Power Quote
Those who follow tradition are ignored
Brion Gysin famously said, “Writing is fifty years behind painting.” And it looks like Kenneth Goldsmith would agree:
What I learned in the art world is that anything goes. The further you can push something, the more it is rewarded: to shoot for anything less in the art world is career suicide. The art that is deemed the most valuable is rarely the most finely-crafted, the most expressive, or the most “honest” works, but rather those which either attempt to do something that’s never been done before or those that synthesize older ideas into something new. Risk is rewarded. Those who follow tradition in a known, dogged, and obligatory manner are ignored. Unlike the poetry world, the mainstream of the art world since the dawn of modernism has been the avant-garde, the innovative, the experimental. The most cutting-edge work — the work with the biggest audience and historical import — has been the most challenging.
–from “The Tortoise And The Hare: Dale Smith and Kenneth Goldsmith Parse Slow and Fast Poetries” in Jacket 38
Tags: brion gysin, kenneth goldsmith
In the world of fashion, however, not everyone can pull off that jacket.
In the world of fashion, however, not everyone can pull off that jacket.
Kenneth would also probably go on to argue that fucking FLARF is the answer to this.
Kenneth would also probably go on to argue that fucking FLARF is the answer to this.
He also reminds his ownself of John Cage! While using copious exclamations that seem unwarranted!!!!
But I digress.
My rancor is probably just due to an 11 hour shift today.
He also reminds his ownself of John Cage! While using copious exclamations that seem unwarranted!!!!
But I digress.
My rancor is probably just due to an 11 hour shift today.
man…. poetry is really getting a beating here lately…
and the problem is, the stuff which has been said is generally true…
man…. poetry is really getting a beating here lately…
and the problem is, the stuff which has been said is generally true…
But the art world has sucked for 25 years…
But the art world has sucked for 25 years…
i read this and made some coffee, thinking, i will push this coffee as far as i can, this will not be traditional coffee, it will be avant-garde coffee, it will be challenging coffee and as such it will be delicious, strange, and new. but i just got the shits real bad.
i read this and made some coffee, thinking, i will push this coffee as far as i can, this will not be traditional coffee, it will be avant-garde coffee, it will be challenging coffee and as such it will be delicious, strange, and new. but i just got the shits real bad.
“Writing is fifty years behind painting….”
It’s a point that bears repeating, by Gysin, by Goldsmith, by Higgs.
I think the reason for it (or one of them, at least), might go something like this. There are two ideologies that capitalism needs to prop it up and keep it going: One is an ideology of ceaseless advancement, innovation, modernization, technological novelty, etc., and the other is a conservative ideology meant to ensure people that they’re still human and sweet and pastoral and somehow “unchanging” in the midst of all the dizzying change. For various reasons, the visual arts have become the cultural bearer of the former, literature the unfortunate bearer of the latter. Think about it: TV commercials and music videos now regularly rely on editing techniques that were developed by Eisenstein, but their cousins in the literature department — airport novels or whatever — don’t rely on techniques that were developed by Joyce . . .
Keep writing against the grain…
“Writing is fifty years behind painting….”
It’s a point that bears repeating, by Gysin, by Goldsmith, by Higgs.
I think the reason for it (or one of them, at least), might go something like this. There are two ideologies that capitalism needs to prop it up and keep it going: One is an ideology of ceaseless advancement, innovation, modernization, technological novelty, etc., and the other is a conservative ideology meant to ensure people that they’re still human and sweet and pastoral and somehow “unchanging” in the midst of all the dizzying change. For various reasons, the visual arts have become the cultural bearer of the former, literature the unfortunate bearer of the latter. Think about it: TV commercials and music videos now regularly rely on editing techniques that were developed by Eisenstein, but their cousins in the literature department — airport novels or whatever — don’t rely on techniques that were developed by Joyce . . .
Keep writing against the grain…
The general sentiment of the comments here based on goldsmith’s comments: sure.
But if I ever see goldsmith in public I will rob him for the list price of one copy of “Day.”
The general sentiment of the comments here based on goldsmith’s comments: sure.
But if I ever see goldsmith in public I will rob him for the list price of one copy of “Day.”
That is a really good comment.
That is a really good comment.
well, yes and no. definitely parts of the 80’s and certainly huge portions of the YBA in the 90’s really got the whole sensationalism and weird conceptual shit into a place where it was more readily accepted. And a lot of that work is work that can be made in ways that are formulaic. Which is not to say that the work is inherently formulaic, but that it’s a danger to fall into, and one that certainly happens at art school and the further. But to see that its sucked, that as a blanket statement no good art has been made in 25 years, I’m going to call bullshit on that. But also that it’s a matter of opinion. I think Rachel Whiteread’s amazing. I think Neo Rauch is incredible. I think Martin Puryear is awesome. I think Jasper Johns has made some incredible paintings in the last 25 years. I think Ryan Trecartin’s stuff is at the very least interesting and worth looking at. I think photograhy has really taken off. And shit dude. Mark Lombardi was pretty incredible.
The whole thing here is the fact that in the art world innovation is not so much accepted as it is that a certain form of innovation and envelope pushing is expected as sort of rote in a way that at least in literature it is not so often, yknow, expected. Like that.
But I’ve met lots of people who talk big on change in art and challenging expectations who claim that Jasper Johns didn’t make A] good painting and B] and interesting painting after the late 50’s probably to be specific after White Flag.
But some motherfuckers perfer a brick to nuance.
