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that mountaintop must have a nice view
Post #602 • August 15, 2005, 12:29 PM • 49 Comments
I've been teaching a critical art writing class this quarter, and this morning we read an essay by Clement Greenberg, The Experience of Value (1971), that said:
Being puzzled out of, deprived of an esthetic response in a context that asks for one has become a much more common thing than before. A certain large irony has attended on this. Now there are art lovers who'll express a positive "esthetic" judgment precisely because they are at a loss for any judgment at all. The more "unreadable" they find a work of art, the better they assume it to be. Or still worse: They may be really and truly bored because the art at hand is really and truly boring; they may be having a valid esthetic reaction, even if a negative one, but they'll deny it and express a positive judgment because they've gotten used to associating boringness with with "advancedness" and "advancedness" with quality. Of course it's not easy to register the difference between puzzlement and boredom. But in that lies the challenge of "advanced-advanced" art, literature, music in this time.
The more I read Greenberg the more prophetic he seems. Substitute "uncomfortable" for "unreadable" and that paragraph describes the MO for the Rubell Collection with remarkable verisimilitude.
I told my students last week that most of what people believe is mush, and that if you don't kick your beliefs around someone or something else will. That goes double for beliefs that come your way for adoption. We must use our eyes and heads clearly, and not bite every hook.
2.
August 15, 2005, 2:13 PM
"...unfit to interact with art...". Sounds like an injunction is in order.
3.
August 15, 2005, 2:25 PM
Jack , well said, but sad. It comes down to honesty thats all.
Do you know where I can find a copy online of monets Le Givre??...I need to see it for some research. Ive tried different sites but no luck...I have a large transparency, but need to see it in print... thanks anyone .
4.
August 15, 2005, 2:41 PM
puzzzlement is scratching your head
boredom is yawning
5.
August 15, 2005, 2:43 PM
I think the artist is in trouble if the viewer is doing both ...hehe
6.
August 15, 2005, 3:44 PM
Does sombody have a working definition for "esthetic response"
7.
August 15, 2005, 5:04 PM
"Monet le Givre" in Google images gives you 11 images, Elizabeth.
You are supposed to know what an esthetic response is, George. Broadly speaking it is a disinterested pleasureable reaction to a thing.
Greenberg's description and Jack's response are both accurate. What puzzles me is that this observation is not commonplace.
8.
August 15, 2005, 6:47 PM
This (from the link above) sounds apropos:
"You want to be uncomfortable with your collection," Mr. [Dennis] Scholl says. "And I don't mean necessarily about content, because we're beyond that. We've got works that are nasty. I've got Vito Acconci masturbating in my living room, O.K.? So it's not about imagery, but we want to be uncomfortable in the sense that we want to be taking risks when we buy work."
9.
August 15, 2005, 6:49 PM
Looking over that link, although I think it still applies to the Rubells, the comment may better reflect the MO chez Scholl:
**Dennis and Debra Scholl are as attractive and well-groomed as their photographs — beautifully hung in their waterfront home, with its his and her kayaks — are in-your-face and iconoclastic. "You want be uncomfortable with your collection," Mr. Scholl says. "And I don't mean necessarily about content, because we're beyond that. We've got works that are nasty. I've got Vito Acconci masturbating in my living room, O.K.? So it's not about imagery, but we want to be uncomfortable in the sense that we want to be taking risks when we buy work.""**
10.
August 15, 2005, 7:04 PM
Jinx! You owe me a Coke.
11.
August 15, 2005, 7:08 PM
Dennis Scholl is an outspoken dude, and taken out of context like that he sure does sound like an asshole. As someone who's heard him talk at somewhat greather lenght, and been to the house, though, I can attest to the fact that his appreciation for art runs deep and strong . . . his idea of good art diverges from oldpro's, but he and his wife are intelligent, sensitive, and knowledgeable art collectors. They know exactly what they own, and they know exactly why it's good, and it in fact IS very good. Accusations of "unreadability" fall flat in the face of their collection.
