Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
Ariane
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote: In article
<redirect-120...@1cust6.tnt16.nyc3.da.uu.net>,
redi...@earthlink.net_xxx (-N.) wrote:
> > Haven't read the book, but on the other hand, assuming such a scenario to
> > be accurate, what does Berger have to say as to why Pablo would have been
> > more free to develop exploitative connections, more so than an ambitious,
> > expediential, and acculturated 'insider'?
> >
> > -N.
> >
> I'm pretty fuzzy on that -- it's been a few years, and all my books are in
> storage right now. But as I recall, it was simply a matter of Picasso not
> feeling he 'belonged' to Parisian society, and therefore wasn't as rule bound
> (social manners etc.) as were others.
>
> Another interesting read is the biography written by his buddy, Jaime
> Sabartes.
>
> Sabartés, Jaime, 1881-1968. Picasso, an intimate portrait;, tr. from the
> Spanish by Angel Flores. With 8 Picasso reproductions. [1st American ed.] New
> York, Prentice-Hall [1948]
>
> I was about three quarters through the 'intimate portrait' when I realized
> that every time Pablo had a girlfriend Sabartes wasn't around. Their
> life-long friendship only seemed to actualize when Picasso was between
> flames.
>
> But I have to agree with Mark's comment in this thread, not anyone could be so
> cunning just on the basis of being a foreigner.
>
> I think you would get a kick out of Berger's book. He's one of the best art
> writers I have come across -- and he really must enjoy what he does.
>
> Berger, John. The success and failure of Picasso /, John Berger. 1st Vintage
> International ed. New York : Vintage International, 1993
>
> Erik Mattila
=== Sorry to just jump in out of nowhere like this but I've just finished
reading Berger's book and found it to be simply awful. He's a
contextualist, meaning that he wants to explain his subject through
reference to its supposed context....ALL THE TIME. So, what you get is a
bundle of absurdities like (p.22) the spaniards are passionate by nature
because there's no working class for them to fool, etc. etc. Actually,
Berger's a Marxist, and as such, must reduce everything he considers down
to class relations. As a consequence, the book itself degenerates the
further you get into it until, by the end of the work, he's just tying up
the loose ends so as to jam Picasso and his work into Berger's overly
analytic, preprogrammed theoretical position.
A MUCH better work on Picasso has been written by Andre Malraux,
the former writer, art theorist, and French minister of culture, who was
also Picasso's contemporary and acquaintance. It's called "Picasso's
Mask" in english, "La Tete Obsidienne" in french. Malraux' work is to
Berger's what Picasso's work is to the then ubiquitous academicism which
he transcended. Much more insightful, idiosyncratic, and honest.
a la prochaine,
A.
Dan Fox
(snip of previous posts)
Coincidentally I recently re-read both books and must agree with you. I
think that Berger is a classic *true believer* in the Hofferian sense:
everything and everyone must be evaluated in the context of his dogma -
in this case, Marxism. I have the same problem with Christians,
Freudians, anyone who pulls this kind of party-line stunt.
I don't think Malraux could write a bad sentence if he tried. I wish I
read French well enough to tackle the original - but the English
translation is fine reading.
How would you evaluate other work on Picasso?
Dan
(No skill, no art, no resources, no money, no hope.)
Ariane
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Dan Fox wrote:
> From: Dan Fox <dan...@erols.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
>
> Ariane wrote:
>
> (snip of previous posts)
>
> Coincidentally I recently re-read both books and must agree with you. I
> think that Berger is a classic *true believer* in the Hofferian sense:
> everything and everyone must be evaluated in the context of his dogma -
> in this case, Marxism. I have the same problem with Christians,
> Freudians, anyone who pulls this kind of party-line stunt.
>
> I don't think Malraux could write a bad sentence if he tried. I wish I
> read French well enough to tackle the original - but the English
> translation is fine reading.
>
> How would you evaluate other work on Picasso?
>
> Dan
> (No skill, no art, no resources, no money, no hope.)
.... There's just so much out there, something resembling a definitive
list would be well beyond the limits of my understanding. I do have my
own favorites however. Pierre Daix' catalogue raisonee is fantastic and
is better than Zervos' in my opinion. Also Josep Fabre i Palau produced a
marvellous tome dealing with Picasso's work produced up to 1907. There's
also a 2 vol. set (Series in Modern Art Vol. 3) edited by William Rubin
et. al dealing exclusively with "Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon" and the
associated sketchbooks. These are essentially research tools however. As
far as single works purporting to assess Picasso's entire oeuvre go, I
have to single out Malraux as having written one of the best. For an
intimate portrait of the artist, despite the obvious bias, I liked Gilot &
Lake's "Life with Picasso". There's just so many.
As a general rule however, I tend to favour works which don't seek
to `explain' Picasso's work by reducing it to something else (a la
Berger). Any work that approaches Picasso's oeuvre simply as art, and not
some anthropological social document highlighting general trends in fin de
siecle Spanish migration to Paris or some such thing, is worth a look as
far as I'm concerned.
a la prochaine,
A.
Marilyn
>
> Ariane wrote:
>
> (snip of previous posts)
>
> Coincidentally I recently re-read both books and must agree with you. I
> think that Berger is a classic *true believer* in the Hofferian sense:
> everything and everyone must be evaluated in the context of his dogma -
> in this case, Marxism. I have the same problem with Christians,
> Freudians, anyone who pulls this kind of party-line stunt.
>
> I don't think Malraux could write a bad sentence if he tried. I wish I
> read French well enough to tackle the original - but the English
> translation is fine reading.
>
> How would you evaluate other work on Picasso?
>
> Dan
Hi Dan,
I found, also Francois Gilot's book "Picasso & Matisse" to be good
because the details of their painting are discussed.
M.
emat...@tomatoweb.com
Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Dan Fox wrote:
>
> > From: Dan Fox <dan...@erols.com>
> > Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> > Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
> >
> >
> > (snip of previous posts)
> >
> > Coincidentally I recently re-read both books and must agree with you. I
> > think that Berger is a classic *true believer* in the Hofferian sense:
> > everything and everyone must be evaluated in the context of his dogma -
> > in this case, Marxism. I have the same problem with Christians,
> > Freudians, anyone who pulls this kind of party-line stunt.
> >
> > I don't think Malraux could write a bad sentence if he tried. I wish I
> > read French well enough to tackle the original - but the English
> > translation is fine reading.
> >
> > How would you evaluate other work on Picasso?
> >
> > Dan
As a matter of fact John Berger is a Famous Marxist Art Critic-- I thought
was common knowledge. A Famous Marxist Artist was Pablo Picasso -- which I
thought was also common knowledge. So what are you saying? That Marxist
Critics or Artists should disguise the theoretical underpinnings of their
works? Seems like some sort of contradiction.
What's this 'party-line stunt' business? It sounds like sloganism.
Historical materialism? Production and consumption? What specifically are
you talking about beyond the idea that you may not have liked what Berger's
views on Picasso were, since you disagreed with them?
Since the Longshoreman Philosopher used polititical marxists as his model of
the 'true believer,' it seems ok to say that marxists are hofferian, doesn't
it? At the time of his work, the waterfronts were crawling with Reds -- you
know, Union guys.
Of course Malraux' works are good. The denigration of Berger will make M's
works no better. ('M' as in Malraux, not 'M' as in Marx).
Erik Mattila
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Ariane
On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
=== No but to understand Picasso's politics is different from
understanding his art. And secondly, to contextualize and therefore
`explain' his art by fiat as it were is simply poor scholarship on
Berger's part. Marxist artists aren't always cornered into painting
Marxist art right? That's the problem with contextualism, it's too
simplistic and spends all its time explaining one thing in terms of
something else which supposedly subsumes it (ie, class relations, culture,
etc.). Picasso's work is less a product of sociological causality than
the traces left behind by a man totally devoted to painting, drawing,
sculpture, etc.
> What's this 'party-line stunt' business? It sounds like sloganism.
> Historical materialism? Production and consumption? What specifically are
> you talking about beyond the idea that you may not have liked what Berger's
> views on Picasso were, since you disagreed with them?
=== Read page 22 of Berger's book for a prime example of how ridiculous
contextualist studies of modern artists can get. Berger is less
interested in Picasso than he is in fitting the artist into his pet
paradigm. Again, poor scholarship on Berger's part.
> Since the Longshoreman Philosopher used polititical marxists as his model of
> the 'true believer,' it seems ok to say that marxists are hofferian, doesn't
> it? At the time of his work, the waterfronts were crawling with Reds -- you
> know, Union guys.
=== Whatever, I live in a social democracy, I don't care about the
politics here. I just think that Berger's book is little more than a
partisan, sensationalist manifesto, like what you typically get in the way
of scholarship on the `Learning Channel' or A&E.
> Of course Malraux' works are good. The denigration of Berger will make M's
> works no better. ('M' as in Malraux, not 'M' as in Marx).
=== Absolutely. Malraux' works stand on their own and certainly don't
need me to support them. I was simply offering an alternative to Berger's
predictable & trite analytics of art.
>
> Erik Mattila
>
a la prochaine,
A.
emat...@tomatoweb.com
Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
> > As a matter of fact John Berger is a Famous Marxist Art Critic-- I thought
> > was common knowledge. A Famous Marxist Artist was Pablo Picasso -- which I
> > thought was also common knowledge. So what are you saying? That Marxist
> > Critics or Artists should disguise the theoretical underpinnings of their
> > works? Seems like some sort of contradiction.
>
> === No but to understand Picasso's politics is different from
> understanding his art. And secondly, to contextualize and therefore
> `explain' his art by fiat as it were is simply poor scholarship on
> Berger's part. Marxist artists aren't always cornered into painting
> Marxist art right? That's the problem with contextualism, it's too
> simplistic and spends all its time explaining one thing in terms of
> something else which supposedly subsumes it (ie, class relations, culture,
> etc.). Picasso's work is less a product of sociological causality than
> the traces left behind by a man totally devoted to painting, drawing,
> sculpture, etc.
