I like this guy

[mbarrick]

This morning I heard a clip of the British Minister of Culture, Kim Howells, slamming the "Avant Garde". I couldn't find the complete text of the what I heard but I did find this much:

This brigade that was on show last night, the charcoal suits and the black shirts and the incomprehensible psychobabble that accompanies all of this, they are the establishment, and the art that they favour is the one that for the moment seems to them to be closest to that sense of mystery and elitism that they espouse so much.

Last October, after viewing the artists shorlisted for the Turner Prize, wrote on a comment card at the Tate Gallery

If this is the best British artists can produce then British art is lost. It is cold, mechanical, conceptual, bullshit.

He's also received flack for saying in parliament that listening to folk music was his idea of hell.

I find this all amusing. Naturally the "avant garde establishment" (and folk musicians) are less amused. Shame we can't have a culture minister with balls like this. It's most certainly true that the "incomprehensible psychobabble" is all there is to post-Modernism. Since the "end" of Modernism in the mid-1970's nothing in the art world has managed to rate a name of its own. Everything is simply the crap that comes after Modernism, i.e. post-Modernism. Yet this Modernist avant garde tradition continues. Nothing is considered worthy unless it is tearing down some institution or other. Actually building something is frowned upon.

Comments

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

isn't that true of much of society these days...you can't be for something, you are always considered against it's opposite...sometimes change and trends aren't all they're cracked up to be...

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

So - do you consider being against- being against stuff - being for stuff?

Is the enemy of my enemy my friend.

I am guilty of the "tearing down" attitude -too true -and I will be the first to admit it..

But entropy is required to sustain life. and the weak dead tree that dies rots to give its nutrients to the stronger tree. Old Ideas die , but they pass on their 'energy' (for lack of a better word) to something better to replace it.

So in telling the artist that her used tampon in a teacup is NOT art (just the art community equivelent of a cheap shcok jock) 1: maybe she will go away and open up the floor to a young talented sculptor. 2: maybe teacup lady will take a long look at what she REALLY wants to say (as opposed to what some Militant Feminist Lib book told her to say) and she will come back with HER art. OR 3: she will tell me to fuck my hat and EXPLAIN to me the meaning behind the work , why she did it , what it means/represents , and what she hopes to get out of its creation.


But I do agree that eventually one should build. Preserve the balance. I just think the build should be made with strong components that will stand up to criticism and stand the ultimate test -judgement from its creator.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

> I just think the build should be made with strong components that will stand up to criticism and stand the ultimate test -judgement from its creator.

I don't know what you are trying to say here.

And, while you are at it, define "art". Just like the "photograph" debate, it's no use arguing over what is or isn't something without a consensus on the key term.

[czad-vapid.livejournal.com]

hitler had the same opinion about dada & the avant garde...

hmm, maybe howells' been brushing up on mein kampf.

-cv.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

But there is a significant difference. The avant garde in Hitler's time was a creative force of genuine change, building new things. I'll bet the chair you are sitting on, not to mention the building you are sitting in, are strongly influenced by the Bauhaus. Modernism was not about tearing down what came before it, but rather paring things down to their essentials and seeking to find the core defining qualities of things. It was, essentially, an application of scientific method to creative endeavors such as architecture, literature and image-making. Dada was about defining the role of the author at a time when mass media and mass production were begginning to bring that role into question. Duchamp's signed urinal for example, asked the questions, "If I am an 'artist' and I sign this object which is not 'art' does it become 'art'? And if is does become 'art', by what mechanism?" The question was thought about, even answered satisfactorily.

Post-Modernism, however, is an entirely different thing. The questions have already asked. But rather than work with the answers post-Modernism has simply opted to follow the most superficial aspect of modernism: asking questions designed to baffle the uninitatied and vault the elite status of the artist.

Out on the fringes of the art-world there is a growing, as yet unlabelled, movement toward embracing the lessons learned from Modernism to produce compelling artifacts that are informed by critical theory, but not dependant on it for their aura^{1 (http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html)}. I recommend reading what Odd Nerdrum (http://www.nerdrum.com) has to say on kitsch (http://www.nerdrum.com/kitsch.html).

Mind you, that's not readily apparent from what little I quoted. From what I read about the man and from other comments of his I believe him to be very well educated and informed. So, unlike Hitler, Howells' criticism is not an ignorant misunderstanding of a constructive movement, but rather a very well-informed dissatisfaction with the reactionary and knee-jerk trend of the last 25-years.

[czad-vapid.livejournal.com]

i just read in the usa today that psychological studies on happiness are just as common and studies on ills these days. mayhap this current will influence art and a new building phase will spawn again.

it all seems a matter of personal preference, though... whether you like the construction or deconstruction. i am sure it will lead to something entirely new that, without its influence or counter-influence, would not be possible to realise.

-cv.

[czad-vapid.livejournal.com]

"then it was more of a question of good or bad craftsmanship."

i like that. i like that a lot.

-cv.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

So do I...

So do I.