 |
| We will be reading the 1st chapter of Art As Experience, called The Live Creature. Book published in 1934 |
 |
| We are reading the essay called Art Which Can't be Art, written in 1986. Book published in 1993 |
 | |
| We will be reading the first section of the book, called Definitions. Book published in 2013 |
What are some of the similar ideas expressed across these three texts?
How do these essays position everyday life experiences in relation to art?
Do you get a sense of what is motivating these authors to write what they have here? Who or what are they responding to/writing for?
What importance does art have according to these authors?
Submit your Questions and Quotes as a comment on this post.
"But ordinary life performed as art/non art can change the everyday with metaphoric power." -Allan Kaprow (p222)
ReplyDeleteQuotes:
ReplyDelete"Only when the past ceases to trouble and anticipations of the future are not perturbing is a being wholly united with his environment and therefore fully alive. Art celebrates with peculiar intensity the moments in which the the past re-enforces the present and in which the future is a quickening of what now is." - Dewey (p17)
"Unless the identity (and thus the meaning) of what the artist does oscillates between ordinary, recognizable activity and the "resonance" of that activity in the larger human context, the activity itself reduces to conventional behavior. Or if it is framed as art by a gallery, it reduces to conventional art." - Kaprow (p222)
"Yet although Ramirez-Jonas's contains a symbolic act, it is not symbolic practice but rather communicative action (or "actual" practice)--that is, the symbolic act is part of a meaningful conceptual gesture" - Helguera (p8)
Questions:
Dewey - On page 18 when Dewey talks about "the supposition that connection of art and esthetic perception with experience signifies a lowering of their significance and dignity...", I am confused about the context which the supposition he is refuting was claimed? Is there an art historical example that can be shared where people were arguing that art connected with experience is less dignified?
Kaprow - On page 219, Kaprow effectively calls into question countless Duchamp imitators when stating "...every time daily life was enacted on a stage: that anything can be estheticized, given the right art packages to put it into...". Does anyone have a compelling argument for the continual failing Duchamp copycating? Also I want to ask Kaprow's question "Why should we want to estheticize "anything"?"
Helguera - Regarding symbolic practice and communicative action on pages 6-8: Is the effectiveness of a project what makes it "actual" practice? Does it matter how many people are affected? Or is it just the type of people who are affected are the people who the project aims to affect? What are other students thoughts? Is this a grey area or is there a clear line of distinction?
Quotes:
ReplyDeleteDewey pg ?
When an art product attains classic status, it somehow becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life-experience.
Kaprow pg 221 - 222
How is this relevant to art? Why is this not just sociology? It is relevant because developments within modernism itself led to art’s dissolution into its life sources. Art in the West has a long history of secularizing tendencies, going back at least as far as the Hellenistic period. By the late 1950’s and 1960’s this lifelike impulse dominated the vanguard. Art shifted away from the specialized object in the gallery to the real urban environment; to the real body and mind; to communications technology; and to remote natural regions of the ocean, recent art is clear and cannot be bypassed. This is where the paradox lies; an artist concerned with lifelike art is an artist who does and does not make art.
Helguera pg 1
"All art, inasmuch as it is created to be communicated to or experienced by others, is social. Yet to claim that all art is social does not take us very far in understanding the difference between a static work such as a painting and a social interaction that proclaims itself as art--that is, socially engaged art."
pg 4
"It also thus raises the question of whether such activity belongs to the field of art at all. This is an important; query; art students attracted to this form of art-making often find themselves wondering whether it would be more useful to abandon art altogether and instead become professional community organizers, activists, politicians, ethnographers, or sociologists."
pg 6
"An artist organizes a political rally about a local issue. The project, which is supported by a local issue. The project, which is supported by a local arts center is a medium-size city, fails to attract many local residents; only a couple dozen people show up, most of whom work at the arts center. The event is documented on video and presented as part of an exhibition. In truth, can the artist claim to have organized a rally?"
Questions:
If the products of social practice are meant to be accessible, then why is it that the discourse surrounding it is so complex and inaccessible? If the paragons of its nature are to be engaging of the community, how can this content exist so it's more conversational and comprehensible?
How much time has been spent analyzing the nature of socially engaged art? Is that number greater than actual engagement with communities?
Why claim it as art? While the instances may be inspired by the rich history of art historical events, does the active claiming of it as art enhance the product or interfere in its success?