We're probably in agreement on most of these issues, Ariane. But I'm seeing
an apples vs. oranges type of argument here. It was never Berger's intent to
write art history, and it is also true that Berger's works address a rather
general audiance rather than an academic audiance. So it is kind of like
saying that Somerset Maughm's "Moon and SixPence" in unscholarly -- although
that's kind of an extreme example. Of course it is unscholarly in comparison
with a formal art history of Gauguin.
>
> > What's this 'party-line stunt' business? It sounds like sloganism.
> > Historical materialism? Production and consumption? What specifically are
> > you talking about beyond the idea that you may not have liked what Berger's
> > views on Picasso were, since you disagreed with them?
>
> === Read page 22 of Berger's book for a prime example of how ridiculous
> contextualist studies of modern artists can get. Berger is less
> interested in Picasso than he is in fitting the artist into his pet
> paradigm. Again, poor scholarship on Berger's part.
That's the point. Probably the most important Marxist underpinnings of
Berger's art criticism is, in fact, historical materialism. And what's that,
in Marxist theory? It is simply the idea that history is regarded as a
dynamic force which has social meaning and affect, as opposed to traditional
history, which is only displayed as an artifact which is estranged from
society -- a spectacle -- like the personal remotness of an Egyptian
sculpture in a museum. At any rate, this is the Marxist project, more or
less, and Berger wanted to represent Picasso in this way precisely because of
his interest in Picasso. What is legitimately arguable in this, in my
opinion, is the propriety of historical materialism. To critique Berger on
the grounds that he accomplished what he set out to do strikes me as a very
weak argument, or no real argument at all.
>
> > Since the Longshoreman Philosopher used polititical marxists as his model of
> > the 'true believer,' it seems ok to say that marxists are hofferian, doesn't
> > it? At the time of his work, the waterfronts were crawling with Reds -- you
> > know, Union guys.
>
> === Whatever, I live in a social democracy, I don't care about the
> politics here. I just think that Berger's book is little more than a
> partisan, sensationalist manifesto, like what you typically get in the way
> of scholarship on the `Learning Channel' or A&E.
Well, here in the states the Lawrence Welk show is regulary aired on PBS,
which in my opinion flys in the face of the left. But seriously, the issue
again is the intent -- these media are not intended to be scholarly, but
rather to popularize science. That being the case, why denigrate them for
being unscholarly? Berger's trajectory is to poplularize art appreciation by
offering some reason to his readers that art has meaning in their lives -
which is quite different than the distance of objectivity that good
scholarship presumes.
>
> > Of course Malraux' works are good. The denigration of Berger will make M's
> > works no better. ('M' as in Malraux, not 'M' as in Marx).
>
> === Absolutely. Malraux' works stand on their own and certainly don't
> need me to support them. I was simply offering an alternative to Berger's
> predictable & trite analytics of art.
>
But there seems to be little relationship between Berger's project and the
alternative you offer. My idea is to appreciate both, in different ways.
Regards, Erik Mattila
-N.
> Malraux' work is to
> Berger's what Picasso's work is to the then ubiquitous academicism which
> he transcended. Much more insightful, idiosyncratic, and honest.
I haven't read either, yet I will speculate:
"Much more insightful." (to Malraux's own political/economic/social
agenda), "idiosyncratic," (to Malraux own intellectual and historic
biases), "and honest." (..propoganda in support of his own ideology of art
and culture).
-N.
--
N
To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
Ariane
On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 emat...@tomatoweb.com wrote:
> From: emat...@tomatoweb.com
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
>
> In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.990226...@alcor.concordia.ca>,
> Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
> > > As a matter of fact John Berger is a Famous Marxist Art Critic-- I thought
> > > was common knowledge. A Famous Marxist Artist was Pablo Picasso -- which I
> > > thought was also common knowledge. So what are you saying? That Marxist
> > > Critics or Artists should disguise the theoretical underpinnings of their
> > > works? Seems like some sort of contradiction.
> >
> > === No but to understand Picasso's politics is different from
> > understanding his art. And secondly, to contextualize and therefore
> > `explain' his art by fiat as it were is simply poor scholarship on
> > Berger's part. Marxist artists aren't always cornered into painting
> > Marxist art right? That's the problem with contextualism, it's too
> > simplistic and spends all its time explaining one thing in terms of
> > something else which supposedly subsumes it (ie, class relations, culture,
> > etc.). Picasso's work is less a product of sociological causality than
> > the traces left behind by a man totally devoted to painting, drawing,
> > sculpture, etc.
>
> We're probably in agreement on most of these issues, Ariane. But I'm seeing
> an apples vs. oranges type of argument here. It was never Berger's intent to
> write art history, and it is also true that Berger's works address a rather
> general audiance rather than an academic audiance. So it is kind of like
> saying that Somerset Maughm's "Moon and SixPence" in unscholarly -- although
> that's kind of an extreme example. Of course it is unscholarly in comparison
> with a formal art history of Gauguin.
=== Yes, a formal art history (traditionally speaking) it is not. All the
same, Berger is posing as an academic authority on Picasso's alleged
artistic "successes and failures" right? That's the title of the work at
any rate. And in this sense, I'm of the opinion that he does little more
than proffer his pet theory on life and then try and apply it to Picasso.
It's not a scholarly work, and neither is it very insightful for those
wanting to know more about the artist (because frankly, who cares about
John Berger....Picasso was the point of the book.)
> > >
> > > What's this 'party-line stunt' business? It sounds like sloganism.
> > > Historical materialism? Production and consumption? What specifically are
> > > you talking about beyond the idea that you may not have liked what Berger's
> > > views on Picasso were, since you disagreed with them?
> >
> > === Read page 22 of Berger's book for a prime example of how ridiculous
> > contextualist studies of modern artists can get. Berger is less
> > interested in Picasso than he is in fitting the artist into his pet
> > paradigm. Again, poor scholarship on Berger's part.
>
> That's the point. Probably the most important Marxist underpinnings of
> Berger's art criticism is, in fact, historical materialism. And what's that,
> in Marxist theory? It is simply the idea that history is regarded as a
> dynamic force which has social meaning and affect, as opposed to traditional
> history, which is only displayed as an artifact which is estranged from
> society -- a spectacle -- like the personal remotness of an Egyptian
> sculpture in a museum.
=== I once heard dialectical materialism described as "Hegel standing on
his head".
At any rate, this is the Marxist project, more or
> less, and Berger wanted to represent Picasso in this way precisely because of
> his interest in Picasso.
=== I feel that Berger did this because of his interest in explaining
Picasso through Marxism therefore implicitly arguing for the omnipotent
explanatory power of that theory. A better title for the book would have
been "Studies in applying Marxism to everything in the universe, vol. 1:
Picasso and his art" or something like that. At least then we all know
what we're in for when we read the book.
What is legitimately arguable in this, in my
> opinion, is the propriety of historical materialism. To critique Berger on
> the grounds that he accomplished what he set out to do strikes me as a very
> weak argument, or no real argument at all.
=== Agreed. He accomplished his aims. No problem with that. I just
think that Berger's aims have little to do with enlightening people about
Picasso and his art.
> > > Since the Longshoreman Philosopher used polititical marxists as his model of
> > > the 'true believer,' it seems ok to say that marxists are hofferian, doesn't
> > > it? At the time of his work, the waterfronts were crawling with Reds -- you
> > > know, Union guys.
> >
> > === Whatever, I live in a social democracy, I don't care about the
> > politics here. I just think that Berger's book is little more than a
> > partisan, sensationalist manifesto, like what you typically get in the way
> > of scholarship on the `Learning Channel' or A&E.
>
> Well, here in the states the Lawrence Welk show is regulary aired on PBS,
> which in my opinion flys in the face of the left. But seriously, the issue
> again is the intent -- these media are not intended to be scholarly, but
> rather to popularize science.
=== Ok. then Penguin books shouldn't have written how scholarly and
brilliant Berger was on the back of the book. It's misleading.
That being the case, why denigrate them for
> being unscholarly?
=== Because this is what the book poses as.
Berger's trajectory is to poplularize art appreciation by
> offering some reason to his readers that art has meaning in their lives -
> which is quite different than the distance of objectivity that good
> scholarship presumes.
=== I like how you put that and I agree with you. Maybe that would have
been a more honest synopsis of the book had Penguin wrote something to
that effect on the back cover, or the introduction, or somewhere
conspicuous.
> > > Of course Malraux' works are good. The denigration of Berger will make M's
> > > works no better. ('M' as in Malraux, not 'M' as in Marx).
> >
> > === Absolutely. Malraux' works stand on their own and certainly don't
> > need me to support them. I was simply offering an alternative to Berger's
> > predictable & trite analytics of art.
> >
> But there seems to be little relationship between Berger's project and the
> alternative you offer. My idea is to appreciate both, in different ways.
=== Well, they both presume to educate the reader about Picasso and his
art. In this sense, Berger offers us a reductionistic economic analysis,
while Malraux simply analyzes art on its own terms. The latter work is in
this sense more profound and does a better job of educating the reader
about Picasso and his art. You seem to prefer to relativize (and
democratize) the works by stating that they both should be appreciated on
their own merits. An admirable position of tolerance for sure, but, both
books claim to have accomplished a study of Picasso and his art. Only one
book does this satisfactorily in my opinion, the other....well I think you
know where I stand on this by now. I guess that ultimately, I think
writers and poets write better books about artists than do economists and
other social scientists.
> Regards, Erik Mattila
a la prochaine,
A.
Ariane
On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, -N. wrote:
> From: "-N." <redi...@earthlink.net_xxx>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
>
=== Both works are radically different in perspective, tone, approach,
style, and depth. Malraux was a French writer, poet who was a friend of
Picasso's. Berger is a British Marxist academic who knew Picasso about as
well as he knew Jimi Hendrix. Hey! Now that would be really interesting.
A Marxist study of Jimi Hendrix and his use of Fender Stratocasters played
upside down. Someone get me Berger's address....I've got a great
follow-up study for him. He can just transpose what he said about
Picasso. You know, "Hendrix was so passionate on guitar because there
were no lower classes to be fooled in America while he was out on tour."