Which is at times what the avant garde is sort of about.
well, yes and no. definitely parts of the 80’s and certainly huge portions of the YBA in the 90’s really got the whole sensationalism and weird conceptual shit into a place where it was more readily accepted. And a lot of that work is work that can be made in ways that are formulaic. Which is not to say that the work is inherently formulaic, but that it’s a danger to fall into, and one that certainly happens at art school and the further. But to see that its sucked, that as a blanket statement no good art has been made in 25 years, I’m going to call bullshit on that. But also that it’s a matter of opinion. I think Rachel Whiteread’s amazing. I think Neo Rauch is incredible. I think Martin Puryear is awesome. I think Jasper Johns has made some incredible paintings in the last 25 years. I think Ryan Trecartin’s stuff is at the very least interesting and worth looking at. I think photograhy has really taken off. And shit dude. Mark Lombardi was pretty incredible.
The whole thing here is the fact that in the art world innovation is not so much accepted as it is that a certain form of innovation and envelope pushing is expected as sort of rote in a way that at least in literature it is not so often, yknow, expected. Like that.
But I’ve met lots of people who talk big on change in art and challenging expectations who claim that Jasper Johns didn’t make A] good painting and B] and interesting painting after the late 50’s probably to be specific after White Flag.
But some motherfuckers perfer a brick to nuance.
Which is at times what the avant garde is sort of about.
Yeah, the stripped shirt sets it off nicely.
Yeah, the stripped shirt sets it off nicely.
Sorry Lincoln, I vehemently disagree. (Hopefully you were just being hyperbolic?)
If you really do feel that the art world has not produced quality art in the past 25 years, I invite you to come visit my website, bright stupid confetti, which I update every week (on Wednesday). Here I post various examples of what I believe to be interesting/exciting/engaging/compelling/ contemporary art. Hopefully you will come visit, maybe search through the backlog a little, and change your mind.
Sorry Lincoln, I vehemently disagree. (Hopefully you were just being hyperbolic?)
If you really do feel that the art world has not produced quality art in the past 25 years, I invite you to come visit my website, bright stupid confetti, which I update every week (on Wednesday). Here I post various examples of what I believe to be interesting/exciting/engaging/compelling/ contemporary art. Hopefully you will come visit, maybe search through the backlog a little, and change your mind.
Excellent point, EC. I had not thought about the issue in quite that way before: the two dialectical approaches (progressive/conservative) being manifested through art/literature. Very astute thinking. Thanks for this comment.
Excellent point, EC. I had not thought about the issue in quite that way before: the two dialectical approaches (progressive/conservative) being manifested through art/literature. Very astute thinking. Thanks for this comment.
Provocative. But for what “various reasons”? Something inherent in the forms themselves? Historical factors? Money? Reproducibility versus uniqueness? The fact of language itself being something learned and handed down? Instant gratification versus deferred gratification? It is easier to throw a party and hire a dj for an art opening than a literary one? I’m sort of joking, but the overall thrust of my question is serious.
Provocative. But for what “various reasons”? Something inherent in the forms themselves? Historical factors? Money? Reproducibility versus uniqueness? The fact of language itself being something learned and handed down? Instant gratification versus deferred gratification? It is easier to throw a party and hire a dj for an art opening than a literary one? I’m sort of joking, but the overall thrust of my question is serious.
HA!
HA!
I’m tempted to answer in the same spirit: All of the above. Like you I’m only partly joking because I do think what I’m describing was probably the result of multiple causes. I’m only starting to think this through myself, but I’d guess one of the main reasons had to do with the rise of the new, “mass” media technologies and their cultural uses — photography, movies, TV, advertising — which (except for radio) were mainly visual. The image became available for appropriation in a way that words or “the book” could not. After all, printing technology hadn’t significantly changed since Gutenberg — not exactly the best recommendation for the Sleek Sexy New. Reading was still a more private activity, plus there was the novel’s particular role (since the C18 at least) of ratifying certain ideas of individual consciousness and interiority that made it more available to appropriation by the countervailing, “conservative” ideology . . .
Other factors? Off the top of my head, there’s the CIA’s role in pushing Abstract Expressionism (I certainly don’t rank this anything close to the main reason, but it’s interesting as a symptom…), and perhaps certain things to do with educational institutions, the way literature is taught versus the way art is taught, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with this…. be interested to hear what other folks thought…
I’m tempted to answer in the same spirit: All of the above. Like you I’m only partly joking because I do think what I’m describing was probably the result of multiple causes. I’m only starting to think this through myself, but I’d guess one of the main reasons had to do with the rise of the new, “mass” media technologies and their cultural uses — photography, movies, TV, advertising — which (except for radio) were mainly visual. The image became available for appropriation in a way that words or “the book” could not. After all, printing technology hadn’t significantly changed since Gutenberg — not exactly the best recommendation for the Sleek Sexy New. Reading was still a more private activity, plus there was the novel’s particular role (since the C18 at least) of ratifying certain ideas of individual consciousness and interiority that made it more available to appropriation by the countervailing, “conservative” ideology . . .
Other factors? Off the top of my head, there’s the CIA’s role in pushing Abstract Expressionism (I certainly don’t rank this anything close to the main reason, but it’s interesting as a symptom…), and perhaps certain things to do with educational institutions, the way literature is taught versus the way art is taught, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with this…. be interested to hear what other folks thought…
I don’t think the statement is even necessarily true. When we think of ‘writing’ we are also considering writing that is written to appeal to masses alongside avant garde poetry. Are we also bundling the tons of average commercial art, ie. prints that people buy at bed bath and beyond to match their couch? when we say ‘art’ ? I would say the same demographic that buys most written things in the world is also buying uninteresting art that the art world doesn’t consider a part of themselves, though don’t hesitate to attach the label ‘contemporary literature’ to a dan brown novel. The number of people interested in avant garde art is the same number of people interested in avant garde poetry, in fact they are probably mostly the same people, and both progress evenly in their own microcosms.
