The Logical Consequence

"'Art for art' is a tactical slogan, a necessary rebellion against philistine didacticism and political control. But pressed to its logical consequences, it is pure narcissism."

- George Steiner

Betrayed by Philosophers!

I learned yesterday that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari are wrong. At least, one of their most often employed "real world" examples of multiplicity (their concept of the Rhizome, or rhizomatic thought) is misleading.

The two philosophers famously claim that a blade of grass grows always from the middle out, and is therefore an embodiment of pluralistic, non-linear thinking. In fact, a blade of grass does not grow in this way. It grows from the base up!

Where the blade attaches to the plant stem, the intercalary meristem resides. (This meristem is distinct from the apical meristem, which is usually found at the tip of a stem or root.) The intercalary meristem generates new cell growth and, by doing so, extends the blade of grass from the bottom up, not from the middle out. Thus, when you cut grass, new growth occurs.

Damn it, Deleuze and Guattari! How many years have I been using this flawed analogy, thinking it was so exact? Well, the more you know...

Take one down, pass it around...

The New Yorker's recent Art & Architecture issue includes a profile of the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija. In Calvin Tompkins' "Shall We Dance?," the artist comes off as a thoughtful, sensitive man, but I struggle to appreciate Tiravanija's artwork.

Tiravanija rightly champions direct action/interaction as a way of "making a difference" in the world. Most of his work deals with community or shared experience, and performative aspects are simultaneously highlighted and dismissed. While I grasp the conceptual underpinning and moral imperative of his projects, they are almost devoid of aesthetic appeal. More problematically (for a post-aesthetics artist like Tiravanija), judged alongside the heroic efforts of citizen activists or humanitarian lobbyists, his projects are superficial and uninspiring.

Although I run the risk of constructing a straw man by focusing on an artwork some readers will deem uncharacteristic of Tiravanija, I'll highlight an early installation described in the Tompkins' article.

"[Randy] Alexander served Rolling Rock beer at the opening, because he could get it at a discount. 'Rirkrit liked the bottles,' he remembers. 'I stacked them up in their original cartons and we made a piece out of it.' The effect that Rirkrit and his work have on some people is not easily explicable. Gavin Brown, who came in one day, was working then for Lisa Spellman at the increasingly influential 303 Gallery, but he thought of himself as an artist - he had gone to art school in London. Something about the four cases of stacked green bottles pierced his soul. 'It irritated me so much!' he remembers. 'Beer bottles in their cardboard cases, all empty, tops off. It wasn't like a found object - there was so much more to it than that. I could feel this in waves, even though there almost nothing to it. It was an object that seemed to say, 'You don't realize how little everything else matters.' I couldn't get it out of my head.'"

I laughed when I read the above, finding the beer bottle enterprise absurd, s revelation of head-up-ass art world pretensions. To be fair, Tiravanija might have intended to at once skewer the art world's skeptical nature and the art world's credulousness, two seemingly contradictory, but inextricably linked impulses. Many art viewers harbor an unfortunate closed-mindedness that results in their thinking, "Hey, a beer bottle is a beer bottle and art is art," while others are readily willing to accept any work in a gallery as "high art."

But I don't think that way, and I don't believe that most people do. Like the laconic photographer in "American Beauty," I'm often overwhelmed by the mundane (even if plastic bags are now considered terribly passe!). As hackneyed a notion as it may be, it's no less true that the smallest of gestures can offer profound epiphanies; nothing should be easily dismissed.

Reminding myself of this, I try to imagine my own, unbiased reaction to Tiravanija's beer bottle stack. I enter the gallery and stand before the Rolling Rocks "in their cardboard cases, all empty, tops off," and I feel......very little, excepting a formal appreciation (and some fond recollections of college binge drinking). This viewer needs more substance.

Formalism alone is never enough to satisfy a hungry mind. Minimalism, the "movement" most art historians consider the very pinnacle of formalism, is associated with transcendence. Consider the accepted criticism on Mark Rothko, for example. Purely aesthetic or formal experience can more easily allow for a turning off of the brain machine, a halting of the buzzing undercurrent. A convincing argument can therefore be made that formalism is pragmatic in the same way that advanced meditation is.

