Timothy Quigley has a couple of posts chewing over his reaction to the Artforum book and related ideas on criticism then and now. I've got nothing to object to in his comments on the "ethics of engagement", though I understand that's not the whole issue by a long shot. Nor do I have a thoroughly worked out response to the questions raised in these posts, but I would like to offer a few comments. I'm not an art critic, and so have less at stake, in a sense, in the discussion; on the other hand, the fact that state of art criticism is discussed at sites such as this is itself probably part of the issue. But anyway, here we go:
- If we are to look back at the art and criticism of the 1960's to help "re-think the present", I think it's also important to consider the institutional conditions of the art world then and have they have grown, changed and developed in the time since. We do a lot of this sort of thing all the time - commenting on news reports of jet-setting collectors, the changes in the art market, museum growth and development, and the rest. But too often observations of these phenomenon are wrapped up in narratives of cultural decline, or the myopia of business reporting. Something larger and broader is needed than ad hoc comments, something that provides a full assessment of the structures of the art world and how they have developed - a sociology of contemporary art. Not with the idea of getting where wants to go by some sort of materialist reduction, but to try to see the lay of the land before moving more abstractly. There are a lot of articles that grab at pieces of the picture, and we all have a partial view of what we observe around us, but a more comprehensive take would help. Lots of luck.
- I don't necessarily embrace as fully developed a Kantian position as I've sometimes articulated - I like it, but I'm not wedded to it. That said, the skepticism toward judgement I think I see hinted at in Timothy's posts (and Dan's comment) worries me a bit. As the "ethics of engagement" line suggests, judgement, whatever its problems, is what we've got to work with here.
- No one seems to like the enervating aspects of Danto's pluralism, the nominalism of Morris Weitz's art-is-what-the-artworld-says-it-is position. But there isn't a lot of support for another determinist choo-choo train, either, even if anyone knew how to get one going. Again, I don't have any answers. But one thing I think might be interesting along these lines might be to read Jean-Francois Lyotard's "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?" over against Greenberg's "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" with an eye toward comparing the animating strategies of the two essays.
That's it for now. I'll be trying to think more as I can...
By the way... "Train in Vain"? That sickness runs deep, doesn't it?
Posted by: Dan | January 18, 2005 at 07:11 PM
A hopeless case, I'm afraid.
Posted by: Miguel Sánchez | January 18, 2005 at 07:20 PM
I agree that an institutional analysis of the contemporary scene seems necessary. This is precisely what Danto tries in his writings since 1984 on the "end of art". It's not a sociology of art, but it's an attempt (flawed in my view) to theorize the current condition of the artworld. The last full sociology of art I can recall is Janet Wolff's. There are so many factors and complex interactions to consider which, by definition, we're caught up in as contemporary analysts, that it may be impossible to conceptualize, articulate, and evaluate. I guess that's what you suggest when you say "lots of luck". But that doesn't mean we can't, in some way, come to terms with the practices that constitute the contemporary artworld. So we all keep plugging away (and kicking back)in any way we can.
What is it about the particular texts (Lyotard and Greenberg) you mention, Miguel, that you think might illuminate matters for us?
Posted by: tq | January 22, 2005 at 01:32 PM