I don’t think the statement is even necessarily true. When we think of ‘writing’ we are also considering writing that is written to appeal to masses alongside avant garde poetry. Are we also bundling the tons of average commercial art, ie. prints that people buy at bed bath and beyond to match their couch? when we say ‘art’ ? I would say the same demographic that buys most written things in the world is also buying uninteresting art that the art world doesn’t consider a part of themselves, though don’t hesitate to attach the label ‘contemporary literature’ to a dan brown novel. The number of people interested in avant garde art is the same number of people interested in avant garde poetry, in fact they are probably mostly the same people, and both progress evenly in their own microcosms.
I don’t think Gysin or anyone is trying to make the point that avant-garde visual art is vastly “more popular” or has vastly broader mass appeal than comparable literature, although there is clearly a difference — a whole lotta people have Rothko prints on their walls that don’t have Gaddis’s The Recognitions on their shelves. The most banal mass culture has adopted and normalized techniques that were once cutting edge (like montage), whereas supposedly high-end “literary fiction” — to say nothing of Dan Brown — still hasn’t gotten beyond the late-nineteenth century novel (realism with a little early-modernist literary impressionism and POV relativity thrown in a la James or Conrad). If you’re a writer and you want to venture beyond that benchmark, you enter the ghetto of being “difficult” or “experimental,” whereas visual artists doing interesting or novel things are just being contemporary.
I don’t think Gysin or anyone is trying to make the point that avant-garde visual art is vastly “more popular” or has vastly broader mass appeal than comparable literature, although there is clearly a difference — a whole lotta people have Rothko prints on their walls that don’t have Gaddis’s The Recognitions on their shelves. The most banal mass culture has adopted and normalized techniques that were once cutting edge (like montage), whereas supposedly high-end “literary fiction” — to say nothing of Dan Brown — still hasn’t gotten beyond the late-nineteenth century novel (realism with a little early-modernist literary impressionism and POV relativity thrown in a la James or Conrad). If you’re a writer and you want to venture beyond that benchmark, you enter the ghetto of being “difficult” or “experimental,” whereas visual artists doing interesting or novel things are just being contemporary.
I’d say that a lot of contemporary art is derivative and generic. Go to any MFA art opening. Blah video. Installations that look like the artist’s childhood bedroom in the ’70s. Sexually suggestive, semi-surreal, underexecuted painting. And sometimes it’s amazing, same as with so-called contemporary lit.
Also, it’s way easier for pretty much everyoe to watch a short film in which a german shepherd is fried than to read an innovative novel. You can walk in, see it, be surprised by the fried dog, then leave, all in 15 minutes. Most experimental novels don’t get 15 minutes’ consideration.
Also, a Matthew Barney sculpture is one of its kind and therefore highly valued by collectors and museums. Novels are infinitely reproducible.
Also, they’re different media. As DFW said, serious lit is about “what it means to be a fucking human being.” That’s a concern of content more than form, right? Fiction is more about meaning, rising from a tradition of myth, legend, and religious text? And meaning in art is more elusive?
Ugh. Now compare fiction with football.
I’d say that a lot of contemporary art is derivative and generic. Go to any MFA art opening. Blah video. Installations that look like the artist’s childhood bedroom in the ’70s. Sexually suggestive, semi-surreal, underexecuted painting. And sometimes it’s amazing, same as with so-called contemporary lit.
Also, it’s way easier for pretty much everyoe to watch a short film in which a german shepherd is fried than to read an innovative novel. You can walk in, see it, be surprised by the fried dog, then leave, all in 15 minutes. Most experimental novels don’t get 15 minutes’ consideration.
Also, a Matthew Barney sculpture is one of its kind and therefore highly valued by collectors and museums. Novels are infinitely reproducible.
Also, they’re different media. As DFW said, serious lit is about “what it means to be a fucking human being.” That’s a concern of content more than form, right? Fiction is more about meaning, rising from a tradition of myth, legend, and religious text? And meaning in art is more elusive?
Ugh. Now compare fiction with football.
“Also, it’s way easier for pretty much everyoe to watch a short film in which a german shepherd is fried than to read an innovative novel. You can walk in, see it, be surprised by the fried dog, then leave, all in 15 minutes. Most experimental novels don’t get 15 minutes’ consideration.”
I’d say it’s always easy to look, but seeing has to be learned. Something like Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase was the visual equivalent of gibberish or illegible to most of the people who looked at it in 1912 or 13; there was a learning-curve of at least several decades before its status as “art” was unexceptional. Monet was just daubs on canvas scandalizing the holy mission of art, now reproductions of his stuff grace the walls of every other freshman girl’s dorm room. There had to be a process of cultural ‘learning’ before things like this came into focus. Fast-editing techniques that any child can decode in a Hollywood blockbuster would have rendered the film incomprehensible to most grown-ups viewers circa, say, 1920 — “What just happened?” But now the language has been learned and internalized.
Missed that fried dog, though. Damn.
“Also, it’s way easier for pretty much everyoe to watch a short film in which a german shepherd is fried than to read an innovative novel. You can walk in, see it, be surprised by the fried dog, then leave, all in 15 minutes. Most experimental novels don’t get 15 minutes’ consideration.”
I’d say it’s always easy to look, but seeing has to be learned. Something like Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase was the visual equivalent of gibberish or illegible to most of the people who looked at it in 1912 or 13; there was a learning-curve of at least several decades before its status as “art” was unexceptional. Monet was just daubs on canvas scandalizing the holy mission of art, now reproductions of his stuff grace the walls of every other freshman girl’s dorm room. There had to be a process of cultural ‘learning’ before things like this came into focus. Fast-editing techniques that any child can decode in a Hollywood blockbuster would have rendered the film incomprehensible to most grown-ups viewers circa, say, 1920 — “What just happened?” But now the language has been learned and internalized.
Missed that fried dog, though. Damn.
okie dokie.
