Death magic

Taussig, Michael. “The Language of Flowers”, Walter Benjamin's Grave, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp.189- 289.

It was interesting how Taussing talked about the magic that surrounds death, especially that of the state execution. 

This is something that has given images of Saints in some religions such power for some people. Icon paintings in the Byzantium style of martyred saints show the power of these people’s myths that they leave behind after a state execution.  The person can become something more after death as if the state execution gives them a magic.

Thomas Laqueur designates the hanged body as “the magic body.” He cites James Boswell in 1776 describing the “superstition” he witnessed at a London hanging whereby “no less than four diseased persons had themselves rubbed with the sweaty hands of malefactors in the agonies of death, and believed this would cure them.”  (cited in Tuassig 124)

On the flip side there is paintings like Marcus Harvey’s Myra Hindley whom is related to killing. It shows the amount of energy that can be exerted when the image becomes a symbol unjustified killing. The image became the symbol for the whole story of the murders via the media fuelled aggression and image over exposure. Marcus Harvey states that “The whole point of the painting is the photograph. That photograph. The iconic power that has come to it as a result of years of obsessive media reproduction.” (Marcus Harvey, White Cube).

Perhaps it the death without eye for eye repercussion that like the knot of the hangman’s noose or the neck of a recently hung man that hasn’t allowed the public to heal.

Harvey, M. White Cube [accessed 18/5/11]  <www.whitecube.com/artists/harvey/>

Taussig, Michael. “The Language of Flowers”, Walter Benjamin's Grave, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp.189- 289.

Artist's artist

Isabelle Graw, High Price: Art between the market and Celebrity Culture, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009, pp. 81-94 & 112-116.

Isabelle Graw is an Art critic and a professor for Art history and Art theory. In this text she discusses the artist’s artist verse the market’s artist, in which one is creating for oneself in contrast to the other, whom is creating for pure profit.

The idea that an artist’s artist could really exist is somewhat wishful thinking. Artist’s artist implies that the artist is only making art for the acknowledgement from their peers or to further the art. This ideal is very attractive but to afford their basic human needs must receive some income be it from the museum or from sales of art.

One of the problems with income from the museum or art institution is that in funding the work it is already being seen as art and by that extent is already being turned into commodity.

Whilst the market artist’s success is measured in a money value the artist’s artist has their success is measured in the popularity they have amongst their peers, which can also eventuate into investors capitalising on something they see as potential investment art.

The only safe place is in art schools which try to prevent the market infiltrating the artists’ work to give students space enabling them to grow their concepts beyond the idea of just producing commodity.

An abstract taken from well-established German artist Dirk Skreber whom is very flexible in his approaches to his works (using  realistic painting, abstract painting and sculpture installation) states just as he takes a shift in painting styles

            Over a decade ago I came across a centuries-old Chinese story about artists who, once they began to achieve fame and success, cut all ties with their names and took on new ones. Their desire to work under a new identity instead of basking in their fame and wealth impresses me immensely, and I have great respect for those who committed to this decision and its aftermath. The philosophical depth of this act is immeasurable. While I am in awe, however, I could never do it myself. The permanent consequences of such an undertaking, while certainly daunting, are not alone what would deter me.” (“Exhibition no.2”)

Skrebers admiration for these artist shows but it also provides an excellent example that the artist’s artist however mobile in their practice is surely a myth and that the artist’s artist is trapped by the market just as much as is everyone else.

Isabelle Graw, High Price: Art between the market and Celebrity Culture, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009, pp. 81-94 & 112-116.

Skreber, D “Exhibition no.2” Friedrich Petzel Gallery.  [accessed 17/5/11] <www.petzel.com/exhibitions/2010-04-03_dirk-skreber/>

Displaced nostalgia

Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp.27-47.

Arjun Appadurai is a social–cultural anthropologist focusing on modernity and globalization. The text “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” discusses the impact of globalised mass media and the transplant of one society’s social scenarios into another’s.

Now days things like 50’s American kitchenware, Retro and Bauhaus design and come back tours by retired musicians create a sense of reliving times gone by. The sense of nostalgia has been manifested from a common social imagination constructed from the spread of mass image media. Owen Hatherley (writer and architect critic) describes these forms of appropriations as legislated nostalgia, which has the power to convince a body of people into having a memory that is not theirs.

There is a fine line between nostalgia and retrospective retake.  The continual appropriation of fashions and styles that characterise particular decades have forced people into having a certain feeling or a ‘legislated nostalgia’ when picturing the past. Film (a major culprit) has led us to believe we have extended our experiences into what it was like in the past (such as classics like Grease). With this ‘knowledge of the past we are able to have a quasi-emotive response (Fearing Fictions, 5) due to the narratives and characters portrayed in our favourite historically positioned movies. “The past is now not a land to return to in a simple politics of memory. It has become a synchronic warehouse of cultural scenarios, a kind of temporal central casting, to which recourse can be taken as appropriate…” (Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, 30)

There is further Disjuncture when these caricatures of histories travel outside of their original culture, such as in western styled bars and restaurants in foreign countries. The appropriation of a wild western bar usually based more on the Hollywood styled western film sets distorted exaggeration. This is not a real nostalgia where the person actually longs for the better time in their past memories but one that has been mediated through film and pop cultures. The remakes exceed the original and become caricatures.

The globalised mass media is creating nostalgia without memory. In the future will we be looking back retrospectively or actually longing for better times gone by? Perhaps we will create a Social imagination, in which our knowledge of history is clouded by a globally homogenised imagery where histories may become myths.

