This book wrestles with a difficult and complex topic, the way our society commemorates its tragedies. It starts with a brief history, which is predictably sad and leads up to the present day project of commemorating the events on 9/11, and beyond.
The analysis of the reaction the U.S. citizens had to the attack is very interesting. I hadn't really thought about it, or noticed its narcissistic and somewhat immature behavior. I guess that is to be expected on some level. We all deal with tragedy differently, even nation-states. We don't behave our best when grieving or angry.
The writer David Simpson brings to light the questionable use of the word "hero" to describe the people who died in the towers that day. Normally the word means someone who willingly gave or risked their life to save another. There were some heroes that day, for sure the emergency workers and the people on the planes who over-powered the terrorists, but the totally unaware people in the towers did not choose to give their lives and given the choice they may have decided otherwise. The janitors, porters, window washers and cashiers whose lives were ended so abruptly didn't know, and might not have cared for, the meaning and symbolism that has been heaped on their names since they died. (p. 48)
There is an interesting discussion about Giorgio Agamben's concept of "bare life" on pages 49 and 50. These are the lives that a government may deem disposable, the people who die for "necessary" reasons. The power to designate such a group is specific to governments and in the wake of 9/11 there seemed to be a huge move to show that those who died who more than sacrificial or disposable. the media surrounding their death has been spun more and more toward a nationalist view that they "died for a way of life and not in vain." (p. 51)
The analysis for the memorials, how they were chosen and what they are supposed to mean was a bit lengthy and dry for me. However I see his point that whatever is built there, "can hardly avoid sinking into a morass of signification of the most contrived and hortatory kind." (p. 61)
After all the various emotions that I have had about the event I admittedly found the "strident call for triumphalism, for an economic and patriotic display of national and local energy that canpass muster as embodying the spirit of America and, inevitably, of capitalist democracy itself," to be highly distasteful. (p. 61)
I would have preferred something more quiet, more reverent, something for the dead. Instead I see that we have chosen, and predictably so, something that looks like a "sore thumb (or a raised finger)" and that strikes me as more of that same kind of arrogance and egoism that incited the attack in the first place. (p. 61)
Since the attack I have watched in horror and fascination as our governments behavior went from bad, to worse, to unforgivable. The way in which this tragedy was used makes me sick, quite literally. Simpson is right to note that, "there have been no limits on the immodesty of nation-states and their interests in their determination to harvest every possible legitimation effect from the deaths of their citizens." (p. 65) I personally think it's disgusting.
At least there will be the PATH station and the underground memorial, which seems to be the only really tasteful, meaningful and reverent part of the project. I spent some time looking at it online and I like it very much. I see that it is able to represent a "passage between places, in time, and between the upper and lower worlds" and like Simpson, I am glad it is not being called Freedom Station. (p. 74)
The crux of this book for me is the discussion about how we make our enemies to be "other" and how we find it so necessary to divide us from them. The goal of the memorial, the media and the government seem unified in the intent to frame this attack as one in which "the enemy is wholly other, the foreign element that is completely outside and beyond America." (p. 78)
This oversimplification is echoed and compounded by the need to completely ignore the "diverse nationalities" of the victims who died in the attack, and instead to frame this as a "uniquely American tragedy." (p. 94)
Like some kind of brilliant poetic justice the Abu Ghraib photos surfaced and suddenly shone light upon the whole deceptive venture. The photos clearly depct us acting like them, and further "show us what we already knew: that the torture and abuse of prisoners go on, and have gone on everywhere..." (p. 107) If we waged the war against them because we thought we had some moral high ground, then these photos kill our case. There we are, inside of their prison, doing exactly what we accused them of doing. It means "that the neat distinctions between them and us, between civility and barbarism, cannot be mouthed as confidently as they once were." (p. 110)
This is the division that we make whenever we want to justify killing or destruction. It is the time honored tradition of setting up sides. The saddest part of this whole book for me is the description of the Iraqi mother standing outside the Abu Gharib prison with a photo of her son, disappeared into the prison 9 months earlier. She has a name, her son has a name, they a human beings who have suffered greatly at the hands of American soldiers and they are like us, they are like the people who stood around the Trade Center with photos of their own missing loved ones.
Even more bitterly, my tax money paid for it, and every time I fill my gas tank I know that it is with blood.
