tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post4179258023393890817..comments2024-02-28T06:32:17.919-08:00Comments on Star Wars Modern: Modernist Hangover: The Masterpiecestarwarsmodernhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06128785816151813198noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-90585179580632840042011-03-25T05:25:23.623-07:002011-03-25T05:25:23.623-07:00Michelle, I was not suggesting that we should stop...Michelle, I was not suggesting that we should stop loving the things we love, just that there are other rubrics that we could use to discuss them. That if you think of Art as a conceptual devise, the masterpiece begins to look arbitrary, and innovations that shift and broaden the ways we think about art highlight aspects of art history (like the importance of air travel to earth art) that are otherwise invisible. <br /><br />emunit, I think I haven't made myself clear there at the end if you think I am back-to-Benjamin. To look at an object with the same critical attention that was for a long time reserved for a painting has nothing to do with the originality of the object - I am not talking about aura. It has to do with the expectations we bring as modern viewers, that we understand that important information is carried by the materials used, the handling, placement and the scale of an object. <br /><br />As for collectives. I try to be a good son, brother and friend. I love NYC, and I try to be a good AMerican, and want America to be a good member of the world community, that I very much feel a part of - I don't claim autonomy from any of these bodies, I just like working alone. <br /><br />Adam, thanks to coming to my aid, your examples are fantastic. Pollock was not inevitable in the sense that all of history lead up to the drip paintings - When I wrote that "America needed Pollock," and that he was "inevitable" I had in mind something very specific: The calculated effort by Americans to wrest the Art World from Paris in the aftermath of WWII (Check out Serge Guilbaut's book "How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art") and used AbEx painting as an "ambassadorial commodity" during the Cold War (Max Kozloff's essay in "Pollock & After").starwarsmodernhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06128785816151813198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-80235355925892737162011-03-25T00:18:26.747-07:002011-03-25T00:18:26.747-07:00Surely the Chinese had different nearly inevitable...Surely the Chinese had different nearly inevitable innovations born of the conditions of their flavour of the zeitgeist and broader culture - Xu Beihong's horses, Lao She's Teahouse, Lu Xun's A Madman's Diary, the baidu search engine, etc. China has gone through and is still going through an extraordinary grappling with the modern, flattening, returning to vulgarity; it seems to add to rather than refute the point.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-57577311133052991732011-03-24T12:12:48.242-07:002011-03-24T12:12:48.242-07:00... you still end up with Benjamin's thesis, n...... you still end up with Benjamin's thesis, now 70 years old. But how come cultures like Chinese didn't have these 'inevitable' innovations? How about a more global view of intellectual evolution, not just white man's (perhaps woman's)? Also, if as an artist one doesn't believe in importance of a purely individual pursuit, how come you aren't working in a collective?<br />I'd love to see commentary on Godzilla since it seems a lot more apropos then modernist art and best of lists... <br />Thanks for the great writing!emunithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04016707688063713146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-45327636102870152882011-03-24T11:50:15.212-07:002011-03-24T11:50:15.212-07:00enjoyed reading this john.
danielle mysliwiecenjoyed reading this john.<br />danielle mysliwiecSF Statehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08986530363461223444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-2145178050527928482011-03-24T09:01:55.804-07:002011-03-24T09:01:55.804-07:00I don't deny that a zeitgeist can happen withi...I don't deny that a zeitgeist can happen within art, just like in other explorations. But in the West, we tend to mark greatness with labels. The iPhone is a master invention, the Spiral Jetty is a masterpiece.<br /><br />It doesn't matter if Stella was thinking torques (for years) and then Serra actually produced them. In our post-post modern art world now, so much of it is layered and informed by the past, while striving to break new ground for the future. The mediums keep growing, the possibilities keep expanding. To think art historians and curators are going to cease labeling historical objects/works is wishful thinking, yes? And I would never want to. <br /><br />I like a world where I can point to a work and say, "This is mind-boggling genius. Bravo/brava!". I'm not saying only one person conspired this idea, but perhaps one artist put it on the map, or produced it in a superior way. A signifier, the thing we point to.Michelle Vaughanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14981059442513306419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-37514054808265887592011-03-23T22:35:09.454-07:002011-03-23T22:35:09.454-07:00There is a myth around art production that demands...There is a myth around art production that demands we believe that only Pollock could have done what he did, but in fact America was looking for a Pollock, working hard to make him appear, and once he did appear, making damn sure he became what was needed in that moment. If Pollock had died of polio as a child someone else would have been held up as the American answer to Paris. <br /><br />A friend of mine was working for Serra when he made the first couple rounds of Torqued Elipses. Franks Stella sent Serra a three page hand written letter congratulating him for "Doing what we have all been trying to do." - those aren't Stella's exact words, just what I can remember years later. Others were and are pressing against the same set of problems and have come up with similar expressions. Stella is as particular as Darwin in the complexity of associations and grace of expression he has drawn around himself, but had he been brained by a piece of steel at 19, someone else would have been accepted to Yale, championed by Rosalind Krauss, commissioned by Roger Davidson, and valorized by Hal Foster - maybe a woman.starwarsmodernhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06128785816151813198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93722064719555333.post-24048565656760545282011-03-23T22:00:53.209-07:002011-03-23T22:00:53.209-07:00Enjoyed this thoughtful post. But do you not agree...Enjoyed this thoughtful post. But do you not agree there are pivotal works which change the direction of art, or are epic feats of greatness which should be hailed as extremely important? My list excludes, say Pollock or Nauman. But both of them reinvented art for us. And it can sometimes begin or conclude with a great, master work. While Louise Bourgeois was off in her corner churning out work over the years, she finally nailed it with "Cell" and then "Maman". The spider is epic, it's aesthetically stunning, it communicates her message simply, yet scary and daunting. "Maman" is breathtaking, as Richard Serra's torques are breathtaking. It took years for both artists to figure this out. Why should these not be heralded masterpieces?Michelle Vaughanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14981059442513306419noreply@blogger.com