Surely this explains the quiet pleasure I experience when contemplating a good Barnett Newman painting. When conscious consideration is applied to the same Newman, however, I'm no longer wholly satisfied. After all, I can achieve the same sort of bliss, if it's fair to call it that, staring at a tree, an etched subway window or, occasionally, practicing yoga; more importantly, all of these non-art activities are more enjoyable ways for me to "transcend."

Complicating matters further, Tiravanija's beer bottle piece, like all readymades, relies on the context provided by a gallery or museum. Once Duchamp reminded us that "anything" could be art, we, as a culture, should have learned that lesson.

Honest artists will agree that the construction site across the street from the Chelsea warehouse is no less exciting, beautiful or intellectually stimulating than the objects on display inside. The whole world is a web of intricate artworks, from the used urinal to the non-coding protein. Why should Tiravanija's Rolling Rock bottles be more significant, or more beautiful, when stacked in the gallery than they are when stacked in the corner of a frat house? How many Sunday mornings have you spent long minutes watching the play of light off an empty beer bottle on the coffee table, following the refracted beam to the wall, colored now a pale brown, lime green or urine yellow? Tiravanija's bottles don't say, "You don't realize how little everything else matters" any more than do innumerable other objects and moments!

It strikes me as curious that Gavin Brown used the word "irritated" to describe his reaction to the Rolling Rock stack. Have we reached a point where we need to be reminded how to look at things from outside of ourselves, how to exist in the moment, whether via contextualized readymades or horrible natural disasters?

The Rolling Rock bottles are, in the end, impotent; the same can be said of most of Tiravanija's work. His gesture and intent are pure enough, but outside of the insulated - some would say "padded" - walls of the art community, his work communicates little of substance. Tiravanija succeeds, in my mind, only when he removes himself from such a context, as he does in Thailand, by working with the existing, local structures to build better safety nets and generate support for the arts and education. This localized, less celebrated effort is certain to be his legacy.

Considering Excavations

On Tuesday night I attended a cocktail reception at Mixed Greens' new Chelsea digs, a nice, contemporary space with a comfortable flow. The reception was billed as a private affair and there were only twenty to thirty people in attendance, making art viewing and navigation easy.

The affair was pleasant enough; I sipped white wine and shuffled about the room, chatting with an artist friend of mine who had spent the day studying for the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). When I applied to art graduate programs in 1999, no schools requested GRE scores, so I was surprised to learn that Stanford, a program on my friend's list, does so. In most respects, I feel that the requirement is a good one; too many artists lack a liberal arts grounding. My friend, however, but pointed out that the GRE isn't a reliable measure of general knowledge, even if it does provide review committees with some sense of an applicant's aptitude. We moved to the bar area, refilled our empty plastic cups and the conversation moved in some other direction.

Still, this is a concern that I return to regularly. Many contemporary artists, despite the impressive sums they (or their family) have spend on graduate schooling, are un(der)educated, ignorant especially of literature, science, and history. This cultural and intellectual illiteracy compromises their work. Little wonder so many artists draw only on their immediate experience or the events of the day without regard to context beyond art world borders!

Some of the onus for this failure must be placed on the art world itself. When applying to art graduate programs, prospective students have a better chance of being accepted if they are familiar with "the system." Attending an undergraduate program with a "fine arts" focus, rather than a general liberal arts college with multi-disciplinary requirements, makes the applicant more art world savvy. These fine arts undergrad programs are essentially high-priced trade schools; the young artist is an apprentice. Their time in these stepping stone institutions prepares them well for many aspects of the art world - whether graduate school applications, grant writing, or mastery of art speak - but it leaves them unable to discuss the similarity between Shakespeare and H. L. Mencken or the political factors which led to the twentieth century's European nationalism. In fact, some of the artists I know deride such knowledge as esoteric (or "nerdy") and conversations about these subjects as self-consciously "heady." (Last week's "The Significance of Pluto to the Waterboy" essay addresses this anti-intellectual posturing.)