For me the most important message in this book is summarily stated on page 136, "Every imagining of the other is an encounter with the self: they are us."
Monday, December 8, 2008
Regarding the Pain of Others - Susan Sontag
This was a very interesting read, mostly a history of the way humans have evolved war photography. I didn't find myself having an opinion as much as simply taking it all in.
The writer herself doesn't seem to have a firm stand either, mostly she explores a variety of perspectives on war photography and the various ways it manifest and gets used.
There seem to be pros and cons on every side, which is natural I suppose.
On page 109 she makes a strong argument against Debord's claim in The Society of the Spectacle. Not only does she defend the existence of reality, but also the ethical responsibility of responding to it. She says, "To speak of reality becoming a spectacle is a breath-taking provincialism. It universalizes the viewing habits of a small, educated population living in the rich part of the world, where news has been converted into entertainment-" (p. 110)
My own reading of Debord was more moderate, and so I didn't have the same reaction she did. I see that Debord is partially right on, and so I am able to excuse any exaggerations or broad generalizations.
The value of Sontag's book for me is that it makes me think about what I photograph and why, as well as why kind of photos I look at and why. It changes my thoughts about war photography. In fact I did not know that some of the most famous war photographs were staged.
I am clear about my own feelings on that matter either. I'm not sure if it is ethical to photograph the dead and spread the images all over the media. On the other hand, the total lack of photos from the current Iraq occupation may contribute to its ongoing status. I find myself feeling like Susan, able to see many sides of the issue, and unable to make a strong, definitive stance.
I'm not sure that photographing the pain or death of others is "good" or "bad" but it takes place and so the book is useful as an examination of this phenomena and its history in human affairs.
The writer herself doesn't seem to have a firm stand either, mostly she explores a variety of perspectives on war photography and the various ways it manifest and gets used.
There seem to be pros and cons on every side, which is natural I suppose.
On page 109 she makes a strong argument against Debord's claim in The Society of the Spectacle. Not only does she defend the existence of reality, but also the ethical responsibility of responding to it. She says, "To speak of reality becoming a spectacle is a breath-taking provincialism. It universalizes the viewing habits of a small, educated population living in the rich part of the world, where news has been converted into entertainment-" (p. 110)
My own reading of Debord was more moderate, and so I didn't have the same reaction she did. I see that Debord is partially right on, and so I am able to excuse any exaggerations or broad generalizations.
The value of Sontag's book for me is that it makes me think about what I photograph and why, as well as why kind of photos I look at and why. It changes my thoughts about war photography. In fact I did not know that some of the most famous war photographs were staged.
I am clear about my own feelings on that matter either. I'm not sure if it is ethical to photograph the dead and spread the images all over the media. On the other hand, the total lack of photos from the current Iraq occupation may contribute to its ongoing status. I find myself feeling like Susan, able to see many sides of the issue, and unable to make a strong, definitive stance.
I'm not sure that photographing the pain or death of others is "good" or "bad" but it takes place and so the book is useful as an examination of this phenomena and its history in human affairs.
Relational Aesthetics - Nicolas Bourriaud
This book was intriguing but extremely dense to read. I feel like I only soaked up about 1/2 of what is there. It would required intensive study to fully grasp, but if I understand him at all then I think I like what he's saying.
Art is moving from a personal, private, independent expression into a "realm of human interactions and its social context" (p. 15) He brings these ideas under the umbrella of "art" by enforcing ideas about the materialism and form of encounters. He writes his definitions large enough to encompass a broad range of occurrences, at one point saying that all artworks are relational objects.
The kind of things he wants to move under this definition include conviviality and social encounters, things that produce sociability, inter-human relations, free association, and networking. He is tentative about using art for political reasons and gives a mild warning about the future of art. (p. 78)
For exhibitions of this kind a work, gallery spaces are adapted as places that bring people together for a variety of reasons, sometimes just for dinner, as in the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija. (p 38-39)
In the second half of the book he starts to delve into his concept of subjectivity. This is where I start to get lost.
I think this book is worth a second reading, but not until I get more time, possibly on break.
Art is moving from a personal, private, independent expression into a "realm of human interactions and its social context" (p. 15) He brings these ideas under the umbrella of "art" by enforcing ideas about the materialism and form of encounters. He writes his definitions large enough to encompass a broad range of occurrences, at one point saying that all artworks are relational objects.