Something to that effect. I'll leave it to him though, since he has the
ultimate theory of the universe already figured out.
a la prochaine,
A.
paolo beneforti
Ariane
> As a general rule however, I tend to favour works which don't seek
>to `explain' Picasso's work by reducing it to something else (a la
>Berger). Any work that approaches Picasso's oeuvre simply as art
I've also found a lot of very interesting observations in "Picasso",
catalogue of Marina Picasso collection, writtens by G. Carandente (but it is
in italian)
p.b.
Marilyn
>
> In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.99022...@alcor.concordia.ca>,
> Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
>
> > === Well, they both presume to educate the reader about Picasso and his
> > art. In this sense, Berger offers us a reductionistic economic analysis,
> > while Malraux simply analyzes art on its own terms. The latter work is in
> > this sense more profound and does a better job of educating the reader
> > about Picasso and his art. You seem to prefer to relativize (and
> > democratize) the works by stating that they both should be appreciated on
> > their own merits. An admirable position of tolerance for sure, but, both
> > books claim to have accomplished a study of Picasso and his art. Only one
> > book does this satisfactorily in my opinion, the other....well I think you
> > know where I stand on this by now. I guess that ultimately, I think
> > writers and poets write better books about artists than do economists and
> > other social scientists.
>
> place to meet you, as any, I suppose, (though it would be nice to do so in
> person).
>
> This is the same Andre Malraux who wrote Museum Without Walls (or some
> similiarly titled essay to that effect), I presume? If it is, you consider
> amending your last sentence to read: "I guess that ultimately, I think
> novelists/essayists and politicians (all of which which Malraux was) write
> better books about artists than do economists and other social
> yes. He has some social scientist in his blood, but it serves, more often
> then not, to inform his work on art as not something detatched and
> abstract, but as a human cultural activity of exchange).
>
> Malraux was early on a militant anti-fascist, fought in the Spanish Civil
> War, was a Resistance leader (maquis section) during WWII, and after his
> arrest and release he commanded the Brigade Alsace-Lorraine. He moved in
> Marxist circles and found favour among the left-wing intellectuals (for
> his 'Litterature engagge'...translated as 'Committed Writing'...taking a
> stand as a writer on social and political questions and issues.This is
> ironic, because Malraux is cut from the same cloth which you seem to
> position Berger). Malraux later shifted his politics, and moved to the
> right and supported de Gaulle. It was after WWII that he concerned himself
> with the philosophy of art. He was prominent in Gaullist politics, serving
> as Minister for Cultural Affairs (1959-1969). I cannot imagine,
> particularly given the his direct participatory background, how Malraux's
> own politics and ideology are any less a part of his thinking and writing
> than Berger's politics and ideology are for his. Perhaps you could explain
> this to me, as I have not read either book (I did skim the Berger book
> years back...and have read a few other works by Berger, which I not only
> enjoyed, but highly respect, my relation to Malraux is similiar).
>
> ...I recently read a Dave Hickey essay (I hold this writer in the highest
> regard...few writers on art today do as splendidly as he), so before we
> completely disregard context and try to extract the art from the social
> world that it grew out of and within, I'd like to drop these thoughts on
> the table for consideration...
>
> €€€€€€€€€€
> NEXT TOPIC
> €€€€€€€€€€
>
> Eric,
> ...this more to your first mention of Berger's critique of Picasso in the
> Bathwater thread (coming from Spain to Paris, etc), seeming to mirror a
> part of Berger's Picasso history.
>
> In discussing a concept of Beauty, Hickey writes of the 'most beautiful
> image' being one that enfranchises the most people; the "most EFFECTIVE
> beautiful image", being one that valorizes the most prreposterous content
> to the most people for the longest time (here he uses Raphael's 'Madonna
> of the Chair", as he claims it valorises the doctrines of the incarnate
> word and the virgin birth to people that should have known better...his
> words); and finally, the "most EFFICIENT beautiful image" which he says
> valorizes the most egregious content to the wealthiest, most powerful and
> influential beholders exclusively". Then, as an example of the latter, he
> goes on to discuss Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, "a painting that
> we must regard either as a magnificent 'formal breakthrough' (whatever
> that is) or, more realistically, as a manifestation of Picasso's dazzling
> insight into the shifting values of his target market. I mean this
> seriously. Consider this scenario: Picasso comes to Paris, for all intents
> and purposes, a bumpkin, complete with a provincial and profoundly
> nineteenth-century concept of the cultural elite and its proclivities --
> still imagining that the rich and silly prefer to celebrate their
> privilege and indolence by 'aestheticizing' their immediate environment
> into this fine-tuned, fibrillating, pastel ATMOSPHERE. He proceeds to
> paint his Blue and Rose periods under this misapprehension (pastel clowns,
> indeed! )-- then Leo and Gertrude introduce him to a faster crowd.
> He meets some rich and careless Americans and, gradually, being no
> dummy, perceives, among the cultural elite with whom he is hanging out and
> perilously hanging on, a phase-shift in their parameters of self
> definition. These folks are no longer building gazebos and situating
> SYMBOLIST Madonnas in fern-choked grottos. They are running with the
> bulls--something that Picasso can understand--and measuring their power
> and security by their ability to tolerate high-velocity temporal change,
> high levels of symbolic distortion, and maximum psychic discontinuity.
> They are AMERICANS, in other words, post-Jamesian Americans, in search of
> no symbolic repose, unbeguiled by haystacks, glowing peasants, or Ladies
> of Shallot. So Pablo Picasso--neither the first nor the last artist whom
> rapacious careerism will endow with accute cultural sensitivity--goes for
> the gold, encapsulates the age, and, through no fault of his own, finally
> creates the cornerstone of the first great therapeutic institution."
>
> The essay deals with the institutionalization of art, hence his use of a
> term "therapeutic institution" above. The entire essay is involved in
> critiquing Beauty. He tracks the development of the institution of art
> (BTW Eric, he pulls in Deleuze's essay 'Coldness and Cruelty' and its
> critique of Sado-Masochism, particularly, "the sadist is in need of
> institutions, the masochist of contractual relations" to draw an analogy
> to the relation in the arts during different eras.
>
> (...)
>
> ...and Malraux. Come to think of it Ariane, Malraux's essay on the Museum
> Without Walls (although it is not fresh in my mind) plugs in very nicely
> to Hickey's work on the cultural institution of this century.
>
> (...)
>
> Cheers,
> -N.
>
> --
> N
> To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
Think for yourself, instead of letting Dave Hickey
think for you.
Hickey does create a few clever phrases:
Picasso as a "Rapacist careerist" is one. It is anachronistic
since the word "careerist" is a recently made up word and wouldn't have
applied to Picasso in his day. But, hey it sounds kool.
Hickey is a critic with very strong bias and opinions
but a writer? to be held in high esteem?
He's just a fad.
Marilyn
>
> On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, -N. wrote:
>
> > From: "-N." <redi...@earthlink.net_xxx>
> > Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> > Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
> >
> > Someone somewhere wrote:
> >
> > > Malraux' work is to
> > > Berger's what Picasso's work is to the then ubiquitous academicism which
> > > he transcended. Much more insightful, idiosyncratic, and honest.
> >
> > I haven't read either, yet I will speculate:
> >
> > "Much more insightful." (to Malraux's own political/economic/social
> > agenda), "idiosyncratic," (to Malraux own intellectual and historic
> > biases), "and honest." (..propoganda in support of his own ideology of art
> > and culture).
> >
> >
> > --
> > N
> > To reach me, remove _xxx from my address.
>
> style, and depth. Malraux was a French writer, poet who was a friend of
> Picasso's. Berger is a British Marxist academic who knew Picasso about as
> well as he knew Jimi Hendrix. Hey! Now that would be really interesting.
> A Marxist study of Jimi Hendrix and his use of Fender Stratocasters played
> upside down. Someone get me Berger's address....I've got a great
> follow-up study for him. He can just transpose what he said about
> Picasso. You know, "Hendrix was so passionate on guitar because there
> were no lower classes to be fooled in America while he was out on tour."
> Something to that effect. I'll leave it to him though, since he has the
> ultimate theory of the universe already figured out.
>
> a la prochaine,
>
> A.
Yes so that gives Berger the distance to give him greater objectivity.
[I haven't read the recent book by Berger but I'm looking forward to
it as I like his writing. He never made me into a marxist so his
marxism can't be that persuasive]
Picasso's politics?
Himself & his pictorial space, then women & bull fights.
He fumed and competed with even his closest friends, how
could he become political?
Marilyn
-N.
> === Well, they both presume to educate the reader about Picasso and his
> art. In this sense, Berger offers us a reductionistic economic analysis,
> while Malraux simply analyzes art on its own terms. The latter work is in
> this sense more profound and does a better job of educating the reader
> about Picasso and his art. You seem to prefer to relativize (and
> democratize) the works by stating that they both should be appreciated on
> their own merits. An admirable position of tolerance for sure, but, both
> books claim to have accomplished a study of Picasso and his art. Only one
> book does this satisfactorily in my opinion, the other....well I think you
> know where I stand on this by now. I guess that ultimately, I think
> writers and poets write better books about artists than do economists and
> other social scientists.
Greetings Ariane, I enjoyed your post and wanted to respond. As good a
place to meet you, as any, I suppose, (though it would be nice to do so in
person).
This is the same Andre Malraux who wrote Museum Without Walls (or some
similiarly titled essay to that effect), I presume? If it is, you consider
amending your last sentence to read: "I guess that ultimately, I think
novelists/essayists and politicians (all of which which Malraux was) write
better books about artists than do economists and other social
€€€€€€€€€€
NEXT TOPIC
€€€€€€€€€€
(...)
(...)
Cheers,
-N.
> Think for yourself, instead of letting Dave Hickey
> think for you.
I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but I don't think admiring
aother person's work means letting them think for you...the richest part
of dealing with another's work is inventively incorporating it into your
own systems.
> Hickey does create a few clever phrases: =
He does more than that in my opinion. YMMV.
I prefer to think for myself rather than have you decide what is good or
bad for me. Thanks though for the concern.