12.
August 15, 2005, 7:13 PM
Fair enough. My dad once said that if you appear in print and don't look like an idiot, you're coming out ahead. Thanks for the account.
13.
August 15, 2005, 7:51 PM
OP, re #7, Digging further into the "disinterested pleasureable reaction", does this piece by Pateman, Aesthetic Engagement: Mark Rothko make sense?
14.
August 15, 2005, 8:16 PM
I'm reading the Pollock biography, I'm about here, what a coincidence...
"American art finally woke up to the grand ambitions and dark power of the Surrealist vision. With the notable exception of Lewis Mumford, however, most critics did not appreciate the shock. They called it "a sham," "a maelstrom," "a farce," "a huge absurdity," "the supreme hoax." Martha Davidson, writing for Art News, argued the public was "bound to be amused and outraged," and that if some of the paintings "repulse the visitor they have achieved precisely what they set out to do."
Quote, from Jackson Pollock, Naifeh&Smith p.414
15.
August 15, 2005, 8:39 PM
I'm surprised that you back off so readily, Franklin. Scholl does not sound like an asshole because he is taken out of context, he sound like one because he sounds like one, sounds like yet another of the unfortunate sheep in wolf's clothing who have stood in line to trade large sums of money for "tough, aggressive, risk-taking art" and said exactly the same thing about if for well over a generation now.
This was written exactly 20 years ago, In Arts Magazine:
"Current Artspeak mechanically sounds the call from the barricades, rallying us to “daring,” “shocking,” “irreverent,” “disruptive,“ “iconoclastic”, “provocative,” “stubbornly disjunctive,” “deliberately unpleasant” art, an art of “radical fragmentation” and “aggressive questioning of outmoded forms,” a “raw expressionism” which will “explore new territory,” “expand dimensions,” “broaden parameters,” “push the envelope” “supersede convention,” “transcend mere taste,” “unsettle expectations,” “clash with the past,” “create corrosive irony,” “signal aesthetic shifts,” and “crumble the walls of tradition” with its “fresh,” “visionary,” “liberating,” “exciting,” “uninhibited” “energetic re-visionism” and “forceful adventurousness,” All that, and much more, I found swarming in the pages of just one issue of one art magazine."
And this, by the same author, 23 years ago
"...I came upon a piece about a couple who collect contemporary art. They were pictured there, nestled together, looking out at me, all smiles and earnestness. Pictured below them was a particularly appalling painting of the “New Wave” persuasion, that species of grotesquerie heretofore confined to California ceramics and summertime movies designed to make teenagers scream. They keep it on their bedroom wall, so they were quoted, because they “don’t want tranquility.” .....(denying) taste, more than “bad” taste, is the current malaise of the art business. How else could our collector friend get into that masochistic relationship with that painting on his bedroom wall? He knows how bad it is - his taste tells him that - but his judgment is to suppress his taste in the cause of banishing tranquility, for reasons I can’t possibly fathom."
Clement greenberg was saying very similar things 40 years ago.
These collectors are always "serious", and they always protest that they "love art" and "only buy what they love" and that they are "taking risks", as per the supremely fatuous slogan of the Rubells: "WE ARE NOT AFRAID". What they don't seem to comprehend is, that, if they are taking such extravagant "risks", why is it that their collection is so much a funhouse mirror image of a thousand other "aggressive risk takers" all over the world. Why is it that what they buy is what has been sanctioned and certified by the art business for decades?
I'm pleased to hear that they "know exactly why" their art is good. That's a lot more than I can say, and I dare say I have been at this business longer than they have. Perhaps they can write a paragraph or two about ecactly why the radical, daring, risk-taking, mold-breaking, cutting edge "Vito Acconci masturvbation thing" is "good art". And maybe they can explaing what the "Vito thing" is anyway? Do they have Vito himself under a platform in their house, beating his meat day in and day out? Have they checked to see? I think maybe they better go talk to the dealer they bought it from, if he hasn't already skipped town.