Although, why do people have those rothko prints on their walls? Is it because of their avant garde or because the color happens to match the drapes.
I guess what I think is the avant garde visual and literary art worlds are both ghettos, with the former slightly more eccentric and tangible than the latter, for almost purely logistical reasons, and therefore bleeds a little easier into a culture that doesn’t care either way.
okie dokie.
Although, why do people have those rothko prints on their walls? Is it because of their avant garde or because the color happens to match the drapes.
I guess what I think is the avant garde visual and literary art worlds are both ghettos, with the former slightly more eccentric and tangible than the latter, for almost purely logistical reasons, and therefore bleeds a little easier into a culture that doesn’t care either way.
I think film has been fairly sub-par this decade, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a ton of great movies.
I actually think what that quote says hints at the problem in visual arts these days. There is little emphasis on craft, power or aesthetics, it is all on innovation and, I would argue, gimmick. It seems to be a famous artist these days you just need to get known for something and do that thing a billion times, even if it is something totally boring and stupid.
Kind of like in that (rather bad) movie Art School Confidential where Malkovich’s character brags about being “one of the very first” people to paint triangles.
That said, I so agree with some of his critique of poetry, I just think visual art has swung too far in another direction.
But again, that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of great visual artists out there. Nothing as expansive as “visual art” (or “writing” or “music”) is ever going to be devoid of some good stuff.
I think film has been fairly sub-par this decade, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a ton of great movies.
I actually think what that quote says hints at the problem in visual arts these days. There is little emphasis on craft, power or aesthetics, it is all on innovation and, I would argue, gimmick. It seems to be a famous artist these days you just need to get known for something and do that thing a billion times, even if it is something totally boring and stupid.
Kind of like in that (rather bad) movie Art School Confidential where Malkovich’s character brags about being “one of the very first” people to paint triangles.
That said, I so agree with some of his critique of poetry, I just think visual art has swung too far in another direction.
But again, that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of great visual artists out there. Nothing as expansive as “visual art” (or “writing” or “music”) is ever going to be devoid of some good stuff.
Why, when you are talking about art, you get to be talking about the cutting edge painters in the art world yet when you talk about writing you aren’t talking about cutting edge fiction, instead you are talking about airport novels or something?
Airport novels are for the masses. The art that is consumed by the masses is not Cy Twombly. The art world that makes someone like him famous and buys his art and so on is a relatively small one and should be compared to the literary world. Or vice versa, if we are talking about generic fiction then we should talk about generic art, stuff like Thomas Kinkade maybe. Isn’t his work a perfect manifestation of “a conservative ideology meant to ensure people that they’re still human and sweet and pastoral and somehow “unchanging” in the midst of all the dizzying change.”?
Why, when you are talking about art, you get to be talking about the cutting edge painters in the art world yet when you talk about writing you aren’t talking about cutting edge fiction, instead you are talking about airport novels or something?
Airport novels are for the masses. The art that is consumed by the masses is not Cy Twombly. The art world that makes someone like him famous and buys his art and so on is a relatively small one and should be compared to the literary world. Or vice versa, if we are talking about generic fiction then we should talk about generic art, stuff like Thomas Kinkade maybe. Isn’t his work a perfect manifestation of “a conservative ideology meant to ensure people that they’re still human and sweet and pastoral and somehow “unchanging” in the midst of all the dizzying change.”?
“TV commercials and music videos now regularly rely on editing techniques that were developed by Eisenstein, but their cousins in the literature department — airport novels or whatever — don’t rely on techniques that were developed by Joyce . . .”
Airport novels were being compared with TV commercials and music videos.
If you’re a writer and you want to venture beyond that benchmark, you enter the ghetto of being “difficult” or “experimental,” whereas visual artists doing interesting or novel things are just being contemporary.
IMHO, you seem to be framing this incorrectly.
The “art world” has successfully divorced itself from the world of art as a whole. When you say “the art world” I immediately think of avant-garde type contemporary art and that scene. But when someone says “novels” or the book world we don’t automatically think cutting edge fiction because the literary world as whole, much less the more experimental/innovative part of it, has not divorced itself from all other types of books and novels and so on.
We compare Dan Brown to David Foster Wallace in a way we would NEVER compare whatever random Bed Bath and Beyond art prints people buy with some kind of Chelsea gallery artist.
This has to do with the mediums in question though, I think, and not something about one being ahead of the other.
“TV commercials and music videos now regularly rely on editing techniques that were developed by Eisenstein, but their cousins in the literature department — airport novels or whatever — don’t rely on techniques that were developed by Joyce . . .”
Airport novels were being compared with TV commercials and music videos.
If you’re a writer and you want to venture beyond that benchmark, you enter the ghetto of being “difficult” or “experimental,” whereas visual artists doing interesting or novel things are just being contemporary.
IMHO, you seem to be framing this incorrectly.
The “art world” has successfully divorced itself from the world of art as a whole. When you say “the art world” I immediately think of avant-garde type contemporary art and that scene. But when someone says “novels” or the book world we don’t automatically think cutting edge fiction because the literary world as whole, much less the more experimental/innovative part of it, has not divorced itself from all other types of books and novels and so on.
We compare Dan Brown to David Foster Wallace in a way we would NEVER compare whatever random Bed Bath and Beyond art prints people buy with some kind of Chelsea gallery artist.
This has to do with the mediums in question though, I think, and not something about one being ahead of the other.
I must admit I’m a bit confused why music videos or commercials get put in with visual art in this way. If everything that is “visual” gets grouped together then I might as well counter with how cutting edge rap lyrics are these days, since those are words.
I also disagree that airport novels are the literary cousin of TV commercials. I don’t get that at all. Advertisements have always been fairly cutting edge… the literary equivelant to TV ads is ads with text, not airport novels.
