Modern Kicks

Madame Bovary, c'est moi

"As more and more people find themselves working at jobs that are in fact beneath their abilities, as leisure and sociability themselves take on the qualities of work, the posture of cynical detachment becomes the dominant style of everyday intercourse.  Many forms of popular art appeal to this sense of knowingness and thereby reinforce it.  They parody familiar roles and themes, inviting the audience to consider itself superior to its surroundings.  Popular forms begin to parody themselves: Westerns take off on Westerns; soap operas like Fernwood, Soap, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman assure the viewer of his own sophistication by mocking the conventions of soap opera.  Yet much popular art remains romantic and escapist, eschews this theater of the absurd, and promises escape from routine instead of ironic detachment.  Advertising and popular romance dazzle their audiences with visions of rich experience and adventure.  They promise not cynical detachment but a piece of the action, a part in the drama instead of cynical spectatorship.  Emma Bovary, prototypical consumer of mass culture, still dreams; and her dreams, shared by millions, intensify dissatisfaction with jobs and social routine.

Unreflective accommodation to routine becomes progressively more difficult to achieve.  While modern industry condemns people to jobs that insult their intelligence, the mass culture of romantic escape fills their heads with visions of experience beyond their means--beyond their emotional and imaginative capacity as well--and thus contributes to a further devaluation of routine.  The disparity between romance and reality, the world of the beautiful people and the workaday world, gives rise to an ironic detachment that dulls pain but also cripples the will to change social conditions, to make even modest improvement in work and play, and to restore meaning and dignity to everyday life."

--Christopher Lasch

more Courbet

In the post below regarding The Most Arrogant Man in France I mentioned it owed something to visual studies and discussions of print culture, and linked to a couple of examples of the social history of art covering the same period to which the book could be considered in some loose sense kin or successor (though not necessarily the same in outlook.)  Given that, it almost goes without saying (but won't) that the recent interpretation Chu takes issue with the most seems to be Michael Fried's.  I don't want to overstate the case; there are readings of particular works that Chu agrees with Fried on, and the book neither offers polemic or extensive methodological debate.  Chu prefers to tell her own story, but she does point out on several occasions where she disagrees with Fried.  More importantly, she notes that her emphasis on Courbet's use of the press as a model and borrowings from literary modes can't help but stand in opposition to any sort of phenomenological (or otherwise) emphasis on Courbet as a painter predominantly concerned with vision and the body.

Balzac on criticism

"'But what about your review articles?' asked Lucien as they drove away to the Palais-Royal.

'Pooh! you've no idea how they're dashed off.  Take Travels in Egypt: I opened the book and read a bit here and there without cutting the pages, and I discovered eleven mistakes in the French.  I shall write a column to the effect that even if the author can interpret the duck-lingo carved on the Egyptian pebbles they call obelisks, he doesn't know his own language--and I shall prove it to him.  I shall say that instead of talking about natural history and antiquities he ought only to have concerned himself with the future of Egypt, the progress of civilization, the means of winning Egypt over to France which, after conquering it and then losing it again, could still establish a moral ascendancy over it.  The a few pages of patriotic twaddle, the whole interlarded with tirades on Marseilles, the Levant and our trading interests.'

'But supposing he had done all that?  What would you say then?'

'Well, I'd say that instead of boring us with politics he should have given his attention to Art and described the country in its picturesque and territorial aspects.  Thereupon, as a critic, I fall to lamentation.  We're snowed under with politics, I should say; it's boring, and we can't get away from it.  Then I should yearn for those charming travel books which explain all the difficulties of navigation, the thrill of winding through narrow straits, the delight of crossing the line, in short everything those who will never travel need to know.  But, while commending them, one mocks at travelers who rhapsodize over a passing bird, a flying-fish, a haul of tunny, geographical points they have spotted and shallows they have recognized.  One puts in a new claim for perfectly unintelligible scientific facts, which are so fascinating like everything which is profound, mysterious and incomprehensible.  The reader laughs--he gets his money's worth.  As regards novels, Florine is the greatest novel-reader in the world.  She analyzes them for me, and I knock off an article based on her opinion.  When she's been bored by what she calls 'literary verbiage' I take the book into serious consideration and ask the publisher for another copy.  He sends it along, delighted at the prospect of a favorable review.'

'Great Heavens!  But what about criticism, the sacred task of criticism?' said Lucien, still imbued with the doctrines of the Cénacle.

'My dear chap,' said Lousteau.  'Criticism's a scrubbing brush which you mustn't use on flimsy materials--it would tear them to shreds.'"

