March 12th, 2010 / 1:50 am
Power Quote
Evelyn Hampton
Power Quote
Power Quote: Gerhard Richter
“I don’t want to be a personality or to have an ideology. I see no sense in doing anything different. I never do see any sense. I think that one always does what is being done anyway (even when making something new), and that one is always making something new. To have an ideology means having laws and guidelines; it means killing those who have different laws and guidelines. What is the good of that?”
from The Daily Practice of Painting by Gerhard Richter
Tags: Gerhard Richter
The declaration “I don’t have an ideology” already implies ideology and an ideological point of view. Aligning oneself against whatever hegemonic cultural ideology reifies that ideology. Ideology is inescapable. What Gerhard Richter is engaging in here, I think, is just a bit of cynicism and then some wishful thinking. He may as well say:
“I don’t want to be a human being made of flesh and bone. I want to be a holy art spirit thing. I don’t want to be judged in the way people judge other human beings.”
The declaration “I don’t have an ideology” already implies ideology and an ideological point of view. Aligning oneself against whatever hegemonic cultural ideology reifies that ideology. Ideology is inescapable. What Gerhard Richter is engaging in here, I think, is just a bit of cynicism and then some wishful thinking. He may as well say:
“I don’t want to be a human being made of flesh and bone. I want to be a holy art spirit thing. I don’t want to be judged in the way people judge other human beings.”
“Ideology is inescapable.”
Are you so sure?
“Ideology is inescapable.”
Are you so sure?
Are humans incapable of being a “holy art spirit thing”? Seems to me it occurs somewhat frequently.
Are humans incapable of being a “holy art spirit thing”? Seems to me it occurs somewhat frequently.
it seems to me he’s surrendering to things as they are. he doesn’t want to base his own art or his view of other’s art on ideology or politics or rules. he says “i don’t WANT to be…..” That means he’s making an effort, but it may take ongoing effort to remove ideology, and he may never completely achieve this. but, crucially, this removal of ideology is wrapped up in the idea that one does not achieve, one is not definitively one way or another as an artist, and thus even in his desire to remove ideology, even in that process, he will also surrender to things as they are. also note that he is not being prescriptive, he’s stating only what he thinks and what his opinions and desires are as an artist. his points are refreshing and welcome to me. thanks, evelyn!
it seems to me he’s surrendering to things as they are. he doesn’t want to base his own art or his view of other’s art on ideology or politics or rules. he says “i don’t WANT to be…..” That means he’s making an effort, but it may take ongoing effort to remove ideology, and he may never completely achieve this. but, crucially, this removal of ideology is wrapped up in the idea that one does not achieve, one is not definitively one way or another as an artist, and thus even in his desire to remove ideology, even in that process, he will also surrender to things as they are. also note that he is not being prescriptive, he’s stating only what he thinks and what his opinions and desires are as an artist. his points are refreshing and welcome to me. thanks, evelyn!
Thanks Evelyn. Seems to me he wants to get as far away from judgment as possible and I applaud this. He doesn’t want to argue, he wants to create, and he does.
Thanks Evelyn. Seems to me he wants to get as far away from judgment as possible and I applaud this. He doesn’t want to argue, he wants to create, and he does.
If it was linked here I missed it: Diego Gambetta’s piece for The Nation on Richter subject the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Gotta laugh then cringe whenever a German comes out in favor of neutrality! but that quality does seem to be what makes Richter so endlessly viewable.
If it was linked here I missed it: Diego Gambetta’s piece for The Nation on Richter subject the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Gotta laugh then cringe whenever a German comes out in favor of neutrality! but that quality does seem to be what makes Richter so endlessly viewable.
Yes.
Thought experiment:
(1) Explain what it would be like to be outside of ideology.
(2) Give an example of something that is outside of ideology.
examples…
Yes.
Thought experiment:
(1) Explain what it would be like to be outside of ideology.
