Open Letter to Mani Deli and Bruce Attah
Joshua Heuman
Mani and Bruce:
I have tired of our debate(s) on Kandinsky and Abstract
Expressionism. Really, you two present your opinions as facts, which
disgusts me. Why can you not state at the beginning or end of your
messages that it is only your opinion? I feel very sorry for those
people who read your messages and believe it to be true.
I will write nothing more on this topic, for I believe everyone to
be entitled to present their opinion (provided they are so noted), and
it is my right to take full advantage of my delete button!
Take care and good luck in any future endeavors!
Joshua Heuman
jhe...@yorku.ca
W.S. Parker
Joshua Heuman wrote:
>
> Mani and Bruce:
>
> I have tired of our debate(s) on Kandinsky and Abstract
> Expressionism. Really, you two present your opinions as facts, which
What I distrust about the style is that it is avidly *exclusive.* I'd
rather allow all forms of art considerate speculation, not outright
rejection, in any argument I am forced to make.
The only sense in making arguments is usually for your perceived benefit
of the other person, so you have to be very humble to get your point
across. Maybe, you also have to be prepared and willing to eventually
abandon a few of your original assumptions.
Art-making, -viewing, -studying, It is all very interesting. You have
to be a good editor for what you spend your time on. Saying a whole area
is a waste of time, is a complete overstatement.
(Though ask me what I think of Julian Schnabel! It feels good to "hate"
his work/his persona, but ultimately I am ashamed of myself..., what
else are those bad feelings ruining my ability to appreciate?).
About that whole area you may not be dealing with: saying that you're
spread too thin to deal with it now is okay. So, since you're too busy
with other things you have the luxury of asking people who *are*
focussed on it what they think.
(If someone were to come to my house when I invited them kindly and they
started talking about their view of positive attributes of JSchnabel's
work I would listen and I would probably get over my prejudice, since I
invited the person over in the first place (I respected them, though
their take on things I had initially excluded). Or they would not accept
my invitation in the future, which would make me a lonely guy. Or we
could have a JS hate-a-thon, gee, that would make me feel like an... .)
Broadcasting to people that a whole area is crap ("been there done
that") you sound like an..., well, sorry it isn't wise. You will
eventually lose control of what you are saying because there is too much
weight against you.
Generally, it is the *exclusivity* that bothers me:
***"If you know what you like [and so, know what you don't like] you
like only what you know."***
BTW I'm sorry for any resentment I may have caused; I probably lost my
grasp on civility several dozen times in the heat of debate.
Bruce Attah
> What I distrust about the style is that it is avidly *exclusive.* I'd
> rather allow all forms of art considerate speculation, not outright
> rejection, in any argument I am forced to make.
You argue for tolerance, while I argue for intolerance. That, I will
accept, is a reasonable characterization of our positions. I believe that
if art is bad, attempts to pretend that it is good should not be
tolerated. I believe, too, that tolerance is an overrated virtue.
We only tolerate what we do not like, and when we do not like something,
we should be doing something about it, more often than not, rather than
allowing an unpleasant state of affairs to persist. The only
justification for tolerating something is that nothing can be done to
improve matters.
When you insist on tolerating everything and giving everything
"considerate speculation", you run up against a number of problems.
(1) If the conclusion you reach from your "considerate speculation" of
something is that it is intolerable, you must abandon the intelligent
consequence, and continue to tolerate.
(2) You compel yourself to be dishonest. You KNOW that you cannot
tolerate everything, but you must pretend that you can.
(3) You trap yourself in an uncomfortable dilemma: you are forced to
tolerate intolerance, or to admit that you are yourself intolerant.
I believe in giving "considerate speculation" to every sort of art I
encounter. But I also believe that if such consideration reveals to me
that the art is worthless, I would be wrong to deny the consequence of my
thought: such a denial would be a denial of intelligence itself.
That is what you do here:
> (Though ask me what I think of Julian Schnabel! It feels good to "hate"
> his work/his persona, but ultimately I am ashamed of myself..., what
> else are those bad feelings ruining my ability to appreciate?).
You know Julian Schnabel's art is worthless, but you feel guilty about
possessing such knowledge, so you attempt to deny it, to pretend that his
work only _seems_ bad to you because you fail to appreciate it.
How many people are doing this? How many people are standing about,
looking at the naked Emperor and, out of sheer guilt, pretending they
cannot see his rippling flesh?
Bruce Attah.