But what serious artist wouldn't want to learn as much as possible and, more importantly, apply it? T.H. White's Merlin, in "The Once and Future King," puts it well.

“You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing that the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”

Personally, I agree with the wizard's prescription, but it doesn't apply universally. A great many ignorant people are perfectly happy! Still, the work of even the happiest, un(der)educated artist risks cultural irrelevance because it is too tied to art world insularity.

The celebrated art critic Donald Kuspit insists that most contemporary art "reifies innovation into novelty and upsets the balance, leaving a disspirited intellectuality in its wake." Indeed, the art world's decision to prioritize innovation is an imaginative failure. Moreover, the work produced in the quest for novelty is usually (and paradoxically) unoriginal, overly indebted to art world and auction house trade winds.

The variety of art world artist that I'm critiquing might be characterized as Archilochus's hedgehog, the creature that knows only one "big thing." The hedgehog is a specialist, in the context of the art world, shaped by trade school and the market. The fox, according the Archilochus, is a generalist, an animal that knows many things, but nothing so well as the hedgehog knows his or her one. Not surprisingly, I gravitate toward artwork made by foxes whose excavations are broad, even if their digs are more shallow. Digging deeply in just one spot will eventually make your work irrelevant to all but those who share your particular focus.

Bear in mind that, compared to most contemporary artists, I'm an intellectual conservative. I might even be labelled something of a traditionalist. Although I champion cultural relativism, I detest postmodern approaches to philosophy or morality; I'm as much a realistic pragmatist as I am a progressive dreamer, and I'm often out of step with contemporary aesthetic thinking. When I find a work of art frivolous, cloying or stupid, it's likely that other artists and critics will agree that it is superior, possibly even historically important!

Alvin Lustig, the twentieth century designer, believed that

"modernism reflected larger social goals of integrating art and life, blurring the boundaries that had separated high art and utilitarian object. As he put it, 'If I seem to place a heavy mantle of responsibility on the shoulders of those who are really only expected to make nice shapes and colors, it is because history demands it. Every act that allows productive facilities to serve only itself, contributes inevitably to the threat of destruction that already looms on the horizon.'"

That a work engages the intellect or is truly utilitarian is important to me. Lustig may have considered only architecture and graphic design capable of fulfilling these requirements, but I feel strongly that the best contemporary painting, drawing and sculpture can communicate in as vital a way as the walls of Lascaux. Centuries have complicated our interpretation of images, and necessitated that we process a great deal more information than our forebears, but we remain the essential ape.

Photo credit: ripped from mathscareers.org

The Significance of Pluto to the Waterboy

Reading the science section of a recent edition of The Manchester Guardian, I learned that Pluto, the ninth planet from the sun, is "about to lose [planet] status." In light of new revelations regarding "the 10th object" (what an Orwellian name!), astronomers are reconsidering Pluto's classification, and many have decided that it should be deemed a "trans-Neptunian" or "minor" planet. Duncan Steel, an astronomer and comet researcher, thinks such a designation ridiculous.

"[Using] the term planet should be by public acclaim and not through the arrogant arguments of scientists. The nine planets are planets because the public thinks so."

I'm inclined to agree, but reading the Guardian article, I found myself thinking not about the heavens but about the state of American intellectualism.

The word "intellectual" makes most people groan; often I am no exception. Years ago, my father explained to me the important distinction between an intellectual thinker and an Intellectual with a capital "I.". When the word is used as a noun, he cautioned me, it points to pretension and hubris. In this form, it is most often employed by groups of over-educated urbanites sharing similar curriculum vitae. As an adjective, however, the word is to be cherished, for it suggests thoughtfulness, a willingness to engage complexity and more fully examine the dirty details. Most people do not distinguish between these two different uses of the word. Indeed, today it is most often used as a pejorative. (The spread of American anti-intellectualism has been discussed at great length in any number of papers, magazines and journals and I don't aspire to - nor am I equipped to - add anything original here.)