(2) Give an example of something that is outside of ideology.
examples…
1 – It would be like not wanting anything
2- animals, rivers, mountains, babies, art
1 – It would be like not wanting anything
2- animals, rivers, mountains, babies, art
What’s the point of art if you want to expunge yourself from the universe of living human beings?
Surrendering to the way things are is ideological.
I’m merely saying that he can’t do what he thinks he is doing even if he believes it with all his heart.
What about the irony of this post being called a “power quote”?
What’s the point of art if you want to expunge yourself from the universe of living human beings?
Surrendering to the way things are is ideological.
I’m merely saying that he can’t do what he thinks he is doing even if he believes it with all his heart.
What about the irony of this post being called a “power quote”?
Greg,
1 – It would be like not wanting anything: not human.
2- animals, rivers, mountains, babies, art: exist in a web of ideology from a human point of view. you can only “understand” these things though language which is rooted in ideology.
Greg,
1 – It would be like not wanting anything: not human.
2- animals, rivers, mountains, babies, art: exist in a web of ideology from a human point of view. you can only “understand” these things though language which is rooted in ideology.
Henry,
I think we have can moments of not wanting anything. And those moments are as human as any other. Do people want something when they are having sex? Do they want something when they are watching a film they love in the theater?
Did the cavepeople ‘understand’ rivers through language? Our minds control us, certainly. But isn’t that the rub, to leave the mind behind. Can’t someone just sit on a bench and not be wanting anything, not hoping for anything. We create our own reality, no?
Henry,
I think we have can moments of not wanting anything. And those moments are as human as any other. Do people want something when they are having sex? Do they want something when they are watching a film they love in the theater?
Did the cavepeople ‘understand’ rivers through language? Our minds control us, certainly. But isn’t that the rub, to leave the mind behind. Can’t someone just sit on a bench and not be wanting anything, not hoping for anything. We create our own reality, no?
“Ideology is inescapable”
wouldn’t a buddhist monk (for one) disagree with this?
“Ideology is inescapable”
wouldn’t a buddhist monk (for one) disagree with this?
What a beautiful quote. Thanks for this . . .
What a beautiful quote. Thanks for this . . .
An artist (poet, painter, writer, sculptor, film maker, etc.) can, and often does, approach one’s art through aesthetics rather thanideology in the political (or moral, ethical, religious, metaphysical…) sense of the word. Clearly, Richter is using the word in that connotation, implying that ideologies lead to conflicts and murder (which they often do); obviously, however, he cannot escape language and thought (and by extension, metaphor; we think in metaphors. To understand a thing or a place or an emotion, we must hold it up next to another and view its similarities or contrasts. Sometimes this happens in an instant; a passing shadow or the almost imperceptible touch of cool air that is like or different than…though, there are times when we examine and scrutinize in linear time, outside of time, stratifying the possibilities, organizing the symbolisms, feeling the shape of a thing, understanding without the hierarchy of language. Sometimes the viscera of reality intrudes beyond its usually confining membrane, and we are subject to the nexus, the concatenation of events; of irony and pathos) and, thus, an implicit choice of one thing over another, even if it is a color or a brush stroke (although I wouldn’t characterize those decisions as ideological).
I think Nabokov and Borges are example of writers who were aestheticians and metaphysicians rather beyond ideology, though both had the historical weight of their times, cities, and exiles to carry. You are correct to point out that there is an irony in stating the obvious impossibility, however, of existing outside of ideas.
After all, “The mountains, rivers, forest and the elements that gird them round about would be only blank condition s of matter if the mind did not fling its own divinity around them.”
–from an article entitled Imagination and Fact (writer unknown) in Graham’s Magazine (not dated, but referenced by Walt Whitman in his Notes and Fragments and ascribed to approximately “the fifties”; that would be the eighteen fifties)
There is a wonderful album by Bill Frisell, a series of tone poems on Richter’s paintings (entitled Richter 858, that can be referenced at http://www.billfrisell.com/merch/richter.html .
