A
continuing upon. Learning from the past and working with it. Using
some of its principles. As do musicians, actors, car mechanics. HB
Euphemism
drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
> The erased deKooning was a blast at the time. A big hoot! We all
> thought what an idea! But then the "idea" died within a few seconds.
> On to the next.
> Of course Rauchenberg and the others (most particularly Motherwell)
> loved to give grand discourses. What I am speaking of is that intuitive
> moment when things happen. Without grand concepts and precepts.
> Without a great holy ark to go along with whatever was being executed.
> HB
I'm not arguing against the idea that work is often generated
"intuitively," if that means the the artist isn't fully aware of what the
work means, where it is "coming from" or where it is headed at the time
they are producing it.
I am arguing that serious analysis of how their work appears in relation
to existing art is part of the practice of almost any artist that is the
subject of discussion here.
Euphemism
drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
The "truth" accordingly to
> Warhol. Kind of belabored a point that has been made too many times.
> Even though in novel (not brilliant) form.
Please elaborate. I don't understand what you're saying here.
drookes
Euphamism,
My apologies for fogging up the issue.
Earlier I was talking with Neal about "old" truth and "new" more
revolutionary "truth." Sort of Duchamp breaking tradition.
I just remember from art college day, everyone in the avante garde
buying into virtually everything passed on down by the usual suspect.
The new "truth" according to them. Much of that labored followerism is
apparent on some postings here. eg: the truth according to Hoyle,
Warhol, Euphamism, Rauchenberg. It gets all kinda confusing to figure
out which bandwagon to jump on to.
And as usual, to discard a legend such as the soup cans puts the poot
discarder in the unenviable position of "not getting it." Is "it" that
worth while. Is "it" even better than a real can of Campbell's chicken
noodle soup? Brought to the table piping hot??!! HB
drookes
For the record, your first sentence speaks of some understanding on your
part of what happens in the process of art. Your second sentence,
though somewhat vague bespeaks of some devil in the detail in the art
world. HB
Neal Weiss
In article <euphemite-010...@comserv-j-18.usc.edu>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
> WSP, you suprise me!
>
> Seems to me that our shared understanding of Duchamp is "through" Warhol,
> who made explicit some of the potential of MD's work.
>
> > ["Fountain" ] was actually rehabilitated
> > in the 1960s where Duchamp got a second and most justified
> > rehabilitation.
>
> Partly due to Johns/Rauchenberg, but largely due to Warhol as well, right?
>
> It seems to me that Duchamp's centrality in the last twenty-five years of
> contemporary art dialogue (the way in which he has replaced "Picasso" in
> the big Oedipal shoes) is largely because of the intervention of Warhol
> and, subsequently, the feminist critique of culture.
Speak for yourself. Your 'our', may not be my 'our'.
Warhol never comes close to approaching the enigma that Duchamp delivers,
for me that is.
Euphemism
> Euphemism wrote:
> >
> > I am arguing that serious analysis of how their work appears in relation
> > to existing art is part of the practice of almost any artist that is the
> > subject of discussion here.
>
drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
> [The above] sentence,
> though somewhat vague bespeaks of some devil in the detail in the art
> world. HB
Let me try to clear this up this vagueness.
I mean to say that almost all artists who influence art history do so in
large part because they are thinkers about art; they are aware that their
work gets its meaning in relation to art that has come before, and to the
culture of their present. They don't just "channel" or "emote"
uncritically.
Do tell about the Devil.
Euphemism
(Neal Weiss) wrote:
> (Euphemism) wrote:
>
> > WSP, you suprise me!
> >
> > Seems to me that our shared understanding of Duchamp is "through" Warhol,
> > who made explicit some of the potential of MD's work.
> Speak for yourself. Your 'our', may not be my 'our'.
> Warhol never comes close to approaching the enigma that Duchamp delivers,
> for me that is.
I'm speaking for myself...the "our" was directed at wsp, with whom I've
exchanged some friendly email.
So, you don't think that Warhol is at all responsible for Duchamp's
relevance to post-1965 art?
Neal Weiss
> Neal,
> Then what you are saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder.
> Or that truth, like art or like love are not easily deciphered.
Well, firstly, it was Lebel's quote, not mine.
The word 'truth' is problematic for me. A truth is likewise a kind of
fiction. The process that occurs when one 'beleives'....also is worth
checking into.
In any case, I wouldn't put my chips on 'one' truth.
Likewise, it is worth checking into the mystical and mythic valence of the
number 'one'. From Greek cultures quest for single answers to questions,
development of logic, and science, back to Judeo-Christian elevation of
the sacredness of the number 'one'.
Heavy ramifications that Judeo-Christian and Greek culture has had on
Western cultures, and the role that the number 'one' plays, the means of
arriving at truth, it's nature, and so forth...
> But I don't necessarily want to buy in to a truth as defined by
> Duchamp or Lebel. Or any other particular person because as you say,
> truth even Duchamps "truth" may eventually meet its insurrectors. And
> so on and so on. Which revolution do we glom onto? How about the truth
> of the moment and for one moment forgetting MD exclamation of the
> urinal. What if you just happened to see a urinal in a men's room.
> What would you think of it other than its immediate usage. Of course we
> now know that Duchamp had a whale of a time claiming it didn't have to
> necessarily be what we think it is. His revolutionary inclination has
> given us much fuel to debate the matter. In a way his exclamation of
> the urinal is correct: there has been a fountain of words pouring forth.
> But truth? And according to whom? And if "whom," why necessarily
> "whom." Do we trust that whom to have finally found the more profound
> "truth."
I do not want to invalidate your experiences, simply to question...
The Ever Curious,
drookes
As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
Representational as you know means recognizable stuff. And it can be
done in any manner whatsoever. Broadbrush virtuosity; niggling little
strokes; slick and snappy, anywhichway.
And does this person do this for most of the day?
I don't want to know from modern or abstract or whatever you want to
call it. There's plenty of that. Just "realist" art.
Now, don't be embarassed to admit it. There's plenty of us out
here. More than one would think. And yes, we're fairly intelligent
people. We can hold a conversation more than five minutes. And yes, we
do believe in what we do. And yes, we do believe that it is ART!
And we do believe that there is so much room for our development and
keener understanding of what we do. And yes, in its own way it is very,
very, very complex. This is why so many don't do it and most who do
don't do it very well. It is an endless evolution to be sure.
Speak up!!!!! listening, H.B. listening.
Neal Weiss
> Neal,
> Then what you are saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder.
> Or that truth, like art or like love are not easily deciphered.
> But I don't necessarily want to buy in to a truth as defined by
> Duchamp or Lebel. Or any other particular person because as you say,
> truth even Duchamps "truth" may eventually meet its insurrectors. And
> so on and so on. Which revolution do we glom onto? How about the truth
> of the moment and for one moment forgetting MD exclamation of the
> urinal. What if you just happened to see a urinal in a men's room.
> What would you think of it other than its immediate usage. Of course we
> now know that Duchamp had a whale of a time claiming it didn't have to
> necessarily be what we think it is. His revolutionary inclination has
> given us much fuel to debate the matter. In a way his exclamation of
> the urinal is correct: there has been a fountain of words pouring forth.
> But truth? And according to whom? And if "whom," why necessarily
> "whom." Do we trust that whom to have finally found the more profound
> "truth."
Your truth is something that you will have to create for yourself.
You are free to change it from moment to moment, or to contraidct it and
yourself, if that is what 'truth' demands of you.
'Honestly',
Neal Weiss
> So, you don't think that Warhol is at all responsible for Duchamp's
> relevance to post-1965 art?
The thought was of experiencing Duchamp through Warhol. I am more inclined
to do the reverse.
I can't speak for post-1965 art. Duchamp was a presence in New York that,
as was mentioned, through Rauch, Johns, (not mentioned: Cage, Cunningham,
any number of artists in New York. Duchamp even made an appearence to
Warhol's Factory.
I know Duchamp has had more impact on my work than Warhol has. And by that
I mean more the thinking behind a work, than the physical style.
Stylistically, neither have much direct connection to my work, or if they
do, it is but indirectly and superficially.
Duchamp is almost a weekly constant(or monthly) or whatever. He appears
whenever my work approaches consistency, whenever the artworld appears to
me to be to hemmed in, whenever I am infusing myself with courage and
boldness to betray either fashion, trend, popularity, or myself. He can
appeaar when I am betraaying myself and my own art. Warhol has never
mythically been that sort of presence for me. Not in the least.
Infact, with L' Ecole De Fromage I enter Duchamp mostly through areas
outside of the artworld or art, then if deemed appropriate, I bring it
into the articulation of an object....
Neal Weiss
> And as usual, to discard a legend such as the soup cans puts the poot
> discarder in the unenviable position of "not getting it." Is "it" that
> worth while. Is "it" even better than a real can of Campbell's chicken
> noodle soup? Brought to the table piping hot??!! HB
What is Original?
1. The graphic artist that designed the Cambell Soup can graphics.
2. The 'original' graphic artwork from above designer.
3. The printed labels (millions) on the Cambell Soup can sold in stores.
4. Warhols 'Original' paintings of Cambell Soup can labels.
5. ECTECT.
drookes
They may be thinkers of art, whatever that means; and I don't say this
flippantly. This word think has some etherial force in your art world.
In my art world "think" is part of it, but "do" is the lion's share. I
have seen artists go nuts with the thinking end. In many cases, the
thinking interfers immeasurably with the flow. In due time, the artist
must do less thinking and more doing.
I remember conversing with a fellow artist about that one second
preceeding the actual moment the brush hits the canvas. We talked about
it for a solid 18 hours straight. That is just that one moment. But if
you are a practicing artist, the mind must be clear of this clutter and
you just go to it. HB
drookes
Neal Weiss wrote:
>
> > Neal,
> > Then what you are saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder.
> > Or that truth, like art or like love are not easily deciphered.
>
>
> The word 'truth' is problematic for me. A truth is likewise a kind of
> fiction. The process that occurs when one 'beleives'....also is worth
> checking into.
>
> In any case, I wouldn't put my chips on 'one' truth.
> Likewise, it is worth checking into the mystical and mythic valence of the
> number 'one'. From Greek cultures quest for single answers to questions,
> development of logic, and science, back to Judeo-Christian elevation of
> the sacredness of the number 'one'.
> Heavy ramifications that Judeo-Christian and Greek culture has had on
> Western cultures, and the role that the number 'one' plays, the means of
> arriving at truth, it's nature, and so forth...
>
> > Duchamp or Lebel. Or any other particular person because as you say,
> > truth even Duchamps "truth" may eventually meet its insurrectors. And
> > so on and so on. Which revolution do we glom onto? How about the truth
> > of the moment and for one moment forgetting MD exclamation of the
> > urinal. What if you just happened to see a urinal in a men's room.
> > What would you think of it other than its immediate usage. Of course we
> > now know that Duchamp had a whale of a time claiming it didn't have to
> > necessarily be what we think it is. His revolutionary inclination has
> > given us much fuel to debate the matter. In a way his exclamation of
> > the urinal is correct: there has been a fountain of words pouring forth.
> > But truth? And according to whom? And if "whom," why necessarily
> > "whom." Do we trust that whom to have finally found the more profound
> > "truth."
>
>
> The Ever Curious,
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Neal Weiss
> Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
> Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
> Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
Neal,
Somehow, and don't ask me exactly how, you and I are having a meeting of
minds. There is empathy there. There is reasoning. There is a
connection. Still, there is plenty of ground to cover. Soon I will be
taking my leave and will have greatly benefited from all this.
Onward,, HB
drookes
Neal Weiss wrote:
>
> > Neal,
> > Then what you are saying is that truth is in the eye of the beholder.
> > Or that truth, like art or like love are not easily deciphered.
> > Duchamp or Lebel. Or any other particular person because as you say,
> > truth even Duchamps "truth" may eventually meet its insurrectors. And
> > so on and so on. Which revolution do we glom onto? How about the truth
> > of the moment and for one moment forgetting MD exclamation of the
> > urinal. What if you just happened to see a urinal in a men's room.
> > What would you think of it other than its immediate usage. Of course we
> > now know that Duchamp had a whale of a time claiming it didn't have to
> > necessarily be what we think it is. His revolutionary inclination has
> > given us much fuel to debate the matter. In a way his exclamation of
> > the urinal is correct: there has been a fountain of words pouring forth.
> > But truth? And according to whom? And if "whom," why necessarily
> > "whom." Do we trust that whom to have finally found the more profound
> > "truth."
>
> You are free to change it from moment to moment, or to contraidct it and
> yourself, if that is what 'truth' demands of you.
>
> 'Honestly',
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Neal Weiss
> Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
> Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
> Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
Neal, your definition of truth is making more sense or was I not reading
well enough between the lines. H.B.
drookes
Neal Weiss wrote:
>
> > And as usual, to discard a legend such as the soup cans puts the poot
> > discarder in the unenviable position of "not getting it." Is "it" that
> > worth while. Is "it" even better than a real can of Campbell's chicken
> > noodle soup? Brought to the table piping hot??!! HB
>
> What is Original?
> 1. The graphic artist that designed the Cambell Soup can graphics.
> 2. The 'original' graphic artwork from above designer.
> 3. The printed labels (millions) on the Cambell Soup can sold in stores.
> 4. Warhols 'Original' paintings of Cambell Soup can labels.
> 5. ECTECT.
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Neal Weiss
> Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
> Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
> Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
Neal, All just another day in manipulation from the clever ones. You
and I and others can sort it out as we see fit. Simple. HB
Euphemism
(Neal Weiss) wrote:
>
> I know Duchamp has had more impact on my work than Warhol has. And by that
> I mean more the thinking behind a work, than the physical style.
> Stylistically, neither have much direct connection to my work, or if they
> do, it is but indirectly and superficially.
> Duchamp is almost a weekly constant(or monthly) or whatever. He appears
> whenever my work approaches consistency, whenever the artworld appears to
> me to be to hemmed in, whenever I am infusing myself with courage and
> boldness to betray either fashion, trend, popularity, or myself. He can
> appeaar when I am betraaying myself and my own art. Warhol has never
> mythically been that sort of presence for me. Not in the least.
Good answer. I certainly don't mean to suggest that to feel close to
Duchamp you must embrace Warhol.
I also agree that you can discuss Duchamp without Warhol, but the reverse
won't go very far.
However, I was responding to the "post-'Fountain'" topic, which I take to
be art historical (maybe I'm inappropriately hung up on that
urinal/historical significance thread). I still maintain that you can't
adequately address the influence of the readymade on subsequent
generations without a long look at Warhol.
Euphemism
drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
> They may be thinkers of art, whatever that means; and I don't say this
> flippantly. This word think has some etherial force in your art world.
Where is your confusion about my use of "think" in regard to art, or these
artists? What seems vague or mystical about this? I'll be happy to
attempt to clarify my thinking on the topic, even though I don't own any
art worlds.
> In my art world "think" is part of it, but "do" is the lion's share. I
> have seen artists go nuts with the thinking end. In many cases, the
> thinking interfers immeasurably with the flow. In due time, the artist
> must do less thinking and more doing.
Believe it or not, I'm basically in accord with you here. I think that
many artists experience a tension between their verbal analysis or
imagined ideal of art and the limitations of what they are actually
producing. And this can lead to "going nuts"--paralysis or
"constipation"-- when it comes time to make art. I'll admit that this
problem has affected my own practice.
Where we differ, perhaps, is that I see these contraditions and tensions
as an unavoidable aspect of the attempt to produce something that will
communicate in a fresh and compelling way. I do assume that an artist--a
professional artist, at any rate--wants to communicate socially, not only
to feel a private sense of accomplishment. We may disagree about that,
too.
> I remember conversing with a fellow artist about that one second
> preceeding the actual moment the brush hits the canvas. We talked about
> it for a solid 18 hours straight. That is just that one moment. But if
> you are a practicing artist, the mind must be clear of this clutter and
> you just go to it.
Yes, very important to "go to it," to learn by doing. No argument there.
But I'd hope that you don't pretend that other art, ideas, cultural forms
and forces of all sorts, aren't relevant to what you do. In other words,
an artist may need to spend some time working through the "clutter," not
just sweeping it under the rug or moving to the next room. The problem is
to balance these imperatives: different artists will find different
balance points.
For me, the best way to test these ideas about art making is to ask
yourself how they apply to artists whose work you admire.
drookes
Euphemism,
Ah, there is some light coming between us. Some morsels that we can
nibble upon. I have spent many a year pondering the deeper realms of
artistic thought. As time has marched on, much "clutter" is set aside
and I concentrate on more valid answers to my immediate problems. And
these are manifold. Huge mountains with which I must search routes. My
help comes from people that are never mentioned upon these pages and
probably never will: Robert Henri, Hawthorne, Pennell, the writings of
Augustus John. There are many whom I find inspiring. There is not
enough time in our lives to continue to read, read, read. I'm reading
and doing but mostly doing. It is not "anti-art" to take my pathway. I
do not have the conceit of thinking that it's "my way" or it's "no
way." I'm bearing down on some great "truths" on the subtleties of my
art. Although I have painted professionally for more than 30 years, I
still have doubts and insecurities with what I do and where I'm going.
But that is common with myself and my contemporaries. It's expected and
I love it. The challenges are enormous. Without them, I wouldn't feel
compelled to do what I do.
Am I making myself understood on these grounds?
Like Popeye sez: I am what I am and that's all that I am.
Knowing this, I know better on how to persue and develop. HB
Neal Weiss
In article <euphemite-010...@comserv-j-33.usc.edu>,
euph...@aol.com (Euphemism) wrote:
> Where we differ, perhaps, is that I see these contraditions and tensions
> as an unavoidable aspect of the attempt to produce something that will
> communicate in a fresh and compelling way. I do assume that an artist--a
> professional artist, at any rate--wants to communicate socially, not only
> to feel a private sense of accomplishment. We may disagree about that,
> too.
I am not a 'professional' artist (never attempted or intended to sell an
artwork, indeed, made a deliberate decision to liberate my art of those
concerns; likewise exhibiting: except for the past 5 months where I have
placed my work in my first public exhibition situations in years), but I
would consider myself an accomplished artist. About six years ago, I
decided I would like to suppost my art by the efforts of my own labor, and
undertake an investigation of what art could be or mean to me, stripped of
a public...eliminating even the active interaction with artists, studio
visits, ECTECT. A period of concentrated 'independence', privacy, and
seclusion (and this after existing more or less as a 'Roman Forum',
drawing people together with respect to art). I wanted my artistic ego to
not be built upon flattery, praise, or adulation: I even tried not to
refer to myself as an artist as much as possible. I wanted to see if art
could function for me by becomng a discource with myself, my relation to
the world, and it would have to sink or swim in my own eyes, not propped
up or salvaged if weak, by kind words from others.
Now, I intend to enter the public discource (these posts, one minor
entrance portal); I want to now ruffle the public trust and bring in
massive financial resources to fuel my ambitions. I am ready to exhibit,
sell, ECTECT., because I would now like to discover my audience and draw
them together, to realize certain projects (that I have stoically endured)
that demand a scale and material resource beyond my individual means.
..as if an artist making art in private or seclusion wasn't making art?
What can art 'really', mean to the artist, how can it be the most vital?
Who need it answer to? Those were only a few of my questions driving me.
In finding my own answers to them I was considering the idea of 'the
public' (...not the idea of 'society' mind you...) to be
overated...entirely eroneous and inconsequential (realizing the dangers
and pitfalls of hubris and self-deception along the way).
I had revised my understanding of the artistic professional who had to
make works that were sellable or exhibitable ("we can't move these
works...can you reduce the scale?), spend great amounts of time
soliciting, follow cetain formulas and reputation traps. I become
answerable as an artist only to myself.
