Re: Re: Re: Regarding The

Hi

I find this discussion extremely interesting – and indeed I wish I
could be a more eloquent speaker on the subject – here goes anyway.

I'll start with just a critique – just to form my thoughts – read
between the lines, please

Geert
http://nznl.com

On 9-aug-2005, at 6:33, Eryk Salvaggio wrote:

>
> Hi Joe,
>
> I would challenge the idea that there is no physical manifestation
> of even the most purely conceptual art. If it can be recieved by
> another person, then it has a medium. The only completely
> conceptual piece, then, is an idea no one talks about.

And I'd say the "talking about it" is what makes a work of art
culturally important – think about how much is said about
Michelangelo's David on a daily basis. You might retort that there
could be important works that nobody talks about – that would indeed
mean that these works have conceptual, ie unrealised, importance.
These works might not be talked about YET. Undiscovered. Or yet to be
made.

>
> It would seem to me that you're advocating language into a
> particular corner here, with the idea that since words are the
> simplest and most direct form of elucidation we have at our
> disposal, then we should use language for that purpose, and art for
> purposes that extend beyond our linguistic landscape. I'll say
> that's a choice, though it's not a choice I make. I feel that
> whatever can be signified can be signified in an endless number of
> ways. You can write a play or a song about the same ideas, and
> signify them in a whole new way. But to dismantle or draw new
> connections between concepts is a real challenge, and this can be
> done through a reinvention of them, which is the role art plays in
> our brains.
>
> After all, an art object is still signifying, it's a stand in for
> something else, a representation of an emotion or idea or event.

But that's the main issue, isn't it? How do we know that art is a
representation? Language builds its own reality. Is there something
out there, or is it just us, talking?

> The idea of conceptual art, to elicit the response from the
> thoughts it evokes, instead of from an art object, is essentially
> the same thing once it gets behind our eyeballs. Whether it's
> flowing to the amygdala or the cerebral cortex depends more on the
> ideas within us already that are evoked by the piece, or the idea.
> I have had emotional responses to conceptual art; I've had
> intellectualized responses to physical art. Both are valid, and
> they are not mutually exclusive.
>
> It's clear you and I make different choices about what interests
> us, but I just wanted to step up to the plate and put in a defense
> of the conceptual side of things.
>
> -e.
>
>
>
> —– Original Message —– From: <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 9:04 PM
> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: Regarding The
>
>
>
>> I just received an email regarding Charlotte's article, my
>> comments and Curt's additional support links.
>>
>> Please post your comments here as this is what these boards are
>> for and it's more fun when we get to share. :)
>>
>> To put my comments above more succinctly, ideas are ultimately
>> only capable of being broken down into smaller groups of words.
>> The clearest way to elucidate various word-groups (ideas) is to
>> use more words to attempt a further clarification.
>>
>> That is why I am not creating an animated gif here to explain this
>> concept. A visual/sculptural/audio etc. "something" happening
>> here would be ridiculous in place of this simple explanation of my
>> "concept".
>>
>> When it comes to those things we can never clearly communicate
>> (justice, love, the religious impulse etc) we turn to the arts as
>> a higher form of communication than the mundanities of the 1=1
>> reasoning of facts that and the left brained prejudices that the
>> advent of language (particularly phonetic alphabets and
>> typography) created in our species.
>>
>> The root of "Philosophy"is "Philos", LOVE!
>>
>> The Philosophy of an Art that is purely "conceptual" is an
>> intellectual mistake. It says more about onanistic ritual-in which
>> the "realized" object becomes a fetish-than it does about the
>> potency of the artist in his/her ability to move the viewer.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> +
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>> -> questions: [email protected]
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>> 29.php
>>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/
> subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/
> 29.php
>

>curt cloninger wrote:

> Joe Nolan wrote:


Truman Capote wrote:

It must have been the spring of 1950 or 1951, since I have lost my notebooks detailing those two years. It was a warm day late in February, which is high spring in Sicily, and I was talking to a very old man with a mongolian face who was wearing a black velvet Borsalino and, disregarding the balmy, almond-blossom-scented weather, a thick black cape.

The old man was Andre Gide, and we were seated together on a sea wall overlooking shifting fire-blue depths of ancient water.

The postman passed by. A friend of mine, he handed me several letters, one of them containing a literary article rather unfriendly toward me (had it been friendly, of course no one would of sent it).

After listening to me grouse a bit about the piece, and the unwholesome nature of the critical mind in general, the great French master hunched, lowered his shoulders like a wise old . . . shall we say buzzard?, and said, "Ah, well. Keep in mind an Arab proverb: 'The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.'"

Or, "the rabid coyotes encroach as the caravan is forced to circle the wagons and chase its own tail in a self-referential ouroboros/mobius strip of rapidly decreasing relevance."

meow,
curt

-

M. River wrote:

> >curt cloninger wrote:
>
> > Joe Nolan wrote:
>
>
> Truman Capote wrote:
>
> It must have been the spring of 1950 or 1951, since I have lost my
> notebooks detailing those two years. It was a warm day late in
> February, which is high spring in Sicily, and I was talking to a very
> old man with a mongolian face who was wearing a black velvet Borsalino
> and, disregarding the balmy, almond-blossom-scented weather, a thick
> black cape.
>
> The old man was Andre Gide, and we were seated together on a sea wall
> overlooking shifting fire-blue depths of ancient water.
>
> The postman passed by. A friend of mine, he handed me several letters,
> one of them containing a literary article rather unfriendly toward me
> (had it been friendly, of course no one would of sent it).
>
> After listening to me grouse a bit about the piece, and the
> unwholesome nature of the critical mind in general, the great French
> master hunched, lowered his shoulders like a wise old . . . shall we
> say buzzard?, and said, "Ah, well. Keep in mind an Arab proverb: 'The
> dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.'"

In this scenario the paradigmatic artist is Road Runner. Or possibly
the Mynah Bird.

- Rob.

On 10 Aug 2005, at 19:19, curt cloninger wrote:

> Or, "the rabid coyotes encroach as the caravan is forced to circle
> the wagons and chase its own tail in a self-referential ouroboros/
> mobius strip of rapidly decreasing relevance."