An artist (poet, painter, writer, sculptor, film maker, etc.) can, and often does, approach one’s art through aesthetics rather thanideology in the political (or moral, ethical, religious, metaphysical…) sense of the word. Clearly, Richter is using the word in that connotation, implying that ideologies lead to conflicts and murder (which they often do); obviously, however, he cannot escape language and thought (and by extension, metaphor; we think in metaphors. To understand a thing or a place or an emotion, we must hold it up next to another and view its similarities or contrasts. Sometimes this happens in an instant; a passing shadow or the almost imperceptible touch of cool air that is like or different than…though, there are times when we examine and scrutinize in linear time, outside of time, stratifying the possibilities, organizing the symbolisms, feeling the shape of a thing, understanding without the hierarchy of language. Sometimes the viscera of reality intrudes beyond its usually confining membrane, and we are subject to the nexus, the concatenation of events; of irony and pathos) and, thus, an implicit choice of one thing over another, even if it is a color or a brush stroke (although I wouldn’t characterize those decisions as ideological).
I think Nabokov and Borges are example of writers who were aestheticians and metaphysicians rather beyond ideology, though both had the historical weight of their times, cities, and exiles to carry. You are correct to point out that there is an irony in stating the obvious impossibility, however, of existing outside of ideas.
After all, “The mountains, rivers, forest and the elements that gird them round about would be only blank condition s of matter if the mind did not fling its own divinity around them.”
–from an article entitled Imagination and Fact (writer unknown) in Graham’s Magazine (not dated, but referenced by Walt Whitman in his Notes and Fragments and ascribed to approximately “the fifties”; that would be the eighteen fifties)
There is a wonderful album by Bill Frisell, a series of tone poems on Richter’s paintings (entitled Richter 858, that can be referenced at http://www.billfrisell.com/merch/richter.html .
I have a pre-language “understanding” or “connection” or “vibration” with mountains, rivers, animals, babies, and more (art, music) I think. (“I think”. Hee hee.)
There are things about sex that I experience that, in the moment, are pre-language and outside of any ideology.
My dogs “understand” dirt and digging, and squirrels.
If I were a wolf-child I would understand my world without language and without ideology, I think.
I think a lot of “understanding” of the world uses images and sensation, pre-language.
In regards to the Richter quote, I think the operative word is “want”.
I have a pre-language “understanding” or “connection” or “vibration” with mountains, rivers, animals, babies, and more (art, music) I think. (“I think”. Hee hee.)
There are things about sex that I experience that, in the moment, are pre-language and outside of any ideology.
My dogs “understand” dirt and digging, and squirrels.
If I were a wolf-child I would understand my world without language and without ideology, I think.
I think a lot of “understanding” of the world uses images and sensation, pre-language.
In regards to the Richter quote, I think the operative word is “want”.
“you can only ‘understand’ these things though language which is rooted in ideology.”
this thought seems dangerous and deserving of further attention.
is language “rooted” in ideology or is it a tool of ideology?
have languages derived from ideology?
do the words we use and the way in which we use them reflect our various ideologies?
i don’t know the answers to these questions.
“you can only ‘understand’ these things though language which is rooted in ideology.”
this thought seems dangerous and deserving of further attention.
is language “rooted” in ideology or is it a tool of ideology?
have languages derived from ideology?
do the words we use and the way in which we use them reflect our various ideologies?
i don’t know the answers to these questions.
“Wanting” has little to do with ideology. Check out “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” by Althusser or pretty much any book by Žižek. Or Marx’s conception of ideology.
Culture is ideological. Language is ideological.
Sex is a great example. How you fuck is ideological. What positions “mean” is ideological. Being “heterosexual” or “lesbian” or whatever is ideological.
Insofar as “cavepeople” had language, they had ideology as well.
Leaving the mind behind=death.