The kind of things he wants to move under this definition include conviviality and social encounters, things that produce sociability, inter-human relations, free association, and networking. He is tentative about using art for political reasons and gives a mild warning about the future of art. (p. 78)
For exhibitions of this kind a work, gallery spaces are adapted as places that bring people together for a variety of reasons, sometimes just for dinner, as in the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija. (p 38-39)
In the second half of the book he starts to delve into his concept of subjectivity. This is where I start to get lost.
I think this book is worth a second reading, but not until I get more time, possibly on break.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Has Modernism Failed? revised edition
I obtained Suzi's revised edition and it's remarkable. This is my favorite book of the semester. She strikes me as a very important voice in the Art World. At the same time I've heard that she quite upset the apple cart with this book and many people were unhappy to read her indictment of Modernism, although I think she was gentle enough, and fair.
In the last two chapters of the revised edition she addresses the most important shift in power to occur within the last 50 years, "the shift in power from the nation state and its bureaucrats to multinational corporations and their entrepreneurs." (p. 139)
Although I cannot quote the source well enough, I read that transnational corporations owned more than 51% of total global wealth after the year 2004. Nation-states fell in second and though this shift went largely unnoticed by the general public, it did catch my attention.
I was concerned that so much of the world's wealth was concentrated in the hands of entities that do not need to answer to anyone. They are transnational, and as such unaffected by voting, representative governments, angry citizens, and other inconvenient stumbling blocks to the consolidation of their own enormous wealth.
Suzi Gablik is also correct in pointing out that their control and power are not strictly limited to monetary goods, but also in the exportation of consumer culture media. (p. 140)
In my own opinion it is the exportation and enlargement of the 'spectacle' that Debord refers to. Corporations are spreading their infectious meme through every kind of media outlet possible. I have seen it myself, first when I traveled to Asia in 1992, and then when I traveled through Eastern Europe between 2003-2005.
I love the quote she offers from the professor at Cairo University Thomas L. Friedman, "Does globalization mean we all have to become Americans?"
How funny is that?
I am intrigued by the move of art into activism. She mentions Nigerian scholar Okwui Enwezor, the director for Documenta 11, an international art exhibition in Kassel Germany. The entire show addresses the effects of global capitalism, and the "unyielding theology" of Western art traditions and canons. (p. 142) Enwezor has put forth a view of art that is much different than anything I am used to, he is suggesting art as activism, where the medium is culture and society. (p. 143) For me this is a bold move and a very profound one, it also seems to engage philosophy with art, which is an idea I have been mulling over for years. It's great to know that it's happening now and it fills my head with ideas about how I might involve myself in these exciting new trends.
In Chapter 10 of the revised edition she addresses integralism. For her position it refers to the "intersubjectivity and transdisciplinarity" of the new art culture. Her integralism also
has a secular flavor, although she endorses a marriage of ethics and art she frames it in carefully universal "service to humanity" language. (p. 150) She uses the Empty Bowls project as an example. Pottery was used to solicit donations to combat world hunger, two million dollars were raised in various efforts. Gablik drives the point home when she says, "This project honors the world by really seeing it." (p. 151)
I think that's what all really good art does, it shows us some truth. These new art forms seem to go a step further by involving themselves in making real change. There are so many great examples in the end of her book, she ends on a positive note, telling us, "My sense is that significant changes in power relations are occurring..." (p. 155)
Then later she mentions the Watershed project in the Hudson River Valley. This unique example serves to illustrate her claim that, "The arc of specialization has been displaced by another organizing principle - decentralized creativity - in which the individual artist becomes a structural component in a society of selves that fit their contributions together in a mutual enrichment." (p. 159)
In the last two chapters of the revised edition she addresses the most important shift in power to occur within the last 50 years, "the shift in power from the nation state and its bureaucrats to multinational corporations and their entrepreneurs." (p. 139)
Although I cannot quote the source well enough, I read that transnational corporations owned more than 51% of total global wealth after the year 2004. Nation-states fell in second and though this shift went largely unnoticed by the general public, it did catch my attention.