Allan Kaprow - “Blurring Art And Life”
ReplyDeleteQuotes:
“Consider: if lifelike art restores the possibility of the practice of art as a practice of enlightenment, it complements what various psychotherapies and meditational disciplines have always done. Lifelike art can be thought of, not as substitute for these, but as a direct way of placing them in context of contemporary imagery, metaphor, and site.” (p. 218)
“Anything less than paradox would be simplistic. Unless the identity (and thus the meaning) of what the artist does oscillates between ordinary, recognizable activity and the “resonance” of that activity in the larger human context, the activity itself reduces to conventional behavior. Or if it is framed as art by a gallery, it reduces to conventional art.” (p. 222)
J. Dewey - “Art as Experience”
Quotes:
“..theories which isolate art and its appreciation by placing them in a realm of their own, disconnected from other modes of experiencing, are not inherent in the subject-matter but arise because of specifiable extraneous conditions. Embedded as they are in institutions and in habits of life, these conditions operate effectively because they work so unconsciously.” (p. 9)
“Even a crude experience, if authentically an experience, is more fit to give a clue to the intrinsic nature of esthetic experience than is an object already set apart from any other mode of experience.” (p. 9)
“…a philosophy of art is sterilized unless it makes us aware of the function of art in relation to other modes of experience, and unless it indicates why this function is so inadequately realized, sand unless it suggests the conditions under which the office would be successfully performed” (p. 10)
Pablo Helguera - “Education for Socially Engaged Art”
“ After that initial interaction, spaces enter a process of self-identification, ownership, and evolution based on group interests and ideas.” (p. 22)
“What is usually not questioned, however, is how one’s notion of one’s self is created. It is the construct of a vast collectivity of people who have influenced one’s thoughts and one’s values, and to speak to one’s self is more than a solipsistic exercise—it is, rather, a silent way of speaking to the portion of civilization that is summarized in our minds ” (p. 24)
“To get the results they desire, artists must be clear with themselves in articulating the audiences to whom they wish to speak and in understanding the context room which they are addressing them.” (p. 25)
Questions:
I am interested in this idea of resonance mentioned Allan Kaprow’s “Blurring Art and Life”. It seems that this resonance of a conventional behavior is their main argument from how brushing teeth translates to art, even though it is a routine and an unwitnessed action of the banal; it’s connection and context to modern human experience, although some may argue is always present, when methodically and intentionally contemplated and savored, endows the action with esthetic relevance.To what extent is intention is necessary when creating socially engaged art? Does the intention of the artist determine the meaning or does the audience or intended groups’s reaction to and perception of a project matter more?
What are the realistic limitations to an “idealistic” definition and embodiment of socially engaged art (social practice). Within the current system and set of bureaucratic limitations on artists, how well can social practice actual come to fruition? How and to what extent has the institution and need for validation within the art world hijacked the morals and initial deviance of socially engaged art in praxis?
In reference to Pablo Helguera’s discussion on conversation and communication, is all dialogical art also socially engaged art due to it’s basis in human interaction? What are some instances were it wouldn’t be? What are some qualities people consider necessary for dialogical art to have in order to be considered social practice?
P.S. Had trouble posting from PDX account/logged in with an old google ID - Kayla Townsley
John Dewey-
ReplyDelete“To the being fully alive, the future is not ominous but a promise; it surrounds the present as a halo. It consists of possibilities that are felt as a possession of what is now and here. In life that is truly life, everything overlaps and merges.” (17)
Allan Kaprow-
“I began to suspect that 99 percent of my daily life was just as routinized; that my mind was always somewhere else; and that the thousand signals my body was sending me each minute were ignored.” (221)
Pablo Helguera-
“Social engaged art functions by attaching itself to subjects and problems that normally belong to other disciplines, moving them temporarily into a space of ambiguity. It is this temporary snatching away of subjects into the realm of art-making that brings new insights to a particular problem or condition and in turn makes it visible to other disciplines.” (5)
Questions-
Relative to what Kaprow says about the daily life routines, are routines a hindrance to your art-making? Do you get locked-in to art-making routines that you find yourself creating the same kind of art without thought of “experimenting” and breaking those same routines?
Helguera says “the art as social practitioner must also make peace with the common accusation that he or she is not an artist but an “amateur” anthropologist, sociologist, etc.” (5) Why would an artist want to come to peace with an accusation? Is he saying, don’t be so damn sensitive, deal with it? I would say so what if the artist is accused of any accusation as long as she or he stands up for the art created, and articulate the ideas behind it. Not everyone is going to “get it.” But here you have the opportunity to educate, to pass along knowledge, to begin a dialog and the viewer/participant hopefully shares that dialog with others or continues the dialog with themselves. Change starts with the “self.”
