Hi Gretta,
We're a bit in disagreement here, not too much. When you say "I am saying,
we should urge ourselves to look outside of the art worlds, look at our
context, our neighbours, our community, society, world, and try to make
work that engages with that in the most meaningful ways we can." - that's
precisely what seems to be going on in Atlanta for example and elsewhere
that I see - there _is_ this engagement going on, but it's without the
"should urge" - it's happening. The zines for example I saw were relevant,
were coming out of community. But they don't fall into the categories, as
far as I can see, that we discuss here. You say "we also can?t just remove
all categorisation and say "art is art is art" and allow ourselves to just
indulge in whatever creative pursuit is most fun (by that obviously I also
mean, potentially, intellectually stimulating etc) at that particular time
in our specific creative sandbox." - and that still worries me. I remember
talking with Laurie Anderson precisely about this - the idea of "fun" -
which see (and I) saw as subversive itself - the last thing a lot of
artists want is that sense of play - but play also undermines ideology,
brings one to think deeper & in other ways. I've taught at a lot of art
schools, and the painters were usually the most conservative students /
teachers - but they also were the ones who, by virture of the slow image
production, different and sometimes anideological thinking etc., actually
were the most radical, just not in the usual sense.
You say, "they?ve let themselves drift to far into self-reflexiveness.
Let this be a time where they reassess and redirect." - and perhaps we
need to do that reassessment ourselves; the phrase "drift too far" is
already prejorative, already an exclusion. Here's the problem - "Let this
be a time where they reassess and redirect." - because that's also what
the right in the usa wants, it's what corporate artschools like SCAD
(Savannah College of Art and Design, notorious) also say. For me it's
troubling. There should be room, I think, for everything, everyone; I'm
arguing a bit here for eliminating categorization, yes, but that doesn't
create saying "art is art is" etc. - it means the opposite, seeing what
lies behind the definition (who cares what art is - that can lead to
connoisseurship etc etc) - seeing what the artist is saying, what
motivates her etc.
So I'm torn, I agree with you below and it worries me at the same time.
The work that interests me is embedded, opens up vistas, creates and
intensifies wonder, opens up paths for contemplation as well as action,
makes the world a bit better and seem a bit deeper, encourages, acts,
heals, enlarges our view of things, creates a space for community and
individual politics and education. And what occurs on the right in
Amerikka is just the opposite - closure, boundary, definitions, vetting,
etc. - what the Lakoff's, if I remember correctly, talked about as a
regime of the stern father. HE's the one who knows right from wrong, right
action from wrong action etc. (Just occurred to me, we have here two
literary figures in the 19th cent. - Whitman and Dickinson - the former
was engaged in community (see his war writings) and worked with, dealt
with, the larger community in a new way, opening up vistas, empowering; -
and the latter opened up internal territories that educate, move, inspire,
and are solitary and breathtaking. We need both here. Both refused
boundary in different ways...
Sorry to go on here; you're inspiring and basically I think on one hand
you're right, and on the other, cultural workers of all sorts have a hard
enough time; we need to support each other deeply...
- Alan
On Tue, 13 Dec 2016, Gretta Louw wrote:
Haha, Alan there is no imperative in what I said, there is a plea, a
hope, a wish. The imperative comes from outside and above - the
imperative to ?make a living?, the imperative to pay taxes, the
imperative to write reports with quantitative analysis of why funding
you received was well spent etc. What I said is the opposite of all
that. And while I agree that categorising specific works or sometimes
even specific genres is usually a waste of time, we also can?t just
remove all categorisation and say "art is art is art" and allow
ourselves to just indulge in whatever creative pursuit is most fun (by
that obviously I also mean, potentially, intellectually stimulating etc)
at that particular time in our specific creative sandbox. I am saying,
we should urge ourselves to look outside of the art worlds, look at our
context, our neighbours, our community, society, world, and try to make
work that engages with that in the most meaningful ways we can. I am
reading a lot of artists online at the moment lamenting that they don?t
feel that their work is relevant in these
Trumpland/Aleppo/Brexit/Refugee Crisis days, and I think some of them
are right, they?ve let themselves drift to far into self-reflexiveness.
Let this be a time where they reassess and redirect.
On 13 Dec 2016, at 5:15 AM, Alan Sondheim <[email protected]> wrote:
Is there a mainstream art world? "The mainstream art world waited to utter the term "Internet art" until
they could safely add the prefix "post-" to it" Jon Ippolito I think these reifications might be too
simple, as are internet art, net art, post digital, digital, and so forth. I'm not interested in art about art in any
sort of self-reflexive way, but I haven't anything against artists who explore that; for me while I agree completely
with " We need to make work about things that matter more and are more grounded in the body, the land, in depth
and real experience." - I worry about the underlying imperative here. There's depth in art about art, there's real
experience there as well. All of these categories limit and limit ourselves, I think - for me, issues of communality,
exploration, philosophy, the commons, diwo, diy, all of these are interrelated. I keep thinking of how Amerikkka at
this point is all about drawing boundaries, and art history itself is one of those bo
undaries - canons, genera, media, new media, etc., etc. Just expressing a worry here, too many
categories, maybe too many dismissals by virtue of the categories - Also, again where Marc
says "- as in, take full control of its once grass roots identity, and own its history
and future; and turn it all into its own pliable set of products." - as it was pointed
out to me last night, a great deal of media-oriented art never was grass-roots for example. I
can use myself here - I began in a terak mini-computer in the 70s creating drawing program w/
pascal etc. I had help - not course-wise, but academic help on the side; I used equipment that
at that time would have cost tens and tens of thousands of USD - and a whole world opened up -
in dialog with the institution that gave me freedom to work with the equipment. And I think
there's a problem also with " but only so that all the typical top-down defaults of the
mainstream can take it apart and force it to reflect its own intentions
and belief systems" - I do understand what is meant by "mainstream," but after looking
again at Atlanta art for example - ranging from the Printed Matter zinefest to an auction where artist
exchange work among themselves to the current highly charged Atlanta Biennale at the Atlanta
Contemporary, to Agnes Scott showing work dealing with southern identity and narrative, including an
intense piece by Bessie Harvey etc. - I'm not sure where the "mainstream" actually is, or
whether it serves any purpose to personify it. I'd like to see all these categories exploded so that we
might proceed w/ looking and listening to everyone and anyone, finding our own paths through the
creative debris ranging from monetary systems to zines to vr to the future of perception itself etc.
We just got in to Washington DC, discussing policy with one of the heads of a
critical ngo, my head is reeling more than realing here. I bring this up
because I feel more than ever the need for concrete politics and a breakdown of
any barriers, aesthetic and otherise, at this point. Too many walls...
Hope this makes some sense - Alan
_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 718-813-3285
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/ui.txt
==
_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