Airport novels are the literary cousin of Michael Bay movies or Thomas Kinkade paintings.
I must admit I’m a bit confused why music videos or commercials get put in with visual art in this way. If everything that is “visual” gets grouped together then I might as well counter with how cutting edge rap lyrics are these days, since those are words.
I also disagree that airport novels are the literary cousin of TV commercials. I don’t get that at all. Advertisements have always been fairly cutting edge… the literary equivelant to TV ads is ads with text, not airport novels.
Airport novels are the literary cousin of Michael Bay movies or Thomas Kinkade paintings.
I still stand by my comment (though I apologize for misreading that specific quote) because I don’t think people in here are comparing the “equivelant” things here. People seem to be skimming all visual art down to just the cutting edge then comparing that to all fiction. You either gotta compare all art to all fiction or cutting-edge fiction to cutting-edge art.
I still stand by my comment (though I apologize for misreading that specific quote) because I don’t think people in here are comparing the “equivelant” things here. People seem to be skimming all visual art down to just the cutting edge then comparing that to all fiction. You either gotta compare all art to all fiction or cutting-edge fiction to cutting-edge art.
see below. I definitly don’t take that statement of mine to mean “no good art has been produced at all” for 25 years. Either way, that is not how I meant it.
see below. I definitly don’t take that statement of mine to mean “no good art has been produced at all” for 25 years. Either way, that is not how I meant it.
Is HTMLGIANT quite a long while behind the rest of the world?
Is Art Criticism Fifty Years Behind Poetry?
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/blog/archive/Parkett.html
xxxx
Is HTMLGIANT quite a long while behind the rest of the world?
Is Art Criticism Fifty Years Behind Poetry?
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/blog/archive/Parkett.html
xxxx
i saw goldsmith read once and he wore a suit that had a floral pattern much like one that would be found on a stereotypical grandmother’s couch / curtains. he pulled it off though by being very, very engaging, even though his work is very, very boring. somehow he made his boring wok interesting and funny. it was miraculous.
i saw goldsmith read once and he wore a suit that had a floral pattern much like one that would be found on a stereotypical grandmother’s couch / curtains. he pulled it off though by being very, very engaging, even though his work is very, very boring. somehow he made his boring wok interesting and funny. it was miraculous.
I only buy paintings from IKEA.
That’s not true. I don’t buy any paintings. They are expensive.
I think to say that Writing is so far behind Painting is stupid. How do you qualify something like that? I don’t know what that even means.
I don’t know. I think this is not the right conversation to have. They are not the same beasts.
I only buy paintings from IKEA.
That’s not true. I don’t buy any paintings. They are expensive.
I think to say that Writing is so far behind Painting is stupid. How do you qualify something like that? I don’t know what that even means.
I don’t know. I think this is not the right conversation to have. They are not the same beasts.
Hmmm. . . . Impressionism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism . . . so many fruitful and impressive cross-fertilizations resulting from just such “conversations,” just such matings of incongruous beasts . . . but then maybe I’m just into violations of the “right” and natural order of things . . . after all things are so much better now than in those bad old days . . .
Hmmm. . . . Impressionism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism . . . so many fruitful and impressive cross-fertilizations resulting from just such “conversations,” just such matings of incongruous beasts . . . but then maybe I’m just into violations of the “right” and natural order of things . . . after all things are so much better now than in those bad old days . . .
is nesting comments a bad idea?
is nesting comments a bad idea?
ok. we can always just hug it out next time i see you.
ok. we can always just hug it out next time i see you.
no lincoln i’ll stand by yr comment too re: airport novels to michael bay and thomas kincaide.
no lincoln i’ll stand by yr comment too re: airport novels to michael bay and thomas kincaide.
“Fried dog” was Luis Gispert’s short film “Smother” at Mary Boone last year:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/davis/davis2-15-08.asp
It’s easy to watch an NFL or MLB game but knowing what’s going on (“seeing”) has to be learned.
“Fried dog” was Luis Gispert’s short film “Smother” at Mary Boone last year:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/davis/davis2-15-08.asp
It’s easy to watch an NFL or MLB game but knowing what’s going on (“seeing”) has to be learned.
this would have been a fun thing to see on 9/11:
Kenneth Goldsmith sings Roland Barthes with live String Quartet
http://issueprojectroom.org/2009/08/10/kenneth-goldsmith-reads-roland-barthes-with-live-string-quartet-playing-vivaldi-and-webern/
this would have been a fun thing to see on 9/11:
Kenneth Goldsmith sings Roland Barthes with live String Quartet
http://issueprojectroom.org/2009/08/10/kenneth-goldsmith-reads-roland-barthes-with-live-string-quartet-playing-vivaldi-and-webern/
an art schoold trained artist can look at andy divine and say, sure, i get that. we’ve been eating that shit for breakfast for 25 years. there’s nothing scary in ‘concept.’
as a group, as a generalization, writers are more conservative than artists. perhaps it is the way language vs. image is taken up by the brain.
an art schoold trained artist can look at andy divine and say, sure, i get that. we’ve been eating that shit for breakfast for 25 years. there’s nothing scary in ‘concept.’
as a group, as a generalization, writers are more conservative than artists. perhaps it is the way language vs. image is taken up by the brain.
traffic would be a lot better if it rhymed
traffic would be a lot better if it rhymed
“It’s easy to watch an NFL or MLB game but knowing what’s going on (”seeing”) has to be learned.”
With any luck Goldsmith will write an interminable book along these lines…
“It’s easy to watch an NFL or MLB game but knowing what’s going on (”seeing”) has to be learned.”
With any luck Goldsmith will write an interminable book along these lines…
“The “need” I feel to write “creatively” does not have much to do with how the poem is received in the world. It’s an addiction to the exhilarating bliss of redundancy and the discovery of imaginary relations between words.