Neal Weiss
-N
Neal Weiss
> Neal,
> How about rather than say "parody," a development from past art. A
> continuing upon. Learning from the past and working with it. Using
> some of its principles. As do musicians, actors, car mechanics. HB
This is merely a single view, take it with a grain of NaCL, or bet the
whole farm on it...a personal choice.
The idea was that in looking at the tradition of the avant guard, the
works produced after a certain period in our culture by the "avant guard",
tended to take a parodic stance towards its predecessors, or to result in
pastiche.
Perhaps your notion of 'learning from and working with' might have fallen
into the pastiche category in that particular paradigm.
Benny Shaboy
In <euphemite-010...@comserv-b-04.usc.edu> euph...@aol.com
(Euphemism) writes:
>
><snip some interesting and knowledgeable observations about Duchamp's
influence>
Johns wrote about the importance of Duchamp to his thinking, and I
suspect that Rauchenberg is on record about that somewhere, too.
(Think of "Erased De Kooning Drawing.")
>- - -
--Rauschenberg wrote in 1973: "Marcel Duchamp is all but impossible to
write about. Anything you may say about him is at the same time untrue,
but when I think of him I get a sweet taste in my body." (from a letter
to Kynaston McShine)
_ _ _
wsparker
Benny Shaboy wrote:
> >- - -
> --Rauschenberg wrote in 1973: "Marcel Duchamp is all but impossible to
> write about. Anything you may say about him is at the same time untrue,
> but when I think of him I get a sweet taste in my body."
I wouldn't touch that one with a ten foot pole!
Bruce Attah
In article <nweiss-0101...@nweiss.tiac.net>, nwe...@tiac.com
(Neal Weiss) wrote:
> 'Duchamp proves to us that the rejection of traditional truths can also
> lead to truth. He legitimates insurrection."
>
> -Robert Lebel
But insurrection was the order of the day when Duchamp started out.
wsparker
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> But insurrection was the order of the day when Duchamp started out.
So, you will conclude from this: he was simply a follower of the trend.
Insane reasoning, you did intend to go that far, didn't you?
Give it up.
Neal Weiss
In article
<Bruce.Attah-02...@support-neptune.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
> In article <nweiss-0101...@nweiss.tiac.net>, nwe...@tiac.com
> (Neal Weiss) wrote:
>
> > 'Duchamp proves to us that the rejection of traditional truths can also
> > lead to truth. He legitimates insurrection."
> >
> > -Robert Lebel
>
> But insurrection was the order of the day when Duchamp started out.
Not all insurrections are the same insurrections, nor have had similiar effect.
-N
Satterlee
Euphemism wrote:
>
> w...@olympus.net wrote:
>
<snip>
> > ["Fountain" ] was actually rehabilitated
> > in the 1960s where Duchamp got a second and most justified
> > rehabilitation.
>
> Partly due to Johns/Rauchenberg, but largely due to Warhol as well, right?
>
Is this right? Duchamp as championed the use of new materials and
situations in the creation of art. Johns/Rauchenberg furthered that set
of ideas. Warhol took an opposite tack. He used traditional
pre-industrial techniques to *deflate* industrial/post-industrial
society. Warhol is, ultimately, the quintessential anti-intellectual
whose work has much more to do with entertainment than with hard-core
intellectual exploration.
> It seems to me that Duchamp's centrality in the last twenty-five years of
> contemporary art dialogue (the way in which he has replaced "Picasso" in
> the big Oedipal shoes) is largely because of the intervention of Warhol
> and, subsequently, the feminist critique of culture.
I didn't know that Picasso had been replaced. It strikes me that the
feminist critique has more to do with the Picasso-esque Great Man theory
of historical development and that the insurgent strain inherent in the
Duchampian critique helped the feminist critique to flourish.
amos
ryan masuga
drookes wrote:
>
> As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
> this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
> representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
> Now, don't be embarassed to admit it. There's plenty of us out
> here. More than one would think. And yes, we're fairly intelligent
> people. We can hold a conversation more than five minutes. And yes, we
> do believe in what we do. And yes, we do believe that it is ART!
> Speak up!!!!! listening, H.B.
I do it, and am certainly not "ashamed" or "embarassed" or whatever. I just
don't do it very often. I am a lazy bum. I could slam and blame my University art
dept. here, but, I'll refrain. I don't know if what I do (however occasionally...)
should be called art or not; I would say I paint pictures and leave all the
wordplay up to others.
Three cheers for Caravaggio.
--
ryan masuga
West MI, USA
ryan masuga
drookes wrote:
>
>Or Dali's mustache painted on
> the Mona Lisa.
That was Duchamp as well.
you know...LHOOQ
R/L Davis
ryan masuga wrote:
>
> drookes wrote:
> >
> > As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
> > this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
> > representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
>
> > Now, don't be embarassed to admit it. There's plenty of us out
> > here. More than one would think. And yes, we're fairly intelligent
> > people. We can hold a conversation more than five minutes. And yes, we
> > do believe in what we do. And yes, we do believe that it is ART!
>
> > Speak up!!!!! listening, H.B.
>
> --
> ryan masuga
> West MI, USA.
Me too. I do it all the time. <www.isisnet.com/rdavis/homepage.html>
(But I'm still a fan of Twombley!)
Richard
Stanley Beck
ryan masuga wrote:
>
> drookes wrote:
> >
> > As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
> > this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
> > representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
>
> > Now, don't be embarassed to admit it.
> Three cheers for Caravaggio.
> --
> ryan masuga
> West MI, USA
So do I. I really don't care if people don't like it -- there are enough
out there who do; and since I have to make a living, I must work, and do
not have time for protracted discussions on the subject. I'll leave the
long winded discussions for those with time on their hands.
--
Stanley Beck
Empty Buckets make the most noise !
mailto:sbec...@aol.com, mailto:sbec...@earthlink.net
Online Gallery --> http://members.aol.com/sbeckart/index.htm
wsparker
ryan masuga wrote:
>
> drookes wrote:
> >
>
> > the Mona Lisa.
>
> That was Duchamp as well.
> you know...LHOOQ
>
> West MI, USA
No, Duchamp made only one ready made-aided titled "L.H.O.O.Q" which was
the Ms. Lisa mustaschioed.
Dali made a spinoff of Leonardo's work; to which Dali seamlessly added
his eyes, nose and mustache.
wsparker
drookes wrote:
>
> As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
> this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
> representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
Yes, and that is a good thing. Human beings are distinct from other
species in that they make art. There is a huge range of artmaking
practice; it is hard to find something that does not have some aesthetic
to it. Aesthetic comes from the greek root aestheticon, which means
"sightseeing."
> Now, don't be embarassed to admit it. There's plenty of us out
> here. More than one would think. And yes, we're fairly intelligent
> people. We can hold a conversation more than five minutes. And yes, we
> do believe in what we do. And yes, we do believe that it is ART!
Artists don't have talk to make their art. We talk and write like an
artist reads the paper or has a conversation about what's interesting to
him/her. All that an artist gets interested in somehow winds up in it's
best form in whatever art they are doing as artists.
Like a writer might make photographs, he's got no intention nor desire
to contribute to the history of phtography, he's assembling his
experience some how, sorting thru what captivates him. Then somehow
and later when he goes to the task of writing it all comes out in his
best form; the work he is best able to do, his art. (substitute her for
him 50%)
No matter if no one except a few other local writers or artists see it.
(the gallery thing ($$$) is not to be your goal, it is potentially too
distracting, and unnatural thing anyway)
So, make all the art you want and have your abstractionist come over
and discuss away, learn something both of you and get on with your
investigations. Don't tell me you would go back to the "same stuff" you
were doing though, if that were to happen, what good was the
conversation? Also the conversation happens over a long period of time,
then you can't help but be inlfuenced seeing things positively
differently.
Have no doubt that what you are doing is art. You may be reassured by
postmodern theory which has shaken up the boundaries between high art,
popular art, naive art. In a sense everyone is freed up to persue their
art and have validity in that. Non-white, ethnocentric art, whatever,
the prevailing ideology doesn't have to be your model anymore.
Even Duchamp, the greatest, and abstractest artist of this century (!)
will grace your persuits! Check out the book Barucello and Martin _Why
Duchamp?_
> And we do believe that there is so much room for our development and
> keener understanding of what we do. And yes, in its own way it is very,
> very, very complex.
It is language (not just written and spoken), the most complex creation
humans have ever devised.
> Speak up!!!!! listening, H.B. listening.
Yeah, and don't be intimidated by what the regulars are saying here in
the nsgrp. Ask questions, see what happens, learn something while you
aren't in the studio. Don't be upset if they shoot you down, or are
pissy; who cares?
In usenet it is almost impossible to make a fool of yourself!
(The only thing which discredits you, in my opinion, is excessive
hostility and wanton rudeness. And that is EASY to avoid for decent
people)
Satterlee
Euphemism wrote:
>
> satt...@us.net wrote:
>
> > > > ["Fountain" ] was actually rehabilitated....
> > > Partly due to Johns/Rauchenberg, but largely due to Warhol as well, right?
> >
> > Is this right? Duchamp as championed the use of new materials and
> > situations in the creation of art. Johns/Rauchenberg furthered that set
> > of ideas. Warhol took an opposite tack. He used traditional
> > pre-industrial techniques to *deflate* industrial/post-industrial
> > society.
>
> choose to focus on.
> Our discussion has centered on Duchamp's readymades, particularly "Fountain."
I think there is a fundamental difference here. To begin with, my
comments are made within the thread of the Fountain and readymades. To
my way of thinking, the Brillo boxes are not readymades.
An essential aspect of the readymade is the use of *modern* materials.
The subject matter is of less importance than the choice of material.
There are two points to be made about the readymades: in the negative
vien, they challenge the traditional methods and practices as being out
of step with the industrial present; in positive vein, they demand that
the act of art making be taken seriously at at time when industrial
processes (photography, etc.) challenge the representational basis that
may presumed to be the role of art.
Johns and Rauchenberg produces assisted readymades. I contend that
because he did not use readymade objects, but instead used traditional
methods to represent everyday objects, Warhol does not fall within the
Duchampian tradition.
> As I understand it, Warhol's Soup Cans and Brillo Boxes (1962-64)
> scandalized an art world that had, apparently, disregarded (or forgotten)
> the readymade.
Just because they scandalized, does not mean that they are readymades.
I would also question the term _scandalized_. I'm not sure what word I
would use. My understanding is that Warhol was seen as shocking, but
also as accessible. There is the shock of recognition of one's self
(Warhol) versus the shock of being told that you are working with
inoperative concepts (Duchamp, et al)
> The readymades can be thought about in a host of ways; hence their
> durability in discussions such as ours. I'd venture that most views of
> them involve disruption of artistic standards.
Yes they can be thought of in a host of ways, but only within a fairly
narrowly defined area. An egg can be thought of in a host of ways, but
it is still an egg.
> Warhol can be seen as extending Duchamp's strategies for unsettling
> assumptions into the realms of social class (high vs. low, fine vs.
> applied art) and "consumer" culture (art vs. business, unique vs. mass
> produced) as well as raising questions about originality and authorship.
I see Duchamp as an elitist, in the true sense of the word, and Warhol
as a demagogue. Duchamp fought for quality. I believe that he was
afraid of the easy outs that commercial production allowed. Ergo the
readymades -- industrial materials pushing the envelope of meaning.
> It seems to me that Warhol brought Duchamp's readymade, as well as his
> "indifference" and his repudiation of the expressive mark, front and
> center in the cultural dialogue during the sixties. ... I still see the
> attention paid to Warhol as one reason why Duchamp looms so large now.
Again, I think there is a real difference. Duchamp's indifference was
very specific about artist issues, as was his passions. Warhol's
indifference was, in my opinion, part of a general persona.
> The philosopher/art critic Arthur Danto has written a couple of books
> based on the premise that Warhol's Brillo Boxes marked the final collapse
> of art into philosophy, and thus the end of (a certain idea of) art
> history.
>
> > Warhol is, ultimately, the quintessential anti-intellectual
> > whose work has much more to do with entertainment than with hard-core
> > intellectual exploration.
>
> I disagree with characterizing Warhol as anti-intellectual. To my mind,
> anti-intellectualism wants to stop thought. Warhol's work, especially in
> the sixties, raised all sorts of provocative questions.
>
> Of course, I don't think Warhol was secretly writing essays about Leibniz,
> either. But he was involved with ideas.
I use anti-intellectualism in the sense that intellectual propositions
are to be distrusted. I in no way mean that there is no thought. In
that way, Warhol is quintessentially American, with are tendency to
rely on John Wayne than Albert Einstein.
>
> > > It seems to me that Duchamp's centrality in the last twenty-five years of
> > > contemporary art dialogue (the way in which he has replaced "Picasso" in
> > > the big Oedipal shoes) is largely because of the intervention of Warhol
> > > and, subsequently, the feminist critique of culture.
> >
> > I didn't know that Picasso had been replaced.
>
> Yeah, he was shown the door in the late seventies.
>
Just because I don't have anything cogent to say at this point doesn't
mean that I necessarily accept your point.
> >It strikes me that the
> > feminist critique has more to do with the Picasso-esque Great Man theory
> > of historical development and that the insurgent strain inherent in the
> > Duchampian critique helped the feminist critique to flourish.
>
> Yes, and those facts help Duchamp to seem relevant and "available" to
> young artists in a way that Picasso isn't.
amos
BTW, my newsreader (Netscape) does not let me respond to a post because
there is more included text than new text. Any way around this?
Euphemism
satt...@us.net wrote:
>[...] To my way of thinking, the Brillo boxes are not readymades.
They are not exactly readymades, but it seems to me that the Brillo Boxes
(and the soup cans and publicity and news photos) are clearly an
extrapolation of the readymade strategy. Warhol substituted "found"
images--vulgar and mechanically reproduced--in place of the expected
unique, esoteric, handmade object of "high culture", a realm that defined
itself as apart from movies, advertising, mass production, "kitsch" and
the associated hoi polloi.
> An essential aspect of the readymade is the use of *modern* materials.
> The subject matter is of less importance than the choice of material.
I'm not sure that this is the primary or "essential" aspect of the readymade.
For this discussion, I think that the designation of the "extra-artistic"
as "art" in such a way as to provoke a reconsideration of artistic
standards (including expectations about the artist's role) is more
germaine.
In any case, I don't think that the materials themselves (porcelin, steel,
etc.) matter as much as the modern mass-production methods which generated
those industrial objects. Do you?
I agree that, in general, "subject matter" is much more important to
Warhol's work than Duchamp's, if that's what you're saying. E.g., it
doesn't matter so much that it's a particular bottle rack, but is does
matter that it's Elvis.
> There are two points to be made about the readymades:
More than two, but go on...
> in the negative
> vien, they challenge the traditional methods and practices as being out
> of step with the industrial present;
I agree, assuming that "traditional methods and practices" include such
things as the definition of an artist and the standards by which art is
legitimated.
> in positive vein, they demand that
> the act of art making be taken seriously at at time when industrial
> processes (photography, etc.) challenge the representational basis that
> may presumed to be the role of art.
Could you please restate this? I don't know what you mean by "they demand
that the act of art making be taken seriously."
>
> Johns and Rauchenberg produces assisted readymades. I contend that
> because he did not use readymade objects, but instead used traditional
> methods to represent everyday objects, Warhol does not fall within the
> Duchampian tradition.
>
Warhol used (more-or-less) unmodified press photos and packaging designs:
readymade images rather than readymade objects. Do you see no connection
between the readymade and Johns' Flags or Targets? I think the Warhol
connection is actually much more direct. (In the case of the Brillo
Boxes, there was very little pictorial abstraction or surface modification
involved: much less "interference" with the found object than anything I
can think of by Johns or Rauchenberg.)
Warhol also used mechanical production techniques (photo-silkscreen, which
was not a traditional fine art production method) and set up a "Factory"
which frankly "mass-produced" artworks (small, medium, large), hardly
standard artworld practice. This seems to fall squarely in Duchamp's
tradition of confronting artistic assumptions with modern conditions of
production.
> > As I understand it, Warhol's Soup Cans and Brillo Boxes (1962-64)
> > scandalized an art world that had, apparently, disregarded (or forgotten)
> > the readymade.
>
> Just because they scandalized, does not mean that they are readymades.
> I would also question the term _scandalized_. I'm not sure what word I
> would use. My understanding is that Warhol was seen as shocking, but
> also as accessible. There is the shock of recognition of one's self
> (Warhol) versus the shock of being told that you are working with
> inoperative concepts (Duchamp, et al)
I'm not sure that Warhol didn't also suggest that something was
inoperative. But it is not my pupose to fold Warhol into Duchamp or
vise-versa: they are very different artists.
> > The readymades can be thought about in a host of ways; hence their
> > durability in discussions such as ours. I'd venture that most views of
> > them involve disruption of artistic standards.
>
> Yes they can be thought of in a host of ways, but only within a fairly
> narrowly defined area. An egg can be thought of in a host of ways, but
> it is still an egg.
I don't know what you mean. Are you suggesting that I'm attributing some
inappropriate quality to the readymade--pretending that an egg is a car?
If so, please specify.
> > Warhol can be seen as extending Duchamp's strategies for unsettling
> > assumptions into the realms of social class (high vs. low, fine vs.
> > applied art) and "consumer" culture (art vs. business, unique vs. mass
> > produced) as well as raising questions about originality and authorship.
>
> I see Duchamp as an elitist, in the true sense of the word, and Warhol
> as a demagogue. Duchamp fought for quality. I believe that he was
> afraid of the easy outs that commercial production allowed. Ergo the
> readymades -- industrial materials pushing the envelope of meaning.
Duchamp was certainly an elitist: the very epitome of a detached
aristocratic aesthete.
Warhol was also a dandy, but with a very different set of experiences and
allegiances. Warhol grew up in poverty during the depression, fatherless
at a young age, sickly, you probably know the story. Duchamp, you also
know, lived a life of privilege in France, in a family of artists. If he
needed cash, he'd sell one of his Brancusi sculptures.
Your allegiance to old-world aristocracy is showing; that's the only way I
can see calling Warhol a demagogue--if he represents a threat that the
hoi-polloi will muddy the rugs.
I think Warhol's work is far too full of contradiction and ambivalence to
regard him as a demagogue.
>
> > It seems to me that Warhol brought Duchamp's readymade, as well as his
> > "indifference" and his repudiation of the expressive mark, front and
> > center in the cultural dialogue during the sixties. ... I still see the
> > attention paid to Warhol as one reason why Duchamp looms so large now.
>
> Again, I think there is a real difference. Duchamp's indifference was
> very specific about artist issues, as was his passions. Warhol's
> indifference was, in my opinion, part of a general persona.
Deliberate indifference shows up most obviously in Warhol's persona, but
also in his delegation of artistic fabrication to assistants, his
willingness to accept accidents and "mistakes" in the finished painting,
and in his filmmaking: sometimes turning on the camera and walking away.
>
[...]
> > > I didn't know that Picasso had been replaced.
> >
> > Yeah, he was shown the door in the late seventies.
> >
I hope you realize that I'm being "flip' here.
I do think that Duchamp and Warhol (to a great extent, Duchamp through
Warhol, to return to the my thesis here) have been the dominant historical
figures that young artists and critics have wrestled with for the past
twenty years or so. Prior to that, I think that a roughly equivalent role
was filled by Picasso, seen through Pollock and deKooning.
>
> BTW, my newsreader (Netscape) does not let me respond to a post because
> there is more included text than new text. Any way around this?
I'm not sure whether it's the newsreader or the server...whatever, I've
had the same problem. I drop in "[...]" and hope that interested parties
will refer to the earlier post.