16.
August 15, 2005, 8:39 PM
Alesh (#11), this is not a refutation of your comment, as I'm not in a position to make one. I don't know the Scholls firsthand; I haven't been to their house, and I'm not a photography person. However, given that you're a photographer living and working in Miami, and given the position of the Scholls as photography collectors and promoters here and in general, you can hardly expect to be taken as the most objective and/or disinterested spokesman imaginable (the same would apply to anyone else in your circumstances). You may mean every word you wrote, but in a canonization process, the devil's advocate would chew you up and spit you out.
Getting back to the linked NYT article, I found this to be noteworthy:
"the...piece that Don Rubell calls the heart of the collection, a Charles Ray sculpture of the artist having sex with eight fiberglass images of himself"
17.
August 15, 2005, 8:57 PM
George, you should make it a little more clear that the quote is from the book "Jackson Pollock", not from Pollock himself.
Patemen is certainly serious, and says a few good things, but the article is too excruciating for me, and he comes up with a number of conclusions that don't follow from their premises.
If you try to isolate "esthetic response" as some sort of rare, precious etherial state of mind you will just purify it out of existence. It is much simpler and more ordinary. You apprehend something which is sensually delimited - a painting, a poem, a piece of music, your housekey (if you so choose) - and you decide to experience its characteristics as such, for what they are as they are, not for what they are in relation to anything else. That's all. Then you will either have some experience or not. There is nothing pure and exacting about the process, it is just a way of experiencing which, if you get into the habit, can afford you a great deal of pleasure available in no other way.
18.
August 15, 2005, 9:19 PM
OP, sorry for any confusion on the quote, which was by the authors making general quotes and not from Pollock.
Regarding Patemen. OK it may be a bit much for you to read but for some others here it might be worthwhile. I think there is some value to his analysis because he strips off the "qualities" which, although present and evocative, are not at the root of the aesthetic response (a result of his tertiary qualities)
I think his point on "manipulation" (as in mood music) is a good one.
"... the deliberate intent of someone to produce reactions in an audience through the secondary rather than the tertiary qualities of a work. The latter, it is said (to refer again to R G Collingwood) is manipulation and the stuff of entertainment not art.
The danger in the brief description of aesthetic response, is that it assumes we all know what is meant and I'm not sure that is the case. Patemen dug into the idea and set some criteria which could be viewed with a fresh eye. It may be that what he is calling the primary and secondary qualities (essentially environment and literally) may be in play with some of the works the readers find difficult. In essence, relying on a massive field of yellow for a decorative effect (a secondary quality) may have been replaced by a fishtank with a shark. In both cases, the viewers are being manipulated, either by prettiness or by the shock value to elicit a response. Pateman would call it entertainment.
19.
August 15, 2005, 9:33 PM
I don't care what the intention of the artist is, George, only the effect. I am entertained by art. I am not entertained by the shark in the tank of formaldehyde.
20.
August 15, 2005, 9:54 PM
OP you're misreading what I wrote.
Pateman, rules out entertainment as sufficient for an aesthetic response. It may be there but by itself, it's like mode music, producing a response through manipulation. I didn't say anything about the artists intentions, I could care less. I used Hirst's Shark as an example, I think it has more than a little entertainment value for most people. A big wall of yellow is imposing as is a magnificent exhibition hall, these elements may produce a type of response the viewer but they must be separated out from what her describes as the tertiary response. If you're assuming I'm saying something in favor of Hirst, I am decidely not.
21.
August 15, 2005, 10:10 PM
So, since everyone agrees all the works mentioned suck, suppose for a minute we dispense with aesthetics and quality.
