"It’s true that styles have sometimes been given an ideological spin. Hitler and Stalin were doing that when they embraced the art of the figure and banned everything else. Avant-gardists have all too often regarded abstraction as a symbol of human progress. But representation and abstraction—and their almost limitless variations—are anything but ideological absolutes, at least not when they are celebrated by a solitary artistic explorer.... 'Postmodernism' is a term we hear much less than we did twenty years ago, but the postmodern emphasis on a relaxation of artistic dispute—a sense that art history has ended and we are now enjoying a creative free-for-all—is one way of understanding the collapse of representation and abstraction as distinct value systems.... Of course, the problem with belief systems is that they can become sclerotic...."
From "Between Abstraction and Representation/Artists today think they no longer have to choose between two opposed artistic traditions. But what is being lost in this eclecticism?" by Jed Perl (NYRB).
"Of course, the problem with belief systems is that they can become sclerotic"... and the problem with no beliefs at all is that after a short period of saying things like "postmodernism," nothing seems worth talking about at all.
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18 comments:
The road from "My Truth" is a dead end.
Art criticism becomes sclerotic as much as art.
The Modernist period ended during WW2.
It became inane to keep referring to post WW2 art as Postmodern in the 1970s.
Artists creating works are always working in the Contemporary period. And the difficulty for them is belatedness.
Hitler, Stalin more, Mao especially, Hutu/Tutsi, Xhosa/Zulu, [Keynan] elite/deplorable, Mengele, Gosnell, Cecile, and Sanger in progress... one step forward, two steps backward.
Artists never have to choose between artistic schools. They need to choose between doing whatever they want and being able to feed themselves.
Are artists still doing anything that could be called "representational" now? I would hesitate to talk about "abstraction" as well. In painting or sculpture, after centuries of attempts at accurate representation, works that didn't try to represent something else created a stir. But if artists aren't working in a traditional medium, maybe what they do just "is" without being a representation of something else, or an attempt to avoid representationalism.
"Of course, the problem with belief systems is that they can become sclerotic"... and the problem with no beliefs at all is that after a short period of saying things like "postmodernism," nothing seems worth talking about at all.
How could they know that "calcified" would be the secret word of the day? No $100 from Groucho for them.
"the problem with no beliefs at all is that after a short period of saying things like "postmodernism," nothing seems worth talking about at all."
Best ever summary of the modern intellectual life. The humanities are nearly extinct in academia. My summary: An Ivy undergraduate encounters his first professor. "There is no truth, there is nothing to see or learn here, except refined techniques to problematize Pride and Prejudice. And if you enjoyed the novel there is something wrong with you and report to a struggle session. And you're racist.
Static Ping said...
"Artists never have to choose between artistic schools. They need to choose between doing whatever they want and being able to feed themselves."
A lesson my daughter learned the hard way.
Contemporary can't camp.
Althouse writes, "...and the problem with no beliefs at all is that after a short period of saying things like "postmodernism," nothing seems worth talking about at all."
Beautiful. There's nothing that deflates the pomposity of a NYRB windbag like the thrust of a laconic poniard. The farting noise the hot air makes is very entertaining.
This is why I keep returning to this blog.
The idea of "art" is itself an ideology. The idea that there is something special, something superior about certain aesthetic works. That it deserves to be taught in schools and exhibited in tax exempt institutions.
A fetus, a technical term of art, an abstraction [of humanity], for social distance in the modern model.
The overt disapproval of an artist by Hitler added far more cachet and value to that artist's name than disapproval by Stalin. Does this mean that Hitler was a more influential art critic than Stalin?....I'm pretty sure that neither Churchill, FDR, Stalin or Hitler were fans of abstract art, but only Stalin and Hitler got to tell their people what art they should like and what art should not exist.
Wasn't Hitler a secular environmentalist, an animal fetishist, with diversity enhancements? And the Jews were a "burden" for his queer faith, religion, and ideological bent. To the clinics, the chambers, they must go... how low, high hoe, into the back... black hole... whore h/t NAACP thou art sequestered. #MaoToo, albeit less overt.
Art doesn't lend itself to YouTube the way music and dance do. Is that just because my algorithm is askew? I see so much of the other two. It's a great time to eavesdrop on the great prima ballerinas, opera soloists, and instrumentalists. They take us into their training, schedules, and creative processes.
The only art I see is the tutorial on how dabs of paint blend into a landscape. It's basically paint by numbers.
Abstraction versus representation may have been a big deal for artists who worked in traditional media, like painting and the traditional forms of sculpture, but are they really relevant for artists who work in new media? Does the distinction have meaning for performance artists or earthworks artists? Even among painters, I can't imagine that representational and abstract artists are feuding and convinced that theirs is the only way.
"Of course, the problem with belief systems is that they can become sclerotic." I guess he didn't get the memo that "calcified" is the secret word of the day, so no $50 from Groucho.
Abstraction versus representation may have been a big deal for artists who worked in traditional media, like painting and the traditional forms of sculpture, but are they really relevant for artists who work in new media? Does the distinction have meaning for performance artists or earthworks artists? Even among painters, I can't imagine that representational and abstract artists are feuding and convinced that theirs is the only way.
A big problem with post-modernism is that all I saw was politics, all the time.
So really ugly art
Art, for the most part, imitates art.™
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