Satterlee
Euphemism wrote:
>
> satt...@us.net wrote:
Euph: thanks for the challenge
>
> They are not exactly readymades, but it seems to me that the Brillo Boxes
> (and the soup cans and publicity and news photos) are clearly an
> extrapolation of the readymade strategy. Warhol substituted "found"
> images--vulgar and mechanically reproduced--in place of the expected
> unique, esoteric, handmade object of "high culture", a realm that defined
> itself as apart from movies, advertising, mass production, "kitsch" and
> the associated hoi polloi.
1. Do I read you correctly to say that there is an equivalence between
and object and the image of an object?
2. There is tons of stuff packed into your second sentence.
3. First, I believe that there is a difference between high culture and
mass culture. For the sake of shorthand, I refer to the differences as
being between art and entertainment (and of course, there is some of
each in the other. Like I said, it is a shorthand)
4. Duchamp (because he's who this thread is about) cut to the heart of
the issue by trying to identify those criteria that define art, as
opposed to entertainment. One issue was the role of audience in the
life of art versus the life of entertainment. My extrapolation is that
art requires an intimate involvement by the audience, whereas
entertainment does not -- one is entertained and perceptually passive.
5. I will concede that Warhol's objects meet this Duchampian measure,
but then so does Picasso's work.
> > An essential aspect of the readymade is the use of *modern* materials.
> > The subject matter is of less importance than the choice of material.
>
> I'm not sure that this is the primary or "essential" aspect of the readymade.
>
> For this discussion, I think that the designation of the "extra-artistic"
> as "art" in such a way as to provoke a reconsideration of artistic
> standards (including expectations about the artist's role) is more
> germaine.
Please clarify.
> In any case, I don't think that the materials themselves (porcelin, steel,
> etc.) matter as much as the modern mass-production methods which generated
> those industrial objects. Do you?
It is difficult for me to separate the two. The materials/finished
objects are a result of a specific process. I think it is fruitful to
separate the idea of an industrial process from the idea of
mass-produced.
1. You can use and industrial process or the materials from an
industrial process to produce unique items.
2. Mass produced objects are mass produced objects. Duchamp picked one
object out of a stream of similar objects, in this case urinals, and
said: this one is unique. By doing so, he change the relation of the
audience to the urinal by asking/demanding active audience reaction to
the urnial, rather than a passive acceptance of the object.
3. Further, there are issues of techology in the urnial that no one here
has addressed (that I've seen). A fountain was a relatively rare feat
of technology. The urnial represents ubiquitous central plumbing.
> I agree that, in general, "subject matter" is much more important to
> Warhol's work than Duchamp's, if that's what you're saying. E.g., it
> doesn't matter so much that it's a particular bottle rack, but is does
> matter that it's Elvis.
This gets to the crux of the difference, and why I think Warhol's
approach is different than Duchamp's. In a counterintuitive streak, I
would say that it DOES matter which particular bottle rack because the
choices an artist makes are not trivial, while it DOESN'T matter that it
is Elvis per se, but that it is another entertainment icon to play
with. What I'm fumbling at here is that the image of Elvis, or Marilyn,
etc. are not important but are just starting points for a Matissian type
of color explosion.
>
> > There are two points to be made about the readymades:
>
> More than two, but go on...
>
smart ass...
> > in the negative
> > vien, they challenge the traditional methods and practices as being out
> > of step with the industrial present;
>
> I agree, assuming that "traditional methods and practices" include such
> things as the definition of an artist and the standards by which art is
> legitimated.
I think I agree...
> > in positive vein, they demand that
> > the act of art making be taken seriously at at time when industrial
> > processes (photography, etc.) challenge the representational basis that
> > may presumed to be the role of art.
>
> Could you please restate this? I don't know what you mean by "they demand
> that the act of art making be taken seriously."
1. Prior to industrialization, the act of making art and the act of
representing known reality were inexorably linked.
2. The development of photography called into question this link because
the photograph could represent reality without any pretense to being
art.
3. With the readymades, Duchamp tried to address the issue art making,
now that the *emperor's clothes* (vis Mdeli) of representation had been
lifted.
4. The readymades demanded that the act of making choices as one
criterion of art making be taken seriously.
> > Johns and Rauchenberg produces assisted readymades. I contend that
> > because he did not use readymade objects, but instead used traditional
> > methods to represent everyday objects, Warhol does not fall within the
> > Duchampian tradition.
> >
>
> Warhol used (more-or-less) unmodified press photos and packaging designs:
> readymade images rather than readymade objects. Do you see no connection
> between the readymade and Johns' Flags or Targets?
You are correct in terms of images. I'm still stumbling over the issue
of intent.
> I think the Warhol
> connection is actually much more direct. (In the case of the Brillo
> Boxes, there was very little pictorial abstraction or surface modification
> involved: much less "interference" with the found object than anything I
> can think of by Johns or Rauchenberg.)
You're making it tough. I'm gonna have to think about this one.
> Warhol also used mechanical production techniques (photo-silkscreen, which
> was not a traditional fine art production method) and set up a "Factory"
> which frankly "mass-produced" artworks (small, medium, large), hardly
> standard artworld practice. This seems to fall squarely in Duchamp's
> tradition of confronting artistic assumptions with modern conditions of
> production.
I always took this as one big piece of irony, with reference to the
atelier tradition rather than about industrial processes.
> > Just because they scandalized, does not mean that they are readymades.
> > I would also question the term _scandalized_. I'm not sure what word I
> > would use. My understanding is that Warhol was seen as shocking, but
> > also as accessible. There is the shock of recognition of one's self
> > (Warhol) versus the shock of being told that you are working with
> > inoperative concepts (Duchamp, et al)
>
> I'm not sure that Warhol didn't also suggest that something was
> inoperative. But it is not my pupose to fold Warhol into Duchamp or
> vise-versa: they are very different artists.
What did Warhol suggest as inoperative?
I'm not trying to fold one into the other. I'm trying to come to grips
with some basic concepts. I have had troubles with Warhol since I saw
his silver ballons when I was 10. There was an exhibition at the
short-lived Washington Modern Museum which included Warhol and Oldenburg
and others. I was certainly intrigued by the silver balloons, and I
have a great fondness for them. But are they art? (Mdeli, we already
know your answer).
If they are art, then I contend they are so because they redefine the
space of their environment for no discernible reason other than the act
of redefinition. They demand a reaction, not only about themselves, but
about the rest of the room they are in.
Yes, Warhol learned the lessons that Duchamp taught, but I don't think
Warhol's work was based on the Duchampian proposals.
> > > The readymades can be thought about in a host of ways; hence their
> > > durability in discussions such as ours. I'd venture that most views of
> > > them involve disruption of artistic standards.
> >
> > Yes they can be thought of in a host of ways, but only within a fairly
> > narrowly defined area. An egg can be thought of in a host of ways, but
> > it is still an egg.
>
> I don't know what you mean. Are you suggesting that I'm attributing some
> inappropriate quality to the readymade--pretending that an egg is a car?
> If so, please specify.
No big deal. A backhanded way of asking what the boundaries of
readymades are in this kind of discussion.
>
> > > Warhol can be seen as extending Duchamp's strategies for unsettling
> > > assumptions into the realms of social class (high vs. low, fine vs.
> > > applied art) and "consumer" culture (art vs. business, unique vs. mass
> > > produced) as well as raising questions about originality and authorship.
> >
> > I see Duchamp as an elitist, in the true sense of the word, and Warhol
> > as a demagogue. Duchamp fought for quality. I believe that he was
> > afraid of the easy outs that commercial production allowed. Ergo the
> > readymades -- industrial materials pushing the envelope of meaning.
>
> Duchamp was certainly an elitist: the very epitome of a detached
> aristocratic aesthete.
> Warhol was also a dandy, but with a very different set of experiences and
> allegiances. Warhol grew up in poverty during the depression, fatherless
> at a young age, sickly, you probably know the story. Duchamp, you also
> know, lived a life of privilege in France, in a family of artists. If he
> needed cash, he'd sell one of his Brancusi sculptures.
>
1. I meant elite not in a socio-economic sense, but in the sense that he
was trying to set high standards for artistic enterprise. I don't think
that his background has any more importance than Degas's.
> Your allegiance to old-world aristocracy is showing;
Ooh, starting to get personal... :)
> that's the only way I
> can see calling Warhol a demagogue--if he represents a threat that the
> hoi-polloi will muddy the rugs.
You are right, demagogue is probably the wrong word. What I'm trying to
get at is the idea that Warhol's work was more about entertainment than
art. There is definitely that aspect of it.
> I think Warhol's work is far too full of contradiction and ambivalence to
> regard him as a demagogue.
<snip>
> > Again, I think there is a real difference. Duchamp's indifference was
> > very specific about artist issues, as was his passions. Warhol's
> > indifference was, in my opinion, part of a general persona.
>
> Deliberate indifference shows up most obviously in Warhol's persona, but
> also in his delegation of artistic fabrication to assistants, his
> willingness to accept accidents and "mistakes" in the finished painting,
> and in his filmmaking: sometimes turning on the camera and walking away.
Let me put it another way: I think Duchamp was sticking his tongue out
at the mass culture which was trying (as it always does) to co-opt art,
while Warhol was sticking his tongue out at the art world. Is there a
difference here?
> [...]
> > > > I didn't know that Picasso had been replaced.
> > >
> > > Yeah, he was shown the door in the late seventies.
> > >
> I hope you realize that I'm being "flip' here.
Yes and no. If you think I'm struggling with Warhol,...
>
> I do think that Duchamp and Warhol (to a great extent, Duchamp through
> Warhol, to return to the my thesis here) have been the dominant historical
> figures that young artists and critics have wrestled with for the past
> twenty years or so. Prior to that, I think that a roughly equivalent role
> was filled by Picasso, seen through Pollock and deKooning.
Interesting. I'm not directly involved with that many youngsters, but
those that I run into find Duchamp to be an enigma. Only at my
insistence do they take him on. Most of them are looking at cubist
spaces and more painterly concerns of observation and representation,
whether traditional or abstracted.
amos
Lorri
I do!!!!!!!!
However, in order to do this, you must be able to draw. If I posted that I'd start
another spam war. I suspect many more people would like to do this, but lack the ability
to draw well enough. I know some personally.
By his own admission, Frank Stella can't draw, but would have loved to be able to.
Lorri
drookes <dro...@direct.ca> wrote:
>As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
>this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
>representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
>Representational as you know means recognizable stuff. And it can be
>done in any manner whatsoever. Broadbrush virtuosity; niggling little
>strokes; slick and snappy, anywhichway.
> And does this person do this for most of the day?
> I don't want to know from modern or abstract or whatever you want to
>call it. There's plenty of that. Just "realist" art.
> Now, don't be embarassed to admit it. There's plenty of us out
>here. More than one would think. And yes, we're fairly intelligent
>people. We can hold a conversation more than five minutes. And yes, we
>do believe in what we do. And yes, we do believe that it is ART!
> And we do believe that there is so much room for our development and
>keener understanding of what we do. And yes, in its own way it is very,
>very, very complex. This is why so many don't do it and most who do
>don't do it very well. It is an endless evolution to be sure.
Ehud Tal
drookes wrote:
>
> John,
> Very simply and nicely put. Noise. But such a statement could get
> you in a heap of trouble around here. I've got the scars to prove it
> and I only just arrived. With compliments and condolences,
> HB
"(f)art" includes noise under "music", since Duchamp's close friend -
John Cage. And what is a Pollock schmier if not noise?!
THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT !!!
thanks, john,
Ehud Tal
http://www.geocities.com/~bbbsot
wsparker
Ehud Tal wrote:
> THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT !!!
>
Another statement without a context... .
Where have you been? After all that work we did for helping you clarify
your thoughts.
Now back to our story. When are you going to respond to Euphemism's
query. Has the post expired yet?
What are you proposing to substitute for your rejection of the status
quo in contemporary art, in all its variety; i.e. curators, historians,
intellectuals, artists who can think, scholars, educational
institutions, contemporary speculations on artmaking in general?
R. Alzofon
> As I'm winding down this wonderful sojourn on the Internet, I must ask
> this question: Is there anyone out there actually painting
> representational work on a canvas, or pastel or charcoal to paper?
> And does this person do this for most of the day?
---------
Yes. I do that.
--
R. Alzofon
http://art.net/~rebecca
Ehud Tal
wsparker wrote:
>
> Ehud Tal wrote:
>
> > THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT !!!
> >
>
> Another statement without a context... .
>
???
> Where have you been? After all that work we did for helping you clarify
> your thoughts.
>
Thanks for your concern. The phone company was striking, and I was cut
off my precious internet. Then I was in beautiful Istanbul for the
weekend. But as you say:
"Now back to our story"
> When are you going to respond to Euphemism's
> query. Has the post expired yet?
>
Soon, I promise. I'm working on putting it down in english.
> What are you proposing to substitute for your rejection of the status
> quo in contemporary art, in all its variety; i.e. curators, historians,
> intellectuals, artists who can think,
If they can think, howcome they don't question themselves??
> scholars, educational
> institutions, contemporary speculations on artmaking in general?
All this 'variety' holds one opinion in common: "all is art, all are
artists". (to be continued...)
Ehud Tal
http://www.geocities.com/~bbbsot
Bruce Attah
In article <32D0D3...@olympus.net>, w...@olympus.net wrote:
[addressing Ehud Tal]
> When are you going to respond to Euphemism's
> query. Has the post expired yet?
What was Euphemism's query, if you don't mind my asking?
wsparker
Ehud Tal wrote:
>
> wsparker wrote:
> >
> > Ehud Tal wrote:
>
> > What are you proposing to substitute for your rejection of the status
> > quo in contemporary art, in all its variety; i.e. curators, historians,
> > intellectuals, artists who can think,
>
> If they can think, howcome they don't question themselves??
>
Now, this is patently absurd! What do you think IS the nature of
discourse?
> > scholars, educational
> > institutions, contemporary speculations on artmaking in general?
>
> All this 'variety' holds one opinion in common: "all is art, all are
> artists".
This is outrageous bullshit, it is reductionism at its most pernicious
extreme.
It is saying: "They all look alike!"
wsparker
(I appreciate your asking, I just wish you and I could do without the
testiness.)
Anyway here is the original question, which is followed by most of the
article originally containing it by Euphemite (it has expired from the
nsgrp). I have also taken the liberty to include a sample of ET's
writing from his web site. Compare the "scholarship quotient" between
the two.
> From - Fri Dec 27 16:43:23 1996
>
> Euphemism wrote asking of Ehud Tal:
> >
> >
>
> You started by asking for the criteria for judging art and selecting art
> for museum display. These criteria are primarily defined by and debated
> among art professionals and intellectuals. Unfortunately, the history of
> twentieth century art is not really part of the common culture, in the US
> at any rate. As a result, people may reasonably be baffled by some of the
> art that is highly regarded within the "art world."
>
> This is a problem worth considering, but I doubt that anti-intellectualism
> is the solution. What's your alternative?
We want to know what his (E.T.) alternative would be....
What follows is most of the original post by Euphemite;
> >
> > > 1. are there criteria in deciding what "modern" [let's say post-urinal]
> > > art piece is better than another?
> > > 2. what are they?
> >
> > Yes, there are criteria for judgement, although I don't think the vast
> > body of art activity since 1917 can usefully be ordered in a hirarchy of
> > "best" to "worst," as your question seems to imply.
> >
> > Many of these "quiz" questions suggest that the questioner longs for a
> > culture that is as unambigous as a weight-lifting championship. Can you
> > reasonably expect to find an unchanging yardstick which can apply to all
> > art works regardless of form, time and place? This would imply that all
> > works are better-or-worse approximations of the same ideal--a dubious
> > premise. More to the point, it devalues the relationship of the "'modern'
> > art piece" to other art works, to the place and time in which the work is
> > being exhibited, to other aspects of culture, even to other works by the
> > same artist. If you've decided from the outset that these contingincies
> > are irrelevant--that the art is the object inside the frame, irrespective
> > of context, history and other "intellectual" matters--then Duchamp's
> > readymade is indeed the devil, as it opened the door to consideration of
> > such things in the context of art.
>
> >
> > The criteria will shift in relation to the work, the exhibition context,
> > and the values of the viewer. This does not mean that "everything's
> > relative" or "it's all subjective." Rather, there are several
> > sophisticated points of view in the discussion of art, and different
> > issues take on urgency at different times, in response to changing
> > conditions. The work that is most highly valued is likely to be that
> > which seems most provocative or compelling in terms of that ongoing
> > discussion. Over time, this regard is manifest in the work's influence on
> > other artists.
>
> >
> > For example, art might be valued because: it challenges the viewer's
> > assumptions about art; it provides an experience of that which cannot be
> > expressed in language; it provocatively reflects the social conditions of
> > production; it vividly describes subjective experience; it displays
> > unusual formal invention or astute analysis of form, or it represents
> > interests or "voices" that have been omitted or overlooked in the art
> > discourse.
> >
> > These criteria share an understanding that art is not identical to craft.
> > In other words, a display of mastery of some pre-industrial craft, e.g.,
> > Italian renaissance-style fresco painting, will be subject to questions
> > like "what does it mean to use these antiquated production techniques
> > now?" Educated artists are aware of the history and connotations of the
> > forms and techniques they use, and they account for those connotations in
> > their work.
>
>
> >
> > You started by asking for the criteria for judging art and selecting art
> > for museum display. These criteria are primarily defined by and debated
> > among art professionals and intellectuals. Unfortunately, the history of
> > twentieth century art is not really part of the common culture, in the US
> > at any rate. As a result, people may reasonably be baffled by some of the
> > art that is highly regarded within the "art world."
> >
> > This is a problem worth considering, but I doubt that anti-intellectualism
> > is the solution. What's your alternative?
> >
ANYWAY here is EHUD Tal's published answer. From his website:
> Why There's Nothing to See Today
>
> by Ehud Tal
>
>
> Just what is it that made the great masters so great? Why do people enjoy Picasso's
> works? The answer to this question is also the very essence of art. Not only in great
> masterpieces does this element appear, but in any creation that affects us. In fact, a work
> of art, be it visual, musical or of any kind, is only "effective" if it conveys this elusive
> "something". It is almost impossible to define this "something", but its presence in
> any work of art can't be mistaken for anything less. In my opinion, only creations that
> use this affect us in this deep way are worthy of the title: "art".
>
> How come some artworks have this "something" and others don't? How is it that since
> the Abstract-Expressionism movement there is so much less of it appearing in the
> galleries and museums?
>
> The answer is regretfully simple, and connected to the obvious fact that it's the artist's
> talent and originality that gives his work the "something". It is the sentence said by
> 'ordinary' people about Abstract-Expressionism, "Ready-Made"s, (especially about
> Pollock and Duchamp): "I can do this myself!". This was taken deviously seriously by
> some greedy so-called "arti$ts", who saw the "easy money" in this line of work. This
> was happening at the same time when art traders and critics became the moving force in
> art, and art became an industry, manufacturing commodities. The art "market" favored
> "artists" such as Jean-Michel Ba$quiat, and the trend in art schools is to teach how to be
> a rich artist by conforming to the ugliness that has become the symbol of art today.
>
> However, no dirty piece of "ready-made" cardboard or wood with "expressive" junk
> glued to it, and no huge "painting" (actually done from slides or a photograph, to cover
> for the laziness and lack of talent of the "artist") with some incoherent text written all
> over it (it is very easy to write, and painting is so tiresome...), could stand the test of
> effectiveness. Because this kind of "art" is lacking the "something", it is bound to fail
> in the viewer's mind. The art "market" couldn't stand someone saying "I can do that",
> for it will lower the value that was so painstakingly achieved for this otherwise
> junkyard material.