Why would some very sharp people spend enormous amounts of money on art many of you think is of dubious quality? First off, I must assume they have a predilection towards collecting, a peculiar vice and that they honestly do love art. So, are they being duped? I do not think so. Well then why?
Power. Art as a manifestation of power.
Read their remarks, "We are not afraid," "We are taking risks," they can afford to do what others cannot.
You may not like it but I'll bet it is the case.
God bless the Little's.
22.
August 15, 2005, 10:45 PM
exactly right george. about the power aspect. these collectors are not being duped. they get it. the integrity factor is not an issue for them. aesthetics aside, i'm sure the works are merely conversation pieces. about the rubells, i attended a lecture they gave at one of the basels a few years ago about their collection, and it was slightly nauseating. although they made an earnest attempt to convey their passion and support for contemporary art, it felt rehearsed and lackluster. they perked up when they talked about their hotels.
23.
August 15, 2005, 10:54 PM
reply to elizabeth #3: your request reminds me of the magnificent slide library at the Metroplitan Mus of Art in manhattan. if you are ever in town you should check it out. i used to teach art to children with AIDS (we were featured on Dateline years ago) through the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in nyc and long story short, i did research once a month for my ongoing classes and i LOVED going to the Met and taking out whatever i needed from their enormous collection of slides (and also prints and also cd-roms). it was unbelievable!
24.
August 15, 2005, 11:45 PM
these collectors are not being duped. they get it.
I wonder to what extent they may be duping themselves. Again, most of what people believe is mush. Having had some passing experience with rich people, I've seen that money can profoundly alter peoples' sense of reality.
Regarding Alesh's comment, bottom line: he's seen the collection, and I have a quote from the New York Times. I'm deferring to his judgment.
25.
August 15, 2005, 11:50 PM
As usual, George, I start missing your points. You say flat out that you "didn't say anything about the artists intentions, I could care less" and yet in the preceding comment you quote Patemen approvingly when he specifically evoke artist's intentions. I can't work with this kind of thing.
My statement about entertainment was to convey my opinion that I do think art is entertainment. Entertainment is only entertainment. It is neither good nor bad. It depends on who is being entertained and by what.
I also couldn't care less about being "manipulated". Mozart manipulates me all over the place. That pleases me no end.
26.
August 15, 2005, 11:54 PM
OK, Franklin, your deference may be reasonable and it certainly is tactful, but you must be swallowing pretty hard.
27.
August 16, 2005, 12:46 AM
OP, I don't get it.
If You are referring to "the deliberate intent of someone to produce reactions", the implication is that this person is a not an artist. (advertising, propaganda, illustration, whatever) Manipulation is inferred to be formulaic. It produces a predicable result.
What Patemen wants to do is separate out manipulation as a characteristic which may be present but by itself is not sufficient to call an aesthetic response.
Mozart is the source of manipulation, a discoverer of manipulation, beyond that he is art.
28.
August 16, 2005, 1:01 AM
I've also been to the Scholl's house, seen the wonderful collection, and am acquainted with them decently enough to not only back Alesh up, but to state that Dennis and Debra Scholl are not some asshole stooges being played by the greater art market, as some may be implying.
Given that an aesthetic response has already been mentioned, I don't see why risktaking, or uncomfortableness is being questioned as a valid approach to art appreciation. Surely one can have a "a disinterested pleasureable reaction to a thing" which is either uncomfortable or a risk.
Jack, I doubt that Alesh was going for canonization, nor do I think those are the standards under which we are operating here, so I think you'd do better to take him at his word. Additionally, the Devil's advocate might take the Schollophobes as much to task, questioning the very impetus of their disdain. So let's ban the Devil's advocate from these proceedings and move ahead on faith, eh?
mek, I don't think that the Scholl's collection serves as mere conversation pieces. They have so many people trapsing in and out of thier home to look at the works, especially during Basel; they don't love conversation that much.
The Scholls are both very sincere, and perhaps frankly so. They remind me of some recent comments that were made about Greenberg here, something like: there was no bullshit in that studio. They're like that.