> Picasso as a "Rapacist careerist" is one. It is anachronistic
> since the word "careerist" is a recently made up word and wouldn't have
> applied to Picasso in his day. But, hey it sounds kool.
Etymology aside (I am uncertian of the inception of the term 'careerist'),
the idea appears quite sound to me. It supports the reflections others
have had on Picasso.
> Hickey is a critic with very strong bias and opinions
What else are you suggesting that a critic is...a supreme court judge?
Furthermore, Hickey is continually analysing his own biases, laying them
on the table, considering the role and effect, if any of the critic (he
seems to feel that criticism is the weakest thing you can do in
writing...air guitar (which, btw, is the title of his essay delineating
these ideas, and the title of his book ) and is why he likes criticism.
but a writer? to be held in high esteem? =
I think he is impressively good at what he does, among the best criticism
I have read.
> He's just a fad.
Call him what you will, he is fabulous at what he does. I don't feel
confident saying that about too many writers, particularly critics, and I
read a great deal. I think he pinned down an excellent reading Picasso's
effectiveness for the culture (as well as the role of the avante guarde,
anfd the art institution).
If you wish to attack him, at least get to the merit of your opposition to
him, (read him and respond to specific ideas and critiques) otherwise you
are appearing somewhat tiresome. We don't need to go through this sort of
off the cuff, pedestrian, and pointless trifling.
Marilyn
> > think for you.
>
> aother person's work means letting them think for you...the richest part
> of dealing with another's work is inventively incorporating it into your
> own systems.
You quote whole blocks of Hickey's essays seemingly to be swallowing
it whole without critical thinking which you usually encourage on
this ng. Which leads me to question:
Are you a fan or a critical thinker?
> > Hickey does create a few clever phrases: =
>
> He does more than that in my opinion. YMMV.
> I prefer to think for myself rather than have you decide what is good or
> bad for me. Thanks though for the concern.
>
> > Picasso as a "Rapacist careerist" is one. It is anachronistic
> > since the word "careerist" is a recently made up word and wouldn't have
> > applied to Picasso in his day. But, hey it sounds kool.
>
> Etymology aside (I am uncertian of the inception of the term 'careerist'),
> the idea appears quite sound to me. It supports the reflections others
> have had on Picasso.
Etymology cannot be put aside when discussing writing.
>> > Hickey is a critic with very strong bias and opinions
>
> What else are you suggesting that a critic is...a supreme court judge?
> Furthermore, Hickey is continually analysing his own biases, laying them
> on the table, considering the role and effect, if any of the critic (he
> seems to feel that criticism is the weakest thing you can do in
> writing...air guitar (which, btw, is the title of his essay delineating
> these ideas, and the title of his book ) and is why he likes criticism.
>
> but a writer? to be held in high esteem? =
>
> I think he is impressively good at what he does, among the best criticism
> I have read.
>
> > He's just a fad.
>
> Call him what you will, he is fabulous at what he does. I don't feel
> confident saying that about too many writers, particularly critics, and I
> read a great deal. I think he pinned down an excellent reading Picasso's
> effectiveness for the culture (as well as the role of the avante guarde,
> anfd the art institution).
> If you wish to attack him, at least get to the merit of your opposition to
> him, (read him and respond to specific ideas and critiques) otherwise you
> are appearing somewhat tiresome. We don't need to go through this sort of
> off the cuff, pedestrian, and pointless trifling.
>
> Cheers,
> -N.
There was no attack, it was an acceptance of him as a critic but not
as a good writer, on my part. Is there a possiblity of my disagreeing
with you in a brief non-essay format without you becoming patronizing
and condescending? (as in "We don't need...off the cuff, pedestrian etc.)
That's the question.
Yes I read his four essays on beauty on found it to be thought-provoking,
but badly written. While I agreed with his exposition of the
"Therapeutic Institution." (his own invented phrase) I did not accept
his menage a trois explanation of the triad:
Viewer
Work
Artist
especially in regard to Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio.
This work involves the 4th element to make it a quad, (menage a quatre)
because the subject matter is real people doing real things.
Hickey calls this work a "celebration of marginality" while I
call it photo-documentation of male sado-masochism.
I think he is being dishonest and I don't like his syntax.
I would re title the book "Essays on Packaging" and in that regard,
Hickey fails in his own packaging (writing).
regards,
Marilyn
Ariane
On Sun, 28 Feb 1999, -N. wrote:
> From: "-N." <redi...@earthlink.net_xxx>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
>
> In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.99022...@alcor.concordia.ca>,
> Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
>
>
> > === Well, they both presume to educate the reader about Picasso and his
> > art. In this sense, Berger offers us a reductionistic economic analysis,
> > while Malraux simply analyzes art on its own terms. The latter work is in
> > this sense more profound and does a better job of educating the reader
> > about Picasso and his art. You seem to prefer to relativize (and
> > democratize) the works by stating that they both should be appreciated on
> > their own merits. An admirable position of tolerance for sure, but, both
> > books claim to have accomplished a study of Picasso and his art. Only one
> > book does this satisfactorily in my opinion, the other....well I think you
> > know where I stand on this by now. I guess that ultimately, I think
> > writers and poets write better books about artists than do economists and
> > other social scientists.
>
> Greetings Ariane, I enjoyed your post and wanted to respond. As good a
> place to meet you, as any, I suppose, (though it would be nice to do so in
> person).
>
> This is the same Andre Malraux who wrote Museum Without Walls (or some
> similiarly titled essay to that effect), I presume?
=== The same.
If it is, you consider
> amending your last sentence to read: "I guess that ultimately, I think
> novelists/essayists and politicians (all of which which Malraux was) write
> better books about artists than do economists and other social
> scientists." (I never really thought of Berger is an economist, a Marxist
> yes. He has some social scientist in his blood, but it serves, more often
> then not, to inform his work on art as not something detatched and
> abstract, but as a human cultural activity of exchange).
=== Well, Marxism is political economy after all. But anyway, we both see
social science in the same way. I'm simply against reducing art to
something else and then pretending to have given an adequate account of
it. When social scientists analyze art as a human cultural activity of
exchange for example, then they should be EXPLICIT about the uses and
limitations of their APPROACH to the topic - art - which can't be
completely accounted for in this manner. This is an examination of an
ASPECT of art only.
> Malraux was early on a militant anti-fascist, fought in the Spanish Civil
> War, was a Resistance leader (maquis section) during WWII, and after his
> arrest and release he commanded the Brigade Alsace-Lorraine. He moved in
> Marxist circles and found favour among the left-wing intellectuals (for
> his 'Litterature engagge'...translated as 'Committed Writing'...taking a
> stand as a writer on social and political questions and issues.This is
> ironic, because Malraux is cut from the same cloth which you seem to
> position Berger).
=== ....And Picasso. No matter, my point was that Malraux wrote a much
better book on Picasso than did Berger. The politics are at best
peripheral so long as the subject isn't reduced to the politics.
Malraux later shifted his politics, and moved to the
> right and supported de Gaulle. It was after WWII that he concerned himself
> with the philosophy of art. He was prominent in Gaullist politics, serving
> as Minister for Cultural Affairs (1959-1969). I cannot imagine,
> particularly given the his direct participatory background, how Malraux's
> own politics and ideology are any less a part of his thinking and writing
> than Berger's politics and ideology are for his.
=== Because Malraux is an infinitely more talented and artistic writer
than is the academic Berger, and therefore Malraux doesn't need to
address Picasso and his art vis-a-vis his politics. Malraux became
minister of culture in France because he was a nationally revered artist,
not the other way around. He has, in my opinion (and you can compare the
two works yourself), a much more profound understanding of Picasso and
his work than does Berger.
Perhaps you could explain
> this to me, as I have not read either book (I did skim the Berger book
> years back...and have read a few other works by Berger, which I not only
> enjoyed, but highly respect, my relation to Malraux is similiar).
>
> ...I recently read a Dave Hickey essay (I hold this writer in the highest
> regard...few writers on art today do as splendidly as he), so before we
> completely disregard context and try to extract the art from the social
> world that it grew out of and within, I'd like to drop these thoughts on
> the table for consideration...
=== I've never read Hickey but I'll check it out. Thanks for the
reference.
> NEXT TOPIC
> €€€€€€€€€€
>
>
> Eric,
> ...this more to your first mention of Berger's critique of Picasso in the
> Bathwater thread (coming from Spain to Paris, etc), seeming to mirror a
> part of Berger's Picasso history.
>
>
> In discussing a concept of Beauty, Hickey writes of the 'most beautiful
> image' being one that enfranchises the most people
=== Is beauty democratic? Sounds like a spin-off from Mill's
moral utilitarianism. Problem is, we need to define `enfranchising the
people' and then we need to empirically verify the definition with
reference to the people. A dubious task.
; the "most EFFECTIVE
> beautiful image", being one that valorizes the most prreposterous content
> to the most people for the longest time (here he uses Raphael's 'Madonna
> of the Chair", as he claims it valorises the doctrines of the incarnate
> word and the virgin birth to people that should have known better
=== A democracy of beauty...Hmmm....so then Big Macs could be said to be
`beautiful' burgers?
...his
> words); and finally, the "most EFFICIENT beautiful image" which he says
> valorizes the most egregious content to the wealthiest, most powerful and
> influential beholders exclusively". Then, as an example of the latter, he
> goes on to discuss Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, "a painting that
> we must regard either as a magnificent 'formal breakthrough' (whatever
> that is) or, more realistically, as a manifestation of Picasso's dazzling
> insight into the shifting values of his target market.
=== The `formal breakthrough' sounds more realistic to me I'm afraid.
Hickey needs to ask himself one elementary question: If Picasso was such a
businessman and marketing genius, why did he spend so much time painting
and drawing? You would prefer an expanation of the work in terms of an
`economic breakthrough' as opposed to a `formal breakthrough,' but this is
simply confused since the latter typifies the concerns of the working
artist while the former typifies the concerns of the working art dealer.
I mean this seriously.
=== Sure but that's the problem with contextualism, it avoids
understanding the concrete subject matter in question in favour of
subsuming it by another, more theoretical abstraction.