Appadurai, Arjun “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp.27-47.

Fox, Dan et al. Nostalgia: Frieze Art Fair. 2009. What’s the Role of the Past in Fashioning the Future? Podcast [online]. [Accessed 3/5/2011] http://www.friezeartfair.com/podcasts/details/nostalgia_whats_the_role_of_the_past_in_fashioning_the_future/

Walton, Kendal “Fearing Fictions”, Journal of Philosophy, 75, 1978, pp 4-27

Specific Objects

Michael Fried “Art and Objecthood” Artforum, vol. V no.10 June 1967, pp.12-23.

Michael Fried is an art historian and a modernist art critic, Fried’s position is that Minimalist art has taken an ‘ideological position’ (Art and Objecthood, 12) as mere object, in which Fried has coined as holding the position of “Objecthood”. This is seen as a betrayal to the modernist investigation of medium. Art and Objecthood is written as a rebuttal to Donald Judd’s ‘Specific Objects’ 1965. The theatricality of Specific Objects to Fried seemed to mar the viewer’s aesthetic experience.

Donald Judd looks to create art that holds a place of non-reference. In response to modernisms continuous referencing of medium painting “Specific Objects” discards the two dimensional for three and furthermore distances itself from referencing medium by occupying a space as an object. These objects aim to hold their own place as neither sculpture nor painting. Judd’s concept aims to function on its own without the need for allusion.

Paintings inability to escape the allusion to pictorial illusion in addition to its reliance on the rectangular frame limit paintings endeavour to further itself (such as Malevich’s compositions). “Anything on a surface has space behind it. Two colors on the same surface almost always lie on different depths. An even color, especially in oil paint, covering all or much of a painting is almost always both flat and infinitely spatial.” (Donald Judd: Early Work, 1955-1968).

Now in a state of exhaustion, Non-art must take painting and sculptures place. Craft must be eliminated; the hand must not be evident. The claim that there could be a limited amount of content to put onto a canvas is absurd. Judd’s theory of ‘Specific Objects’ suggests that there are limited arrangements in the two dimensional surface. It certainly could make sense if it can be isolated in the minimalist period where artist explored medium and moved away from pictorial concerns. Objecthood to me seems to be reactionary as faith in painting waivered. 

Fried, Michael Art and Objecthood Artforum, vol. V no.10 June 1967, pp.12-23.

Kellein, Thomas Donald Judd: Early Work, 1955-1968, New York: D.A.P., 2002.

Originally published in Arts Yearbook 8, 1965.

Whats missing?

Thierry de Duve “When Form Has Become Attitude – And Beyond” (1994), Theory in contemporary art Since 1945, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, pp 19-31.

This text is written by Thierry de Duve in 1994. Thierry de Duve is a philosopher, art critic and art historian. One of the issues this text deals with is the role of the art schools and its approach to educating artists.

How do we educate the current artists? Should art schools influence artists to be concept driven, inventive, theory based or to provide technical skills? What’s missing? 

One of the concerns with using the academy model is that it can be uninventive and bound by conditions of technique. If we aren’t able to or don’t possess the appropriate skills are artists improvising or compromising their practices?

For conceptual art to be materialised into art the artists must have some ability to manifest the idea into an object(s).When it comes to dealing with painting image or casting sculpture skill becomes part of the reading of the work. The academic model paired with the knowledge of theory aids in the ability to articulate concepts. ‘Thierry de Duve states “…all teachers know by experience that talent exists and creativity is a myth.”(When Form Has Become Attitude – And Beyond 23).

Art schools possess a tendency to pursue the Black Mountain utopian ideals; ideals about a pure art uncorrupted by commercial influences. The pretence that the art market doesn’t exist would be misleading and potentially disadvantaging for studying artists. When they leave the safety of art school the art world as they have known it will be completely different. Money in art school has become a dirty topic along with the use of traditional techniques.

A project in Germany at Berlin’s Universität der Künste has been taken up to free artists from the usual space of the university. Olafur Eliasson has negotiated his students to work in his studio describing; “…the tradition of sequestering students in an academy as ‘dogmatic, static and conservative’ and believes the learning environment doesn’t have to be a ‘cocoon’; he wants his school to be ‘closer to the street, closer to reality’.”(Frieze, Open Studio. 2008)

In a Frieze art fair discussion Saskia Bos states “…..art schools provide conditions for risk taking and research that museums catering to ever broadening constituencies have difficulty matching.” (Frieze Art Fair, Theory and Practice: Art Education Today. 2007). Protection from the need for consumerism provides a ‘safe’ place to trail and contemplate work; works that could potentially be unsuccessful in a gallery or museum setting.

Thierry de Duve asks where the meeting of the two trains of thought is. Do we look back to the academy for training in skill or are we just clinging to some sort or romantic notion of the past? It could be that in order for us to convey our new concepts we need to find some compromise between trained skill and conceptual practice. Provide the skills; cognitive and technical and then facilitate the discussions so that artists can hit the ground running when they leave the safety of art school.

de Duve, Thierry “When Form Has Become Attitude – And Beyond” (1994), Theory in contemporary art Since 1945, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, pp 19-31.

Lange, Christy. “Frieze.“ Open Studio. Issue 18 October 2008. [accessed 2/04/11] http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/open_studio/

Rugoff, Ralph et al. Frieze Art Fair. 2007. Theory and Practice: Art Education Today Podcast [online]. [accessed 1/04/11]. http://www.friezeartfair.com/podcasts/details/theory_practice_art_education_today/)