Shaily Wardimon
Joshua Heuman wrote:
>
> Mani and Bruce:
>
> I have tired of our debate(s) on Kandinsky and Abstract
> Expressionism. Really, you two present your opinions as facts, which
> messages that it is only your opinion? I feel very sorry for those
> people who read your messages and believe it to be true.
>
> I will write nothing more on this topic, for I believe everyone to
> be entitled to present their opinion (provided they are so noted), and
> it is my right to take full advantage of my delete button!
>
> Take care and good luck in any future endeavors!
>
> Joshua Heuman
> jhe...@yorku.ca
read only the discussion about Kandinsky's theory. It was very funny to
observe how, wrapped up in the discussion,almost no one bothered to
answer the original question and try to explain the beautiful, in my
opinion,relationship Kandinsky developed between music - the symbol of
the abstract, color (developing the meaning of each color) and painting,
opening, with the inspiration of music, the way to abstract art. The
color became an instrument. Anyway, I was amazed to see how people dare
to inferiorate any kind of art, as if it was a fact that it was no good
and without even saying it was their opinion.Moreover, I find that all
works of art should be given time of observation and that sometimes you
find new surprising things you haven't noticed even in works you thought
you detested - trying to stay open is part of being an artist, I think.
In addition, I think to much emphasis is being given to words in the
world of art and I do believe that art in it's primacy was about the
creation, the viewer and the air that stands between them.
And as for: "no skill, no art" - how presumptuous! I must say - does
anyone actually believe that abstract was born of no skill? I myself do
not like abstract that much but I know that if it's good it takes as
much skill as any other thing, though I am not sure what is the exact
place of skill today and am still wondering about that..
I had to say what I think and hope you forgive my spelling - I live in
Israel and english is a second language for me...
yours, Shaily Wardimon.
JKearman
In article <326D4B...@NetVision.net.il>, Shaily Wardimon
<ward...@NetVision.net.il> writes:
>I myself do
>not like abstract that much but I know that if it's good it takes as
>much skill as any other thing, though I am not sure what is the exact
>place of skill today and am still wondering about that..
We'll let Bruce give his keyboard a rest...and see if I can paraphrase
him: Instead of saying it's good even though you don't like it, maybe you
don't like it because it isn't any good. In other words, trust your
instincts.
As one who has preached the gospel of "getting in touch with what you
feel" on here, I certainly can't argue with Bruce's assertion.
You say 'I don't like it but it must be good,' Bruce just comes right out
and says 'it's no good.' Wouldn't it be funny if the Sunday New York Times
Arts & Leisure section published an article titled "Contemporary Critics
Agree: Non-Representational Art Is Junk," and it turned out Bruce and Mani
were right all along? Then it wouldn't be opinion, would it?
Just because some critics say it's art, doesn't mean the critics are right
and Mani and Bruce are wrong. And how many critical reviews, of any
medium, are prefaced with "In my opinion"?
Finally, if Mani and Bruce made their assertions in favor of the styles
they denounce, would there be such a hue and cry about "opinions vs
facts"? Maybe it depends on whose ox is being gored.
Jim Kearman
Kajojacobs
In article <54kfhp$8...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, jkea...@aol.com (JKearman)
writes:
>
>We'll let Bruce give his keyboard a rest...and see if I can paraphrase
>him: Instead of saying it's good even though you don't like it, maybe you
>don't like it because it isn't any good. In other words, trust your
>instincts.
And a lot of people don't like spinach - but when it's prepared right -
it's really good. Your insticts don't have anything to do with it beyond
personal taste. Sorry for the kitchen analogy.
>
============
>You say 'I don't like it but it must be good,' Bruce just comes right out
>and says 'it's no good.' Wouldn't it be funny if the Sunday New York
Times
>Arts & Leisure section published an article titled "Contemporary Critics
>Agree: Non-Representational Art Is Junk," and it turned out Bruce and
Mani
>were right all along? Then it wouldn't be opinion, would it?
No, it would still be opinion - as it is now - for all critics.
=============
>Finally, if Mani and Bruce made their assertions in favor of the styles
>they denounce, would there be such a hue and cry about "opinions vs
>facts"? Maybe it depends on whose ox is being gored.
There are, no doubt, many in the audience that might just as easily "gore
the other ox" as determindly as Mani and Bruce do, but recognize the
viability of all art and don't feel the need to gore anything. Discussion
and debate are healthy - goring is not.