29.
August 16, 2005, 2:23 AM
Mek; thanks, I didnt know about that source....I have been to new york on many occasions and love it, but Im not aware of all the places only a new yorker would know about. I'll make sure to check it out next trip.
I agree about the power being important to these collectors...its one upmanship at any cost!!
And please dont mention that damn shark.......my blood boils at the thought of it.
30.
August 16, 2005, 3:30 AM
OP; it looks like I should copyright my 'bullshit' quote..its getting play here lol
31.
August 16, 2005, 6:32 AM
- everyone here is so much smarter than me that I can't handle it - what shall I do dear Franklin birthday boy ?
32.
August 16, 2005, 7:26 AM
Surely one can have a "a disinterested pleasureable reaction to a thing" which is either uncomfortable or a risk.
Leaving aside the dubious idea of pleasurable discomfort, Greenberg's larger point is that the discomfort has nothing to do with how advanced the work of art is. (He distinguishes between that discomfort and not forming an aesthetic reaction, which has the side effect of irritation, although he says it's a false impression that goes away when a truer impression sets in.) Scholl's statement in the NYT indicates that he has fallen victim to that fallacy; deferring to anyone else's judgment on this doesn't require hard swallowing, but mere recognition that anyone's real experience trumps anything else reported by the Times. I have, however, been to the Rubell collection repeatedly and find the same fallacy in place - mistaking uncomfortableness and unreadableness and flat-out boredom for "advancedness."
...the Devil's advocate might take the Schollophobes as much to task, questioning the very impetus of their disdain.
This is why we have the address the writing, not the writer guideline. I don't doubt the sincerity of the Scholls or the Rubells - I question their tastes as evidenced by their art and their words (as such as the latter can be taken at face value in the NYT in this case). I would in turn like to be able to get through a criticism of their work without shots at my character (take your pick: professional jealousy is a perennial favorite, and ethocentricity is making a comeback), even though they tend to make me feel that I've gotten something right.
33.
August 16, 2005, 8:16 AM
Undergraduate, I think that is a shame. that we have such large number of readers and such a small number of contributors, and I am sure it is because we have so much high-powered disagreement. This is one reason I am such an advocate of anonymity; you can say anything and get blasted for it without being personally on the line. The people on the blog may be smart but a lot of dumb stuff gets said, usually not from a lack of intelligence but from not thinking things through. Please go ahead and make comments, especially if you feel something is unclear or unjustified of if you have any kind of question. The blog should be for everyone.
Kathleen, I invoked Wilde here a while back regarding sincerity: "A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." He also said "(Some people) think incompetence is the same thing as sincerity". And I will add that sincerity is no substitute for common sense and a good eye.
Anyone who pays good money for a "work of art" consisting of someone masturbating under a platform is just what you phrased so well , a "stooge of the market". I am not "implying" it, I am saying it straight out. And anyone who basks in the complete security of playing the favorites in the art game and invokes "risk taking" is either insincere or deluded.
34.
August 16, 2005, 8:32 AM
... the dubious idea of pleasurable discomfort ...
Taken as Franklin put it, such pleasure is not dubious, it simply does not exist. But discomfort can be part of the continuum in which art is experienced - with pleasure - especially art that is unfamiliar to the viewer.
Greenberg once told me of his first experience with Pollock's work. He, Lee, and Jackson each walked up to where the work was displayed in the studio and sat down. They looked for 45 minutes, no one saying a word. He could not talk because he was having trouble seeing the work, even though he felt there was something there to be seen. It did not seem natural to comment on work that his taste could not apprehend. They, apparently, were silent because he said nothing.
He told me that was when he learned about the worst thing you can do to an artist in a situation like that is to say nothing and he resolved to never remain silent again. I know that silence drives us nuts, but do not necessairly agree with Clem's good intentions.