>
> That's why the traders, critics and other hangers-on all had to invent an excuse why
> their inventory of junk is art, and not something any junkyard dweller could come-up
> with. The excuse was that the work of art happens only in the viewer's mind, and
> therefore no interpretation, not even the artist's own, is right or wrong. This also
> allows the artist to rid himself of the tedious task of creating something new, of aspiring
> for a true masterpiece, for he can just put anything there, and the viewer's mind will
> make something of it. Art is therefore, as this philosophy claims, not an interaction
> between the artist and viewer.
>
> This is, of course, quite silly, because it denies the fact that the artist has to put
> "something" into his work in order for it to do this "something" in the viewer's
> mind. But who cares about "something"s, when there's money at stake!
>
> This philosophy, commonly known as Post-Modernism, has some other themes to it,
> which reflect in the "art" made in its name, and they will be discussed in the next issue
> of "The Modern Post" magazine.
>
> Yet the real problem, the basic cause for the above mentioned defects, is the simple fact
> that text is today more important than the art it's written about (and sometimes on). If
> you just stroll, and browse through an exhibition of contemporary "art", it will all look
> like the same PoMo junk there is everywhere: incoherent, ugly, and most of all -
> rightfully makes you think "I can do this shit myself". What, then, makes it art?
> NOTHING,except this pitiful excuse for a philosophy called Post-Modernism,
> reflecting from text, text and more text written about why it is art. No amount of
> text in the world could change the viewer's basic response to the presence or lack of the
> basic indicator of art - that "something". When there is nothing to a work except the
> pseudo-intellectual, textual contexts and "images", no honest man could be reached,
> moved or stimulated by it.
>
>
>
> Comments? Write to the editor EHUD TAL
>
Euphemism
Thank you wsp for reposting some of my answers to Ehud Tal's "pop quiz",
and for inviting responses to the "what alternative?" question.
E.T. did respond to some of my remarks, and I responded in turn. In case
you missed it, Ehud, I'm attaching my second "quiz" post below. I'd be
pleased if you (or anyone) would care to comment.
-------------------------------------------
Ehud Tal <bbb...@geocities.com> wrote:
> can you honestly say one painting by Pollock is better than another?
> can you honestly say the urinal is better than the bicycle wheel?
Yes, these pieces can be critically compared, but my time is limited.
If you aren't satisfied with other responses to these, please say so, and
I'll give it a try. Likewise the other questions I'm skipping here.
> > For example, art might be valued because: it challenges the viewer's
> > assumptions about art;
>
> yes, only if it is done artistically!
In other words, "Go ahead, challenge my assumptions; just don't challenge
any of my assumptions."
(With a tip of the cap to wsparker for identifying your use of "done
artistically" "in an artistic manner" and "*real* art" as "occult." Are
the asterisks magic?)
> but what about all other people? those who have no idea of when and
> where the renaissance "happened", or even what it was. see the earlier
> remark on knowledge not being a condition.
If knowledge isn't a condition, how do you evaluate anything? Are you
saying that your conclusions about art (or craft) are not based on
knowledge? Are you making an argument in favor of ignorance?
> > > 3. are any criteria used in deciding what belongs in a museum and what
> > > doesn't? 4. if there are, what are they?
> >
> > See above. Less exalted criteria figure in, of course, as with any social
> > activity.
> >
> sorry, i didn't get that (inglich me bad, me no yankee).
I mean that friendships, sleeping arrangements, laziness, fear,
you-scratch-my-back, etc. influence what gets shown in museums. Maybe
this is so obvious that it doesn't need to be said; such factors influence
any institution I've ever come across. But some folks--young ones,
mostly--seemed shocked to discover that "connections" are involved.
> museums have turned into part of "pissing art", a tool used by "artists"
> for their "experiments" and urinals, instead of being mere
> concentrations of art works, for the public's benefit.
I'm still confused. Are you saying that museums are good as long as they
only show old (pre-1917?) art?
> > > 9. define "artist"
> > >
> > Artists are people who produce art.
>
> true, though symplistic. anyway, i was looking for a Duchampian
> definition.
No doubt Duchamp would have been wittier (sp?), but I don't think that he
would disagree. I guess you're fishing for something like "an artist
selects or designates."
> > Educated artists are expected to
> > rigorously account for the choices they make.
> true.
> BTW, how does (or did...) Pollock account for a certain spill's place
> and shape?
> and how about John Cage's noises? without control, there can be no
> responsibility, for better or worse...-
Both of these artists pointedly admitted chance effects into their work,
again following your pal Duchamp, as in the "Three Standard Stoppages" of
1913-14. Pollock and Cage did not abandon responsibility for their work:
they structured their work in such a way as to include random forces, or
"chance operations" as Cage called them.
If you'll agree that art has something to do with giving form to
experience, then you might ask whether uncontrollable forces are any part
of experience. One thing that these artists did was question artists'
relationship to "control."
> -...and Duchamp's (???) urinal, what did he choose there (specific
> materials, location, imagery, style, scale etc.?)
Did you really try to answer this? The choice of a mass-produced product
of modern industry (as opposed to unique hand-crafts) made for a
particularly "debased" use (as opposed to the lofty ideals of the
beaux-arts) signed by an unknown (as opposed to established) artist
submitted to an "open" exhibition (where it was refused, underlining the
assumptions of the show's organizers)... Do these choices make sense?
> >
> > I guess most Europeans and North Americans learn about Michelangelo and
> > Leonardo through primary school, TV, and religious indoctrination.
> north americans, si
> europeans, no.
> ever been to europe? if you have, you know what i mean. americans (north
> americans, to be exact and PC), tend to be quite superficial sometimes,
> and nouveau-rich most of the time.
I agree that Europeans are steeped in old European culture, whereas Norte
Americanos tend to have recieved it as "good medicine."
Speaking of "patronizing," look at those remarks about Americans.
> > Generally, their names are defined in terms of individual genius and
> > timeless masterpieces. [ ...]
>
> something you can't say about today's "artists", but hear alot from
> their friends/"critics"/agents/dealers etc.
I think that "timeless masterpiece" is mostly a marketing catagory at this
point. Not many educated artists and critics would believe such a thing
exists except as fiction, but dealers and curators may keep it alive if
their clients enjoy the fantasy.
> > > 22. what is the common opinion (and statement) about the urinal?
>
> it is also what is said about most "(f)art":
> "i can do that"
> "this ain't art"
> (q.v."trailor park Duchamp")
What are you saying here? That if somebody (in a trailer park?) doesn't
"get" it, it is disqualified as art?
I understand if you want to argue against the readymade, but this is a
really weird version of the "argument from authority."
> by saying urinals are art, the definition, 5000 years old, was changed,
> therefore the previous definition of non-art is retroactively wrong. if
> non-art was art, then art was more than people thought, or for short:
> they were wrong (according to 20th century "art").
Please forgive my bluntness: this is very confused thinking.
A. What is this 5,000 year old definition? Where does it come from? Once
again, it seems that you're assuming there's an immortal yardstick (or a
Divine "Word") for judging art.
B. Have all changes in the history of western art meant that the past was
"retroactively wrong"? Did the advent of linear perspective declare
previous artists wrong? Did Cezanne's approach to painting imply that
Leonardo was wrong?
I think you are confusing the idea that "the past is past" with "the past
is wrong."
> > It seems that artists and critics who address the ways class interests
> > shape art are exactly the ones that you are attacking.
> >
> whatever...
> > >
My original response about this wasn't very complete. I'll try to clarify:
I thought it ironic that artists (and writers) who investigate the kind of
things that you seem uncomfortable with--how some art gets valued over
other art, how money and social position influence this, how some claims
for art may not be sustainable--are among those that you want to dismiss
as less than *real*.
Duchamp is an important instigator of this kind of inquiry; Warhol is
another obvious source. There are many artists, both academic (e.g.
Sherrie Levine, Daniel Buren, most of the work discussed in 'October'
magazine), and otherwise (Robert Williams, Jeff Koons, Sue Williams) who,
in very different ways, question or attack "prevailing standards."
As I write this, I realize that I was mistaken: it isn't ironic, because
you don't want to question standards at all, but to affirm them. Right?
wsparker
Ehud Tal wrote:
>
> > It is saying: "They all look alike!"
>
I'll answer this question. I don't think it will matter though.
To say "they all look alike" in this context means you have a crude view
of a situation.
To conclude "they all look alike" in this context means you probably do
not have the desire to see the differences. It means you are probably
unaware of, or worse, at ease with your ignorance.
When other people appreciate the differences, they have some gratitude
for what those subtleties reveal and you come along and say "they all
look alike" you would probably appear to be extremely offensive.
Ehud Tal
D.D.Barton
i 'attempt to"....i work in a representational and expressionaist
style....but with children...work...and school i really have to fight
for the time!!
D D Barton
D.D.Barton
I would love to hear peoples view of the difference between modernism
and postmodernism?...
wsparker
D.D.Barton wrote:
>
> I would love to hear peoples view of the difference between modernism
> and postmodernism?...
Postmodernism is what is happening today; it is unequivocally that for
which the later half of the twentieth century will be remembered. It is
also so huge that it there are many disagreements within it.
If you want to keep your eyes closed and twaddle on about art using
principles you acquired back in old fashioned art school don't bother
reading any of the following which is a useful FAQ about the most
important revolution in thinking and artrmaking of our time.
My own prejudice against the limited mentality of ONLY a few here
notwithstanding, the rest of us might learn something by some reading
what follows:
{1.0}
Permission to copy and share this file without monetary profit is
granted provided this statement and the author's name appear in the
file. NONE OF THE PUBLISHED SOURCES QUOTED HERE UNDER FAIR USE HAVE
GIVEN THEIR WRITTEN PERMISSION TO BE QUOTED IN A FAQ FILE APPEARING ON
THE NET. Please distribute this file with due recognition
of copyright laws and original authors' and publishers' rights and
credits. The purpose of this file is purely educational.
Van Piercy
English Dept., Indiana University
Copyr. 1996. An alt.postmodern FAQ file, Version 1.05
Other places to find this file:
Anonymous ftp and web sites:
ftp.seas.gwu.edu/pub/rtfm/alt/postmodern/An_Alt.Postmodern_FAQ
http://helios.augustana-edu/%7Egmb/postmodern/faq1.html
{1.01}
LATEST VERSION CHANGES
In versions 1.01 through 1.05 most of the changes are cosmetic. Typos
have been corrected, elements of format have been made more consistent,
the digest streamlined and supplemented, and a few additions made to the
bibliography sections. Any corrections, errors, bad links, etc.,
should
be made known to VPI...@INDIANA.EDU.
{1.02}
FUTURE INTENDED CHANGES
Some suggestions for changes to this FAQ include: expanding the digest
section to include different threads and voices on the group; a resource
guide for items on the internet that discuss the postmodern; and more
bibliographic sections and short introductory essays on topics closely
associated with ideas about the postmodern, e.g., semiotics,
architecture, fiction, fine arts, etc.
My gratitude to everyone who has been in e-mail contact with me
discussing this FAQ, its plusses and minuses. If you'd like to author a
section in this FAQ or have ideas about it contact VPI...@INDIANA.EDU.
WHAT THIS FILE CONTAINS:
*****
1.0 Statement of limited copyright and notice of fair use.
1.01 Latest version changes.
1.02 Future intended changes to this FAQ.
1.1 A discussion of what this FAQ is trying to do and its philosophy
for
doing it.
2.0 How to find out more about what "postmodern" means.
2.1 Two basic issues central to many discussions of the postmodern.
2.2 A very short bibliographic essay on Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida
and
Deleuze.
3.0 Three reference work definitions of the postmodern.
4.0 Twenty statements about postmodernism by published authors.
5.0 A short bibliography and note on other bibliographies.
5.1 Some principal or primary sources.
5.2 General works, anthologies, and secondary sources.
5.3 A list of works on modernity, modernism and the avant-garde.
5.4 A minimal list of writings on postmodernism and its relation to
religion, Japan and cyberpunk.
6.0 A digest of an alt.postmodern newsgroup thread on aestheticism,
fascism, futurism, Benjamin, and landscape design.
6.1 Final word.
*****
{1.1}
This is a "FAQ" (Frequently Asked Questions) file that has few of
the questions in it but tries to enlist many of the various answers.
It is not exhaustive.
A number of users cruising this newsgroup before have asked for a
FAQ file, and while this particular FAQ file cannot hope to be
definitive, it does try to meet that basic, initial need for information
to the most common questions, "What is postmodernism?" "How do I find
out more about it?"
This FAQ should be of use for research into the question of the
postmodern, and I hope that even experienced students of postmodernism
will find it a serviceable source of reference. I have tried to include
detailed and accurate information on the bibliographic entries.
This file is not meant to be monolithically definitive or singularly
authoritative, nor is it meant to supplant the knowledge or opinions
of others on this group, many of whom might have serious questions or
reservations about elements or assumptions of this file. This FAQ is
only one person's take on a very broad and evolving field of cultural
dispute, and is offered in a spirit of collegiality and general
education.
This FAQ can be read at least on three distinct levels each
corresponding to one of its major sections: 1) as a relatively quick
overview of the term "postmodern" as it is found in some standard
reference works; 2) as a bibliography and research aid for the student
of postmodernism, and 3) as an examination of what published and
varyingly "recognized" authorities have to say about the subject in
their own words. Reading these crystallized statements of what
postmodernism is taken to be by accomplished writers in the field should
introduce a sense of the thematics and semantics, the "language games"
and politics, at play in even attempting to define what the postmodern
is. For my part, in organizing and selecting the quotations I have
tried to present conservative positions, traditionalist, humanist and
reactionary positions, as well as Nietzschean, progressive, socialist,
feminist and Marxian and neo-Marxian positions on the postmodern. To my
mind, it is easier for a document of this type to err on the side of
exclusivity and ideological purity than it is to err on the side of
pluralism and report of the variety of serious opinion on the topic.
Ideally, there will be future additions to this file, and perhaps
even other FAQ files will be made that compete with this file and
construct the field in different ways. Imagine a newsgroup with four or
five different, partly overlapping, lengthy FAQ files all ostensibly
covering the same topic (and not just well established or recognized
sub-topics or specialist fields)! I submit that that is a reasonable
possibility in an alt.postmodern newsgroup.
{2.0}
HOW DO I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT POSTMODERNISM?
(Or, "What should I know about this stuff?")
Either of these is a daunting question. My answer would
be for you to read this FAQ file, read some of the books listed in this
FAQ file, follow the exchanges on this newsgroup, put questions to the
newsgroup's posters, and, as a productive exercise, find out what
modernism is or is supposed to have been, and what values and
assumptions it championed. To that end, I've included a bibliographic
section on modernity and the avant-garde to offer some assistance. Some
especially serious critics of postmodern thought can be found there
(Habermas, Giddens, Taylor, Williams). These writers in particular
insist on the complex and on-going nature of the modernist enterprise
and reject the notion that postmodernism represents any sustained and
substantial break from it. Readers can further enact for themselves a
similar political and ideological confrontation that can be said to have
occurred in the American context between modernist and postmodernist in
the conjuncture between Lionel Trilling's _The Liberal Imagination_
(Viking 1950) and Susan Sontag's _Against Interpretation_ (Laurel 1969).
{2.1}
The opportunity to generate polemic in any discussion of the
postmodern is prodigious. Keeping an eye on the two following basic
issues can often help orient one to the various politics and agendas
that tend to cloud or obscure different discussions of the postmodern.
One is the problem of critical distance and the other is a problem of
nomenclature.
1) What is the author's take on the idea that critical distance and
the potential for real objectivity are unattainable? This question can
be seen at work in both Haraway's comments (see below) about what she
sees as Jameson's main thesis on postmodernism, and in Laclau's mapping
of an "analytic terrain" where the "given" is no longer a viable myth.
Pejoratively put, this collapse of critical distance is decried as
"aestheticist" or as aestheticizing ideology in many discussions
(Norris). The usual implication is that the culprits are decadent,
apolitical and dangerously irrational. The historical antecedents
referred to are often Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde's "dandyism" and the
"Art for Art's sake" movement. Whereas for many differently oriented
commentators those same decriers of aestheticism are often themselves
denounced as totalitarian rationalists, modernists, "mere" moralizers,
reactionaries and unsophisticated know-nothings (Haraway; Giroux).
2) The terms postmodern, postmodernity and postmodernism can be seen
to associate or conjure different meanings: the term postmodern is
inclusively ambiguous of what people mean when they talk about issues
that come up in discussions of postmodernity and postmodernism.
Postmodernity is a sign for contemporary society, for the stage of
technological and economic organization which our society has reached.
Postmodernism then can be, as Eco says, a "spiritual" category rather
than a discrete period in history; a "style" in the arts and in culture
indebted to ironic and parodic pastiche as well as to a sense of history
now seen less as a story of lineal progression and triumph than as a
story of recurring cycles.
Analogously, and only for purposes of illustration, the condition
of modernity is often spoken of as the rapid pace and texture of life
in a society experienced as the result of the industrial revolution
(Berman). However, modern_ism_ is a movement in culture and the arts
usually identified as a period and style beginning with impressionism as
a break with Realism in the fine arts and in literature. Prior to
modernism one finds periods and styles associated with other distinct
aesthetic movements, e.g., Romanticism and Realism. For instance, both
Blake and Balzac, Romantic and Realist representatives respectively,
could be said to have had some experience of modernity, to have lived
during the early stages of the expansion of bourgeois or industrial
capitalism and technology and science, whereas no one thinks of their
respective arts or modes of expression as obviously "modernist."
{2.2}
Finally, I must emphasize that certain influential figures who
converge in discussions of the postmodern, themselves rarely use the
word
"postmodern" and do not describe their theories or discourses in that
way.
Their theories can't be simply reduced to "postmodernism" without
controversy, and yet their arguments are drawn on and criticized very
often in the name of what goes by the "postmodern." The works of
Friedrich
Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze are
prevalent in discussions on the postmodern (and this insistent close
association probably explains the oft-remarked failure to distinguish
between post-structuralism and post- modernism).
I'd suggest that it is important for following discussions of
postmodern theory to study and know Nietzsche's philosophy and espe-
cially his short essay on history, _On the Advantage and Disadvantage
of History for Life_ (transl. Peter Preuss. Indianapolis: Hackett,
1980). An acquaintance with the writings of Foucault, Derrida and
Deleuze can be useful. They have all been profound students or readers
of Nietzsche, part of a "return to Nietzsche" or the "New Nietzsche"
movement in France in the 1960s. There's a nice collection of
Foucault's writings edited by Paul Rabinow titled _The Foucault Reader_
published by Pantheon Books, 1984. For Derrida, to pick a citation for
him almost at random, see the essay "Differance" in _Margins of
Philosophy_ (transl. Alan Bass. Chicago UP, 1982). On Deleuze, the best
way into his ideas is to dive into one of his texts and keep going. The
most rewarding introduction to his work that I've seen is by Brian
Massumi, who translated _Milles Plateaux_, titled _A User's Guide to
Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari_
(MIT Press, 1992). By no means is this group of suggested readings
intended to be limiting or exhaustive. I am only pointing out what seem
particularly plausible or telling routes of entry into these writers'
ideas.
{3.0}
WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?
Here are three published definitions from "standard" reference
works (cross-references are cited below in the FAQ bibliography
section):
(A) "Post-modernism[:] The break away from 19th-century values is often
classified as modernism and carries the connotations of transgression
and rebellion. However, the last twenty years has seen a change in this
attitude towards focussing upon a series of unresolvable philosophical
and social debates, such as race, gender and class. Rather than
challenging and destroying cultural definitions, as does modernism,
post-modernism resists the very idea of boundaries. It regards
distinctions as undesirable and even impossible, so that an almost
Utopian world, free from all constraints, becomes possible.