~Karen Jacobs~
Shaily Wardimon
I have to say that my words were misinterpreted, I myself dismiss a lot
of things I see in art galleries just because they seem not very
communicative or they don't fit my exact taste in art, but in the past
month or two I started to try and give some works time to "grow on
me"(by saying "time" I mean two minutes or so) and found out one or two
of them were not as bad as I thought and had some special quality in
them which I was blind to. I don't do it because the critics say "these
works are the symbol of our whole existence, go and see, it's the best
exhibition in town"! or something like that - I don't give a damn about
the critics! All I'm saying is that the artist deserves my sincere
attempt to try and communicate with his work, and only because I expect
others to do the same for me (I'm not the world's most communicative
person or artist...).
In conclusion: When I say I don't like most abstract - I mean it and
don't care what anyone else thinks, but it doesn't mean I dislike ALL of
it, or that I ignore it or say that all abstract is junk. I will
probably still walk through most of an abstract exhibition with an
impatient expression on my face, but I will always try and stand still
for a minute,try to capture the idea of the works and see if maybe I was
so full of my own perception of things that I didn't really give the
works the opportunity to get to me.
That is all I had to say about that, but, I must ask, even if it is out
of context, if there is anyone who can help me find pictures of works of
contemporary Japanese wizards of textile. I saw some magnificent works
of theirs in the Israeli museum and my breath was taken; There were
beautiful,amazingly displayed "things" I don't even know how to call
because they looked half status like, half, I don't know - creations of
nature itself... All I can say is - come to Israel and see for yourself,
or of course better - go to Japan...
Thank you for bearing with me if you did,
yours,
Shaily Wardimon.
>
> >
David Harleyson
In article <54lbnj$f...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, kajoj...@aol.com says...
>There are, no doubt, many in the audience that might just as easily "gore
>the other ox" as determindly as Mani and Bruce do, but recognize the
>viability of all art and don't feel the need to gore anything. Discussion
>and debate are healthy - goring is not.
Hmmmm. I might reverse the analogy and suggest that goring is healthy
for the one doing the goring ( therapeutic, at least ) and noxious ( or nauseous )
for the one being gored ( readers of r.a.f. in this case ). I have been guilty
of visualizing Mani and Bruce rowing the same boat. But I give Bruce credit
for some intelligent argument and some interesting dialogue over the course
of time. Mani on the other hand sounds like a broken record, with very little
new to say after thousands of words posted to this forum, and NO creative
thoughts beyond his "no skill, no art" manifesto. H.D.
Kajojacobs
In article <326ECA...@NetVision.net.il>, Shaily Wardimon
<ward...@NetVision.net.il> writes:
>In conclusion: When I say I don't like most __________ - I mean it and
>don't care what anyone else thinks, but it doesn't mean I dislike ALL of
>it, or that I ignore it or say that all________ is junk. I will
>probably still walk through most of an_________ exhibition with an
>impatient expression on my face, but I will always try and stand still
>for a minute,try to capture the idea of the works and see if maybe I was
>so full of my own perception of things that I didn't really give the
>works the opportunity to get to me.
Pardon me, Shaily, for editing your post. This way it can be adapted to
each individual's dislikes. Your approach, seems to me, to be correct and
can be applied well beyond art.
~Karen Jacobs~
Bruce Attah
In article <326ECA...@NetVision.net.il>, ward...@NetVision.net.il wrote:
> ...All I'm saying is that the artist deserves my sincere
> attempt to try and communicate with his work...
> yours,
> Shaily Wardimon.
I agree. I also believe that the viewer deserves a sincere (and
preferrably competent) attempt from the artist to try to make the work
communicate.
Bruce Attah.
Mdeli
if there is anyone who can help me find pictures of
works of
>contemporary Japanese wizards of textile. I saw some magnificent works
>of theirs in the Israeli museum and my breath was taken; There were
>beautiful,amazingly displayed "things" I don't even know how to call
>because they looked half status like, half, I don't know - creations of
>nature itself... All I can say is - come to Israel and see for yourself,
>or of course better - go to Japan...
>Thank you for bearing with me if you did,
>yours,
>Shaily Wardimon.
>>
>> >
Mani DeLi
Mdeli
kajoj...@aol.com (Kajojacobs) wrote:
>In article <54kfhp$8...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, jkea...@aol.com (JKearman)
>writes:
>>
>>We'll let Bruce give his keyboard a rest...and see if I can paraphrase
>>him: Instead of saying it's good even though you don't like it, maybe you
>>don't like it because it isn't any good. In other words, trust your
>>instincts.