Jack talked about honesty earlier. I thought Greenberg's reaction was honest. The silence was caused by his struggle to make contact with what he was seeing. If he had started up his mouth to make the other two more comfortable, perhaps he might never have succeeded in seeing Pollock and the course of subsequent history might have been a little different. There was a large conference on art a couple of decades ago that made as one of its statements "The nature of art includes silence". If art can be silent, so can art critics.
The story also illustrated that Greenberg, like everyone else, could be stumped by art that was before him. His surgically precise eye had its bad moments, his genius was not always up to the demands of art.
The perverse art system that began to slowly grow after Pollock and company had their day has turned Greenberg's experience on its head. If art that stumped Greenberg for 45 minutes turned out to be good, think of how much better art that stumps everyone for 45 years would be! The shortcut to the 45 year effect is, of course, to make it so bad no one will ever "get it", except those who equate being permanently stumped with "getting it". Taking mutually approved shortcuts are what makes a system academic and full of ersatz "life", but they rob it of any chance to really get somewhere.
Sometimes I think art itself is a co-conspirator in this plot to put over discomfort as the "new" pleasure of art. By making it so hard on serious artists to remain serious, it filters out those who lack the extreme backbone that is required to continue on in the face of the regression that is taking place on a massive scale. Anything that can be traced back to Greenberg's initial encounter with Pollock has a lot of credibility too. It just happened that Greenberg was not perfect and so one of his slip ups has been magnified beyond imagination.
The truth is that "difficult" art is no longer "difficult" once taste expands and gets it as art. If something is permanently difficult chances are great that it is permanently defective.
35.
August 16, 2005, 8:41 AM
Postscript to #34: Greenberg said it was Lee Krasner who led them into the studio.
And when I said discomfort can be part of the continuum I hope it was clear that discomfort can be part of the beginning. Ultimately it leads to pleasure, not continued discomfort.
36.
August 16, 2005, 8:54 AM
Catfish; I like that........" if something is permanently difficult chances are great that it is permanently defective"....... the onus is all on the artist!
37.
August 16, 2005, 10:30 AM
Kathleen, of course Alesh wasn't going for canonization; I was being rhetorical. However, I prefer to keep the devil's advocate around; the Vatican sanctions his use for legitimate reasons. The DA, by the way, would find your testimony no less vulnerable than that of Alesh, given that your husband is an art photographer. This is not an accusation, but rather an observation. You, like Alesh, may be perfectly sincere, but I choose to take all potentially relevant circumstances into consideration.
38.
August 16, 2005, 11:18 AM
re; my comment 36....its obvious, duh!! I was just thinking about the burden on the artist to be great. The wondering of is this art of mine going to be real?? the wondering like Cezanne felt just a month b4 he died if he did all that was in him??
39.
August 16, 2005, 12:24 PM
Goodness gracious! Franklin! I was not addressing you IN ANY WAY. I was turning Jack's criticism of Alesh's impartiality around on itself, and I used phobe as the opposite of phile, just as a shorthand for whomever it is the Devil's advocate would be questioning. One absurd hypothetical to another.
I don't think you hold professional jealousy, I also in fact found your behaviour concerning Alesh's comments to be honorable, as I typically expect from you. I certainly don't consider you to be a rash thinker. Except when you leap to erroneous conclusions about something I wrote.
I don't know why things seem testier than ever around here to me.
Jack, yes you are right, my husband is a professional photographer, and to further clarify, the Scholls purchased one of his works as a gift for the Studio Museum in Harlem. They also like my child a lot. I'm also not a Catholic, so do not recognize any type of Vatican authority, nor am I religious in any sense, so do take all of that information into consideration as you continue to address the writer in the process of evaluating the writing. Lovely.
Is it actually the case that as long as I toe the line around here I'm afforded all of the priviledges of the guidelines, but the moment I say something positive about some people being harshy spoken of in the comments section, I'm subject to observations about my personal life (in the service of "potential relevancy" of course) and when I attempt some rhetorical criticism of my own, I'm assumed to be making personal attacks against others?