Perhaps Goldsmith achieves that feeling in the flash of conception, and maybe Nada Gordon gets that feeling in the adhering of disparate voices. I like those ways too. I “believe” in them. But what I really love, in a deeply serious, meaningless way, is to run into my brain with my eyes closed and perform a kind of smash and grab and see what comes out of that.” — Heather Christle
“The “need” I feel to write “creatively” does not have much to do with how the poem is received in the world. It’s an addiction to the exhilarating bliss of redundancy and the discovery of imaginary relations between words.
Perhaps Goldsmith achieves that feeling in the flash of conception, and maybe Nada Gordon gets that feeling in the adhering of disparate voices. I like those ways too. I “believe” in them. But what I really love, in a deeply serious, meaningless way, is to run into my brain with my eyes closed and perform a kind of smash and grab and see what comes out of that.” — Heather Christle
But ‘art’ is so general, isn’t it? It could mean anything. Like, anything. Poetry is a very small cross-section of ‘art.’ Wouldn’t it be more apropos to talk about ‘painting’ vs. ‘poem’ than ‘art’ vs. ‘poetry’?
I guess I just don’t understand what we’re trying to get at here, and how poetry and literature has ‘failed’ any more than any other art form, if it has ‘failed.’
But ‘art’ is so general, isn’t it? It could mean anything. Like, anything. Poetry is a very small cross-section of ‘art.’ Wouldn’t it be more apropos to talk about ‘painting’ vs. ‘poem’ than ‘art’ vs. ‘poetry’?
I guess I just don’t understand what we’re trying to get at here, and how poetry and literature has ‘failed’ any more than any other art form, if it has ‘failed.’
For me, what we are getting at is this notion that the dominate characteristic of contemporary literature seems to be conservative/traditional, while the dominate characteristic of visual art is progressive/non-traditional.
Q: how come?
Q: what does this mean about our understanding of literature, our reception of literature, our values when it comes to literature?
Your accusation that this is “not the right conversation to have” is indicative of the very problem this post was intent on raising. In other words, the fact that you think it’s not a conversation worth having suggests that you – like so many others – are content with the current state of contemporary literature. I, for one, am not.
Ultimately, I believe you are missing the point. It is not a matter of failure or success. Rather, it is a matter of identifying the dominate characteristics of these different art forms and then questioning them, interrogating them, challenging them.
To say that writing is fifty years behind painting is not, as you have put it “stupid,” at all; it is, in fact, extremely astute. Your failure to recognize the vast implications of Gysin’s statement is exactly that: your failure.
Your question about “How do you qualify something like that?” is answered by this very article. Give it a read, then come back. Perhaps you will have reconsidered your previous position.
For me, what we are getting at is this notion that the dominate characteristic of contemporary literature seems to be conservative/traditional, while the dominate characteristic of visual art is progressive/non-traditional.
Q: how come?
Q: what does this mean about our understanding of literature, our reception of literature, our values when it comes to literature?
Your accusation that this is “not the right conversation to have” is indicative of the very problem this post was intent on raising. In other words, the fact that you think it’s not a conversation worth having suggests that you – like so many others – are content with the current state of contemporary literature. I, for one, am not.
Ultimately, I believe you are missing the point. It is not a matter of failure or success. Rather, it is a matter of identifying the dominate characteristics of these different art forms and then questioning them, interrogating them, challenging them.
To say that writing is fifty years behind painting is not, as you have put it “stupid,” at all; it is, in fact, extremely astute. Your failure to recognize the vast implications of Gysin’s statement is exactly that: your failure.
Your question about “How do you qualify something like that?” is answered by this very article. Give it a read, then come back. Perhaps you will have reconsidered your previous position.
I did read it. Doesn’t it make sense that the ‘dominant’ mode of literature is ‘traditional’? It seems that ‘avant-garde’ is not truly ‘avant-garde’ unless it is going against the ‘dominant’ mode. If ‘avant-garde’ was dominant, then ‘traditional’ writing would seem avant-garde.
And anyway, what are we reading? What do GIANT writers and readers write, if not anti-traditional literature?
The ‘current state of contemporary literature’ is wide-open. It’s everything. I’ve seen everything in contemporary literature. As if there was such a thing as a ‘dominant mode’ of literature anymore.
The independent culture gets it out there. Are we discussing an institutionalization of the avant-garde, as they discuss in the article? That, certainly, is lacking, but I don’t think, in any way, is the actual material behind fifty years or whatever.
I did read it. Doesn’t it make sense that the ‘dominant’ mode of literature is ‘traditional’? It seems that ‘avant-garde’ is not truly ‘avant-garde’ unless it is going against the ‘dominant’ mode. If ‘avant-garde’ was dominant, then ‘traditional’ writing would seem avant-garde.
And anyway, what are we reading? What do GIANT writers and readers write, if not anti-traditional literature?
The ‘current state of contemporary literature’ is wide-open. It’s everything. I’ve seen everything in contemporary literature. As if there was such a thing as a ‘dominant mode’ of literature anymore.
The independent culture gets it out there. Are we discussing an institutionalization of the avant-garde, as they discuss in the article? That, certainly, is lacking, but I don’t think, in any way, is the actual material behind fifty years or whatever.