"It must be realized though, that post-modernism has many
interpretations and that no single definition is adequate. Different
disciplines have participated in the post-modernist movement in
varying ways, for example, in architecture traditional limits have
become indistinguishable, so that what is commonly on the outside of a
building is placed within, and vice versa. In literature, writers adopt
a self-conscious intertextuality sometimes verging on pastiche, which
denies the formal propriety of authorship and genre. In commercial
terms post-modernism may be seen as part of the growth of consumer
capitalism into multinational and technological identity.
"Its all-embracing nature thus makes post-modernism as relevant to
street events as to the *avant garde*, and as such is one of the major
focal points in the emergence of interdisciplinary and cultural
studies." (THE PRENTICE HALL GUIDE TO ENGLISH LITERATURE, Ed.
Marion Wynne-Davies. First Prentice Hall edition, copyright 1990 by
Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. 812-13)
(B) "Postmodernism and postmodernity[,] a cultural and ideological
configuration variously defined, with different aspects of the general
phenomenon emphasized by different theorists, postmodernity is seen as
involving an end of the dominance of an overarching belief in scientific
rationality and a unitary theory of PROGRESS, the replacement of
empiricist theories of representation and TRUTH, and increased
emphasis on the importance of the unconscious, on free-floating signs
and images, and a plurality of viewpoints. Associated also with the
idea of a postindustrial age (compare POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETY [Daniel
Bell]), theorists such as BAUDRILLARD (1983) and Lyotard (1984) make
central to postmodernity a shift from a `productive' to a `reproductive'
social order, in which simulations and models--and more generally,
signs--increasingly constitute the world, so that any distinction
between the appearance and the `real' is lost. Lyotard, for example,
speaks especially of the replacement of any *grand narrative* [les
grands recits] by more local `accounts' of reality as distinctive of
postmodernism and postmodernity. Baudrillard talks of the `triumph of
signifying culture.' Capturing the new orientation characteristic of
postmodernism, compared with portrayals of modernity as an era or a
definite period, the advent of postmodernity is often presented as a
`mood' or `state of mind' (see Featherstone, 1988). If modernism as a
movement in literature and the arts is also distinguished by its
rejection of an emphasis on representation, postmodernism carries this
movement a stage further. Another feature of postmodernism seen by
some theorists is that the boundaries between `high' and `low' culture
tend to be broken down, for example, motion pictures, jazz, and rock
music (see Lash, 1990). According to many theorists, postmodernist
cultural movements, which often overlap with new political tendencies
and social movements in contemporary society, are particularly
associated with the increasing importance of new class fractions, for
example, `expressive professions' within the service class (see Lash and
Urry, 1987)." (David Jary and Julia Jary. eds. THE HARPER COLLINS
DICTIONARY OF SOCIOLOGY. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 375-6)
(C) "Postmodernism[:] A portmanteau term encompassing a variety of
developments in intellectual culture, the arts and the fashion industry
in the 1970s and 1980s. Among the characteristic gestures of
postmodernist thinking is a refusal of the `totalizing' or
`essentialist' tendencies of earlier theoretical systems, especially
classic Marxism, with their claims to referential truth, scientificity,
and belief in progress. Postmodernism, on the contrary, is committed to
modes of thinking and representation which emphasize fragmentations,
discontinuities and incommensurable aspects of a given object, from
intellectual systems to architecture.
"Postmodernist analysis is often marked by forms of writing that are
more literary, certainly more self-reflexive, than is common in critical
writing - the critic as self-conscious creator of new meanings upon the
ground of the object of study, showing that object no special respect.
It prefers montage to perspective, intertextuality to referentiality,
`bits-as-bits' to unified totalities. It delights in excess, play,
carnival, asymmetry, even mess, and in the emancipation of meanings
>from their bondage to mere lumpenreality.
Theorists of postmodernism include Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari, Fredric Jameson, Paul Virilio, Dick Hebdige,
Jean-Francois Lyotard, among others; a list whose maleness has not
gone unnoticed (see Propyn 1987), but which may immediately be countered
by reading the exemplary essay by Meaghan Morris (1988) which moves
easily among postmodernism's sense of multiple mobilities, bodily,
temporal and textual, without ever claiming postmodernist status for
itself." (Tim O'Sullivan, John Hartley, Danny Saunders, Martin
Montgomery and John Fisk. eds. KEY CONCEPTS IN COMMUNICATION AND
CULTURAL STUDIES. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994. 234-4)
{4.0} PASSAGES FROM FREQUENTLY (and not so frequently) CITED COM-
MENTATORS AND POSTMODERNIST THEORY THEORISTS (Or, a slide-show of twenty
statements on the postmodern)
**
(1) "The case for its [postmodernism's] existence depends on the
hypothesis of some radical break or *coupure*, generally traced
back to the end of the 1950s or the early 1960s.
"As the word itself suggests, this break is most often related
to notions of the waning or extinction of the hundred-year-old
modern movement (or to its ideological or aesthetic repudiation).
Thus abstract expressionism in painting, existentialism in
philosophy, the final forms of representation in the novel, the
films of the great *auteurs*, or the modernist school of poetry
(as institutionalized and canonized in the works of Wallace
Stevens) all are now seen as the final, extraordinary flowering
of a high-modernist impulse which is spent and exhausted with
them. The enumeration of what follows, then, at once becomes
empirical, chaotic, and heterogeneous: Andy Warhol and pop art,
but also photorealism, and beyond it, the `new expressionism'; the
moment, in music, of John Cage, but also the synthesis of classi-
cal and `popular' styles found in composers like Phil Glass and
Terry Riley, and also punk and new wave rock (the Beatles and the
Stones now standing as the high-modernist moment of that more
recent and rapidly evolving tradition); in film, Godard, post-
Godard, and experimental cinema and video, but also a whole new
type of commercial film...; Burroughs, Pynchon, or Ishmael Reed,
on the one hand, and the French *nouveau roman* and its succes-
sion, on the other, along with alarming new kinds of literary
criticism based on some new aesthetic of textuality or *ecri-
ture*... The list might be extended indefinitely; but does it
imply any more fundamental change or break than the periodic
style and fashion changes determined by an older high-modernist
imperative of stylistic innovation?" (Jameson 1-2)
**
(2) "For many theorists occupying various positions on the
political spectrum, the current historical moment signals less a
need to come to grips with the new forms of knowledge, experi-
ences, and conditions that constitute postmodernism than the
necessity to write its obituary. The signs of exhaustion are in
part measured by the fact that postmodernism has gripped two gen-
erations of intellectuals who have pondered endlessly over its
meaning and implications as a `social condition and cultural
movement' (Jencks 10). The `postmodern debate' has spurned little
consensus and a great deal of confusion and animosity. The themes
are, by now, well known: master narratives and traditions of
knowledge grounded in first principles are spurned; philosophical
principles of canonicity and the notion of the sacred have become
suspect; epistemic certainty and the fixed boundaries of
academic knowledge have been challenged by a `war on totality'
and a disavowal of all-encompassing, single, world-views; rigid
distinctions between high and low culture have been rejected by
insistence that the products of the so-called mass culture, popu-
lar, and folk art forms are proper objects of study; the
Enlightenment correspondence between history and progress and the
modernist faith in rationality, science, and freedom have
incurred a deep-rooted skepticism; the fixed and unified identity
of the humanist subject has been replaced by a call for narrative
space that is pluralized and fluid; and, finally, though far from
complete, history is spurned as a unilinear process that moves
the West progressively toward a final realization of freedom.
While these and other issues have become central to the post-
modern debate, they are connected through the challenges and
provocations they provide to modernity's conception of history,
agency, representation, culture, and the responsibility of
intellectuals. The postmodern challenge constitutes not only a
diverse body of cultural criticism, it must also be seen as a
contextual discourse that has challenged specific disciplinary
boundaries in such fields as literary studies, geography, educa-
tion, architecture, feminism, performance art, anthropology,
sociology, and many other areas. Given its broad theoretical
reach, its political anarchism, and its challenge to `legislat-
ing' intellectuals, it is not surprising that there has been a
growing movement on the part of diverse critics to distance them-
selves from postmodernism." (Giroux 1-2)
**
(3) "A provocative, comprehensive argument about the politics and
theories of `postmodernism' is made by Fredric Jameson (1984),
who argues that postmodernism is not an option, a style among
others, but a cultural dominant requiring radical reinvention of
left politics from within; there is no longer any place from
without that gives meaning to the comforting fiction of critical
distance. Jameson also makes clear why one cannot be for or
against postmodernism, an essentially moralist move. My position
is that feminists (and others) need continuous cultural reinven-
tion, postmodernist critique, and historical materialsm; only a
cyborg would have a chance. The old dominations of white capi-
talist patriarchy seem nostalgically innocent now: they normal-
ized heterogeneity, into man and woman, white and black, for
example. `Advanced capitalism' and postmodernism release
heterogeneity without a norm, and we are flattened, without sub-
jectivity, which requires depth, even unfriendly and drowning
depths." (Donna Haraway. _Simians, Cyborgs, and Women_. New York:
Routledge, 1991. 244-5, n4.)
**
(4) "The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained
the *total occupation* of social life. Not only is the relation
to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one
sees is its world. Modern economic production extends the dic-
tatorship extensively and intensively. In the least industri-
alized places, its reign is already attested by a few star com-
modities and by the imperialist domination imposed by regions
which are ahead in the development of productivity. In the
advanced regions, social space is invaded by a continuous super-
imposition of geological layers of commodities. At this point in
the `second industrial revolution,' alienated consumption becomes
for the masses a duty supplementary to alienated production. It
is *all the sold labor* of a society which globally becomes the
*total commodity* for which the cycle must be continued. For
this to be done, the total commodity has to return as a fragment
to the fragmented individual, absolutely separated from the pro-
ductive forces operating as a whole. Thus it is here that the
specialized science of domination must in turn specialize: it
fragments itself into sociology, psycho-technics, cybernetics,
semiology, etc., watching over the self-regulation of every level
of the process." (Debord 1977, paragraph 42)
**
(5) "The frenzied expansion of the mass media [is a mark of our
postmodernity and] has political consequences which are not so
wholly negative. This becomes most apparent when we look at rep-
resentations of the Third World. No longer can this be confined
to the realist documentary, or the exotic televisual voyage. The
Third World refuses now, to `us,' in the West, to be reassuringly
out of sight. It is as adept at using the global media as the
old colonialist powers." (Angela McRobbie, "Postmodernism and
Popular Culture," in _Postmodernism: ICA documents_. Ed. Lisa
Appignanesi. London: FAB, 1989. 169.)
**
(6) "Postmodernism questions the efficacy of strategies of trans-
formation associated with autonomy, declaring that modernism
inexorably reaches a dead end. The modernist hope and belief
that intellectuals can occupy a space outside capitalist society
is not only illusionary but also artistically and politically
sterile. The purity of the alienated artist forecloses his [sic]
access to the energies and disputes that are lived within the
culture, while also severing his connection to any audience
beyond the purlieu of the artistic elite. The modernist places
himself high and dry. Mass or popular culture inevitably springs
up to fill the vacuum created by the elitist artists' divorce
>from a wide audience. By following the path of its own aesthetic
revolution and its fetishistically precious values, modern art
distances itself from any social group large enough, central
enough, or powerful enough to effect a social revolution. Post-
modernism must entirely rethink the relation of intellectuals to
the rest of society. A model of engagement must replace the
model of alienation...." (McGowan 25)
**
(7) "What I want to call postmodernism in fiction paradoxically
uses and abuses the conventions of both realism and modernism,
and does so in order to challenge their transparency, in order to
prevent glossing over the contradictions that make the postmodern
what it is: historical and metafictional, contextual and self-
reflexive, ever aware of its status as discourse, as a human con-
struct." (Hutcheon 1988, 53)
**
(8) "Postmodernism is the somewhat weasel word now being used to
describe the garbled situation of art in the '80s. It is a term
which nobody quite fully understands, because no clear-cut
definition of it has yet been put forward. Its use arose
synonymously with that of pluralism toward the end of the '70s,
and at that point it referred to the loss of faith in a stylistic
mainstream, as if the whole history of styles had suddenly come
unstuck. Since then, under the more recent umbrella of Neo-
expressionism, the old stylistic divisions now mix, blend, and
alternate interchangeably with each other: dogmatism and exclu-
sivity have given way to openness and coexistence. Pluralism
abolishes controls; it gives the impression that everything is
permitted. Meeting with no limitation, the artist is free to
express himself in whatever way he wishes.
"If modernism was ideological at heart--full of strenuous dic-
tates about what art could, and could not, be--postmodernism is
much more eclectic, able to assimilate, and even plunder, all
forms of style and genre and circumstance, and tolerant of multi-
plicity and conflicting values." (Gablik 73)
**
(9) "Simplifying to the extreme, I define *postmodern* as
incredulity toward metanarratives." (Lyotard 1984, xxiv)
**
(10) "Lyotard explains the necessity of thinking in `open
systems' without internal unity on the basis of the disintegra-
tion of the possibility of maintaining a universal metalanguage.
This possibility presupposes that the individual language games
through which we perspectively live our Being-in-the-world can be
gone beyond by some sort of speech that itself is not relative.
Such nonrelative speech, for its part, presupposes an authority
that modern metaphysics conceives as `the Absolute.' If it can
be demonstrated--and Derrida has shown this more clearly than
Lyotard--that the thought of the Absolute itself cannot escape
the `structurality of structure,' then one can no longer lay
claim to a transhistorical frame of orientation beyond linguistic
differentiality. Systems without internal unity and without
absolute center become the inescapable condition of our *Dasein*
and our orientation in the world." (Manfred Frank. _What is
Neostructuralism?_. Trans. Sabine Wilke and Richard Gray. Min-
neapolis: U of Minn. Press, 1989. Transl. of _Was ist Neostruk-
turalismus?_. 1984.)
**
(11) "The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts
forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which
denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of taste
which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia
for the unattainable; that which searches for new presentations,
not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart a stronger
sense of the unpresentable. A postmodern artist or writer is in
the position of a philosopher: the text he writes, the work he
produces are not in principle governed by preestablished rules,
and they cannot be judged according to a determining judgment, by
applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. Those
rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking
for. The artist and the writer, then, are working without rules
in order to formulate the rules of what *will have been done*.
Hence the fact that work and text have the characters of an
*event*; hence also, they always come too late for their author,
or, what amounts to the same thing, their being put into work,
their realization (*mise en oeuvre*) always begin too soon.
*Post modern* would have to be understood according to the
paradox of the future (*post*) anterior (*modo*)." (Lyotard 1984,
81)
**
(12) "The unity of all that allows itself to be attempted today
through the most diverse concepts of science and of writing, is,
in principle, more or less covertly yet always, determined by an
historico-metaphysical epoch of which we merely glimpse the
*closure*. I do not say the *end*. [...]
"Perhaps patient meditation and painstaking investigation on
and around what is still provisionally called writing, far from
falling short of a science of writing or of hastily dismissing it
by some obscurantist reaction, letting it rather develop its
positivity as far as possible, are the wanderings of a way of
thinking that is faithful and attentive to the ineluctable world
of the future which proclaims itself at present, beyond the
closure of knowledge.
"The future can only be anticipated in the form of an absolute
danger. It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted
normality and can only be proclaimed, *presented*, as a sort of
monstrosity. For that future world and for that within it which
will have put into question the values of sign, word, and writ-
ing, for that which guides our future anterior, there is as yet
no exergue." (Jacques Derrida, from the "Exergue" to _Of Gram-
matology_. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1974,
1976. 4-5. Transl. of _De la Grammatologie_. 1967.) (Note:
"Exergue (ig-zurg), n. the small space beneath the principal
design on a coin or medal for the insertion of a date, etc."
_Websters_, Pocket Books-Simon & Schuster, 1990.)
**
(13) "Postmodernity does not imply a *change* in the values of
Enlightenment modernity but rather a particular weakening of
their absolutist character. It is therefore necessary to delimit
an analytic terrain from whose standpoint this weakening is
thinkable and definable. This terrain is neither arbitrary nor
freely accessible to the imagination, but on the contrary it is
the historical sedimentation of a set of traditions whose common
denominator is the collapse of the immediacy of the *given*. We
may thus propose that the intellectual history of the twentieth
century was constituted on the basis of three illusions of
immediacy (the referent, the phenomenon, and the sign) that gave
rise to the three intellectual traditions of analytical
philosophy, phenomenology, and structuralism. The crisis of that
illusion of immediacy did not, however, result solely from the
abandonment of those categories but rather from a weakening of
their aspirations to constitute full presences and from the ensu-
ing proliferation of language-games which it was possible to
develop around them. This crisis of the absolutist pretensions
of `the immediate' is a fitting starting point for engaging those
intellectual operations that characterize the specific
`weakening' we call postmodernity." (Ernesto Laclau, "Politics
and the Limits of Modernity," in Docherty, op cit., 332).
**
(14) "Perhaps the clearest formulation of the difference of post-
modern invention from modernist innovation comes in _The Post-
modern Condition_, where Lyotard distinguishes the *paralogism*
that characterizes pagan or postmodern aesthetic invention from
the merely *innovative* function of art that is characteristic of
the modernist understanding of the avant-garde. Innovation seeks
to make a new move with the rules of the language game `art', so
as to revivify the truth of art. Paralogism seeks the move that
will displace the rules of the game, the `impossible' or
unforeseeable move. Innovation refines the efficiency of the
system, whereas the paralogical move changes the rules in the
pragmatics of knowledge. It may well be the fate of a paralogi-
cal move to be reduced to innovation as the system adapts itself
(one can read Picasso this way), but this is not the necessary
outcome. The invention may produce more inventions. Roughly
speaking, the condition of art is postmodern or paralogical when
it both is and is not art at the same time (e.g., Sherri Levine's
appropriative rephotographings of `art photography')." (Bill
Readings. _Introducing Lyotard: Art and Politics_. New York:
Routledge, 1991. 73-4)
**
(15) "Postmodern architecture finds itself condemned to undertake
a series of minor modifications in a space inherited from modern-
ity, condemned to abandon a global reconstruction of the space of
human habitation. The perspective then opens onto a vast
landscape, in the sense that there is no longer any horizon of
universality, universalization, or general emancipation to greet
the eye of postmodern man, least of all the eye of the architect.