41.
August 16, 2005, 3:59 PM
Kathleen, thanks for the clarification.
You toe the line around here?
42.
August 16, 2005, 5:41 PM
Kathleen, my office conputer has been down all day, and I don't want to reread the whole thread but your statement:
" when I attempt some rhetorical criticism of my own, I'm
assumed to be making personal attacks against others?"
puzzles me. Did Franklin say that he was referring to you? It seemed like a general complaint to me.
Catfish, that session of Greenberg being silent in the face of the Pollocks seems to me not at all a "slip up", but an appropriate reaction, apart from the awkwardness and anxiety it would engender, which he apparently understood and corrected. I saw him walk through a sculptor's room at a Triangle Workshop saying almost nothing, except "keep on doing what you are doing" which devestated the guy until I explained to him that this was a Clem form of high praise. Still, he wouldn't believe it until Clem himself told him at dinner.
When I saw Jules first "runny blob" pitcures 5 years ago I was very taken aback, and because I know Jules so well I just said so. Then I realized I had seen a few pictures of his the previous year which I right away thought, and still think, did not work, and I realized this "put off" reaction was entirely different, and in an hour or so I was well tuned into them.
No matter how long we are in this business genuinely new art pushes us around. And I am not talking about Vito jerking off, which was stupid right off the drawing board, and still is.
43.
August 16, 2005, 8:15 PM
OP; since Jules is a close friend, he can show you the Toronto piece!
44.
August 16, 2005, 11:04 PM
Elizabeth, if I ask him he will turn to his wife and say "Do I have a big painitng in a building up in Toronto?"
45.
August 16, 2005, 11:08 PM
re: #44 At least somebody has their priorities straight.
46.
August 16, 2005, 11:21 PM
Oldpro, you must let Vito, uh, please himself as he wishes. If he can also get people to pay him big bucks for doing so, that's not his fault; he's not forcing them to do it. Besides, even if he goes blind, with that kind of money he can always get a seeing-eye human.
47.
August 17, 2005, 1:00 AM
On Vito A., he's doing utopian architecture and urban planning now, which, as a general professional arena, I find to have ample masturatory aspects.
I like the V.A. work in question; I'd rather that somebody just jerk off and save me the verbal/ego equivalent, if that's what their work is about, utimately, anyway.
Lest somebody misinfer, I am a fan of Acconci's works, especially the videos.
OP, Franklin's statements followed a quote from my comment, and referred to "ethnocentrism", which is a charge I did level at his writing sometime last week. So, I think it was clear that he was talking to me. But it's all cleared up now, thankfully, and we're about to sing kumbayah.
48.
August 17, 2005, 6:21 AM
OP; I understand completely, I will make a point of taking a hopefully good picture of it for you because I like you so much. I wouldnt do this for anyone else.. hehe.
re 46; hmmm, money and sex, kindof sounds like prostitution.
49.
August 17, 2005, 8:03 AM
But "seeing-eye human" is quite elaborate, and funny.
1.
Jack
August 15, 2005, 1:15 PM
A lot of people are afraid to express their honest reaction, especially if it's negative, and more especially if it's to anything they're supposed or expected to like. They're afraid to look "out of it," or like they don't "get it," or "limited," or insufficiently "advanced." So they falsify their response, or suppress it, or actually talk themselves into adopting views not their own because they're the "correct" views.
These are people, of course, who are ultimately unfit to interact with art because they can't be honest; they can't be themselves; they can't or won't deal with art personally but resort to some sort of proxy (despite ostentatious displays of being furiously individualistic). These may also be people who are not really into art as such but into art as a means to ulterior ends, in which case how they really feel about any given work is a moot point, since it's not about the work per se.
It's pretty sad, actually, and a waste, but so it goes.