“…the past reenfornces the present and in which the future is a quickening of what is now.” (Dewey 17) Why does art from the past continue to be such an important aspect of art education? Is it relevant in the present? Do the art institutions need to be more “present”?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHelguera cites the work of Habermas, who appears in the urban studies literature, to make a distinction between symbolic and actual practice, and uses the example of a hypothetical artist-run school to illustrate this point. Does this mean that social science practices like emancipatory participatory research would also be SEA?
ReplyDeleteDoes a practice become SEA only when the practitioner/creator/instigator decides that it is, or can it also be deemed as such by another party?
If the former, is it necessary to externalize that intention, to make it SEA?
“Many artists look for ways to renounce not only object-making but authorship altogether, in the kind of ‘stealth’ art practice that philosopher Stephen Wright argues for, in which the artist is a secret agent in the real world, with an artistic agenda.” Helguera, pg. 4
“Ordinary life performed as art/not art can charge the everyday with metaphoric power.” Kaprow, pg. 222
“The discord is the occasion that induces reflection. Desire for restoration of the union converts mere emotion into interest in objects as conditions of realization of harmony.” Dewey, pg. 14
My questions center mostly around Helguera, although the Dewey/Kaprow readings were interesting as background.
ReplyDeleteHelguera p. xiv:
Is it acceptable to articulate ideal practices, or would that be detrimental to the autonomy of art-making, which needs opacity and ambiguity to exist? While we need critical frameworks… to make art, they should not be understood as regulatory mandates….
Q: Does art need autonomy, opacity, ambiguity and critical frameworks to exist? Where do these assumptions come from? Have these criteria held true throughout all the movements that have flowed into social practice? Opacity and ambiguity, for sure, are the main criticisms that often get directed at artists by activists. So what are they good for? How can a social practice artist aim for a particular outcome while also harnessing the power of opacity and ambiguity?
Helguera p. 2:
“The social movements of the 60s led to greater social engagement in art and the emergence of performance art and installation art, centering on process and site-specificity, which all influence socially engaged art practice today.”
This quote made me think about the relationship between performance, installation, and traditional forms of RITUAL. Ritual is a form of participatory performance that often makes use of intentionally aesthetic spaces, objects, food, music etc—similar to installation art. So, what is the relationship of ritual to social practice? What makes people want to participate or not, feel authorship or not? What are the ingredients to that gut feeling of extra-present-aliveness that Dewey and Kaprow are trying to describe? What happens when an artist shapes this moment of aliveness through their own aesthetics--putting time/energy/material into the objects/environment that frames the moment of social engagement?
Helguera p.6-7
“These are two examples of works that are politically or socially motivated but act through the representation of ideas or issues. These are works that are designed to address social or political issues only in an allegorical, metaphorical, or symbolic level. (…) He instead favors what he describes as communicative action, a type of social action geared to communication and understanding between individuals that can have a lasting effect on the spheres of politics and culture as a true emancipatory force.”
This distinction made me want to compare some parallel projects around a similar political situation. In 2013, Google made a call for proposals to decorate their private transit buses that have been a major driver of gentrification in the SF Bay Area. Artist Stephanie Syjuco publicly solicited a bunch of subversive and/or entertaining proposals that circulated widely online and embarrassed the company. Around the same time, artist Leslie Dreyer was working with local housing organizations and activist groups and acted in a kind of artistic-director/producer role to organize visually theatrical direct actions that literally blockaded tech buses in city streets, drew cheers from passersby, and drew huge press attention to gentrification issues. Subsequently, other activist groups started blockading other buses with less-cohesive messaging. Is Stephanie’s project “communicative practice” by Helguera’s definition? Is Leslie’s? What about the actions not led by an artist? Who are the participants and who are the audiences? What are the costs (to the artists/organizers and their collaborators) and impacts (on social conditions) of these different approaches? How democratic and co-authored can an idea or activity get before the artist stops having an “artist” role and it is no longer art? More importantly, how democratic and co-authored can an idea or activity get and still have a clear outcome?
In response to Michael, here's an example of when it can be useful to call something art: "oh hi, officer, yes I know we're doing something kind of suspicious here, the thing is, I'm an art student....." (Of course works best when you conform to class and race ideas of what an art student looks like.)
