Wednesday, December 06, 2006
13.~~~~~~~~~
[reading Walter Benjamin, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Production" in Illuminations ] Reading art through the lens of the social conditions or mode of production at the time it is produced makes art an it apart from the artist. This might seem to be a painful alienation but paradoxically it can free us (the artists) to construct our own standards of value. How so? Because if we aren’t responsible for the conditions then we can treat them as imposed against our will. Once separated we can side with our will in its individual complexity against the generally imposed form, which tends to be univocal. Mechanical reproduction, like any mode of production, spreads out from its beginnings as novel invention and becomes the standard, defining art for an Age, part of the code outside of which one is not to be understood by others. The effect is first noticed, then assumed and ignored as the necessity of progress. Yet the possibility exists, once this code and its roots are identified, for us to realize that we are already outside it, forced outside by virtue of perceiving how mechanical reproduction, for instance, has become part of the code of art. Driven by the desire to become fully responsible for what we do (indeed, this is one of the contradictions which is bundled in the code) we can feel the pull generated by social forces. Our alienation from the code of how art is defined, hence potentially from our own artwork and the forces motivating it in ourselves, far from being denied as foolish ("how can we help being determined by the Age") might be reinforced and justified as the foundation of its advance. That is not so far-fetched, since Western art has generally been considered as the history of progressive alienation from the dominant code, a history of transgression rather than the continual elaboration of a singular tradition.
Thus we, as the artist, are turned inward rather than outward towards market forces, toward an always unstable reconciliation with ourselves rather than with the Age. This enables us to define ourselves as giving and communicating without dependence on being received and confirmed. This is love without looking for a return of love from the outside, yet an absence of regret, anguish or resentment, because the terms of inner reconciliation have been met.
In older, more religious terms that cannot be restored--and art has its origins in the cult, before it was called art--we create out of the purity of the heart; the opening to divinity is the road to our communication with our world. When we want salt at the table, we must say so to our neighbor and be understood by our common utterance; when we want art, which is a self-reconciliation no one else can give us, we turn to ourselves and stretch ourselves to the most profound self-understanding of which we are capable, a thrashing about or a recovery that is truly awe-ful. Others will understand our strange behavior to the extent they share this experience in themselves. We do not make them understand, we respect them enough that they should understand themselves.
In cult art "what mattered was [the art objects'] existence, not their being on view." (p.224) Cult art arose in the communal context, in which it was shared and not evaluated or owned by individuals, valued in a way that would not be considered value today. This is a world we can barely imagine. But as artists we can each see ourselves in the position of that community, even though we cannot accept the terms. What we create is not for us a commodity value, for the market, but of use for ourselves, like growing our own vegetables. As de Kooning said, "I paint to have something to look at”; exactly what one wants to look at is constantly subject to doubt and change.
This describes an improbable possibility, the route one would have to take in order to be free of the pressures of creating what is of value, as defined outside ourselves. It is equally improbable that our age, along with its confusion of art with its reproduced and marketed facsimile, also yields artists who resist the urge to create things of value, or to be "contemporary", and yet it does. ¶ 9:23 AM
[reading Walter Benjamin, "Art in the Age of Mechanical Production" in Illuminations ] Reading art through the lens of the social conditions or mode of production at the time it is produced makes art an it apart from the artist. This might seem to be a painful alienation but paradoxically it can free us (the artists) to construct our own standards of value. How so? Because if we aren’t responsible for the conditions then we can treat them as imposed against our will. Once separated we can side with our will in its individual complexity against the generally imposed form, which tends to be univocal. Mechanical reproduction, like any mode of production, spreads out from its beginnings as novel invention and becomes the standard, defining art for an Age, part of the code outside of which one is not to be understood by others. The effect is first noticed, then assumed and ignored as the necessity of progress. Yet the possibility exists, once this code and its roots are identified, for us to realize that we are already outside it, forced outside by virtue of perceiving how mechanical reproduction, for instance, has become part of the code of art. Driven by the desire to become fully responsible for what we do (indeed, this is one of the contradictions which is bundled in the code) we can feel the pull generated by social forces. Our alienation from the code of how art is defined, hence potentially from our own artwork and the forces motivating it in ourselves, far from being denied as foolish ("how can we help being determined by the Age") might be reinforced and justified as the foundation of its advance. That is not so far-fetched, since Western art has generally been considered as the history of progressive alienation from the dominant code, a history of transgression rather than the continual elaboration of a singular tradition.
Thus we, as the artist, are turned inward rather than outward towards market forces, toward an always unstable reconciliation with ourselves rather than with the Age. This enables us to define ourselves as giving and communicating without dependence on being received and confirmed. This is love without looking for a return of love from the outside, yet an absence of regret, anguish or resentment, because the terms of inner reconciliation have been met.
In older, more religious terms that cannot be restored--and art has its origins in the cult, before it was called art--we create out of the purity of the heart; the opening to divinity is the road to our communication with our world. When we want salt at the table, we must say so to our neighbor and be understood by our common utterance; when we want art, which is a self-reconciliation no one else can give us, we turn to ourselves and stretch ourselves to the most profound self-understanding of which we are capable, a thrashing about or a recovery that is truly awe-ful. Others will understand our strange behavior to the extent they share this experience in themselves. We do not make them understand, we respect them enough that they should understand themselves.
In cult art "what mattered was [the art objects'] existence, not their being on view." (p.224) Cult art arose in the communal context, in which it was shared and not evaluated or owned by individuals, valued in a way that would not be considered value today. This is a world we can barely imagine. But as artists we can each see ourselves in the position of that community, even though we cannot accept the terms. What we create is not for us a commodity value, for the market, but of use for ourselves, like growing our own vegetables. As de Kooning said, "I paint to have something to look at”; exactly what one wants to look at is constantly subject to doubt and change.
This describes an improbable possibility, the route one would have to take in order to be free of the pressures of creating what is of value, as defined outside ourselves. It is equally improbable that our age, along with its confusion of art with its reproduced and marketed facsimile, also yields artists who resist the urge to create things of value, or to be "contemporary", and yet it does. ¶ 9:23 AM