--Honoré de Balzac, Lost Illusions

Courbet, painting, and the press

Is the field of visual studies growing, or has it failed to live up to its promise?  The signs apparently are contradictory, but I can say that a visual studies approach can be found fruitfully deployed in Petra ten-Doesschate Chu's recently published study, The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth-Century Media Culture.  Chu, a noted Courbet scholar, editor of his letters and of Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, places the artist in the context of the developing nineteenth century French press, the milieu of Balzac's ambitious journalists and backdrop to Flaubert's ironic realist treatments of striving provincials.  Courbet reveled in the world of newspapers, Chu argues: not only was he an avid media consumer and friend and drinking partner to journalists, Baudelaire and Champfleury not least among them, Courbet also looked to manipulate the press to further his career and even drew upon literary and journalistic modes in his paintings.  It's a story of the early days of modern art that has a good deal of contemporary resonance.

literature: it ruins lives

"'It's always the same story, every year the same enthusiastic inrush of beardless ambition from the provinces to Paris: an equal, indeed an increasing number of young men who leap forward, with high head and lofty heart, to their wooing of Fashion, the Princess Turandot of the Thousand and One Days to whom everyone would play Prince Calaf!  But not one guesses the riddle and wins her.  They all fall into the pit of misery, the mire of journalism, the morass of the book-trade.  These mendicants go round like gleaners, picking up biographical articles, 'tartines', news-in-brief columns on the newspapers or else write books bespoken by the shrewd-minded pedlars of scrawl who prefer a piece of nonsense they can sell in a fortnight to a masterpiece which stays long on their hands.  These caterpillars, squashed before they can turn into butterflies, live on shame and infamy: they're ready to bite or boost budding talent at the bidding of some pasha from the Constitutionnel, the Quotidienne or the Journal des Débats, on a hint from the publishers, at the request of a jealous colleague or often in return for a dinner.  Those who get over the obstacles forget the squalor of their beginnings.  I myself spent six months putting the best of my wit into some articles for a scoundrel who passed them off as his own and, on the strength of these samples, was put in charge of a feuilleton; he didn't take me on as a collaborator; he didn't even pay me five francs; and yet, when I meet him I'm obliged to shake hands with him.'

'But why?' Lucien asked with proud resentment.

'Because I may need to get a dozen lines into his feuilleton,' Lousteau coldly replied."

--Honoré de Balzac, Lost Illusions 

then as now

"One has no choice but to resign oneself to new ways, to the invasion of democratic literature as to the arrival of all other democracies.  It matters little whether it hurts more in literature.  [It is in line] with our electoral and industrial customs that everyone may have his page."

--Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve, quoted in Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu, The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth-Century Media Culture.

another one gone

As you all probably know, popular teen author Kurt Vonnegut has died.  I can't say I ever read any of his books, but I did enjoy Martin Amis' profile of him in The Moronic Inferno.  From its conclusion:

"There was Dresden, a beautiful city full of museums and zoos—man at his greatest. And when we came up, the city was gone . . . The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited. "

"And who was that?"

"Me. I got several dollars for each person killed. Imagine."

the paperless gallery

Kriston comment on a new site, Artworld Salon, which he learned of from Edward_, and says that "it's less about art than about movers & shakers."  To put it in a bit more neutral terms, the posts so far, at least to the extent that I've seen, are mostly about the art world as art market--the authors disavow Gawkerforum-like topics, vowing that they "intend to steer clear of who-ate-what-where-with-whom-last-night coverage," but who-sold-what-at-what-price definitely seems to be on the agenda.  Nothing wrong with any of that, of course, and the range of topics is broader than mere market-watching, but that's certainly a central part of it.  It might be more accurate to say that the site primarily deals with the sociology of the art market, though that's probably not exact, either. 

One post that caught my eye concerned exhibition catalogs (here meaning for a current artist in a gallery show, not so much a scholarly catalog for a, say, Rembrandt exhibition, not to say there's no points in common between the two enterprises.)  The author, Marc Spiegler, writes

What purpose does a catalog serve today? In the old days, as I understand it, catalogs were the way in which those who missed the show could get some sense for it. But today it’s hardly the best way of transmitting such information. No, that would be an exhibition-specific website, with 1) its unlimited potential for showing images (and video, and multiple views of objects or installations), 2) the possibility of allowing virtual visits through the space so you can “see” how the works resonate with each other, 3) the option to add ancillary material such as reviews and articles discussing the show and, 4) instantaneous, eternal and inexpensive global distribution.