You confuse desire with ideology. Any psychologist would tell you that you can’t get rid of desire (or drives). Sitting on a bench and not wanting anything is the fulfillment of some “calling” which is rooted in language and ideological.
Who told you that you could create your own reality? You can play pretend all you want but that a reality does not make.
to Matt Cozart:
wouldn’t a buddhist monk (for one) disagree with this?
and?
anyone can disagree. a monk can deny reality in total and how does that prove anything? they eat and drink like the rest of us. Tibet is a great example.
“Wanting” has little to do with ideology. Check out “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” by Althusser or pretty much any book by Žižek. Or Marx’s conception of ideology.
Culture is ideological. Language is ideological.
Sex is a great example. How you fuck is ideological. What positions “mean” is ideological. Being “heterosexual” or “lesbian” or whatever is ideological.
Insofar as “cavepeople” had language, they had ideology as well.
Leaving the mind behind=death.
You confuse desire with ideology. Any psychologist would tell you that you can’t get rid of desire (or drives). Sitting on a bench and not wanting anything is the fulfillment of some “calling” which is rooted in language and ideological.
Who told you that you could create your own reality? You can play pretend all you want but that a reality does not make.
to Matt Cozart:
wouldn’t a buddhist monk (for one) disagree with this?
and?
anyone can disagree. a monk can deny reality in total and how does that prove anything? they eat and drink like the rest of us. Tibet is a great example.
One thing I like about Gerhard Richter’s work (in pieces I’ve seen in galleries and museums – I’m no art critic) is that he’s able to create interesting things regardless of media – and he’s worked across many. In a way, the quote here seems to speak to this: an open-mindedness that in his case fuels an art – an agnosticism of a kind, which apparently works for Herr Richter.
No guidelines indeed.
One thing I like about Gerhard Richter’s work (in pieces I’ve seen in galleries and museums – I’m no art critic) is that he’s able to create interesting things regardless of media – and he’s worked across many. In a way, the quote here seems to speak to this: an open-mindedness that in his case fuels an art – an agnosticism of a kind, which apparently works for Herr Richter.
No guidelines indeed.
I should have said I create my own reality and now I’m saying it, I create my own reality.
I’m thankfully just Greg and not Gregology.
And to quote Hal Hartley – You don’t need an ideology to knock over a liquor store.”
I should have said I create my own reality and now I’m saying it, I create my own reality.
I’m thankfully just Greg and not Gregology.
And to quote Hal Hartley – You don’t need an ideology to knock over a liquor store.”
The reality that one experiences is part the world around us which we perceive with our senses and part the biological drives that are programmed into us and part what our minds do with all this.
One of my favorite thought experiments is to imagine what my life would be like were I to not have one or more of my senses. How then would I experience or “understand” the world? What would I “want”?
The reality that one experiences is part the world around us which we perceive with our senses and part the biological drives that are programmed into us and part what our minds do with all this.
One of my favorite thought experiments is to imagine what my life would be like were I to not have one or more of my senses. How then would I experience or “understand” the world? What would I “want”?
precisely
precisely
Clarice, Virginia, Joyce, Beckett, and Salinger in their finest moments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5Jzz6jZYw (sublime music is always created by a person who has become, momentarily, a ‘holy art spirit thing’)
Clarice, Virginia, Joyce, Beckett, and Salinger in their finest moments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5Jzz6jZYw (sublime music is always created by a person who has become, momentarily, a ‘holy art spirit thing’)
he’s a nihilist!
you’re all nihilists!
to the salt-mines, the lot of you.
he’s a nihilist!
you’re all nihilists!
to the salt-mines, the lot of you.