Consider this scenario: Picasso comes to Paris, for all intents
> and purposes, a bumpkin, complete with a provincial and profoundly
> nineteenth-century concept of the cultural elite and its proclivities --
> still imagining that the rich and silly prefer to celebrate their
> privilege and indolence by 'aestheticizing' their immediate environment
> into this fine-tuned, fibrillating, pastel ATMOSPHERE.
=== Nope, don't buy it. Barcelona was and still is a very cosmopolitan
European city. By the time Picasso got to Paris, he was experimenting
with many different styles and was well aqcuainted with the avant-garde
philosophies of the day.
He proceeds to
> paint his Blue and Rose periods under this misapprehension (pastel clowns,
> indeed! )-- then Leo and Gertrude introduce him to a faster crowd.
> He meets some rich and careless Americans and, gradually, being no
> dummy, perceives, among the cultural elite with whom he is hanging out and
> perilously hanging on, a phase-shift in their parameters of self
> definition. These folks are no longer building gazebos and situating
> SYMBOLIST Madonnas in fern-choked grottos. They are running with the
> bulls--something that Picasso can understand--and measuring their power
> and security by their ability to tolerate high-velocity temporal change,
> high levels of symbolic distortion, and maximum psychic discontinuity.
> They are AMERICANS, in other words, post-Jamesian Americans, in search of
> no symbolic repose, unbeguiled by haystacks, glowing peasants, or Ladies
> of Shallot.
=== What a bunch of ethnocentric ____! Picasso associated with only two
Americans, the Steins, and his main influences and associates at the time
were overwhelmingly comprised of Spaniards and French. Manolo the
sculptor, Casagemas, Modigliani (Italian), Fernande Olivier, Max Jacob,
Guillaume Apollinaire...This was the avant-garde in Paris. The Steins
were wealthy, well-educated ex-pats who were tolerated on these
grounds...there were no other Americans. The most important iconoclasts
in fin-de-siecle Parisan art were these Europeans with whom Picasso was so
fortuitously associated.
So Pablo Picasso--neither the first nor the last artist whom
> rapacious careerism will endow with accute cultural sensitivity--goes for
> the gold, encapsulates the age, and, through no fault of his own, finally
> creates the cornerstone of the first great therapeutic institution."
> The essay deals with the institutionalization of art, hence his use of a
> term "therapeutic institution" above. The entire essay is involved in
> critiquing Beauty. He tracks the development of the institution of art
> (BTW Eric, he pulls in Deleuze's essay 'Coldness and Cruelty' and its
> critique of Sado-Masochism, particularly, "the sadist is in need of
> institutions, the masochist of contractual relations" to draw an analogy
> to the relation in the arts during different eras.
>
=== Sounds like standard revisionist PoMo drivel to me.
> (...)
>
> ...and Malraux. Come to think of it Ariane, Malraux's essay on the Museum
> Without Walls (although it is not fresh in my mind) plugs in very nicely
> to Hickey's work on the cultural institution of this century.
=== But the Museum without Walls is a personal construct, idiosyncratic,
and is only SECONDARILY related to any cultural institution as mediated
through individuals. So, no, its not even remotely related to the
aforementioned contextualist speculation.
> Cheers,
> -N.
a bientot,
A.
-N.
> -N. wrote:
> You quote whole blocks of Hickey's essays seemingly to be swallowing
> it whole without critical thinking which you usually encourage on
> this ng. Which leads me to question:
> Are you a fan or a critical thinker?
Both.
I went to the trouble to quote, frankly, for Erics sake. I thought he
would be interested in a similiar reading of Picasso, as the one he
described from Berger.
> > Etymology aside (I am uncertian of the inception of the term 'careerist'),
> > the idea appears quite sound to me. It supports the reflections others
> > have had on Picasso.
>
> Etymology cannot be put aside when discussing writing.
Yes it can, particualrly in this case.
Firstly, we are discussing Pablo Picasso, who at the time was speaking
Spanish and French. By your logic, any word of english used to describe
this entity under examonation would not apply.
If you wish not to put etymology aside, then do the research and find a
phrase or word that approciamtes 'careerist', in the official vocabulary
of French and Spanish at the turn of the century, or in the vernacular or
vulgate.
When you are done beating dead horses, you can come back (and with your
new phrases) address the merit of the ideas discussed. What is it that you
find so difficult here?
> There was no attack, it was an acceptance of him as a critic but not
> as a good writer, on my part. Is there a possiblity of my disagreeing
> with you in a brief non-essay format without you becoming patronizing
> and condescending? (as in "We don't need...off the cuff, pedestrian etc.)
> That's the question.
The point was that you didn't qualify anything. You didn't state why he
was one or the other. I encourage disputation and arguementation. But
without qualification, it just becomes another inning of "Picasso isn't an
artist vs Picasso is the best artist of all time". Why even bother to post
anything if that is the level of the discourse? He is an asshole. No he's
not. Oh Yes he is. Oh no he's not. Oh yes he..
If had you peceived in my post that I was having little patience for such
exchanges these days, you would be right.
> Yes I read his four essays on beauty on found it to be thought-provoking,
> but badly written. While I agreed with his exposition of the
> "Therapeutic Institution." (his own invented phrase) I did not accept
> his menage a trois explanation of the triad:
> Viewer
> Work
> Artist
> especially in regard to Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio.
>
> This work involves the 4th element to make it a quad, (menage a quatre)
> because the subject matter is real people doing real things.
This is implied, what if anything is special about this revelation?
[Indeed, it is not actually real people doing real things, it is real
people transformed into models and performers for the camera, an event
artificially shaped by an artistic will.]
> Hickey calls this work a "celebration of marginality" while I
> call it photo-documentation of male sado-masochism.
>
> I think he is being dishonest and I don't like his syntax.
What don't you like about his terminology and why do you think him dishonest?
i think Hickey was right on the money. The reason the images provoked
certain individuals is that it didn't ghettoize the content. It
celebrated marginal sexual/social activity. That unnerved alot of people.
I think had Mapplthorpe made the images in a clinical documentary mode
[observe these specimens of abnormal and/or pathetc sexual/social
dysfunctionals] the images would not have threatened, and without a
threat...there would have been no need for censorship.
> I would re title the book "Essays on Packaging" and in that regard,
> Hickey fails in his own packaging (writing).
Hickey talks about the packaging of the essays into a book form at the onset.
-
Cheers,
-N
-N.
Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
> > > while Malraux simply analyzes art on its own terms.
What are arts 'own' terms? It seems to me that any answer to this question
will unavoidably fall back onto an ideology...one that is not 'neutral'.
> =3D=3D=3D Well, Marxism is political economy after all. But anyway, we bot=
> h see
> social science in the same way. I'm simply against reducing art to
> something else and then pretending to have given an adequate account of
> it. When social scientists analyze art as a human cultural activity of
> exchange for example, then they should be EXPLICIT about the uses and
> limitations of their APPROACH to the topic - art - which can't be
> completely accounted for in this manner. This is an examination of an
> ASPECT of art only.=20
All critiques will be limited.How they are then utilized by the reader
depends upon the readers own interaction with the text (ex., the readers
own history which the text cannot anticipate). It is an impossiblity to
identify all the limitations of a text.
> > Malraux was early on a militant anti-fascist, fought in the Spanish Civil
> > War, was a Resistance leader (maquis section) during WWII, and after his
> > arrest and release he commanded the Brigade Alsace-Lorraine. He moved in
> > Marxist circles and found favour among the left-wing intellectuals (for
> > his 'Litterature engagge'...translated as 'Committed Writing'...taking a
> > stand as a writer on social and political questions and issues.This is
> > ironic, because Malraux is cut from the same cloth which you seem to
> > position Berger).
>
> =3D=3D=3D ....And Picasso. No matter, my point was that Malraux wrote a muc=
> h
> better book on Picasso than did Berger. The politics are at best
> peripheral so long as the subject isn't reduced to the politics.
>
> Malraux later shifted his politics, and moved to the
> > right and supported de Gaulle. It was after WWII that he concerned himsel=
> f
> > with the philosophy of art. He was prominent in Gaullist politics, servin=
> g
> > as Minister for Cultural Affairs (1959-1969). I cannot imagine,
> > particularly given the his direct participatory background, how Malraux's
> > own politics and ideology are any less a part of his thinking and writing
> > than Berger's politics and ideology are for his.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Because Malraux is an infinitely more talented and artistic write=
> r
> than is the academic Berger, and therefore Malraux doesn't need to
> address Picasso and his art vis-a-vis his politics.
Having not read Malraux's book, I cannot comment. I find Berger an
engaging writer. I cannot imagine how Malraux could have written without
his own politics being expressed by his very conception of the subject
matter and a conception of the limits of the subject matter. There is no
'white writing', or a writing degree zero that is freed of such
ideological underpinnings.
Malraux became
> minister of culture in France because he was a nationally revered artist,
> not the other way around.
Well, there are many nationally revered artists that do not become
ministers of art. I cannot comment on Malraux's own political ambitions, I
am not familair enough with the topic. A French minister is an
administrator (I beleive) not an artist. I am not completely clear excatly
what an Art Minister does.
He has, in my opinion (and you can compare the
> two works yourself), a much more profound understanding of Picasso and
> his work than does Berger.=20
I'll have to suspend my judgement on the books, until I read the works in
question. I have read enough other works of these writers to be able to
securely and confidently admire them both for their contributions.
> > Eric,
> > ...this more to your first mention of Berger's critique of Picasso in the
> > Bathwater thread (coming from Spain to Paris, etc), seeming to mirror a
> > part of Berger's Picasso history.
> >=20
> >=20
> > In discussing a concept of Beauty, Hickey writes of the 'most beautiful
> > image' being one that enfranchises the most people
>
> =3D=3D=3D Is beauty democratic?
Not necessarily. Hickey brings in Goebbels, Stalin, and Alfred Barr as
individuals that understood the rhetotic of beaty as suggested below.
Sounds like a spin-off from Mill's
> moral utilitarianism. Problem is, we need to define `enfranchising the
> people' and then we need to empirically verify the definition with
> reference to the people. A dubious task.=20
No...first you will need to read the essay. THEN, we can discus the ideas.