I was concerned that so much of the world's wealth was concentrated in the hands of entities that do not need to answer to anyone. They are transnational, and as such unaffected by voting, representative governments, angry citizens, and other inconvenient stumbling blocks to the consolidation of their own enormous wealth.
Suzi Gablik is also correct in pointing out that their control and power are not strictly limited to monetary goods, but also in the exportation of consumer culture media. (p. 140)
In my own opinion it is the exportation and enlargement of the 'spectacle' that Debord refers to. Corporations are spreading their infectious meme through every kind of media outlet possible. I have seen it myself, first when I traveled to Asia in 1992, and then when I traveled through Eastern Europe between 2003-2005.
I love the quote she offers from the professor at Cairo University Thomas L. Friedman, "Does globalization mean we all have to become Americans?"
How funny is that?
I am intrigued by the move of art into activism. She mentions Nigerian scholar Okwui Enwezor, the director for Documenta 11, an international art exhibition in Kassel Germany. The entire show addresses the effects of global capitalism, and the "unyielding theology" of Western art traditions and canons. (p. 142) Enwezor has put forth a view of art that is much different than anything I am used to, he is suggesting art as activism, where the medium is culture and society. (p. 143) For me this is a bold move and a very profound one, it also seems to engage philosophy with art, which is an idea I have been mulling over for years. It's great to know that it's happening now and it fills my head with ideas about how I might involve myself in these exciting new trends.
In Chapter 10 of the revised edition she addresses integralism. For her position it refers to the "intersubjectivity and transdisciplinarity" of the new art culture. Her integralism also
has a secular flavor, although she endorses a marriage of ethics and art she frames it in carefully universal "service to humanity" language. (p. 150) She uses the Empty Bowls project as an example. Pottery was used to solicit donations to combat world hunger, two million dollars were raised in various efforts. Gablik drives the point home when she says, "This project honors the world by really seeing it." (p. 151)
I think that's what all really good art does, it shows us some truth. These new art forms seem to go a step further by involving themselves in making real change. There are so many great examples in the end of her book, she ends on a positive note, telling us, "My sense is that significant changes in power relations are occurring..." (p. 155)
Then later she mentions the Watershed project in the Hudson River Valley. This unique example serves to illustrate her claim that, "The arc of specialization has been displaced by another organizing principle - decentralized creativity - in which the individual artist becomes a structural component in a society of selves that fit their contributions together in a mutual enrichment." (p. 159)
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Has Modernism Failed? - Suzi Gablik
What a fantastic read! This book really gave me a great analysis of Modernism, and then is posed some very fertile questions about the direction of art since then. I was especially moved by her insistence that the spiritual in art is something worth retrieving from the dustbin of Modernism's rejects. I appreciate that sentiment very much, and it has a lot to do with my goals in art.
I also really enjoyed her fresh approach with writing style, even though it was a bit dense to read.
Unfortunately I didn't get the new revised edition of the book and so I am missing the last two chapters. The version I got was seeped in 80's current events and issues. I look forward to reading what she has to say since then.
I guess part of me still sees that artist as "the last active carrier of spiritual value in a materialist world" even if it hasn't been true for a long time. (p. 21) I guess I have old fashioned notions, but in my owl life I have noticed a slow but steady deterioration of belief as well.
Her examination of the over personalization of art was fascinating to me because I have done that, and imagined art that way my whole life. I assumed it was primarily about the artist's private vision, and that we didn't really have any responsibility to the community unless we were interested in being commercial, but even that is a private act. (p. 32) Life has lost its hold on the sacred, nothing is left, everything has been plundered. (p. 47)
The artists sold out, I guess I never thought about it. They had sold out long before I knew it could be otherwise. I always imagined that success in art meant fame and money, "making it."
(p. 58)
The whole chapter Pluralism: The Tyranny of Freedom, was amazing to read. I had never in my life considered things from her viewpoint. I always assumed, without question that the maximum freedom was the maximum good. The poses that big question terms of ethical debate, "either we accept that there are real and inherent values - eternal truths which transcend individual existence - or there are no such truths..." (p. 77)
Her point is well put and I think that much of the tension is due to the conflict between individualism and communal values. (p. 79)
Perhaps the merging of life with art was inevitable, in order to pull something unifying back into the arena. The spontaneous creation of graffiti art shows that art is impossible to cage or limit.