The disappearance of the Idea that rationality and freedom are
progressing would explain a `tone,' style, or mode specific to
postmodern architecture. I would say it is a sort of
`bricolage': the multiple quotation of elements taken from ear-
lier styles or periods, classical and modern; disregard for the
environment; and so on." (Lyotard 1993, 76)
**
(16) "There is ... a wholesale espousal of aesthetic ideology in
the name of `postmodernism' and its claim to have moved way
beyond the old dispensation of truth, critique, and suchlike
enlightenment values. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this
current intellectual scene is the extent to which fashionable
`left' alternatives (like the ideas canvassed in MARXISM TODAY)
have set about incorporating large chunks of the Thatcherite
cultural and socio-political agenda while talking portentously of
`New Times' and claiming support from postmodernist gurus like
Baudrillard. For we have now lived on - so these thinkers urge -
into an epoch of pervasive `hyperreality', an age of mass-media
simulation, opinion-poll feedback, total publicity and so forth,
with the result that it is no longer possible (if indeed it ever
was) to distinguish truth from falsehood, or to cling to those
old `enlightenment' values of reason, critique, and adequate
ideas. Reality just *is* what we are currently given to make of
it by these various forms of seductive illusion. In fact we might
as well give up using such terms, since they tend to suggest that
there is still some genuine distinction to be drawn between truth
and untruth, `science' and `ideology', knowledge and what is pre-
sently `good in the way of belief'. On the contrary, says
Baudrillard: if there is one thing we should have learned by now
it is the total obsolescence of all such ideas, along with the
enlightenment meta-narrative myths - whether Kantian-liberal,
Hegelian, Marxist or whatever - that once underwrote their
delusive claims. What confronts us now is an order of pure
`simulacra' which no longer needs to disguise or dissimulate the
absence of any final truth-behind-appearances." (Norris 1990;
23)
**
(17) "I begin with what appears to be the most startling fact
about postmodernism: its total acceptance of the ephemerality,
fragmentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic that formed the one
half of Baudelaire's conception of modernity. But postmodernism
responds to the fact of that in a very particular way. It does
not try to transcend it, counteract it, or even to define the
`eternal and immutable' elements that lie within it. Post-
modernism swims, even wallows, in the fragmentary and the chaotic
currents of change as if that is all there is. Foucault [in the
"Preface" to Deleuze and Guattari's _Anti-Oedipus_ (U of Minn.
Press, 1983. xiii)] instructs us, for example, to `develop
actions, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition,
and disjunction,' and `to prefer what is positive and multiple,
difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrange-
ments over systems. Believe that what is productive is not
sedentary but nomadic.' To the degree that it does try to legit-
imate itself by reference to the past, therefore, postmodernism
typically harks back to that wing of thought, Nietzsche in par-
ticular, that emphasizes the deep chaos of modern life and its
intractability before rational thought. This does not imply,
however, that postmodernism is simply a version of modernism;
real revolutions in sensibility can occur when latent and
dominated ideas in one period become explicit and dominant in
another. Nevertheless, the continuity of the condition of frag-
mentation, ephemerality, discontinuity, and chaotic change in
both modernist and postmodernist thought is important." (Harvey
44)
**
(18) "Postmodernism, then, is a mode of consciousness (and *not*,
it should be emphasized, a historical period) that is highly
suspicious of the belief in shared speech, shared values, and
shared perceptions that some would like to believe form our cul-
ture but which in fact may be no more than empty, if necessary,
fictions." (Olsen 143)
**
(19) "The point is that there *are* new standards, new standards
of beauty and style and taste. The new sensibility is defiantly
pluralistic; it is dedicated both to an excruciating seriousness
and to fun and wit and nostalgia. It is also extremely history-
conscious; and the voracity of its enthusiasms (and of the super-
cession of these enthusiasms) is very high-speed and hectic.
>From the vantage point of this new sensibility, the beauty of the
machine or of the solution to a mathematical problem, of a paint-
ing by Jasper Johns, of a film by Jean-Luc Godard, and of the
personalities and music of the Beatles is equally accessible."
(Sontag 304)
**
(20) "All my life I have worked to establish distinctions with
the areas covered by umbrella-terms such as iconism, code,
presupposition, etc. Naturally I am intrigued by the term
`postmodern.' It is my impression that it is applied these days
to everything the speaker approves of. On the other hand, there
seems to be an attempt to move it backwards in time; first it
seemed to suit writers or artists active in the last twenty
years, then gradually it was moved back to the beginning of the
century, then even further back, and the march goes on; before
long Homer himself will be considered postmodern.
But I believe that this tendency is to some extent justified.
I agree with those who consider postmodern not a chronologically
circumscribed tendency but a spiritual category, or better yet a
*Kunstwollen* (a Will-to-Art), perhaps a stylistic device and/or
a world view. We could say that every age has its own post-
modern, just as every age has its own form of mannerism (in fact,
I wonder if postmodern is not simply the modern name for
*Manierismus*...). I believe that every age reaches moments of
crisis like those described by Nietzsche in the second of the
_Untimely Considerations_, on the harmfulness of the study of
history. The sense that the past is restricting, smothering,
blackmailing us." (Umberto Eco, "A Correspondence on Post-
modernism" with Stefano Rosso in Hoesterey, op cit., pp. 242-3)
{5.0}
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Note: There is a huge and growing literature on postmodernism. This
bibliography is selective and reflects the author's own interests and
background. It is more devoted to cultural theory and philosophy than
to fiction and the arts generally, though see Ferguson and Gablik for
extended interviews and discussions on the fine arts and performance
arts, and see Venturi and Portoghesi on architecture. For the relations
between postmodernism and science, I suggest that there are worse places
to start than the works of Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Bruno Latour,
Michel Serres, Katherine Hayles, Gregory Bateson and Donna Haraway. For
a good review of Latour see especially an essay by Robert Koch, "The
Case of Latour" in _Configurations_ V. 3 No. 3, Fall 1995.
One of the most extensive bibliographies on postmodernism
available, though only for material published prior to 1989, is in
Connor (cited below). Other useful bibliographies are in Hutcheon
(1989; see especially the "Concluding Note: Some Directed Reading,"
169-70) and Docherty, which offers more recent information (1993).
Some people have asked for a section on performance theory and
I'd be glad to oblige anyone who wants to put one together and have it
attributed to them in this FAQ. If you're waiting for me to do it, it
will be some time. It will require coverage of popular culture studies,
media studies, video art, drama and music--you get the picture.
{5.1}
SOME PRINCIPAL THEORISTS
Baudrillard, Jean. _Simulations_. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983.
Debord, Guy. _Society of the Spectacle_. English Transl. 1970.
Rev. Transl. Detroit: Black & Red, 1977. Rpt. 1983. Transl. of
_La societe du spectacle_. 1967.
---. _Comments on the Society of the Spectacle_. Transl. Malcolm
Imrie. London: Verso, 1990. Transl. of _La Societe du spec-
tacle_. 1988.
Jameson, Fredric. _Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism_. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1991.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. _The Postmodern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge_. Transl. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Foreword
by Fredric Jameson. Minneapolis: U of Minn. Press, 1984. Transl.
of _La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir_. 1979.
---. _The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985_. Ed.
Julian Pefanis and Morgan Thomas. Transls. by Don Barry,
Bernadette Maher, Julian Pefanis, Virginia Spate, and Morgan
Thomas. Afterword by Wlad Gozich. Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota
Press, 1993. Transl. of _Le Postmoderne explique aux enfants_.
1988.
Portoghesi, Pier Paolo. _Aftern Modern Architecture_. New York:
Rizzoli, 1982.
Vattimo, Gianni. _The Transparent Society_. Transl. David Webb.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992. Transl. of _La societa
trasparente_. 1989.
Venturi, Robert, and Denise Scott and Steven Izenor. _Learning
>from Las Vegas_. 1972. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977.
{5.2}
GENERAL WORKS, ANTHOLOGIES, INTERVENTIONS
Appignanesi, Lisa, ed. _Postmodernism: ICA documents_. London:
Free Association Books, 1989.
Best, Steven, and Douglas Kellner. _Postmodern Theory: Critical
Interrogations_. New York: Guilford Press, 1991.
Connor, Steven. _Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to
Theories of the Contemporary_. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989.
Docherty, Thomas. ed. _Postmodernism: a reader_. New York: Colum-
bia UP, 1993.
Elam, Diane. _Romancing the Postmodern_. New York: Routledge,
1992.
Featherston, M., ed. _Postmodernism_ London: SAGE, 1988.
Ferguson, Russell, et al., eds. _Discourses: Conversations in
Postmodern Art and Culture_. Cambridge: MIT Press; New York: The
New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990.
Foster, Hal, ed. _The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern
Culture_. Seatle, WA: Bay Press, 1985.
Foster, Hal. _Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics_.
Seatle, WA: Bay Press, 1985.
Foster, Stephen William. "Symbolism and the Problematics of Postmodern
Representation," _Victor Turner and the Construction of Cultural
Criticism_. Ed. Kathleen M. Ashley. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.
117-37.
Giroux, Henry A. "Slacking Off: Border Youth and Postmodern
Education." JAC ISSUE 14.2 FALL 1994.
http://nsferau.cas.usf.edu/JAC/archive/dir142.html
Harvey, David. _The Condition of Postmodernity_. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1989.
Hoesterey, Ingeborg, ed. _Zeitgeist in Babel: The Postmodernist
Controversy_. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.
Hutcheon, Linda. _The Politics of Postmodernism_. New York: Rout-
ledge, 1989.
---. _A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction_.
New York: Routledge, 1988.
Huyssen, Andreas. _After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Cul-
ture, Postmodernism_. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,
1986.
Jencks, Charles. "The Postmodern Agenda," in _The Postmodern
Reader_. Ed. Charles Jencks. New York: St. Martin's, 1992. 10-
39.
Lash, Scott. _The Sociology of Postmodernism._ New York: Rout-
ledge, 1990.
McGowan, John. _Postmodernism and Its Critics_. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1991.
Morris, Meaghan. "At Henry Parkes Motel," _Cultural Studies_
(1988) 2:1-47
Norris, Christopher. _What's Wrong with Postmodernism?_.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.
---. _The Truth about Postmodernism_. London: Blackwell, 1993.
Palmer, Richard. "The Postmodernity of Heidegger," _Martin Heidegger
and
the Question of Literature: Toward a Postmodern Literary Hermeneutics_.
Ed. William V. Spanos. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979. 71-92.
Probyn, E. "Bodies and anti-bodies: feminism and postmodernism,"
_Cultural Studies_ (1987) 1:3, 349-60.
Rowe, John Carlos. "Postmodernist Studies," _Redrawing the Boundaries_.
Eds. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. New York: Modern Language
Association, 1992. 179-208. Contains a short annotated bibliography.
Squires, Judith. _Principled Positions: Postmodernism and the
Rediscovery of Value_. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993.
Zavarzadeh, Mas'ud and Donald Morton. _Theory, (Post)Modernity,
Opposition: An "Other" Introduction to Literary and Cultural
Theory_. Washington, D.C.: Masionneuve Press, 1991.
{5.3}
ON MODERNITY, MODERNISM AND THE AVANT-GARDE
Berman, Marshall. _All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experi-
ence of Modernity_. NY: Viking-Penguin, 1982. New Pref. 1988.
Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane, eds. _Modernism: A Guide
to European Literature, 1890-1930_. 1976. New Preface. New
York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Burger, Peter. _The Theory of the Avant-Garde_. Transl. Michael
Shaw. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1984. Transl. of
_Theorie der Avantgarde_. 1974.
Calinescu, Matei. _Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-
Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism_. 1977. Rev. ed. Durham,
NC: Duke UP, 1987.
Eysteinsson, Astradur. _The Concept of Modernism_. Ithaca: Cornell UP,
1990.
Faulkner, Peter. _Modernism_. London: Methuen, 1977.
Gablik, Susan. _Has Modernism Failed?_. London: Thames and Hudson,
1984.
Giddens, Anthony. _Modernity and Self Identity_. Oxford: Polity Press,
1991.
Habermas, Jurgen. _The Philosphical Discourse of Modernity:
Twelve Lectures_. Transl. Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1987. Transl. of _Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne:
Zwolf Vorlesungen_. 1985.
Naremore, James, and Patrick Brantlinger. _Modernity and Mass
Culture_. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.
Perloff, Margorie. "Modernist Studies," _Redrawing the Boundaries_.
Eds. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn. New York: Modern Language
Association, 1992. 154-78. Contains a short annotated bibliography.
Taylor, Charles. _Sources of the Self_. Cambridge: Harvard UP,
1989.
Williams, Raymond. _The Politics of Modernism: Against the New
Conformists_. London: Verso, 1989.
{5.4}
POSTMODERNISM AND RELIGION
Smith, Huston. _Beyond the Post-Modern Mind_. 1982. New York:
Crossroad Publishing; Wheaton, IL: Quest-Theosophical Publishing
House, 1984.
POSTMODERNISM AND JAPAN
Miyoshi, Masao and H. D. Harootunian, eds. _Postmodernism and
Japan_. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1989.
POSTMODERNISM AND CYBERPUNK
Olsen, Lance. "Cyberpunk and the Crisis of Postmodernity," in
_Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative_. Eds.
George Slusser and Tom Shippey. Athens, GA: U of Georgia Press,
1992. 142-152.
{6.0}
******
DIGEST OF TWO EXCHANGES ON AN ALT.POSTMODERN
(Contributors: Omar Haneef, Mark Weinles, Gordon Fitch, David F. Black,
Michael McGee, N.S. "Cris" Brown, PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU, Andy Perry,
Allan Liska and Gene Angelcyk)
******
alt.postmodern
From: han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Thu Feb 09 01:02:31 EST 1995
david black f (dbl...@mach1.wlu.ca) wrote:
> An unfortunate condition of contemporary culture is the
general
> aestheticization of experience--where images and aesthetic
criteria for
> interpreting those images come to dominate public life. This
phenomenon
> has a history.
Unfortunate? What you proncounce the "aestheticization of
experience" is really the end of logocentricism. The word is
dead, long live the image. The reasons probably have a lot to do
with saturation of information and the way pictures carry more
information than words. The written word became very important
when the printing press was estabilished because monks carried
around the medieval equivelant of powerbooks with more informa-
tion then anyone could carry in their heads and the elite proba-
bly enjoyed their exclusive ability to read. Now everybody reads,
there is more information "in the ether" then we can handle and
images are cheaply and easily recreated just like words. Welcome
to the era of the image. Why is this unfortunate? This might be
slightly more democratic since we all decode images at roughly
the same rate and the word is so huge and pretentious that it,
perhaps, deserves to die. The "kill your TV" anxiety that you
seemed to be faced with is a hiccup of Leavisism and his mass
cultural fear which probably dates back to the French Revolu-
tion's fear of the masses. You are not alone, there are proabably
plenty of others who agree with you "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
- Neil Postman is a recent example of this line of thinking.
> If modernity meant that the aesthetic category was sepa-
rated from
> moral (ethics) and practical (logic) reason (the breakdown of
the unified
> sensibility that T.S. Eliot mourned), the postmodern has seen
the revenge
> of the aesthetic, as a culture of images, spectacle and simula-
tion has
> subsumed the other two fundamental elements in human
sensibility. The
> aesthetic has become the dominant element in contemporary cul-
ture, and the
> difficult business of making value choices reduced to who or
what looks
> good.
But postmodernity called me up yesterday and explained to
me that it has collapsed these distinctions. The moral, the
aesthetic and the practical are ONE. Pomo does not revel in the
aesthetic, it revels in all three.
> The revenge of the aesthetic can be dated at least to
some
> of the early 20th century artistic modernisms. The example of
the
> Futurists--under their leader and muse, Marinetti--is instruc-
tive. In
> offering this example, of course, I am indebted to Walter Ben-
jamin's
> famous analysis of fascist aesthetics in his essay "Art in the
Age of
> Mechanical Reproduction." Susan Sontag has also written on the
> topic--with reference to Hitler's filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl--
in her
> Under the Sign of Saturn, an essay entitled "Fascinating Fas-
cism."
> Not for nothing did Futurism enjoy special patronage in
Benito
> Mussolini's fascism regime. For although direct collaboration
between
> Futurism and Fascism was limited, Futurism offered an ideology
of use to
> Fascism. Notably, it allowed politics--normally the place
where ethics
> and logic are brought to bear on human reality--to be
aestheticized. In
> celebrating speed, machines, the annihilation of history,
danger and
> energy, the group of Italian artists, writers, and thespians
identifying
> as "Futurists" offered myths, images, slogans and other
ideological props
> for a fledgling Italian Fascist system.
> The Futurists' oft-quoted slogan from Marinetti's 1909
"Foundation
> Manifesto of Futurism"--"We will glorify war--the world's only
> hygiene--militarism, patriotism, the destructive gestures of
freedom
> bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for
women"--could
> have been written by any one of the contemporary New Right.
Neo-conservative
> politicians today have been especially adept at taking
advantage of po-mo
> aestheticization; witness Reagan's mastery of the TV medium,
Newt
> Gingrich's information society utopianism (with debts to fellow
neo-cons
> Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler).
Whoah! Postmodernism is aesthetic and relies on images. The
fascists relied on images. Pomos are fascists? Uh-uh. This is a
huge stretch. Everyone has always employed images: the com-
munists, the american, the christians, the muslims, the hindus,
the nazis, the lesbians, the jews, the academics, the media, the
law. Notice how an image may pop into your head when I mention
these "movements" : hammer and sickle, apple pie, the cross, the
crescent, that swastika looking symbol, the swastika, the pink
triangle (or more specificall, black), star of david, pen and
book?, the camera, the balance etc. This hardly means they are
all postmodern.
On the contrary, postmodernity is concerned with a
PROLIFERATION of images so that no one image stands out. It is
concerned with the multiplicity of images, a mass of images. It
is anti-fascist in that sense.
(When one talks of the postmodern aesthetic, I can only think of
MTV)
> I find in Cultural Studies a means to engage and decode
the
> aestheticization of experience, and a way to talk about values
while
> admitting that such discussion has now to take place with
reference to a
> world we know largely in picture form.
The world has ALWAYS been "largely in picture form". With
postmodernity DISCOURSE ITSELF is "largely in picture form."
Cultural studies is concerned, partly, with looking at this pic-
toral DISCOURSE while the rest of Lit Crit remains logocentric
examining the written word (even after Derrida pretty much killed
it).
> But a clinical separation of
> moral, practical and aesthetic reason I find impractical.
Then why do you do it?
-Omar Haneef
#2709
From: <PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Sun Feb 12 09:20:27 EST 1995
In article <3hcb5n$n...@larch.cc.swarthmore.edu>,
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) says:
>david black f (dbl...@mach1.wlu.ca) wrote:
>> The Futurists' oft-quoted slogan from Marinetti's 1909
"Foundation
>> Manifesto of Futurism"--"We will glorify war--the world's only
>> hygiene--militarism, patriotism, the destructive gestures of
freedom
>> bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for
women"--could
>> have been written by any one of the contemporary New Right.
[...]
>>
The futurists glorified war because they thought it would gener-
ate class struggle which would lead to revolution. (see Perloff's
The Futurist Moment.) Perhaps their mistake was being naive
enough to assume they could somehow use the fascists to their own
ends... but then again, who could have anticipated the
holocaust....? Especially if you were a futurist with positivist
leanings and associated technical progress with civilized behav-
ior?
I think it is the luxury of your position, looking backwards
at the futurists through the holocaust, that enables you to
accuse them of supporting crimes they didn't even believe were
possible. There were many circumstances in which the Futurists
DIRECTLY confronted fascist policy. See Robert Motherwell's
anthology Dada. An excerpt from the diary of Mohol-Nagy's wife
(whose name I can't remember) describes a Nazi dinner party in
which Manaretti made a mockery of the occasion by reading
phonetic poetry and tipping the contents of the entire banquet
table onto the laps of the Nazi brass... including Goering him-
self.
I'm not sure what this anecdote really demonstrates besides
an equally valid reading of Futurism as a form of proto-
deconstruction perhaps. I would avoid statements such as
futurism=fascism. Everything the Nazi's touched didn't turn into
fascism... that is giving them far too much credit.
> On the contrary, postmodernity is concerned with a
PROLIFERATION of
>images so that no one image stands out. It is concerned with the
>multiplicity of images, a mass of images. It is anti-fascist in
that sense.
>
On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian Theory
and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the
proliferation of images. It is the tactic of fascism to repeat an
image endlessly and everywhere in order to generate an atmosphere
which will not only make it seem true, but restrict the range of
possible readings.
MTV, it might be added, is radically different than fascism
because it depends on the ability to posture as anti-
establishment. MTV is more concerned with encapsulating rebel-
lion. It is liberal. Fascist propaganda overtly rationalized mass
movements as normative...which means different things if you
really think about it.