He is refering to the rhetoric of beauty. He brings in Freud's take on
images/beauty than differes claiming the rhetoric of beauty politicises
(makes publically availible) , rather than ameliorating the artist's
radical, infantile wishes.
His subject is beauty and the 'therapuetic institution' of art that we now
have.
He suggests beauty functions by enfranchises the beholder by 'exhibiting
markers that designate a territory of shared values, thus empowering the
beholder to respond" and by "valorizing the content of the image, which,
presuming its litigious or nuerotic intent, is in need of valorizing". Of
course, to understand this you need to follow his earlier exegesis of the
image in western culture. He then suggests that rhetorical beauty in this
view is a quantitative concept. It propses to enfranchise numners of
individuals. Then he goes into his concept of rhetoric and the functions
it can perform (at times, some better than others) and comes up with his
classifications of 'most beautiful image' 'most effective beautiful image
", 'most efficient beautiful image'.
> ; the "most EFFECTIVE
> > beautiful image", being one that valorizes the most prreposterous content
> > to the most people for the longest time (here he uses Raphael's 'Madonna
> > of the Chair", as he claims it valorises the doctrines of the incarnate
> > word and the virgin birth to people that should have known better
>
> =3D=3D=3D A democracy of beauty...Hmmm....so then Big Macs could be said to=
> be
> `beautiful' burgers?
No, I think your addition of democracy to the criticism is outside
Hickey's interests (he has an interest in the political control of images,
and the fact that images of beauty carry a load of psycho-political
permission) In fact, he brings in in Goebbels, Stalin, and Alfred Barr as
individuals that understood the rhetotic of beauty as he delineates it.
As he is defining the 'therapuetic art institution' [the defining
conditions limiting such an institution being pornography and commodity
advertising], however, these latter also participate in the rhetoric of
beauty. Indeed, he claims that the endeavors that exist outside the
'therapuetic art institution', as they continue to employ the powerful
rhetoric of beauty to sell soap and sex, allow for the construction of
images in which the figures of beauty function as they always have in
western art. He also suggests that a shift has taken place in this century
whereas the function of the 'therapuetic art institution' has no need for
beauty.
I suggest reading his essay, it is somewhat involved, its subject is
defining a modern institution of art, the 'therapuetic art institution'
compared with older regimes of art, and the function of , or absense of,
the function of beauty in these different cultural regimes.
> =2E..his
> > words); and finally, the "most EFFICIENT beautiful image" which he says
> > valorizes the most egregious content to the wealthiest, most powerful and
> > influential beholders exclusively". Then, as an example of the latter, he
> > goes on to discuss Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, "a painting that
> > we must regard either as a magnificent 'formal breakthrough' (whatever
> > that is) or, more realistically, as a manifestation of Picasso's dazzling
> > insight into the shifting values of his target market.
>
> =3D=3D=3D The `formal breakthrough' sounds more realistic to me I'm afraid.=
> =20
> Hickey needs to ask himself one elementary question: If Picasso was such a
> businessman and marketing genius, why did he spend so much time painting
> and drawing?
He had to make the products he was then going to sell. Picasso was a
professional artist, he was not a hobbyist.
> You would prefer an expanation of the work in terms of an
> `economic breakthrough' as opposed to a `formal breakthrough,'
Now you are putting words in my mouth. You are irresponsibly reading too
much into not only Hickey, but into my opinions as well. What grounds do
you have for making such a presumption? I prefer a more comphrehensive
understanding of the situation to a simple, neat and pat answer. I find
the critique insightful and convincing, and a good addition to the classic
modernist force-of-nature/painter/genius myth.
I think the critique goes into describing the criteria of the avant-guarde
as well.
> simply confused since the latter typifies the concerns of the working
> artist while the former typifies the concerns of the working art dealer.
I think you are getting confused here. The concerns of the working
professional artist (in this case Picasso) is to find a way to make a
living from his art (otherwise you are talking about a hobbyist), to find
a way for their art to put food on the table.
The two positions are not mutually exclusive, they inhere in one
another...one makes things, one sells those things. One gets a business
contract to make something (a comissioned poortrait) one makes a product
and delivers the goods. One builds up stock, one seeks a vendor and
distributor to sell the stock. Like it or not, Picasso ws very much into
the commerce. I have read interesting accounts by one of his lovers or
wives , of Picasso practicing negotiation tactics with them in preparation
for a meeting with a dealer. He did not make iit to where he was by
putting his head in the sand. Indeed, Hickey was very clear when he
stated that Picasso was 'neither the first nor last artist whom rapacious
careerism wll endow with accute cultural sensitivity---goes for the gold,
encapsulates an age'.
It is customary in Modenist critique (except when the subject is business
people) to police the range of the discource, particularly when the issue
is money or politics...this is necessary to establish a myth of art as
completely cutoff from the concerns of the world and detatched from all
variety of its connections as a cultural activity. It is a position of
conspicious exclusion, impossible to maintain, other than through
wholesale repression. One does well to examine the excluded material...it
gives a better picture of the political/ideological/context-dependent
nature of the critique.
I am inserting this quote from a previous post ( recommend you do a
DejaNews search for the full posty, it is rather illuminating).
Start quote:
The engineering of Picassoąs market success is fascinating. His dealers
were incredibly savvy in creating a market and increasing the value of
his commodities. If you research into the early years of the century, the
verdict of Picasso as the emperor of the market was not established then,
and he was fighting with other artists for position.
łThe same month that Matisse signed his contract with Bernheim, Picasso
used his new financial stability to move from the tenement Bateau Lavoir
to a spacious apartment with a separate studio on the boulevard de Clichy;
he also hired a maid to keep the house and serve meals. Yet Picasso still
lacked a regular dealer. His search for a steady backer appears to be
registered in the portraits he painted at this time, much as it was during
other transitional periods in his career--such as his show with Vollard in
1901 and his cultivation of the Steins in 1905. During 1909-10, Picasso
painted five portraits--the last ones he executed until 1915. One
represents his old friend Manuel Pallares, whom he painted during a visit
to Barcelona in the spring of 1909. The other four depict dealers, not the
poets or critics one might expect the artist to portray. Instead of
Apollinaire, Salmon, and Max Jacob, for instance, Picasso labored for
months over portraits of Clovis Sagot, Ambroise Vollard, Wilhelm Uhde, and
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler˛
and...
łFollowing his return to Paris the following winter and the move to new
quarters, he embarked during the winter of 1909-10 on a set of closely
matched portraits: Vollard, Uhde, and Kahnwailer. While Sagotąs small
operation could not offer hope of long-term security, these three
better-capitalized businessmen did. But although Vollard made purchases
and continued to buy paintings from time to time, Picasso had been
unsuccessful in obtaining a commitment from him. (True to form, Vollard
sold his portrait a few years later to the Russian collector Ivan Morozov
for three thousand francs.) Uhde had also been a regular customer since
1905, when he began to develop a collection that actually constituted
stock for his private dealing. It is probably not a coincidence that
Picassoąs portrait of him preceded by only a few months an exhibition of
the artistąs work that Uhde organized in May 1910 at the Galerie Notre
Dame des Champs.˛
-Michael C. FitzGerald, Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the
Market for Twentieth Century Art, 1995, p.33.
Yes, yes. We are aware of how corruptly self-promoting this generation of
artists is, and how pure the artists of the past were, not promoting or
dirtying their hands. The above example of Picasso interpreted into
current times, Gabriel (great visionary of artistic practices that you
are) would go something like this: in 1999 out of your entire artistic
production, you only paint 5 portraits, one is of your best friend, the
other four are of Leo Costelli, Mary Boone, Larry Gaugosian, and Mathew
Marks. Just a coincidence, right, that you painted those dealers, no other
intentions, hidden agendaąs...
Curious material when one goes poking.
End Quote.
> I mean this seriously.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Sure but that's the problem with contextualism, it avoids
> understanding the concrete subject matter in question in favour of
> subsuming it by another, more theoretical abstraction. =20
Your 'concrete subject matter' is the perfect example of your
aforementioned theoretical abstraction.
> Consider this scenario: Picasso comes to Paris, for all intents
> > and purposes, a bumpkin, complete with a provincial and profoundly
> > nineteenth-century concept of the cultural elite and its proclivities --
> > still imagining that the rich and silly prefer to celebrate their
> > privilege and indolence by 'aestheticizing' their immediate environment
> > into this fine-tuned, fibrillating, pastel ATMOSPHERE.
>
> =3D=3D=3D Nope, don't buy it. Barcelona was and still is a very cosmopolit=
> an
> European city.
Then why bother moving to Paris? Are you suggesting that the avante
guarde was taking it's cues from Barcelona? Why would Picasso have moved
to Paris if he could have painted just as well in Spain? Could career
motivations have anything to do with his descision?
By the time Picasso got to Paris, he was experimenting
> with many different styles and was well aqcuainted with the avant-garde
> philosophies of the day.
>
> He proceeds to
> > paint his Blue and Rose periods under this misapprehension (pastel clowns=
> ,
> > indeed! )-- then Leo and Gertrude introduce him to a faster crowd.
> > He meets some rich and careless Americans and, gradually, being no
> > dummy, perceives, among the cultural elite with whom he is hanging out an=
> d
> > perilously hanging on, a phase-shift in their parameters of self
> > definition. These folks are no longer building gazebos and situating
> > SYMBOLIST Madonnas in fern-choked grottos. They are running with the
> > bulls--something that Picasso can understand--and measuring their power
> > and security by their ability to tolerate high-velocity temporal change,
> > high levels of symbolic distortion, and maximum psychic discontinuity.