[…] under: art, bikes, political I need to get internet at home. The blogosphere moves fast. I missed this awesome discussion about if/why mainstream/contemporary art tends to be more avant garde than mainstream/contemporary […]
my kneejerk reaction is that visual art tends to be more accessible, more easily consumed by people, and in a lot of ways, is a lot quicker to become iconic in the mind of the public, which in turn can have the effect of diluting the original product. and, because of this, art is pushed quicker for the sake of staying fresh/edgy/avant/etc. especially now with the Information Age at hand.
for instance, how many people know Warhol’s Campbell’s can as an icon, and how many people know O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”?
but, at the same time, i wouldn’t say that art pushes the bounds of a time period’s collective aesthetic anymore than that period’s writing does. i don’t think you can really look at visual art from 1850 and predict Oscar Wilde anymore than you can look at art from 1950 and predict David Foster Wallace.
my kneejerk reaction is that visual art tends to be more accessible, more easily consumed by people, and in a lot of ways, is a lot quicker to become iconic in the mind of the public, which in turn can have the effect of diluting the original product. and, because of this, art is pushed quicker for the sake of staying fresh/edgy/avant/etc. especially now with the Information Age at hand.
for instance, how many people know Warhol’s Campbell’s can as an icon, and how many people know O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”?
but, at the same time, i wouldn’t say that art pushes the bounds of a time period’s collective aesthetic anymore than that period’s writing does. i don’t think you can really look at visual art from 1850 and predict Oscar Wilde anymore than you can look at art from 1950 and predict David Foster Wallace.
EC- Sorry to respond all the way down here but that thread looks closed. In response to your response to my questions way above, I am glad to see you open it up as an “all of the above” sort of phenomenon. I was bristling a bit at the reduction of it to a byproduct of capitalist ideology’s simultaneous call for innovation and reassuring them of their humanity. This just seemed too neat, too dichotomous given the multifarious factors at work, and the spirit of complicating matters that the dialogue seemed like it was working toward. (I have no idea about the CIA’s role in pushing abstract expressionism, but I have to admit I’m curious about that).
Part of it might come down to the time commitment that reading “challenging” (ergh) literature demands. I agree that genuinely decoding an abstract work of art requires work, too, but it’s not quite the same kind of work that reading Gaddis demands. There’s a superficial way of hanging the Rothko on the wall and drawing pleasure from it that doesn’t happen with a Pynchon novel or whatever. There’s a certain amount of context that you simply can’t get around with verbal art–words make for lousy decor (they don’t really, but hopefully you see what I mean). There are exceptions–the article itself points out that Christian Bok’s Euonia is the bestselling poetry book ever in Canada, and one can imagine people pulling it off the shelf and reading a page as one might gesture toward one’s recently-acquired Rothko.
And part of it might be that storytelling is democratic in a way that visual art simply isn’t. Language is the currency of our everyday communication, our shopping lists and heart-to-hearts and storytelling. Assuming that literature emerges from oral tradition, and noting the ways narrative pervades our everyday lives–that we are constantly telling ourselves and others stories– we bring a lot of expectations to narrative art that we might not bring to visual art. Sure, we are always looking, too, but representing in images isn’t our primary mode of meeting and manipulating reality. Going along with this is the Chomskean picture of language. If syntax is naturally-developing and brain-based, then disrupting this, as challenging writers do, is bound to be a bit threatening in a way that visual art isn’t. In fact, the neuroscientist Ramachandran argues that of the things that are universally appealing in art, insofar as they tweak the brain’s pleasure circuits, most of them are found predominantly in abstract art, not, as we might expect, representational.
EC- Sorry to respond all the way down here but that thread looks closed. In response to your response to my questions way above, I am glad to see you open it up as an “all of the above” sort of phenomenon. I was bristling a bit at the reduction of it to a byproduct of capitalist ideology’s simultaneous call for innovation and reassuring them of their humanity. This just seemed too neat, too dichotomous given the multifarious factors at work, and the spirit of complicating matters that the dialogue seemed like it was working toward. (I have no idea about the CIA’s role in pushing abstract expressionism, but I have to admit I’m curious about that).
Part of it might come down to the time commitment that reading “challenging” (ergh) literature demands. I agree that genuinely decoding an abstract work of art requires work, too, but it’s not quite the same kind of work that reading Gaddis demands. There’s a superficial way of hanging the Rothko on the wall and drawing pleasure from it that doesn’t happen with a Pynchon novel or whatever. There’s a certain amount of context that you simply can’t get around with verbal art–words make for lousy decor (they don’t really, but hopefully you see what I mean). There are exceptions–the article itself points out that Christian Bok’s Euonia is the bestselling poetry book ever in Canada, and one can imagine people pulling it off the shelf and reading a page as one might gesture toward one’s recently-acquired Rothko.
And part of it might be that storytelling is democratic in a way that visual art simply isn’t. Language is the currency of our everyday communication, our shopping lists and heart-to-hearts and storytelling. Assuming that literature emerges from oral tradition, and noting the ways narrative pervades our everyday lives–that we are constantly telling ourselves and others stories– we bring a lot of expectations to narrative art that we might not bring to visual art. Sure, we are always looking, too, but representing in images isn’t our primary mode of meeting and manipulating reality. Going along with this is the Chomskean picture of language. If syntax is naturally-developing and brain-based, then disrupting this, as challenging writers do, is bound to be a bit threatening in a way that visual art isn’t. In fact, the neuroscientist Ramachandran argues that of the things that are universally appealing in art, insofar as they tweak the brain’s pleasure circuits, most of them are found predominantly in abstract art, not, as we might expect, representational.
Hi Tim:
The CIA stuff is documented in a book by Frances Saunders called “The Cultural Cold War” and in a number of other places. As interesting and revealing as it is, I don’t think of it as determining in any fundamental way, just another additional factor . . .
You write: “Part of it might come down to the time commitment that reading ‘challenging’ (ergh) literature demands. I agree that genuinely decoding an abstract work of art requires work, too, but it’s not quite the same kind of work that reading Gaddis demands.”