With respect to the lower-case meaning of "intellectual," Duncan Steel's comment warrants more attention. "The nine planets are planets because the public thinks so." True. No matter how many scientists rally behind the reclassification, the populace at large will still believe that there are nine planets, at least until another generation has been educated to think differently. After all, "Mary's Violet Eyes Make John Stay Up Nights Period." That's the mnemonic that we were taught as wee star-gazers and what is a solar system without the period?

Even though I now know better, Pluto will remain a planet in my mind. My thinking is mainstream, an example of the popular catchphrase, the tyranny of the majority. That Pluto is not a true planet is irrelevant because I stubbornly choose to ignore the facts. I admit to willful ignorance.

In "The Waterboy," Adam Sandler's character denies the teachings of his Colonel Sanders-esque biology professor. "Well, my momma says alligators is ornery cuz they got all them teeth and no toothbrush," he insists. When the professor corrects the misinformed student, the waterboy becomes enraged. The dynamic of the scene is extreme - the proud professor talks down to the imbecile, publicly mocking him for his faith in all things Momma - but it remains a fair reflection of contemporary American attitudes toward science, in particular, and intelligence more generally. Viewers aren't supposed to side with the informed professor, with his degree(s) and his knowledge. Instead, we are expected to champion the ignorant, but well-intentioned, boob because we are the waterboy, each and every one of us, and we won't be told how things are, certainly not by any "ivory-tower" intellectual. In other words, we refuse to be educated.

In such a climate, is it any wonder that the thoughtful practitioners of intellectual thinking have fled center stage? No longer do we celebrate the brooding, intelligent Hamlet. These days we consider the Prince of Denmark clinically depressed, in need of Zoloft and some faith in the afterlife. After all, there's no time for melancholy when everyone should be celebrating how wonderful they are. The intellectual thinkers have been reduced to the role of Iago, slipping in and out of the shadows, whispering nasty half-truths into the ears of the powerful. These arrogant scientists tell us what to think, or not think, of our planets and the deceitful bookworms of the patrician northeast insist on referencing ancient history to bemoan the current state of geo-political affairs. The majority, it would seem, no longer finds Hamlet's hand-wringing commendable or even acceptable. As the Electric Light Orchestra put it in their 1980s anthem,

"Don’t bring me down,no no no no,
I’ll tell you once more before I get off the floor
Don’t bring me down."

Another article in the same edition of The Guardian addresses this issue as a peculiarly American one, but anti-intellectualism, infectious and easy, can't remain confined within our borders. Peter Preston's book review, "What a superiority complex," critiques Lewis Lapham's recent collection of essays, "Theatre of War." Lapham, the editor of Harper's Magazine, is a remarkable verbal pugilist but his stylistic flourishes, encyclopedic knowledge and strident opinions don't always attract fanfare. As I wrote in "Lewis Lapham and the Evangelicals,"

"A year ago a co-worker told me he wouldn’t read Harper’s Magazine because 'it was just another liberal rag' edited by an 'insufferable egotist.' While I won’t deny the first charge, I am less inclined to accept the latter. Admittedly, Lewis Lapham’s monthly contribution ('Notebook'), typically three or four pages of rhetoric following the reader letters, ranges from excellent to unreadable. Lapham is a gifted wordsmith enamored of his craftsmanship; such writers can make splendid editors, but with their own work are as prone to failure as they are eloquence."

Despite his faults, Lapham's is a vital voice. I consider his magazine - and Harper's clearly belongs to Lapham - one of the best publications in circulation today. Preston shares my high regard for Lapham.

"The editor of Harper's magazine writes like a dream, researches like a punctilious professor of classical history and finds his lonely judgments vindicated time and again...Is Lapham an adornment to American journalism? Absolutely. Is his critique of wars not worth the fighting perceptive and exhilarating? Often better than that."

Yet Preston realizes Lapham is part of a tiny minority, one that "if not silent, [exists] only in a few small corners of intellectual refinement." In Preston's eyes, Lapham is a victim of American anti-intellectualism and he identifies with the man - it often seems most of Europe feels this way - but Preston moves beyond mere admiration by smartly analyzing the failures of the American intellectual elite.