> > They are AMERICANS, in other words, post-Jamesian Americans, in search of
> > no symbolic repose, unbeguiled by haystacks, glowing peasants, or Ladies
> > of Shallot.=20
>
> =3D=3D=3D What a bunch of ethnocentric ____! Picasso associated with only =
> two
> Americans, the Steins, and his main influences and associates at the time
> were overwhelmingly comprised of Spaniards and French. Manolo the
> sculptor, Casagemas, Modigliani (Italian), Fernande Olivier, Max Jacob,
> Guillaume Apollinaire...This was the avant-garde in Paris. The Steins
> were wealthy, well-educated ex-pats who were tolerated on these
> grounds...there were no other Americans. The most important iconoclasts=20
> in fin-de-siecle Parisan art were these Europeans with whom Picasso was so
> fortuitously associated.
>
You said it,"the Steins were wealthy". If you are a poor painter, a
wealthy person who takes an interest in you (and your art) is a VERY[!!!]
important part of your social world. Yes, I am sure Picasso 'tolerated'
the Steins.
> So Pablo Picasso--neither the first nor the last artist whom
> > rapacious careerism will endow with accute cultural sensitivity--goes for
> > the gold, encapsulates the age, and, through no fault of his own, finally
> > creates the cornerstone of the first great therapeutic institution."
> > The essay deals with the institutionalization of art, hence his use of a
> > term "therapeutic institution" above. The entire essay is involved in
> > critiquing Beauty. He tracks the development of the institution of art
> > (BTW Eric, he pulls in Deleuze's essay 'Coldness and Cruelty' and its
> > critique of Sado-Masochism, particularly, "the sadist is in need of
> > institutions, the masochist of contractual relations" to draw an analogy
> > to the relation in the arts during different eras.
> >=20
>
> =3D=3D=3D Sounds like standard revisionist PoMo drivel to me.
Your own brand of 'modernist contextualism' is getting threadbare.
> > ...and Malraux. Come to think of it Ariane, Malraux's essay on the Museum
> > Without Walls (although it is not fresh in my mind) plugs in very nicely
> > to Hickey's work on the cultural institution of this century.=20
>
> =3D=3D=3D But the Museum without Walls is a personal construct, idiosyncrat=
> ic,
> and is only SECONDARILY related to any cultural institution as mediated
> through individuals.
Not sure excatly what you mean by this.
My understanding of the museum without walls, is that it is a construct
brought into being by the re-contextualizing that technology enacts (in
Malraux's day, the enacting technology is photographic reproduction).
Indeed, this very medium we are communicating on is the most current
installment of the museum without walls.
So, no, its not even remotely related to the
> aforementioned contextualist speculation.
Sorry to have to be the one to point it out to you, but CONTEXT is
EVERYTHING in the 'museum without walls'. We now exist in a situation in
which a deracination is commenced that makes recursivity an infinite and
creative enterprise. Pierre Menard is alive, well, and is the rule, rather
than the exception.
Come to think of it, I don't have the faintest clue how you are using the
term 'contextualist', you have completely lost me.
Ariane
On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, -N. wrote:
> From: "-N." <redi...@earthlink.net_xxx>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.fine
> Subject: Re: Cubism and Bathwater (was Re: An interesting aside)
>
> In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.990301...@alcor.concordia.ca>,
> Ariane <da_l...@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
>
> > > > while Malraux simply analyzes art on its own terms.
>
> What are arts 'own' terms? It seems to me that any answer to this question
> will unavoidably fall back onto an ideology...one that is not 'neutral'.
=== Discussing painting in terms relevant to painters of lovers of
painting for example. To write about poetry poetically. Basically, to
avoid the systematic analytic reductionism that only mystifies the
concrete subject at hand in favour of upholding a `cult' of academic
expertise in the arts. Or, if you prefer, cutting the crap.
>
> > =3D=3D=3D Well, Marxism is political economy after all. But anyway, we bot=
> > h see
> > social science in the same way. I'm simply against reducing art to
> > something else and then pretending to have given an adequate account of
> > it. When social scientists analyze art as a human cultural activity of
> > exchange for example, then they should be EXPLICIT about the uses and
> > limitations of their APPROACH to the topic - art - which can't be
> > completely accounted for in this manner. This is an examination of an
> > ASPECT of art only.=20
>
> All critiques will be limited.How they are then utilized by the reader
> depends upon the readers own interaction with the text (ex., the readers
> own history which the text cannot anticipate). It is an impossiblity to
> identify all the limitations of a text.
=== Sure, but this basic `hermeneutic' insight is conveniently glossed
over in Berger's political economy of Picasso and his art. Identifying
some of the most glaring limitations and uses of a text is the mark of a
good scholar. Pretentions of expertise should always be qualified.
Anything less is dishonest and ultimately misleads less critical readers
(even scientists).
=== Sure. I can't disagree. But to deconstruct his text in these terms
and to contextualize Malraux' work in terms of ideology is not only
simplistic and wrongheaded, it ignores the OTHER, more conscious, and more
important elements of Malraux' framing of his topic. Why read between the
lines so as to miss the point of the words themselves. This is just
another form of academic thought-sport, a blatant esoteric egotism which,
once fully understood, turns out to be the least profound form of analysis
available.
> Malraux became
> > minister of culture in France because he was a nationally revered artist,
> > not the other way around.
>
> Well, there are many nationally revered artists that do not become
> ministers of art. I cannot comment on Malraux's own political ambitions, I
> am not familair enough with the topic. A French minister is an
> administrator (I beleive) not an artist. I am not completely clear excatly
> what an Art Minister does.
=== As the Minister of culture, Malraux acted as a an administrator and
liaison between important artists (ie, Picasso), centres of artistic
activity (state sponsored artists colonies etc.), and government policy.
That's why an artist like Malraux would be perfect for the job of French
Minister of Culture. Let's not forget, France was (and still is) a social
democracy, and as such, the French government plays a large and active
role in the development of the arts in France. It's a different system
from the one you're used to in America.
> He has, in my opinion (and you can compare the
> > two works yourself), a much more profound understanding of Picasso and
> > his work than does Berger.=20
>
> I'll have to suspend my judgement on the books, until I read the works in
> question. I have read enough other works of these writers to be able to
> securely and confidently admire them both for their contributions.
=== Fair enough. I just think one is better than the other in terms of
understanding Picasso the artist, rather than Picasso the social product.
Neither is superior in any purely objective sense however.
> > > Eric,
> > > ...this more to your first mention of Berger's critique of Picasso in the
> > > Bathwater thread (coming from Spain to Paris, etc), seeming to mirror a
> > > part of Berger's Picasso history.
> > >=20
> > >=20
> > > In discussing a concept of Beauty, Hickey writes of the 'most beautiful
> > > image' being one that enfranchises the most people
> >
> > =3D=3D=3D Is beauty democratic?
>
> Not necessarily. Hickey brings in Goebbels, Stalin, and Alfred Barr as
> individuals that understood the rhetotic of beaty as suggested below.
>
> Sounds like a spin-off from Mill's
> > moral utilitarianism. Problem is, we need to define `enfranchising the
> > people' and then we need to empirically verify the definition with
> > reference to the people. A dubious task.=20
>
> No...first you will need to read the essay. THEN, we can discus the ideas.
=== Agreed, what's the reference?
> He is refering to the rhetoric of beauty. He brings in Freud's take on
> images/beauty than differes claiming the rhetoric of beauty politicises
> (makes publically availible) , rather than ameliorating the artist's
> radical, infantile wishes.
>
> His subject is beauty and the 'therapuetic institution' of art that we now
> have.
> He suggests beauty functions by enfranchises the beholder by 'exhibiting
> markers that designate a territory of shared values, thus empowering the
> beholder to respond" and by "valorizing the content of the image, which,
> presuming its litigious or nuerotic intent, is in need of valorizing". Of
> course, to understand this you need to follow his earlier exegesis of the
> image in western culture.
=== So what's the reference for this exigesis too? I'm telling you
though, it sounds like standard PoMo analysis to me.
=== Cool. I'll read it and get back to you on it if you don't mind.
>
> > =2E..his
> > > words); and finally, the "most EFFICIENT beautiful image" which he says
> > > valorizes the most egregious content to the wealthiest, most powerful and
> > > influential beholders exclusively". Then, as an example of the latter, he
> > > goes on to discuss Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, "a painting that
> > > we must regard either as a magnificent 'formal breakthrough' (whatever
> > > that is) or, more realistically, as a manifestation of Picasso's dazzling
> > > insight into the shifting values of his target market.
> >
> > =3D=3D=3D The `formal breakthrough' sounds more realistic to me I'm afraid.=
> > =20
> > Hickey needs to ask himself one elementary question: If Picasso was such a
> > businessman and marketing genius, why did he spend so much time painting
> > and drawing?
>
> He had to make the products he was then going to sell. Picasso was a
> professional artist, he was not a hobbyist.
=== Nor a businessman.
=== But anyway, the "Desmoiselles d'Avignon" was hidden away in Picasso's
studio for over 13 years after it was painted, and history has shown that
it was his first formal breakthrough toward the development of Cubism two
years later. Even his peers were shocked by its formal characteristics.
Andre Salmon remarked at the time that one day, they'd all find Picasso
hanging behind his `monstrosity'.
>
> > You would prefer an expanation of the work in terms of an
> > `economic breakthrough' as opposed to a `formal breakthrough,'
>
> Now you are putting words in my mouth.
=== What???!!! How about I paraphrase you paraphrasing Hickey then. "...a
magnificent formal breakthrough (whatever that is), or, more
realistically, [SIC] a manifestation of Picasso's dazzling insight into
the shifting values of his target market." To this I added the above
comment. I don't play academic thought-sport and semantic haggling.
You're favouring an economic explanation of Picasso's 1907 painting
entitled `Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon' pure and simple.
You are irresponsibly reading too
> much into not only Hickey, but into my opinions as well. What grounds do
> you have for making such a presumption?
=== Your own comments on Hickey's work.
I prefer a more comphrehensive
> understanding of the situation to a simple, neat and pat answer. I find
> the critique insightful and convincing, and a good addition to the classic
> modernist force-of-nature/painter/genius myth.
=== As opposed to the postmodernist force-of-politics/painter/social
product myth?
> I think the critique goes into describing the criteria of the avant-guarde
> as well.
>
> > simply confused since the latter typifies the concerns of the working
> > artist while the former typifies the concerns of the working art dealer.
