Many found something to disagree with in last week's post about art criticism, myself included. It failed to seriously grapple with either the LA Times article that had people talking, or with Kriston's post to which I referred. Now, with a response up by Kriston and a number of comments made, perhaps I can offer a bit more adequate discussion in reply.
I'd have to say right away that the tone of my first post was marred from the outset. I blame the movies. Kriston quite rightly noted the position film has attained in cultural life and that newspaper and other arts coverage has followed suit. The thing is, for the most part, I can't stand watching films. I used to be a little better about it, but aside from a small group of old favorites or a very rare new one, I can't watch. It may be the ever-shrinking attention span, it may be part of my general resistance to art that unfolds in time, perhaps a bit of both. So another reminder of film's current high status didn't sit well, but nevertheless, I should have expressed myself better.
My offhand remark regarding middlebrow culture in the same post brought forth a few skeptical comments. I tried to explain myself there, and would do so here, but why channel my inner Teachout when we can turn to the man himself? Terry's reflections from last year on the now-defunct middlebrow consensus, its strengths and weaknesses, goes over the territory better than I could (I would add Alastair Cooke and Omnibus to the outlets he mentions.) It's gone now, with only a few vestiges here and there, and there are many reasons not to mourn it. We have more choices today; and even in middlebrow's broad reach, some perspectives were excluded or at least restrained. But to the extent one worries about mass media not paying attention to visual (and other) art, the passing of middlebrow culture must be acknowledged as a loss.
In saying this, I suppose I'm admitting that I care more about the question than my earlier post title, a poor borrowing from Edmund Wilson, acknowledged. I'm not sure I'd go along with the writer who, in the Jan Herman post Kriston linked to, calls the closing of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia a sign of a "new Dark Age" on the horizon. It's that sort of imbalanced perspective that makes me want to ask "who cares" once again.
Among the most interesting comments I received was the one reproduced below, from Vvoi of New Art:
1) the word "enlightenment" sounds scary. makes me think of foucault and his critique of language as power. this seems to be (?) extremely hierarchical thinking, with high and low art, the worthy and the unworthy. i believe the contemporary art philosopher richard shusterman has an answer or two to this sort of perspective.
2) indeed, a lot of new art doesn't want that kind of a role, maybe because it's extremely heavy, doesn't allow for a real space of dialogue, there is space for the enlightened ones and the others, who have to "understand" in order to be "enlightened", which is very undialogical, so to speak (though i could have come up with a prettier word).
it seems to me the question of access and accessibility is different today than it was, say, 50 years ago. i've written on my blog about the podcasted guided tours of the moma. it often appears to be more about reaching the spectator than about portraying/analyzing/introducing the work in a "authoritative" or "competent" way. yes, maybe it's the moving away from the discourse of competence?
I've been trying to keep this discussion focused on more immediate questions than the sort of philosophical concerns this comment raises, so I'm not going to go into great depth right now. I'd also acknowledge that I probably have tossed around the terms "high art" and "low art", if not in these posts then surely elsewhere. I've done so, if for no other reason, than the terms are well enough understood to function as descriptive placeholders. I think at this point, most everyone understands that the allegedly high and low feed each other in all sorts of different ways. So I don't really share Vvoi's concerns. For that matter, I believe that a site that features writing about "high" visual art but is named after a "low" art garage rock song - that also spends a lot of time talking about pop music and is one of the internet's foremost sites of Merle Haggard blogging - may not, in fact, be in the business of making extreme hierarchical distinctions between art forms.
As for finding the term "enlightenment" scary, I know this view comes with an impressive pedigree, but I don't find it very persuasive or even helpful. Not to be flip, but I don't generally find words or ideas scary; to say that one is seems more like an attempt to close off an area of discussion than anything else. While I've learned from Foucault at times, when I try to sort out my thought regarding the Enlightenment, I find myself mediating between Gadamer and Habermas. I wrote in comments that edification was really my point of emphasis; that probably needs more elaboration, but I'm thinking of everything from the impulse behind the creation of the great parks and museums of the nineteenth century right through the middlebrow culture discussed above. There is an educational component here, but it is, to my thinking, a highly democratic and open one. As for Richard Shusterman, I'm not deeply familiar with his work and the comment above doesn't really, um, enlighten. I'd have to say that what I know he's said at times regarding how the end of modernity doesn't necessarily mean the end of art seems to me to be more like what I have to say about art criticism than opposed to it.
This post is, as so often happens, petering out rather than truly concluding. I may return to some of the points above if I have time. I'd like to end by noting that I'm interested in the museum podcasting phenomenon as well, but in this context I don't think it's entirely positive. I'm sure a lot of people will have a good time with it, and that's fine. I'm sure it's more fun than a regular museum audio tour. But it's still an audio tour, and they stink in so many ways. By being more interesting, the podcast may even be more pernicious than official ones - it only adds to the reasons people have to not pay attention to the art itself but rather, in this case, to the ironic, amusing, affecting, etc., audio. And I have to say, I am very skeptical about any embrace of a move away of a "discourse of competence". I'm all for people encountering the museum in their own way, but it seems to me that the only ones who would really benefit from that move are those who already possess competence. The point is, or should be, to spread and share competence, not to drive it out.
Thank you for the interest in my comment. When reading your ponderated analysis, I felt as you mentioned you had felt before, i.e., that I didn't take the necessary time to calmly show not only my point, but also some perspective, some self-criticism or self-moderation. This, I must say, is due mainly to the total lack of time in the last days - which does not prevent me from spoiling myself in blog-reading (and reacting), but does make it easier to over-simplify, or write plain silly. The reference to Shusterman without explaining anything was mainly because of that rush. Personally I find people referring to (especially philosophical) authors without explaining a thing quite arrogant. I am still out of time though, so in the meantime let me refer you to three sites that might serve as an introduction to his thought on high and low art: a seriously oversimplified one, a slightly "poppy" oversimplified one, and a heavy duty philosophical one (an interview, actually). I hope to have some time for a calmer discussion in slightly over a week (=ages in blog time...)
Posted by: Vvoi | May 31, 2005 at 05:01 PM
JL: I think we're on the same page on movies. I don't see many ouside the sensory-driven, roller-coaster ride variety (like Star Wars). Potentially as a reaction, I admit, to the degree to which it occupies this middlebrow consensus; also as an actual, visceral reaction to the limitations of the genre, I don't pay much attention to them or seek out the best movies.
Posted by: Kriston | May 31, 2005 at 09:48 PM