"The difficulty - and it is a difficulty - is that the good side comes with a greyer side that readers outside America can't ignore, a built-in impotence verging on tragic irrelevance....[Lapham] and his fellow sages sit on the peripheries...because, in part, they choose to; because the sidelines fit their sense of rectitude and superior self better. It's a terrible shame."

It is a shame. It's a shame that the thoughtful folks don't emerge from stage left to take charge of the country. Less than a century ago, the United States was still guided by thinkers - rather than populists like George W. Bush or shrewd schmoozers like Bill Clinton - and the now familiar lament that intellectual individuals are weak-willed and incapable of decision-making is disproven by the likes of Franklin Roosevelt and, long before him, Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps if we were offered better role models the hostility and defensiveness would fade.

As things stand, the only popular refuge for intellectual thinkers is satire, a haven for sharp-tongued wits trading in melancholia. John Stewart and Stephen Colbert succeed by disguising their thoughtfulness; their exasperated looks and smarmy monologues have found favor with an audience idealistic enough to be disturbed by contemporary doings, but too cautious to raise their own voices. No one wants to be called out.

A girl walks down the street with several friends. Reacting to something another of the group says, she responds,

"Actually, Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore."

"What? Are you serious?"

"Yeah, it doesn't really qualify...it never did, but they've officially demoted it now."

"You are such a dork!" (wrinkling up his face and speaking in an uptight tone, a friend continues) "Um...act-u-ally, you guys...Pluto isn't technically a planet."

The group all breaks out in laughter and the girl sheepishly smiles. After all, it was a pretty dorky thing to point out.

And so it goes.

Photo credit: Touchstone still from "The Waterboy"

Absolutely Relative

“In his homily to his fellow-cardinals, on the first morning of their conclave, Cardinal Ratzinger had warned that modern society was threatened by a 'dictatorship of relativism.' But it might have been more accurate to say that it is threatened by a dictatorship of absolutisms, including his own. This is a world in the tightening grip of orthodoxy, of literal ‘truths’ and crusading certainties…”
-Jane Kramer, “Holy Orders” (The New Yorker, May 2, 2005

Though Kramer turns a nice phrase in her Talk of the Town piece, her conclusions are too neat. While it's true that the Bush administration is comprised of a veritable Who’s Who of moral absolutists and that the conservative evangelical crusade embraces relative absolutism (i.e., the execution of criminals is morally sanctioned, whereas the abortion of unwanted babies is not), the western world at large is dominated by relativism, not absolutism.

Post-modern thought, the dominant intellectual force in our time, is grounded in relativism. Relativism, of course, can be a very positive thing, allowing for empathy and more complex analysis. As Jean-Paul Sartre argued, relativism grants an individual the moral perspective needed to pass judgment fairly.

Unfortunately, relativism has a dark side, too. Although it's good that a majority of today's youth is more willing than their parents to acknowledge complexity, their doing so often results in feelings of insignificance, even irrelevancy. These feelings engender apathy. How much easier is it to play video games than to design them? Moreover, how much easier is it to design video games than to face the challenging questions of the day? Celebrity and wealth are considered prerequisites for relevance; both are hard to come by, so why should we give a shit? Why shouldn’t we put all our stock into American Idol tryouts and the spread of corporate capital? Such questions are ultimately unanswerable if examined through a post-modern lens.

Apathy outfits the populace with blinders. A woeful lack of popular engagement in politics means that politicians have an easier time passing suspect legislation, legislation that drains the disenfranchised of their funds, opportunities and real estate. Compounding matters, the marketing machine has an easier time selling snake oil, stripping bare the already shallow pockets of the majority. It's a familiar scenario; our political and financial systems continue to bleed those who don’t care to involve themselves. Of late, the bleeding has become a hemorrhage.

I’m simplifying the equation; there are a great many variables that should be considered. Yet I can not disagree with Pope Benedict XVI. Modern society is in danger of becoming feudal and “the dictatorship of relativism” has much blood on its hands. So what is to be done? Can we marry some degree of absolutism with relativism?

Photo credit: uncredited