>
> I think you are getting confused here. The concerns of the working
> professional artist (in this case Picasso) is to find a way to make a
> living from his art (otherwise you are talking about a hobbyist), to find
> a way for their art to put food on the table.
=== Agreed. But not the only concern for an artist who wants to make his
way into the Art History books which Picasso also wanted. How to do both?
> The two positions are not mutually exclusive, they inhere in one
> another...one makes things, one sells those things. One gets a business
> contract to make something (a comissioned poortrait) one makes a product
> and delivers the goods. One builds up stock, one seeks a vendor and
> distributor to sell the stock. Like it or not, Picasso ws very much into
> the commerce.
=== I don't disagree. Where I do disagree is with the attempts to
understand his art and art-making vis-a-vis his commercial interests. His
work simply outstrips this blatantly bourgeois approach to the topic. NOT
ENOUGH! as Satan said in the Caramilk commercial.
I have read interesting accounts by one of his lovers or
> wives , of Picasso practicing negotiation tactics with them in preparation
> for a meeting with a dealer.
=== Me too. I thought it was a good sense on his part.
He did not make iit to where he was by
> putting his head in the sand.
=== Agreed. But nor did he by having $$ for eyeballs.
Indeed, Hickey was very clear when he
> stated that Picasso was 'neither the first nor last artist whom rapacious
> careerism wll endow with accute cultural sensitivity---goes for the gold,
> encapsulates an age'.
=== Yeah, typical PoMo cynicism which resonates and brilliantly captures
the culture of commercial America. Like it or not, Picasso and
fin-de-siecle Paris won't fit into the end-of-the-millenium `hyper-real'
commercial American mindset. Too much cultural distance. I would surmise
that Hickey is much more intelligible to us than he would have been to his
subject matter (Picasso). We're just updating our version of the myth.
>
> It is customary in Modenist critique (except when the subject is business
> people) to police the range of the discource, particularly when the issue
> is money or politics...this is necessary to establish a myth of art as
> completely cutoff from the concerns of the world and detatched from all
> variety of its connections as a cultural activity.
=== It is customary in Postmodernist critique to throw these boundaries
into relief and thereby reduce the subject matter to this aforementioned
`policing,' which ultimately results in a blatant call for
contextualization to the exclusion of all other (more relevant to the
actual subject) concerns.
It is a position of
> conspicious exclusion,
=== While PoMo is a position of conspicuous INclusion mirroring the
worldwide democratization and homegenization of thoughts, values,
aesthetics, etc. under a rubric of the interests of capital and of equal
access to the same. The new hegemony come to replace the old.
impossible to maintain, other than through
> wholesale repression.
=== Likewise for PoMo.
One does well to examine the excluded material...it
> gives a better picture of the political/ideological/context-dependent
> nature of the critique.
=== Yes, Derrida's "Philosophy at the Margins", etc., etc. But,
unfortunately a better picture of the
political/ideological/context-dependent nature of PoMo critique won't help
us to understand Picasso or his art PER SE, just as Marxism does little in
this respect. These are theoretical abstractions competing for supremacy
which, more often than not, mirror the interaction between competing
constituencies on the political front. An updated anthropology (from
Levi-Strauss' structuralism comes the contextualist post-structural
avant-garde), may help to democratize knowledge and truth by including the
excluded (only on these terms), but it won't help us understand anything
about art & artists in my opinion.
>
> I am inserting this quote from a previous post ( recommend you do a
> DejaNews search for the full posty, it is rather illuminating).
>
> Start quote:
>
> The engineering of Picasso¹s market success is fascinating. His dealers
> were incredibly savvy in creating a market and increasing the value of
> his commodities. If you research into the early years of the century, the
> verdict of Picasso as the emperor of the market was not established then,
> and he was fighting with other artists for position.
>
> ³The same month that Matisse signed his contract with Bernheim, Picasso
> used his new financial stability to move from the tenement Bateau Lavoir
> to a spacious apartment with a separate studio on the boulevard de Clichy;
> he also hired a maid to keep the house and serve meals. Yet Picasso still
> lacked a regular dealer. His search for a steady backer appears to be
> registered in the portraits he painted at this time, much as it was during
> other transitional periods in his career--such as his show with Vollard in
> 1901 and his cultivation of the Steins in 1905. During 1909-10, Picasso
> painted five portraits--the last ones he executed until 1915. One
> represents his old friend Manuel Pallares, whom he painted during a visit
> to Barcelona in the spring of 1909. The other four depict dealers, not the
> poets or critics one might expect the artist to portray. Instead of
> Apollinaire, Salmon, and Max Jacob, for instance, Picasso labored for
> months over portraits of Clovis Sagot, Ambroise Vollard, Wilhelm Uhde, and
> Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler²
>
> and...
>
> ³Following his return to Paris the following winter and the move to new
> quarters, he embarked during the winter of 1909-10 on a set of closely
> matched portraits: Vollard, Uhde, and Kahnwailer. While Sagot¹s small
> operation could not offer hope of long-term security, these three
> better-capitalized businessmen did. But although Vollard made purchases
> and continued to buy paintings from time to time, Picasso had been
> unsuccessful in obtaining a commitment from him. (True to form, Vollard
> sold his portrait a few years later to the Russian collector Ivan Morozov
> for three thousand francs.) Uhde had also been a regular customer since
> 1905, when he began to develop a collection that actually constituted
> stock for his private dealing. It is probably not a coincidence that
> Picasso¹s portrait of him preceded by only a few months an exhibition of
> the artist¹s work that Uhde organized in May 1910 at the Galerie Notre
> Dame des Champs.²
>
> -Michael C. FitzGerald, Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the
> Market for Twentieth Century Art, 1995, p.33.
>
=== All fascinating and on the mark within its limited sphere of interest.
To paint full-time, one needs to make $. So all this could be explained
in terms of Picasso's personal dedication to painting, drawing, &
sculpture and therefore of his NEED to make a living at it. Of course,
this sort of hard-core committment doesn't sit too well with the
contemporary middle-classes who are filling our university libraries with
bourgeois post-structural analyses, for them, money and power are the
`bottom-line'. But this ethnocentrism will prove to be a passing
historical phase by the middle of the next century.
> Yes, yes. We are aware of how corruptly self-promoting this generation of
> artists is, and how pure the artists of the past were, not promoting or
> dirtying their hands. The above example of Picasso interpreted into
> current times, Gabriel (great visionary of artistic practices that you
> are) would go something like this: in 1999 out of your entire artistic
> production, you only paint 5 portraits, one is of your best friend, the
> other four are of Leo Costelli, Mary Boone, Larry Gaugosian, and Mathew
> Marks. Just a coincidence, right, that you painted those dealers, no other
> intentions, hidden agenda¹s...
> Curious material when one goes poking.
>
> End Quote.
>
>
>
> > I mean this seriously.
> >
> > =3D=3D=3D Sure but that's the problem with contextualism, it avoids
> > understanding the concrete subject matter in question in favour of
> > subsuming it by another, more theoretical abstraction. =20
>
> Your 'concrete subject matter' is the perfect example of your
> aforementioned theoretical abstraction.
=== Sorry, paint and canvas are concrete. Politico-economic analyses of
paint and canvas so as to deconstruct agendas, motives, etc. are little
more than interesting thought-sport.
> > Consider this scenario: Picasso comes to Paris, for all intents
> > > and purposes, a bumpkin, complete with a provincial and profoundly
> > > nineteenth-century concept of the cultural elite and its proclivities --
> > > still imagining that the rich and silly prefer to celebrate their
> > > privilege and indolence by 'aestheticizing' their immediate environment
> > > into this fine-tuned, fibrillating, pastel ATMOSPHERE.
> >
> > =3D=3D=3D Nope, don't buy it. Barcelona was and still is a very cosmopolit=
> > an
> > European city.
>
> Then why bother moving to Paris? Are you suggesting that the avante
> guarde was taking it's cues from Barcelona? Why would Picasso have moved
> to Paris if he could have painted just as well in Spain? Could career
> motivations have anything to do with his descision?
=== Sure. But so much for the `bumpkin' thesis. The avant-garde was
making an impact on Barcelona at the time and from this, Picasso decided
Paris and France would be a better move given his life's ambitions (To
paint, draw, and sculpt full-time, in the manner in which he wanted.
Spain was backward when compared to Paris in 1901, but so was the rest of
the world, without exception. Paris was the capital of the world, esp.
the art world at the time, where else would any serious artist go? This
is the same logic followed by Modigliani, Archipenko, and the Steins to
name a few.
=== Without question. I'm saying that Picasso wanted $$ SO HE COULD KEEP
PAINTING. Therefore he had to paint to make money. But you can't reduce
his painting to economics. He also wanted to go down in history as a
great painter. Anyway, that's the problem with contextual analysis, its
just much too simplistic to be relevant.
=== No, the MWW is the mental construct of all the art one deems to be
significant in one's life, whether subliminal or not, from all over the
world. Every individual has a different MWW. That's the beauty of it.
For example, mine includes much native works, and modernist painting .
Yours would be radically different and could include comics, computer
graphics or what have you. A literal museum without walls.
So...
> So, no, its not even remotely related to the
> > aforementioned contextualist speculation.
>
> Sorry to have to be the one to point it out to you, but CONTEXT is
> EVERYTHING in the 'museum without walls'.
=== Only as MEDIATED by individuals. Free will is everything, context
provides the raw material.
We now exist in a situation in
> which a deracination is commenced that makes recursivity an infinite and
> creative enterprise. Pierre Menard is alive, well, and is the rule, rather
> than the exception.
=== Yeah right. PoMo dogma hasn't yet gone out of style I see.
> Come to think of it, I don't have the faintest clue how you are using the
> term 'contextualist', you have completely lost me.
=== Reducing a given entity to its context and then PRESUMING to have
given an adequate account of that entity without seeking to address it on
less formulaic and more perceptually, intellectually, and aesthetically
immediate terms. In other words, thinking for oneself rather than
resorting to intellectual formulas no matter how fashionable and
politically agreeable they might appear to you.
>
> Cheers,
> -N.
a la prochaine.
A.