There's much to agree with here, and I, for one, thought that the website for the Yale Center for British Art's Art and Music in Britain: Four Encounters exhibit was a wonderful thing to have if no catalog was to be done (although I'd note again that here we're talking about a historical, museum show.)  One significant disagreement I have, however, is with the "eternal" business.  I'd bet on a good catalog, especially one of enough interest to be bought by some libraries, to outlast a website any day.  As wonderful as these internets are, preserving digital media, websites, etc., is a real pain if someone is not really paying attention to it--and over time, it's pretty likely that someone won't.  Not to mention whatever further technological changes come, what that might mean for migrating a site, etc., and you've got a whole lot of headaches a bound book will never face.  I'd also quibble with the idea (expressed in comments and implicit in the post) that websites are better for images.  They may be better in the sense that more can be put up (assuming the artist is cooperating, and there's no need to pay extra fees for each additional image), but limited size of browser windows and the variability in quality of monitor display (especially regarding color) are significant downsides that print can avoid.  I also agree with the idea that lengthy essays are best in print and not online, though whether they are a good thing at all I'll leave to others.

I think Spiegler's right to say that a catalog performs a validation function, and a catalog will do better in those terms than a website both in its permanence and general thingness.  I can speak for myself in that, when I'm considering whether an exhibit would be worth writing seriously about (I mean in a piece that either would be a long, thought-out post here, or published elsewhere), the existence of a catalog is one factor I consider (here I'm mostly talking about museum shows, however.)  It's not the only factor, and not a definite rule, but I'm less likely to think that the organizers of the show feel they've put something together of lasting importance if there's no catalog.

On a final note, while Spiegler may feel that the "wasted paper and postage involved" in sending him free catalogs is "unconscionable," I think I could rest very easy at night if people were mailing them to me.

grab bag

First, from Ken Johnson's article in the Globe on Karen Finley, her career since those crazy days of the early '90's, and her new exhibit at Emerson:

Bill Arning, curator at MIT's List Visual Arts Center, is another ardent Finley supporter. "She looks for those areas in culture where we have a collective denial, and she makes them apparent so we have to deal with them," he says by phone. "Having watched the feeding frenzy at the Armory Show [the giant New York art fair] this weekend, I am hoping for a new wave of art students making politically engaged, non-commodifiable art. They could not find a better role model for that than Karen Finley." Plus, opines Arning, "She makes really beautiful drawings."

I think someone needs to listen to what they are saying.

Moving on, Geoff Edgers flagged this first, but I'm pleased to see that an exhibition of my old college friend Neal Walsh's paintings won an award from the New England chapter of the International Association of Art Critics for "Best Show in a Commercial Gallery, New England."  Greg Cook has the full list, and asks the question, are New England's local artists not museum worthy?

Lastly, Gary Schwartz sees the "Pollock" discovery and controversy as a matter of art history repeating itself.  I am especially pleased to read Dr. Schwartz's take, as I currently reveling in his lastest, The Rembrandt Book, about which you shall no doubt have more to read soon.  I don't want to get ahead of myself, but here are some words the book calls to mind: "lucid," "judicious," "magisterial."  So, you know, it's good.

don't open the envelope!

"You saw the eyes bulge suddenly like that, as though something had happened inside him, and there was that glitter.  You knew something had happened inside him, and  thought:  It's coming.  It was always that way.  There was the bulge and the glitter, and there was the cold grip way down in the stomach as though somebody had laid ahold of something in there, in the dark which is you, with a cold hand in a cold rubber glove.  It was like the second when you come home late at night and see the yellow envelope of the telegram sticking out from under your door and you lean and pick it up, but don't open it yet, not for a second.  While you stand there in the hall, with envelope in your hand, you feel there's an eye on you, a great big eye looking straight at you from miles and dark and through walls and houses and through your coat and vest and hide and sees you huddled up way inside, in the dark which is you, inside yourself, like a clammy, sad little foetus you carry around inside yourself.  The eye knows what's in the envelope, and it is watching you to see you when you open it and know, too.  But the clammy, sad little foetus which is you way down in the dark which is you too lifts up its sad little face and its eyes are blind, and it shivers cold inside you for it doesn't want to know what is in that envelope.  It wants to lie in the dark and not know, and be warm in its not-knowing.  The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can't know.  He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him.  He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it, would save him.  There's the cold in your stomach, but you open the envelope, you have to open the envelope, for the end of man is to know."

--Robert Penn Warren