(1) See: #2
(2) Everything-as-it-is (Reality, pre-language)
(1) See: #2
(2) Everything-as-it-is (Reality, pre-language)
I picture it this way: if you pick up a fork (an ideologically-based action), think of all the words (ideologically-based) you could use to describe the action, the fork, and the feel of the fork in your hand. Now, none of these words IS the fork or the feel of the fork in your hand. You will never describe, understand, or ideologically process the fork or the feel of the fork in your hand. Likewise, every other thing, action, and emotion. Science/ideology can tell you about this and that hormone or atom or motivation, but it isn’t the thing itself, and that is significant.
I picture it this way: if you pick up a fork (an ideologically-based action), think of all the words (ideologically-based) you could use to describe the action, the fork, and the feel of the fork in your hand. Now, none of these words IS the fork or the feel of the fork in your hand. You will never describe, understand, or ideologically process the fork or the feel of the fork in your hand. Likewise, every other thing, action, and emotion. Science/ideology can tell you about this and that hormone or atom or motivation, but it isn’t the thing itself, and that is significant.
This is literally non-sense. You have widened the definition of ‘ideology’ until you can basically never be wrong.
There is no ‘what it is like’ with the non-ideological. The non-ideological is related to what we call ‘experience,’ and it takes a seriously diminished imagination to deny that it exists.
This is literally non-sense. You have widened the definition of ‘ideology’ until you can basically never be wrong.
There is no ‘what it is like’ with the non-ideological. The non-ideological is related to what we call ‘experience,’ and it takes a seriously diminished imagination to deny that it exists.
Trying to understand the quote with little or no understanding of the man’s life or art is silly–it’s not an excerpt from his twitter log. Richter was born in 1932 and lived in East Germany until he was 29–does that help with what he means–at the soul level–by ideology? GDR? Nazi? I know, this means you’ll have to stop thinking about you thinking about you thinking…. Silly me.
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/
Trying to understand the quote with little or no understanding of the man’s life or art is silly–it’s not an excerpt from his twitter log. Richter was born in 1932 and lived in East Germany until he was 29–does that help with what he means–at the soul level–by ideology? GDR? Nazi? I know, this means you’ll have to stop thinking about you thinking about you thinking…. Silly me.
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/
YOU don’t understand Richter like I DO! Your ideas are laughable! YOU just think about thinking about you thinking about you! I, on the other hand, am a humble Arbiter of This Thread With Aid of Historical Context and Greater Knowledge On The Internet. Nothing anyone writes or says can be analyzed without context! Welcome to academia, welcome to the historical branch of art, where ‘soul’/’heart’ is discounted and motives/ideologies/contexts/politics/intentions/people/art are itemized and scalped. Sarcasm and inexplicable disdain are choking me, I’m choking, look away, it’s me Donna, but I am humble, look away… Visit this site. Philosophy is for dick-swingers. Being up on Gerhard Richter is for fuckin’ winners.
YOU don’t understand Richter like I DO! Your ideas are laughable! YOU just think about thinking about you thinking about you! I, on the other hand, am a humble Arbiter of This Thread With Aid of Historical Context and Greater Knowledge On The Internet. Nothing anyone writes or says can be analyzed without context! Welcome to academia, welcome to the historical branch of art, where ‘soul’/’heart’ is discounted and motives/ideologies/contexts/politics/intentions/people/art are itemized and scalped. Sarcasm and inexplicable disdain are choking me, I’m choking, look away, it’s me Donna, but I am humble, look away… Visit this site. Philosophy is for dick-swingers. Being up on Gerhard Richter is for fuckin’ winners.
I’m literally clapping right now.
Human intimacy is non-ideological.
I’m literally clapping right now.
Human intimacy is non-ideological.
i’m gonna go get a fookin’ drink. i think you could have said that with less acid in your voice, donna. peace
i’m gonna go get a fookin’ drink. i think you could have said that with less acid in your voice, donna. peace
Imagine any of this mattered?
Imagine any of this mattered?
[…] reflection on "power quote" posted at HTML Giant recently by painter Gerhard […]
that book is seriously serious
richter is serious
i am a fan
that book is seriously serious
richter is serious
i am a fan