#2716
From: g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Date: Sun Feb 12 18:51:17 EST 1995
<PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>:
| ...
| On the other hand, Adorno describes fascism (In Freudian Theory
and the
| Pattern of Fascist Propaganda) as relying on the proliferation
of images.
I think this is a tactic of all forms of totalitarianism,
including, of course, our own, as a glance at a newsstand or
the supermarket shelves will tell you. The industrialism of
Authority, I suppose. What i[s] the cyberneticization of
Authority?
-- >< Gordon Fitch >< g...@panix.com ><
#2741
From: <PR...@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
[1] Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Tue Feb 14 08:37:24 EST 1995
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) says:
>| > I think this is a tactic of all forms of totalitarianism,
>| > including, of course, our own, as a glance at a newsstand or
>| > the supermarket shelves will tell you. The industrialism of
>| > Authority, I suppose. What it the cyberneticization of
>| > Authority?
In terms of aesthetic, I imagine it is much "faster" than facsist
propaganda. Jameson, in Late Capitalism, says something about how
the postmodern aesthetic can only be flawed by an interuption of
its ceaseless transformations... this makes me think of a liq-
uid... perhaps able to flow around everything. Fascist
propaganda, which I've seen, was rarely aqueous however.
>Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry):
>| I
>| would assume that the proliferation of images would expand,
rather than
>| restrict, the range of possible readings, since each image
would be
>| disseminated through more disparate interpretive contexts...
The spewing of propaganda excites and directs... and generates a
sort of backdrop for the leader which not only reinforces
validity, but encourages individualism and narcissism through
identification, which, in turn, limits interpretation. The group,
then, becomes a fragmented collection of little dictators
undermining any kind of interaction which might lead to critical
thinking. The presence of the dictator is a bit like the author
function for all propaganda as well as an author/model for ones
own behavior...which, of course, comes into play when interpret-
ing the propaganda. Advertising functions in a similar way by
making commodities for "you alone" and by appealing to standards
of normalcy... but it is not quite as centralized... I don't
think.
#2662
From: Mark.W...@launchpad.unc.edu (Mark Weinles)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Thu Feb 09 05:24:22 EST 1995
In article <D3n8y...@info.uucp> dbl...@mach1.wlu.ca (david
black f) writes:
"An unfortunate condition of contemporary culture is the
general aestheticization of experience--where images and
aesthetic criteria for interpreting those images come to dominate
public life. This phenomenon has a history. [...] The aesthetic
has become the dominant element in contemporary culture, and the
difficult business of making value choices reduced to who or what
looks good. [...]"
Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the
least illuminating ideas that he ever set down. It may offer a
handy way to analyze Futurism, but I'd like to know why you
believe that it has a larger value, or, to put it another way,
why you consider that "the aesthetizing of experience" is neces-
sarily a misfortune. What about the other possibility that
"existence and the world are justified _only_ as an aesthetic
phenomenon"? (Emphasis mine.) And what do you think of the
criticism that your position derives from an animosity to
_style_?
-- Mark Weinles
#2703
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Sat Feb 11 18:38:40 EST 1995
Cris here. :)
[In response to David Black's post on the aestheticization of
politics and Futurism (essentially bemoaning the rise of style
over substance), Mark Weinless wrote:]
: Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism
: is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the least
illuminat-
: ing ideas that he ever set down. It may offer a handy way to
analyze
: Futurism, but I'd like to know why you believe that it has a
larger
: value, or, to put it another way, why you consider that "the
aesthetiz-
: ing of experience" is necessarily a misfortune.
[...]
Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your assertion
that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly. I even end
up arguing that we've constructed the "laws of science" the way
we have more because of *us* and our need for order, rather than
because of anything "writ large on the cosmos." The Universe, if
it can be said to exist as an "it," is a canvas upon which we
paint our experience.
Cris
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Date: Mon Feb 13 08:29:21 EST 1995
Cris here. :)
[I wrote to Mark Weinles:]
: > Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your asser-
tion
: > that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
aesthetic
: > phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly. I even end up
arguing
: > that we've constructed the "laws of science" the way we have
more
: > because of *us* and our need for order, rather than because
of
: > anything "writ large on the cosmos." The Universe, if it can
be
: > said to exist as an "it," is a canvas upon which we paint our
: > experience.
[Andy Perry replies:]
: Note, however, that order does not equal beauty. There are
many theories
: of perception, truth, etc. which argue that the "laws of
science" are
: constructed based upon human needs for order or prediction,
which have
: nothing to do with aesthetics. Of course, since I've already
shown my
: Nietzschean colors around here on numerous occasions, you may
have
: gathered that I too have an occasional sympathy for the
aestheticization
: of life...
I would agree that "order does not equal beauty," if by that
you mean that the two are not equivalent terms. They're not,
by any means. I think "beauty" is a superset, and "order"
one of its subsets. That is to say, I think we find beauty
in order, but we can also find beauty in not-order.
When we pass a carefully manicured lawn, freshly mowed and
edged, many are likely to say "What a beautiful lawn!" And
they're using the word "beautiful" correctly; for many see
that kind of order as beauty. (C.f.: an unkempt lawn with
shin-high grass, garbage lying around and a rusty old car
up on cinderblocks.)
Yet, most of us would find a perfectly conical mountain
"unnatural" and "ugly" compared to the rugged peaks of the
Rockies, and urban planners learned decades ago that
meandering streets have more "charm" than perfect grid-
work designs. Curiously, the field of fractal geometry
has shown that these seeming non-orders have an order of
their own, but you have to leave integer-dimensionality
to see that order. Fractal-generated music seems to be
aesthetically pleasing to many listeners; it's modelled
in 1.5 dimensions and if given a bit *more* order in terms
of repeating passages and movements, it's difficult to
distinguish from human-generated music. (See Peitgen &
Saupe, Eds., _The Science of Fractal Images_, (1988)
at 42-44.)
We rarely find *utter* randomness to be "beautiful."
Cris
From: mcm...@isocrates.win.net (michael calvin mcgee)
Date: Tue Feb 14 02:24:11 EST 1995
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
In article <3hjhq0$l...@xcalibur.IntNet.net>, NS Brown
(nsb...@news.IntNet.net) writes:
>[In response to David Black's post on the aestheticization of
>politics and Futurism (essentially bemoaning the rise of style
>over substance), Mark Weinless wrote:]
>
>: Much as I admire Benjamin, I find his suggestion that
fascism
>: is "the aestheticization of politics" to be one of the least
illuminat-
>: ing ideas that he ever set down.
[...]
>Mark, I don't know what David will have to say to your assertion
>that "existence and the world are justified _only_ as an
>aesthetic phenomenon," but I concur wholeheartedly.
Lest we forget, gentlemen, the association of fascism with this
thread of argument is not simply flaming. Mussolini especially,
and also Hitler, theorized "cultural politics" as the way both
to excite and to control the "experience of the masses." Insofar
as fascism is characterized by +any+ ideological uniformity, it
would be the firm commitment that politics (and even science) had
to be "aestheticized." When "existence and the world" are argued
for solely on a construction that they are "aesthetic phenomena,"
nothing is left to give the "artist" pause. Not only can this be
dangerous politically, but it is also a questionable stance from
an aesthetic viewpoint, because +negation is a necessary posture+
for all artists. "Pure creativity" cannot be "art," for it has
no means to reject its "false starts." Without such terms as
"grace," "eloquence," "style," etc. +you can't have an
aesthetic,+ and without an aesthetic, you have no justification
for your experientialism.
michael
#2776
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Re: aesthetics and contemporary culture
Date: Wed Feb 15 20:51:52 EST 1995
[Michael Calvin McGee replies:]
: Lest we forget, gentlemen, the association of fascism with this
: thread of argument is not simply flaming. Mussolini espe-
cially,
: and also Hitler, theorized "cultural politics" as the way both
: to excite and to control the "experience of the masses."
Viewing life as an aesthetic (experiential) phenomena is not
at the root of facism. Indeed, experientialism notes that we
each construct our *own* experiences, and that there is no
Absolute Truth by which we can determine whose experiences are
true or false. This would *not* fit well in a facist state,
because they *do* believe there is Absolute Truth ... and
they've found it!
Facism is a distinctly *modern* political scheme. It takes the
notion of a mechanistic universe and applies it to the body
politic. It claims to have Absolute Truth, and demands that
every aspect of society be subservient to and directed toward
that Absolute Truth. Art becomes propaganda (rhetoric), yet
another cog in the wheels of politics. Minorities and unde-
sirables are systematically "Othered" to provide a scapegoat
for the ills that remain.
Notions of certainty are crucial to the formation of facism.
Notions of certainty are notably lacking in the idea that we
construct our own experiences.
: Not only can this be
: dangerous politically, but it is also a questionable stance
from
: an aesthetic viewpoint, because +negation is a necessary pos-
ture+
: for all artists. "Pure creativity" cannot be "art," for it has
: no means to reject its "false starts." Without such terms as
: "grace," "eloquence," "style," etc. +you can't have an
aesthetic,+
: and without an aesthetic, you have no justification for your
: experientialism.
Interesting statement, though it has little to do with exper-
ientialism. That is, you're arguing against positions that
I don't hold ... swinging at straw men of your own creation.
Cris
#2691
From: nsb...@news.IntNet.net (NS Brown)
Date: Fri Feb 10 22:12:08 EST 1995
Cris here. :)
[David Black wrote:]
: [...]
Neo-conservative
: politicians today have been especially adept at taking
advantage of po-mo
: aestheticization; witness Reagan's mastery of the TV medium,
Newt
: Gingrich's information society utopianism (with debts to fellow
neo-cons
: Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler).
Sloganeering and image-over-substance are hardly new phenomena.
They are the traditional tools of political minorities, who are
in the fortunate position of being able to make a lot of noise
without having to *do* anything. Now that the rad-cons are at
the helm, they'll be backing down from their tall talk in short
order. It's already happening, as clause after clause of the
Contract With (On!) America is being quietly shuffled off to the
shredder.
It's easy to quote Shakespeare's "Power corrupts; absolute power
corrupts absolutely" when one is one step removed from the
throne. Once one takes the throne, the truth of the statement
becomes apparent (at least to everyone else).
Just an opinion, worth what you paid for it. :)
Cris
From: g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Date: 26 Feb 1996 18:32:13 -0500
gene angelcyk wrote:
>For those who subscribe to the notion that we are living in the postmodern
>age ... wake up! The word "post" means after and the word "modern" means
>in the present; thus, the term is an oxymoron.
all...@genie.com (Allan Liska):
|not in this case. in this case, "modern" refers to an idea that there
|is some sort of grand narrative which is overarching and guiding human
|development along some preset path.
|very loosely, the post-modern age signals the end of the grand
|narrative, or the realization that there never was a grand
|narrative..but to try and define postmodernity is difficult, because
|each theorist, and each person has a different perspective.
In my view, the term _postmodern_ came into use because the dominant
school of the plastic arts, and of architecture, in the first half of
the 20th century was called "Modernism." People needed a different
category to put, say, Andy Warhol or Nikki de Saint-Phalle in. They
might have been called _paramodern_ because, actually, there was a lot
of non-Modernist stuff going on beside Modernism, but since it _seemed_
as if it came after, _post_ was pegged for the prefix. The other
_modern_ of which something might be post- is modern in the sense of
"from around the Enlightenment on until around the present. This sense
of postmodern was apparently first used in 1945 (by Lewis Mumford?) and
seems to apply more to lit, lit crit, cult crit, and philosophy, than to
the plastic arts.
I thought we were going to have a FAQ to answer questions like these,
sparing me from this sort of recitation.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
*****************************************************************
******
##END## ##OF## ##DIGEST##
******
*****************************************************************
{6.1}
A FINAL WORD
That concludes this FAQ file. Send comments, complaints, additions,
suggestions, recommendations, ideas to "vpi...@indiana.edu".
9/30/95; 6/26/96
--
"The scientist has no unique right to ignore the likely consequences of
what he does." --Noam Chomsky. _The Chomsky Reader_. Ed. James Peck.
New
York: Pantheon, 1987. 201.
Charles Eicher
> If you want to keep your eyes closed and twaddle on about art using
> principles you acquired back in old fashioned art school don't bother
> reading any of the following which is a useful FAQ about the most
> important revolution in thinking and artrmaking of our time.
ha.. ROTFL..!! A FAQ on Postmodernism.. Those crazy postmodernists are
always mistaking the map for the territory.
Let us know when the meta-FAQ comes out.
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
wsparker
> > principles you acquired back in old fashioned art school don't bother
> > reading any of the following which is a useful FAQ about the most
> > important revolution in thinking and artrmaking of our time.
>
> always mistaking the map for the territory.
>
> Let us know when the meta-FAQ comes out.
You sound like either a) or b) below:
a) "Yeah, those idiots, the're all alike, don't do nothing, lazy, can't
speak properlike. Should round em all up and burn them in the library!"
b) "Postmodernists are so ridiculous they even have a FAQ posting"
Do you care to add to the possibilities? I doubt it.
Charles Eicher
> You sound like either a) or b) below:
>
> a) "Yeah, those idiots, the're all alike, don't do nothing, lazy, can't
> speak properlike. Should round em all up and burn them in the library!"
>
> b) "Postmodernists are so ridiculous they even have a FAQ posting"
>
> Do you care to add to the possibilities? I doubt it.
OK, sure:
c) Threw a sly reference to a postmodernist metaphor at you and you didn't
even catch it.
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
wsparker
They map the territory and they map is confused with the territory. The
extreme self-reflexivity of the thinking is what you are referring to?
Well I "saw" that but it was too subtle for me.
Also, I am very alert lately to the "wild west" quality of this nsgrp
and was looking for a showdown!
Mdeli
"D.D.Barton" <jba...@humboldtks.com> wrote:
>I would love to hear peoples view of the difference between modernism
>and postmodernism?...
Modernism: long-winded excuses (Artspeak) for producing
incompetent artwork.
Postmodernism: longer-winded excuses (Artspeak) for
producing incompetent artwork.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
wsparker
Mdeli wrote:
Two blurted excuses for keeping a closed mind:
Charles Eicher
> They map the territory and they map is confused with the territory. The
> extreme self-reflexivity of the thinking is what you are referring to?
Well, that isn't quite what I meant, but close enough. Some people say PM
switches to a new map, or makes a new map to get a new approach to the old
territory; but I think it would be more appropriate to describe PM as
examining the assumptions we make when we map any territory, and we
discover that all maps are equally inadequate.
> Well I "saw" that but it was too subtle for me.
At least you caught it..
> Also, I am very alert lately to the "wild west" quality of this nsgrp
> and was looking for a showdown!
Perhaps instead, I should have retorted with one of my favorite jokes:
How many postmodernists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
"Even asking that question invokes a matrix of assumptions, about social
organization, enlightenment, the phallocentric nature of power
("screwing"), and the value of labor."
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
Mdeli
Probably the clearest definition of PM in the FAQ is:
"postmodernity is seen as
involving an end of the dominance of an overarching belief in scientific
rationality and a unitary theory of PROGRESS, the replacement of
empiricist theories of representation and TRUTH, and increased
emphasis on the importance of the unconscious, on free-floating signs
and images, and a plurality of viewpoints. "
I would put it more directly. PM like other mystical creeds is,
anti-scientific, anti rational and consequently anti-empiricist. To support
these contentions it babbles about the unconscious, scientism, Heidigger etc. I
use the term babbles because no one agrees on what any of this means.
PM is really ancient mystical stuff expressed in a new jargon. It offers no
substitute for science and logic other than cryptic slogans. PM’s rational
foundation is as tenuous as that of Christian Science. Its half-life will be
somewhat shorter. Eventually it will fade into a newer fashion for the fickle
irrationalist under another name for the same old nonsense.
Most PM writing is about as stupid as the supposedly new art it favors. It
definitely appeals to those who put "emphasis on the importance of the
unconscious," and little else. It offers some new angles on mystical self
delusion.
PM got a lot of its lingo from Artspeak. Read the FAQ for some neat samples.
Another quote:
"postmodernism, on the contrary, is committed to
modes of thinking and representation which emphasize fragmentations,
discontinuities and incommensurable aspects of a given object, from
intellectual systems to architecture. "
In a word, Bullshitology.
Mani DeLi
wsparker
Mdeli wrote:
>
some facile dribble about postmodern theory...culminating in his erudite
observation:
>
> Most PM writing is about as stupid as the supposedly new art it favors. It
> definitely appeals to those who put "emphasis on the importance of the
> unconscious," and little else. It offers some new angles on mystical self
> delusion.
"Self-delusion" is the fart-speak here.
> Another quote:
> "postmodernism, on the contrary, is committed to
> modes of thinking and representation which emphasize fragmentations,
> discontinuities and incommensurable aspects of a given object, from
> intellectual systems to architecture. "
This is a perfectly clear, simple characterization of the movement
intended for people who know next-to-nothing about postmodernism and are
trying to find out about it.
From the above cited introductory description he concludes:
>
> In a word, Bullshitology.
>
Yeah, right. You have done *your* conclusive survey of the territory and
have made your highly articulated opinion known:
> >
> > In a word, Bullshitology.
> >
Thanks to your overarching armchair understanding and rejection of this
tremendously wide field of contemporary inquiry, people will now come
to their senses and quit wasting their time dealing with it.
So much happens which will eventually be sorted out. People are working
on it and there are many very compelling arguments and observations
along with alot of disagreement. Point is that there are many people
thinking, writing and dealing with it, consequently, as is the nature of
"new thinking" "contemporary" thinking there is going to be a
circus-type appearance to it. (Which you will exploit to serve your
hidden agenda based on intolerance and hostility)
jkea...@aol.com
In article <5c0j81$p...@news.interlog.com>, hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli)
writes:
>
>PM got a lot of its lingo from Artspeak. Read the FAQ for some neat
samples.
>
>"postmodernism, on the contrary, is committed to
>modes of thinking and representation which emphasize fragmentations,
>discontinuities and incommensurable aspects of a given object, from
>intellectual systems to architecture. "
>
>
>
If I could write stuff like that I could get a job in advertising and
marketing and make more money than I make now. Then I could hire all my
artist friends. (Those who drink Guinness and know how to draw, that is.
No sculptors, though.) Is this style taught anywhere, or is it something
you're born with, like creative ability?
Jim
No bs no bucks
wsparker
Do you realise what you write here sounds very cynical? Of all the
emotions, cynicism is the most covertly destructive. The person who is
possessed by it filters anything new (to themselves) right into the
"garbage" can.
jkea...@aol.com
>
>Do you realise what you write here sounds very cynical? Of all the
>emotions, cynicism is the most covertly destructive. The person who is
>possessed by it filters anything new (to themselves) right into the
>"garbage" can.
>
>
I've been around long enough to have seen and heard plenty of hucksters
professing to be the New Messiahs of whatever was in fashion at the
moment. I was probably listening to some of them before you were born. I
think I know the difference between being open minded and being gullible.
In my opinion, people who have something to say don't cloak it in
mysterious syntaxes and made-up words. For example, tell me what
"incommensurable" means and make it believable. Then prove that's what the
writer meant. Then ask yourself why the writer, who places himself in the
position of teaching us something, didn't say it more clearly himself.
I have my own theories on that, but this newsgroup isn't devoted to
writing.
Cynicism implies hopelessness. I am a long way from hopeless. I know there
is plenty of good art being done today, and it's being recognized, without
labels and apologies. For example, go see Jane Lunt's (of Northampton,
Mass.) pastels at the Forum Gallery in NYC (Fifth Ave and 57th St).
Cheers,
JK
Mdeli
wsparker <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
>Do you realise what you write here sounds very cynical?