In one way or another the “time commitment” argument seems to come up frequently in discussions on this topic, as it has come up more than once here. But for me it doesn’t make any sense to just look at it from a viewpoint that is abstracted from any historical context. Sure, in this abstract hypothetical situation, it only takes a few moments to scan a Rothko (or a Pollock, or whatever you like in that vein) and a helluva lot longer to read Gaddis (especially if it’s JR instead of Recognitions — my bookmark is at around page 87, and that was, er, five years ago…). But none of that matters if the Rothko or Pollock or whatever doesn’t register as “Art,” because then it’s just blobs of paint, the visual equivalent of nonsense (I made this point in several places above so apologies for making it yet again to those inclined to be bored or exasperated). There’s an arc of “cultural learning” that has to be gone through in order for it to register as Art and be regarded, however briefly, in a mode of aesthetic appreciation. That arc of cultural learning can take years — i.e. much longer than it takes to read a single long work of “challenging” (arg) literature (but of course, there’s such a learning curve for lit as well…). Of course at the inception of the various avant-garde art movements there were some people who more or less immediately recognized these works as art, and they are indeed the ones who start the arc of learning on its way, but these were small groups of people who had, in a sense, “primed” themselves for such reception (a prior interest in and knowledge of “avant-garde” art, as in, say, Gertrude Stein’s promotion of Cubism, or Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg’s swift recognition of Pollock et al.). But back when Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase was first displayed, one critic called it “an explosion in a shingle factory,” and it’s a safe bet that that’s how most folks saw it. You write, “There’s a superficial way of hanging the Rothko on the wall and drawing pleasure from it that doesn’t happen with a Pynchon novel or whatever,” but for that to happen those mute bars of color have to get hung on the wall in the first place, and that means that at another level a “language” of sorts, or at least a new dialect, has to be learned.
“And part of it might be that storytelling is democratic in a way that visual art simply isn’t. Language is the currency of our everyday communication, our shopping lists and heart-to-hearts and storytelling . . . representing in images isn’t our primary mode of meeting and manipulating reality.”
In your final paragraph you seem to be lowballing the role of the image in contemporary culture, which strikes me as huge. If you pre-define “communication” as only verbal communication, then yes of course language is the currency, but I can’t agree with that definition. Yep, folks take their shopping lists to the store, but what was the role of the image in the composition of that list in the first place? Are they there to buy wheat or are to buy Wheaties? What do they notice most in the store itself — words? Language is one form of communication, image another, and both operate according to learned conventions.
Learned, rather than innate. The Chomskyans have a suffocating hegemony over linguistics, but it’s not the only view, there are insurgent anti-Chomskyans out there (I say this because my wife is a fervently anti-Chomskyan cognitive psychologist). But you’re in Boston, aren’t you? We should talk.
Hi Tim:
The CIA stuff is documented in a book by Frances Saunders called “The Cultural Cold War” and in a number of other places. As interesting and revealing as it is, I don’t think of it as determining in any fundamental way, just another additional factor . . .
You write: “Part of it might come down to the time commitment that reading ‘challenging’ (ergh) literature demands. I agree that genuinely decoding an abstract work of art requires work, too, but it’s not quite the same kind of work that reading Gaddis demands.”
In one way or another the “time commitment” argument seems to come up frequently in discussions on this topic, as it has come up more than once here. But for me it doesn’t make any sense to just look at it from a viewpoint that is abstracted from any historical context. Sure, in this abstract hypothetical situation, it only takes a few moments to scan a Rothko (or a Pollock, or whatever you like in that vein) and a helluva lot longer to read Gaddis (especially if it’s JR instead of Recognitions — my bookmark is at around page 87, and that was, er, five years ago…). But none of that matters if the Rothko or Pollock or whatever doesn’t register as “Art,” because then it’s just blobs of paint, the visual equivalent of nonsense (I made this point in several places above so apologies for making it yet again to those inclined to be bored or exasperated). There’s an arc of “cultural learning” that has to be gone through in order for it to register as Art and be regarded, however briefly, in a mode of aesthetic appreciation. That arc of cultural learning can take years — i.e. much longer than it takes to read a single long work of “challenging” (arg) literature (but of course, there’s such a learning curve for lit as well…). Of course at the inception of the various avant-garde art movements there were some people who more or less immediately recognized these works as art, and they are indeed the ones who start the arc of learning on its way, but these were small groups of people who had, in a sense, “primed” themselves for such reception (a prior interest in and knowledge of “avant-garde” art, as in, say, Gertrude Stein’s promotion of Cubism, or Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg’s swift recognition of Pollock et al.). But back when Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase was first displayed, one critic called it “an explosion in a shingle factory,” and it’s a safe bet that that’s how most folks saw it. You write, “There’s a superficial way of hanging the Rothko on the wall and drawing pleasure from it that doesn’t happen with a Pynchon novel or whatever,” but for that to happen those mute bars of color have to get hung on the wall in the first place, and that means that at another level a “language” of sorts, or at least a new dialect, has to be learned.
“And part of it might be that storytelling is democratic in a way that visual art simply isn’t. Language is the currency of our everyday communication, our shopping lists and heart-to-hearts and storytelling . . . representing in images isn’t our primary mode of meeting and manipulating reality.”
In your final paragraph you seem to be lowballing the role of the image in contemporary culture, which strikes me as huge. If you pre-define “communication” as only verbal communication, then yes of course language is the currency, but I can’t agree with that definition. Yep, folks take their shopping lists to the store, but what was the role of the image in the composition of that list in the first place? Are they there to buy wheat or are to buy Wheaties? What do they notice most in the store itself — words? Language is one form of communication, image another, and both operate according to learned conventions.
Learned, rather than innate. The Chomskyans have a suffocating hegemony over linguistics, but it’s not the only view, there are insurgent anti-Chomskyans out there (I say this because my wife is a fervently anti-Chomskyan cognitive psychologist). But you’re in Boston, aren’t you? We should talk.