Quotes:
ReplyDelete1 "The artist as a social practitioner must also make peace with the common accusation that he or she is not an artist but an 'amateur' anthropologist, sociologist etc." (Helguera, 5)
& "How is this relevant to art? Why is this not just sociology? It is relevant because developments within modernism itself led to art's dissolution into its life sources." (Kaprow, 221)
2. "Because the actual world, that in which we live, is a combination of movement and culmination, of breaks and re-unions, the experience of a living creature is capable of esthetic quality." (Dewey, 16)
3. "Since the artist cares in a peculiar way for the phase of experience in which union is achieved, he does not shun moments of resistance and tension. He rather cultivates them, not for their own sake but because of their potentialities, brining to living consciousness an experience that is unified and total" (Dewey, 14)
Questions:
1. The quotes I picked from 'Art as Experience' (Dewey) made me think about contrast and how I wonder if contrast is "the" motivator for humans to create anything at all. Is the act of creation a process which our minds crave in order for us to understand such a concept as contrast?
2. I wonder how the role of the artist would differ if the arts and social and physical sciences were more fluid and integrated with their ideology?
3. How does time influence our definition of what art is? Is it necessary or important that the definition shifts or rather it may never have fixed definition at all? What does that say about art as an idea?
Pablo Helguera
ReplyDelete""Social Practice" avoids evocations of both the modern role of the artist (as illuminated visionary) and the postmodern version of artist (as a self-conscious critical being). Instead the term democratizes the construct, making the artist into an individual whose specialty includes working with society in a professional capacity." (p3)
"Most artists who produce socially engaged works are interested in creating a kind of collective art that affects the public sphere in a deep and meaningful way, not in creating a representation - like a theatrical play - of a social issue." (p7)
Allan Kaprow
"But ordinary life performed as art/non art can change the everyday with metaphoric power." (p222)
John Dewey
"When an art product attains classic status, it somehow becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life-experience." (p1)
"...The forces at work are those that have removed religion as well as fine art from the scope of the common or community life." (p5)
QUESTIONS:
What motivations, beyond ego and capitalism, are there in labeling an art/non-art experience as art?
Are the other essays in Kaprow's book "Blurring the Line" similar to this one in literary format and proposition? I'm curious to know more about this book and the context in which it was written (both it's art historical position and it's aim) as the text resonates deeply with my personal experience and practice.
John Dewey's article has me repeatedly questioning: Why does the re-integration of art and life, and/or the blurring of the art/non-art boundary threaten our cultural identity so profoundly? Why does the elevating of the everyday threaten artists and non-artists alike? Dewey poses some reasons but the questions still persist.
Quotes:
ReplyDelete“This is where the paradox lies; an artist concerned with lifelike art is an artist who does and does not make art.” -Kaprow, page 220
“Even a crude experience, if authentically an experience, is more fit to give a clue to the intrinsic nature of esthetic experience than is an object already set apart from any other mode of experience.” -Dewey, page 9
“The practice’s direct links to and conflicts with both art and sociology must be overtly declared and the tension addressed, but not resolved. Socially engaged artists can and should challenge the art market in attempts to redefine the notion of authorship, but to do so they must accept and affirm their existence in the realm of art, as artists.” -Helguera, pages 4-5
Questions:
Can SEA be self-supporting or will legitimization only be possible through the power, influence, and infrastructure of established institutions?
Is the struggle of delineating the practice of SEA an obstacle to its success, or an intrinsic trait of its particular value?
One criterion of determining the value of art objects is the skill and effort put into their making. Is it necessary to establish a similar mechanism for SEA in order for it to be legitimized/successful?
QUOTES FROM HALGUERA
ReplyDelete“Social practice” avoids the evocations of both the modern role of the artist (as an illuminated visionary)...instead the term democratizes the construct, making the artist into an individual whose specialty includes working with society in a professional capacity.
And the artist as social practitioner must also make peace with the common accusation that he or she is not an artist but an “amateur” anthropologist, sociologist, etc. Socially engaged art functions by attaching itself to subjects and problems that normally belong to other disciplines, moving them temporarily into a space of ambiguity. It is this temporary snatching away of subjects into the realm of art-making that brings new insights to a particular problem or condition and in turn makes it visible to other disciplines.
He instead favors what he describes as communicative action, a type of social action geared to communication and understanding between individuals that can have a lasting effect on the sphere of politics and culture as a true emancipatory force.
QUESTIONS
Halguera in the introduction: As a practitioner and “amateur” sociologist, anthropologist, etc., what areas within cultural contexts can artists be placed within? (I think of an artist in residence in the city of Portland)
Do artists consider or feel that there are already valid enough spaces for feedback and criticism for the people they involve in Socially Engaged practices? Is the space given for critique in these art spheres enough? What do additional spaces look like?
Kaprow
How do rituals in the non-western societies relate to art/non art? How do objects taken from original sources in the non-western societies relate to art/non art?