Well Boogy boogy. Cynical!
If People weren't cynical at times they would never question anything and
perhaps we would still be in the middle ages..
> Of all the
>emotions, cynicism is the most covertly destructive. The person who is
>possessed by it filters anything new (to themselves) right into the
>"garbage" can.
I presume you accept anything and everything NEW including the new "garbage." In
that way you have avoided all cynicism in exchange for embracing a lot of
stupidy.
MD
PS Remember that your favorite aesthetic idol, Duchamps stupendously important
pisspot, was meant as a cynical statment about the state of art. And of course
Dada wasn't cynical acording to you. Take note, I'm being cynical.
Mdeli
>> Another quote from the Postmodern FAQ:
>> "postmodernism, on the contrary, is committed to
>> modes of thinking and representation which emphasize fragmentations,
>> discontinuities and incommensurable aspects of a given object, from
>> intellectual systems to architecture. "
wsparker <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
>This is a perfectly clear, simple characterization of the movement
>intended for people who know next-to-nothing about postmodernism and are
>trying to find out about it.
Then I’m sure you can explain it. Please do.
>From the above cited introductory description he concludes:
>Thanks to your overarching armchair understanding and rejection of this
>tremendously wide field of contemporary inquiry, people will now come
>to their senses and quit wasting their time dealing with it.
As I said:
PM is really ancient mystical stuff expressed in a new jargon. It offers no
substitute for science and logic other than cryptic slogans. PM’s rational
foundation is as tenuous as that of Christian Science. Its half-life will be
somewhat shorter. Eventually it will fade into a newer fashion for the fickle
irrationalist under another name for the same old nonsense.
>So much happens which will eventually be sorted out. People are working
>on it and and observations
>along with alot of disagreement.
If "there are many very compelling arguments," mention one.
>Point is that there are many people
>thinking, writing and dealing with it, consequently, as is the nature of
>"new thinking" "contemporary" thinking there is going to be a
>circus-type appearance to it.
Its not new. Its a contemporary version of the same old mystical crap. The
cryptic vocabulary is new. Its fashionable double-talk. PM is as worthwhile as
the last thousand NEW manifestos and about as sensible.
> (Which you will exploit to serve your
>hidden agenda based on intolerance and hostility)
What’s my "hidden agenda," Parker? Or are you just plain paranoid?
MD
Neal Weiss
> wsparker <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
>
> >Do you realise what you write here sounds very cynical?
>
>
> Well Boogy boogy. Cynical!
> If People weren't cynical at times they would never question anything and
> perhaps we would still be in the middle ages..
Ever heard of skepticism?
-N
-----------------------------------------
Neal Weiss
Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
wsp
Mdeli wrote:
>
> wsparker <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
>
> >Do you realise what you write here sounds very cynical?
>
> Well Boogy boogy. Cynical!
> If People weren't cynical at times they would never question anything and
> perhaps we would still be in the middle ages..
>
I think you mean "skeptical" but only you know.
> > Of all the
> >emotions, cynicism is the most covertly destructive. The person who is
> >possessed by it filters anything new (to themselves) right into the
> >"garbage" can.
>
> I presume you accept anything and everything NEW including the new "garbage." In
> that way you have avoided all cynicism in exchange for embracing a lot of
> stupidy.
>
Of course you presume that. You must think that way in order to reach
your destructive and lame conclusions.
A reasonable person would see that some things may need to be overlooked
or disregarded, but only after giving the appropriate amount of
consideration.
>
> PS Remember that your favorite aesthetic idol, Duchamps stupendously important
> pisspot, was meant as a cynical statment about the state of art. And of course
> Dada wasn't cynical acording to you. Take note, I'm being cynical.
I know you interpret things that way. There's nothing subtle about your
thinking.
Dada can better be seen as penultimate skepticism.
Cynics assume everything is motivated by total selfishness and therefore
has little value.
No one who is successful is in the habit of cynicism.
Neal Weiss
In article <32E713...@sab.unimelb.edu.au>, t.co...@sab.unimelb.edu.au
wrote:
> We should keep our thoughts simple...So...
> If I know that something is a 'bullshit', than the plain fact that I see
> it as a bullshit gives it a relevance...For me...
> What could I do?
> I could continue to addvertise the 'bullshit' by naming it 'bullshit'...
> I could ignore the 'bullshit'...
> Or I could suspect that my understanding is a 'bullshit'.
> The last option is the basis of learning...
> Or is the learning and critical thinking also the 'bullshit'?
> --
> /_~
> TUGI______________________ (/9 6`) _____________________________
> Melbourne, Australia (/~\) t.co...@sab.unimelb.edu.au
> \`/
> ~
A few general words in addition...
'Bullshit' does not constitute a criticism. It is not an analysis. It
utilizes no empirical evidence. It is not a proof. It is not a considered
opinion.
It is an emotional response. Most likely wielded when there is no capacity
for analytical reasoning; often a product of frustration, a signal flag
flown at the end of one's limits in reasoning, discipline, and patience
(all good qualities for a critical analysis). It is anti-reason.
The irony is that on this NG it is often paraded as knowledge or reason:
often to attack what is refered to as 'irrationalism'.'Bullshit' and
similiar responses represents the charting of one's inability. That is why
it is so widely used: it's easier to call something bullshit than to
disprove it (as well as providing no insight); or if one cannot disprove
it, to grow more skilled with one's thinking to better articulate their
arguments (if such arguements even exist...newly aquired reasoning skills
may self-invalidate a good deal of nonsense and irrationality hiding under
these grand 'one-word criticisms').
Prisoner to niether beer or paycheck,
jkea...@aol.com
In article <nweiss-2201...@nweiss.tiac.net>, nwe...@tiac.com
(Neal Weiss) writes:
>Common sense rules. Where's my Guiness?
>(feel free to mince any words or mysterious syntaxes you don't
>understand...just don't blame us for your shortcomings).
>
You misspelled Guinness. (Bottles are standard, common, and accessible.)
JK
Neal Weiss
In article <19970121195...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
jkea...@aol.com wrote:
> I've been around long enough to have seen and heard plenty of hucksters
> professing to be the New Messiahs of whatever was in fashion at the
> moment. I was probably listening to some of them before you were born. I
> think I know the difference between being open minded and being gullible.
Really? If you don't know how to use the word 'incommensurable'
(dictionaries are standard,common, and accessible) why should one believe
your claims to knowledge (between open minded and gullible).
> In my opinion, people who have something to say don't cloak it in
> mysterious syntaxes and made-up words. For example, tell me what
> "incommensurable" means and make it believable. Then prove that's what the
> writer meant. Then ask yourself why the writer, who places himself in the
> position of teaching us something, didn't say it more clearly himself.
€Mysterious? Made-up words? Humm. If you've been around as long as you
claim you have and find "incommensurable" a 'made-up word' and the syntax
'mysterious'...
> I have my own theories on that, but this newsgroup isn't devoted to
> writing.
€Why is it that I find it easy to imagine what such theories might be?
Please, spare us. Can't you see that you are more suited to the bar than
the book? Thats not an insult. Not everyone is material to be a heavy
weight boxer, just because they have fists; likewise because one cammands
the use of a few hundred words, doesn't mean that they have the
experience, discipline, and aptitude to learn more words or to attain to
the skills of critical analysis.
Common sense rules. Where's my Guiness?
(feel free to mince any words or mysterious syntaxes you don't
understand...just don't blame us for your shortcomings).
>I am a long way from hopeless.
€Not to mince YOUR words; are we talking intelligence here or world-view?
I'll give it to you on worldview, no contest.
Cheers
jkea...@aol.com
In article <32E5E6...@olympus.net>, wsp <w...@olympus.net> writes:
>When you spend alot of time reading and researching in a scholarly vein
>you will find that "big words" are very useful. There are subtle
>differences between meanings.
First of all, I want to think Neal and W. S. for being so patient with an
uneducated person like me. I never would have guessed there were subtle
differences between meanings.
>
>
>BTW, after doing alot if reading the "big words" aren't big anymore
>they're hardly even noticed, you don't stumble over them anymore and you
>are able to follow and make sense out of what is written (and consider
>it's relevance to what you, the reader, are dealing with).
Well, I only learned to read about 45 years ago, so I’m still working at
it.
>
>
>So, you have "big words" with subtle differences in meanings that one
>understands automatically by doing alot of reading.
>
Thanks again for explaining that. By the way, "incommensurable" is in my
dictionary, but it sounded so made up I didn’t bother to check. Guess I’m
just one of those people who makes a mistake now and then. Of course, in a
burst of irony, Neal misspelled the name of his favorite brew in the same
reply. Still, W. S., I think your reply to my posting was incommensurable.
("Alot" isn’t in my dictionary, though; in fact, I had to fight with the
spelling checker in Word to get it to appear as you typed it. Guess you
aren’t perfect either, eh?)
>
>Then the people who don't read, have no technical skill with the
>language, and come along and call it "bullshit." Talk about
>stupidity!!
>
Yes, and the thousands of people who have read the books, magazine
articles and short fiction I have written are probably equally stupid, but
thanks again for pointing that out.
Unless you’re being paid by the syllable, why not just say it clearly? The
same dictionary in which I found a definition of incommensurable also
defines postmodern. If Merriam-Webster was able to define it simply, why
should anyone else have to do otherwise?
In article <5c0j81$p...@news.interlog.com>, hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli)
writes:
>Probably the clearest definition of PM in the FAQ is:
>"postmodernity is seen as
>involving an end of the dominance of an overarching belief in scientific
>rationality and a unitary theory of PROGRESS, the replacement of
>empiricist theories of representation and TRUTH, and increased
>emphasis on the importance of the unconscious, on free-floating signs
>and images, and a plurality of viewpoints. "
>
>
If my critics’ attention spans were equal to their blood lust, they would
recall that in the past I have encouraged people to take an open-minded
approach to new art, relax their minds so they can concentrate on the
work, and try to feel something, rather than simply looking for
superficial cues. I believe we were discussing the Abstract Expressionists
at the time.
That said, I think the "dominance of an overarching belief in scientific
rationality" has been resisted by artists in the past, on numerous
occasions. In the years following the First World War, more than one
movement arose because of revulsion at the horror of that conflict. The
Pre-Raphaelites are another case, although they chose to regress. More
recently and dear to my heart are the very same Abstract Expressionists,
responding to the Red Scare, the atomic bomb and post-WW2 American
materialism, with its emphasis on appliances and large automobiles.
Artists have always depended on the unconscious. Cave drawings and most
other forms of primitive art are beautiful examples of free-floating signs
and symbols. As for a plurality of viewpoints, my god, just walk through
Soho in NYC! So there’s really nothing new about postmodernism. Therefore,
I conclude that all those fancy words in the "FAQ" were an attempt to
dress the emperor in virtual robes.
JK
Mdeli
wsparker <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
I wrote
PM is really ancient mystical stuff expressed in a new jargon. It offers no
substitute for science and logic other than cryptic slogans. PM’s rational
foundation is as tenuous as that of Christian Science. Its half-life will be
somewhat shorter. Eventually it will fade into a newer fashion for the fickle
irrationalist under another name for the same old nonsense.
Parker answered:
>So much happens which will eventually be sorted out. People are working
>on it and there are many very compelling arguments and observations
>along with alot of disagreement. Point is that there are many people
>thinking, writing and dealing with it, consequently, as is the nature of
>"new thinking" "contemporary" thinking there is going to be a
>circus-type appearance to it. (Which you will exploit to serve your
>hidden agenda based on intolerance and hostility)
"circus-type appearance"---Are you referring to POMO or Christian Science or
both?
MD
Neal Weiss
In article <19970122190...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
jkea...@aol.com wrote:
> In article <nweiss-2201...@nweiss.tiac.net>, nwe...@tiac.com
> (Neal Weiss) writes:
>
> >Common sense rules. Where's my Guiness?
> >(feel free to mince any words or mysterious syntaxes you don't
> >understand...just don't blame us for your shortcomings).
> >
>
> You misspelled Guinness. (Bottles are standard, common, and accessible.)
>
> JK
I apologize: my misspelling of Guinness was intentional[and a horrid
attempt at a pun...although my other typos are not intended but are
oversights]. I wanted to see if grammatical bait would be taken, it was,
and I have a reply in process to another poster's criticisms on similar
accounts.
>(Bottles are standard, common, and accessible.)
Unfortunately they are, but only the inferior imported product.
>Neal misspelled the name of his favorite brew in the same
>reply.
It's not my favorite brew (in fact, I have only had the American version
and it seems pathetic compared to the thick-headed Irish product I hear so
much about). My favorite stout is Mackenson XXX.
If one can use one word, for example "incommensurable", in place of
several words, it seems it is a matter of being concise; it's peevish to
bitch about it and it makes no sense to do so. One pleasure of exchanging
dialogue is listening to someone who has mastered their language and uses
it eloquently and concisely...but that comes with time and practice.
The bottom line is that the kind of caviling replies that find or invent
fault with precise words or terminology (particularly when correctly used)
and quibble with spekling (spelling) errors [or even worse, flame based on
misspellings...hang tight, I've got some lovely examples of this to post];
they avoid the larger issues. I suggest hanging at rec.proofreading. Just
witness the diversion we have had to take from the original set of ideas
(BTW I did not read the Postmodern FAQ deal, only the replies) , just
because someone didn't like the word "incommensurable"! It's fuckin'
outlandish! This not meant to flame, but is stated generally: go back to
fuckin' school or keep your fuckin' peevish displays of ineptitude where
they belong, in the bar. We are trying to talk about art here!
Professor! Where's my fuckin' Guinness??!!!
Cheers,
Mdeli
Neal Weiss
Founder: L' Ecole De Fromage.
Originator of a Greater Shoe of Mud.
Finder of the Country Blue Squeak-Out.
wrote:
>'Bullshit' does not constitute a criticism. It is not an analysis. It
>utilizes no empirical evidence. It is not a proof. It is not a considered
>opinion.
It constitutes my conclusion the meaning of which is perfectly clear.
Of course none of you criticize the points I made which led me to my conclusion.
That’s too much for your pedantry.
I repeat my points for your informed perusal:
PM like other mystical creeds is,
anti-scientific, anti rational and consequently anti-empiricist. To support
these contentions it babbles about the unconscious, scientism, Headier etc. I
use the term babbles because no one agrees on what any of this means.
PM is really ancient mystical stuff expressed in a new jargon. It offers no
substitute for science and logic other than cryptic slogans. PM’s rational
foundation is as tenuous as that of Christian Science. Its half-life will be
somewhat shorter. Eventually it will fade into a newer fashion for the fickle
irrationalist under another name for the same old nonsense.
Most PM writing is about as stupid as the supposedly new art it favors. It
definitely appeals to those who put "emphasis on the importance of the
unconscious," and little else. It offers some new angles on mystical self
delusion.
>It is an emotional response. Most likely wielded when there is no capacity
>for analytical reasoning; often a product of frustration, a signal flag
>flown at the end of one's limits in reasoning, discipline, and patience
>(all good qualities for a critical analysis). It is anti-reason.
>The irony is that on this NG it is often paraded as knowledge or reason:
>often to attack what is refered to as 'irrationalism'.'Bullshit' and
>similiar responses represents the charting of one's inability. That is why
>it is so widely used: it's easier to call something bullshit than to
>disprove it (as well as providing no insight); or if one cannot disprove
>it, to grow more skilled with one's thinking to better articulate their
>arguments (if such arguements even exist...newly aquired reasoning skills
>may self-invalidate a good deal of nonsense and irrationality hiding under
>these grand 'one-word criticisms').
Nice speech. Put it on the Alt PM conference. Very pompous. The fact is that
everyone including you knows what I am referring to. However you rarely address
those points. How about taking up my Picasso challenge.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
wsp
> mysterious syntaxes and made-up words. For example, tell me what
> "incommensurable" means and make it believable. Then prove that's what the
> writer meant. Then ask yourself why the writer, who places himself in the
> position of teaching us something, didn't say it more clearly himself.
>
When you spend alot of time reading and researching in a scholarly vein
you will find that "big words" are very useful. There are subtle
differences between meanings.
BTW, after doing alot if reading the "big words" aren't big anymore
they're hardly even noticed, you don't stumble over them anymore and you
are able to follow and make sense out of what is written (and consider
it's relevance to what you, the reader, are dealing with).
So, you have "big words" with subtle differences in meanings that one
understands automatically by doing alot of reading.
wsp
Mdeli wrote:
>
> Skepticism often has its origin in cynicism. I mean cynical.
Yes, and taking a laxative often has its origin in eating too much
crap.
So, you are proud to be a self-proclaimed cynic...
There's no use dealing with cynics.
> You didn’t say a damned thing about my "considerations." I repeat them so that
> you can tell everyone here exactly why they are "destructive and lame
> conclusions."
I don't have time to debunk crap.
> >Cynics assume everything is motivated by total selfishness and therefore
> >has little value.
>
> Cynicism has nothing to do with selfishness. Your reasoning is "lame" especially
> what follows the word therefore.
Go look in the dictionary before you say more stupid things about the
word which you are proud to declare describes your point of view.
wsp
> >you will find that "big words" are very useful. There are subtle
> >differences between meanings.
>
> uneducated person like me. I never would have guessed there were subtle
> differences between meanings.
That's not all I am saying, using these subtle differences one may
articulate one's own and access the more refined thinking of others.
Also, there is no substitute for refined thinking, using big words does
not hide bad thinking. Just because someone doesn't understand it
doesn't mean it is crap (as some here would have us believe)
> >
> >
> >BTW, after doing alot if reading the "big words" aren't big anymore
> >they're hardly even noticed, you don't stumble over them anymore and you
> >are able to follow and make sense out of what is written (and consider
> >it's relevance to what you, the reader, are dealing with).
>
> Well, I only learned to read about 45 years ago, so I’m still working at
> it.
Don't forget the research; after a while, you learn the language well
enough a whole new world opens up.
It is a very technical realm and not open to casual reading.
>
> >
> >Then the people who don't read, have no technical skill with the
> >language, and come along and call it "bullshit." Talk about
> >stupidity!!
> >
>
> Yes, and the thousands of people who have read the books, magazine
> articles and short fiction I have written are probably equally stupid, but
> thanks again for pointing that out.
One would be stupid to call something "bullshit" if they obviously don't
understand the referent.
Here's an analogy:
You have language like mathematics. Everyone understands arithmetic (
add sub, multiplication division) and some geometry. Then you get to
calculus and beyond, the language of mathematics gets pretty technical,
demanding and not many people understand it. Somebody who comes along
and calls higher math bullshit is obviously an idiot.
You can read all you want "about" mathematics but you cannot "do"
mathematics unless you have done alot of study. BTW, you cannot have
science without mathematics.
In the same way you can't delve into the storm of postmodern thinking
(esp. with its circus atmosphere, and its contradictions, and
inconsistencies and huge disagreements) without a good deal of work.
Now there are some thinkers who ARE too far out for me, but what they
are saying, as far as I understand it, is still interesting to me.
As far as doing this work, I don't believe the most vocal anti-pomo
contributors in this nsgrp have even scratched the surface.
Not knowing is okay; I mean doing your studies and asking more than
declaring is great.
But calling pomo discourse bullshit without obviously knowing anything
is a farce! It is a joke to me, makes me laugh!
>
> Unless you’re being paid by the syllable, why not just say it clearly? The
> same dictionary in which I found a definition of incommensurable also
> defines postmodern. If Merriam-Webster was able to define it simply, why
> should anyone else have to do otherwise?
Good writing and thinking IS clear! "They" are using the appropriate
words; they think and write clearly, some people don't understand it
because it isn't simple, and they don't know the language.