Nevertheless, I am lead through the book to understanding her call for socially conscious, meaningful, transcendent art.
I also really enjoyed her fresh approach with writing style, even though it was a bit dense to read.
Unfortunately I didn't get the new revised edition of the book and so I am missing the last two chapters. The version I got was seeped in 80's current events and issues. I look forward to reading what she has to say since then.
I guess part of me still sees that artist as "the last active carrier of spiritual value in a materialist world" even if it hasn't been true for a long time. (p. 21) I guess I have old fashioned notions, but in my owl life I have noticed a slow but steady deterioration of belief as well.
Her examination of the over personalization of art was fascinating to me because I have done that, and imagined art that way my whole life. I assumed it was primarily about the artist's private vision, and that we didn't really have any responsibility to the community unless we were interested in being commercial, but even that is a private act. (p. 32) Life has lost its hold on the sacred, nothing is left, everything has been plundered. (p. 47)
The artists sold out, I guess I never thought about it. They had sold out long before I knew it could be otherwise. I always imagined that success in art meant fame and money, "making it."
(p. 58)
The whole chapter Pluralism: The Tyranny of Freedom, was amazing to read. I had never in my life considered things from her viewpoint. I always assumed, without question that the maximum freedom was the maximum good. The poses that big question terms of ethical debate, "either we accept that there are real and inherent values - eternal truths which transcend individual existence - or there are no such truths..." (p. 77)
Her point is well put and I think that much of the tension is due to the conflict between individualism and communal values. (p. 79)
Perhaps the merging of life with art was inevitable, in order to pull something unifying back into the arena. The spontaneous creation of graffiti art shows that art is impossible to cage or limit.
Nevertheless, I am lead through the book to understanding her call for socially conscious, meaningful, transcendent art.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Painted Word - Tom Wolfe
A comparatively light and enjoyable read, very witty and full of the flavor of its time. I love the glimpse of the culture he offers us with this vivid descriptions of New York in the Modernist era. It is a palpable description. I was struck by how small the art world actually was in those times, and how just a few aggressive personalities shaped the history of art through the last century.
His tone reminded me of how someone with an 'insider's' view explains things. It has a cleverly conspiratorial tone, as if he were saying, 'lemme tell ya how it was.' At the same time he seems trustworthy, even though he casually judges everyone as he moves through an easy historical banter. The overview is remarkable in its good natured, well informed, and succinct voice.
His tone reminded me of how someone with an 'insider's' view explains things. It has a cleverly conspiratorial tone, as if he were saying, 'lemme tell ya how it was.' At the same time he seems trustworthy, even though he casually judges everyone as he moves through an easy historical banter. The overview is remarkable in its good natured, well informed, and succinct voice.
Inside the White Cube - The Ideology of the Gallery Space
This book by Brian O'Doherty was very informative about the history and development of the gallery space. The gallery, essentially a kind of specialty shop that made deliberate choices about presentation fore its product. Even as commerce stole the monopoly that religion had on art, it then mimicked it with the chapel-like setting of the white cube that is a gallery space.
The reaction of artists to this containing and commodifying of their sensibility was all out revolt.
Attacks upon the gallery space itself reached a level both outrageous and absurd, but these attacks were constantly diffused by instant commodification. Nevertheless I greatly appreciate these last dying gasps off the artist's attempt to avoid being integrated as an economic interest.
His afterword has a note of resignation, "History in art is, ultimately, worth money." p. 109
I think what he is noting is, the contamination of a craft by the practice of business, as Socrates would say. Much like that way that Sony is not interested in the craft of stereo making, they are merely in the business of selling stereos - and when that is the general nature of things, even in an art world, then the integrity of the product suffers.
The reaction of artists to this containing and commodifying of their sensibility was all out revolt.
Attacks upon the gallery space itself reached a level both outrageous and absurd, but these attacks were constantly diffused by instant commodification. Nevertheless I greatly appreciate these last dying gasps off the artist's attempt to avoid being integrated as an economic interest.
His afterword has a note of resignation, "History in art is, ultimately, worth money." p. 109
I think what he is noting is, the contamination of a craft by the practice of business, as Socrates would say. Much like that way that Sony is not interested in the craft of stereo making, they are merely in the business of selling stereos - and when that is the general nature of things, even in an art world, then the integrity of the product suffers.
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