>And a lot of people don't like spinach - but when it's prepared right -
>it's really good. Your insticts don't have anything to do with it beyond
>personal taste. Sorry for the kitchen analogy.
>>
>~Karen Jacobs~
Here's my Kitchen analogy:
Imagine that an important avant garde modern
revolutionary chef opened a restaurant claiming to
specialize in "Spice-ism." Here as in no other place,
this chef served up dishes containing a cup each of
salt and pepper, artistically poured on a mere
tablespoon of meat and potatoes lying on a plate full
of parsley. It is very unlikely that anything like this
has ever been served up before, at least in the guise
of elegant eating. Yet no one can deny that this is an
entirely new approach.
If a group of exceptionally Modern Food reviewers now
took this restaurant seriously, they might start a
gourmet revolution. Any dinner guest who had the
effrontery to express his outrage could be abruptly
told that this meal consisted of nothing unusual. Each
and every ingredient was added in the spirit of good
health and classical tradition. Some critics might even
admit that the food might taste bad at first. But they
could sternly emphasize that this was a meal for a very
special person, sensitive and appreciating of change,
one who realized that there is far more to cooking than
those eternally repeated gimmicks used in concocting
merely tasty dishes.
Those insensitive patrons who might still insist on
claiming that this wasn't really food at all could now
be confronted by tangential arguments about the deeper
meaning of true eating and presented with lots of
cryptic labels to show that they were sadly mistaken.
Even the chef might be encouraged to deliver lectures
on such murky subjects as subtle combinations,
compositional plate arrangement and the ethereal
sensitivities of taste buds. If pressed, he could even
relate how he suffered from involuntary urges to
express himself through the medium of cooking and
describe his early sufferings at the hand of a public
which at first ignored him.
In time a coterie of very serious sounding
philosophical authorities would enter the debate and
decide whether this cuisine was really new, Apollonian
or Dionisic and write inflated tomes about its
intellectual impact. Historians would collect anecdotes
about famous chefs and investigate their girlfriends.
The protests of detractors would for a time be
tactfully ignored.
mani DeLi
...no skil no art
Bruce Attah
> It was very funny to
> observe how, wrapped up in the discussion,almost no one bothered to
> answer the original question and try to explain the beautiful, in my
> opinion,relationship Kandinsky developed between music - the symbol of
> the abstract, color (developing the meaning of each color) and painting,
> opening, with the inspiration of music, the way to abstract art.
That's because it has been made clear in previous discussions that some of
us hold the view that Kandinsky's theories are stupid nonsense, and that
there is no real correspondence between his art and music (in any detailed
sense, or in any sense that would be special to his art and exclude other
kinds of painting) and, lastly, that Kandinsky did not invent abstract art
(on the contrary, abstraction has been around for at least as long as
non-abstract art).
> [...] does
> anyone actually believe that abstract was born of no skill? I myself do
> not like abstract that much but I know that if it's good it takes as
> much skill as any other thing, though I am not sure what is the exact
> place of skill today and am still wondering about that..
I myself have not said that there can be no good abstract art. I'm not
even sure if ANYONE has said that here. What I have said, though, is that
most of the abstract art in the museums is trivial and uninteresting, and
that the reputation of a certain group of abstractionists (the Abstract
Expressionists of the New York School) is vastly inflated.
The exact place of skill today is that you cannot make good art now (even
abstract art) without a plenty of skill. Of that, I am pretty certain.
Bruce Attah.
W.S. Parker
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> In article <326898...@olympus.net>, w...@olympus.net wrote:
>
> > What I distrust about the style is that it is avidly *exclusive.* I'd
> > rather allow all forms of art considerate speculation, not outright
> > rejection, in any argument I am forced to make.
>
> You argue for tolerance, while I argue for intolerance. That, I will
> accept, is a reasonable characterization of our positions. I believe that
> if art is bad, attempts to pretend that it is good should not be
> tolerated. I believe, too, that tolerance is an overrated virtue.
>
> We only tolerate what we do not like, and when we do not like something,
> we should be doing something about it, more often than not, rather than
> allowing an unpleasant state of affairs to persist. The only
> justification for tolerating something is that nothing can be done to
> improve matters.
Hey Bruce, I'm starting to like you. I'm starting to get where you're
coming from.
Bruce Attah
Thank you! (Slight bow.)