Pondering the social sculpture, P1

liza deduces:

If life is creativity and creativity is life, it cannot be sculpted, molded, qualified or quantified. Life and creativity cannot be art because they cannot be curated nor collected. Art is the attempt to apprehend the unattainable. It is a failure that some make it look
more fabulously than others.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

conceptualism and beuys aside, i think the reason people get all stuck-up on nomenclature (art, creativity, life, objects, anti-art, social dialogue/sculpture) has less to do with media discrepancies/variabilities and more to do with moral opinions of worth. if an artist seeks to attain personal enlightenment through her art, is that a worthy thing? if an artist attempts to apprehend the unattainable, is that a worthy thing? if an artist recontextualizes a social action as art, is that a worthy thing? are social/political actions of any worth to begin with? is rearing a child of any worth? so then is rearing a child art?

more interesting to me lately – if art falls in the forest, does it make a sound? for every howard finster southern folk artist who gets some limelight and some gallery time, there are thousands of people down here welding funky yard art that only the residents of their particular cove ever see. i have a friend in the midwest who does insane graffiti art on old cars. then he and his friends get together and trash the cars. he takes pictures of this stuff and emails it out to like ten people. one time his friend accidentally punched his hand through a glass window while doing this, and they took pictures of that.

to me, that's cool. it's just normal people making cool stuff. is it performance art, an installation, videography, found objects? they don't care about any of that. they are making cool stuff. It's not the same as raising a kid, which is a beautiful, valuable thing that does require great creativity. but rearing a kid is just doing something along the allotted path of life. To do it well is like fine craftsmanship.

"We have no art," say the Balinese: "we do everything as well as possible."

Which is great, but spray painting a VW bus and then trashing it is not really along the allotted path of life. That's a different kind of "unnecessary" activity that seems more like "art" to me.

I don't have it all figured out, but I will say this: There is so much mediocre crap happening in the net art scene, it's hilarious (or sad). I get these press releases, and visit these sites, and there's just nothing to them. Strip away the theory and the "i'm-in-dialogue-with-this-current-thing-happening," and the work itself is just blank and contrived. If some of these hypermedia artists lost the familiar context of their scene, and just lived out in the middle of the woods somewhere with no one looking on, would they still be driven to make this stuff? really?

It's like all the cool hollywood films that will never get funded because they can't be spun and marketed to a big blockbuster audience. If you only make stuff that will get on somebody's net.art radar, then your stuff is going to be contrived. I dig turux.org because they are just making cool stuff. Does it fit into prescribed new media parameters? Does it qualify as networked? Who cares? Isn't it just tweaking abstract visuals using lingo scripts? Sure, but so what? It's cool.

If following Beuys leads one to make or do cool stuff, wonderful! If following Duchamp leads one to make or do cool stuff, wonderful! But if following those paths leads one to make or do a bunch of contrived, self-referential, scene-dependent, unforgivably uninteresting stuff, alas for one.

liza says:
…If life is creativity and creativity is life, it cannot be sculpted, molded, qualified or quantified. Life and creativity cannot be art because they cannot be curated nor collected. Art is the attempt to apprehend the unattainable. It is a failure that some make it look
more fabulously than others.

>these are profound and complicated observations,l. here's a comment to try to look at something in there:

you've described beauys limitations beautifully
but also: what is the aim of curating, if it does not affect the life and creativity around it, through the art or through the curating. It does anyway. You say 'Art is the attempt to apprehend the unattainable'. The attempt to apprehend the unattainable is attainable (by an author-subject), in life and creativity, (and in the monastery,) but not in art (as you mention) (as the author-subject is no longer there, only 'traces'. The failure is always there, but the attempt is not futile. It is the same with the media, and any media.

There's 'more' than a one way relationship: life>>art because the subject, the observer can, after stepping away from 'experiencing the art', do anything in life unpredictably creatively with unpredictable consequences.

so the limitation, the 'museum' socio-economic framework' that beuys operates in is a narrow evangelical vision without guarantees (no theology as you say). It is a speck in the mutiverse.

but the connections of the speck to the multiverse for each and every work: (the impact)this and its limitations are what is truly 'real'(?), [unless one has gone 'beyond' or 'anticipated' the work.]

One is still a monk but not removed from the world. no monastery either. Is the balance satisfactory. is the impact of a rhizome satisfactory. if anyone tries numbers on this, thay haven't got it yet. the rhizome extends through many unpredictable escape routes. Mark has in his statement gone beyond beuys or potentially so.

[cut-past whole link]
http://www.newlangtonarts.org/view_event.php?category=Network&archive=1&displayYear 02&&eventId5):

When does this become a movement? we dont really need an answer. just dont sell it like valery.

y

Pondering the social sculpture, P1Hi Liza

well it's good to hear the opinion of a mother

and indeed FATHERHOOD, which is the topic of the whole discussion, is much =
more problematic

Christophe

—– Original Message —–
From: Liza Sabater
To: [email protected]
Cc: thingist ; Rhizome_Raw
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 6:39 PM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Pondering the social sculpture, P1


— "t.whid" <[email protected]> wrote:

> beuy's idea of social sculpture.

Just to help locate this thought:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/apm/social_sculpture/

"Social Sculpture refers to a conception of art,
framed in the 1970s by Beuys, as an interdiscplinary
and participatory process in which thought, speech and
discussion are core 'materials'. With this perception,
all human beings are seen as 'artists' responsible for
the shaping of a democratic, sustainable social order.
Social Sculpture lifts the aesthetic from its confines
within a specific sphere or media, relocating it
within a collective, imaginative work-space in which
we can see, re-think and reshape our lives in tune
with our creative potential."




I have been following the thread and have been pondering ponderous though=
ts, especially because I am so ambivalent about Beuys and Conceptual Art in=
general. When reading your definition of social sculpture, I could only th=
ink of monasteries and convents as work spaces where people can reshape the=
ir lives in tune with their creative potential. Which is probably why Beuys=
' work has always struck me being a bit too monastic —not religious but m=
onastic; as in focused on the process of become a saint, not so much on the=
theology.


Then I read something like the following (found at http://www.walkerart.o=
rg/beuys/hyper/set_artlife.html):


Beuys rejected Duchamp's critique of Fluxus–that their ideas lacked in=
genuity since he had anticipated them. He also rejected Duchamp's anti-art =
concept, or the notion that ordinary objects are elevated to the status of =
an art object simply by being deemed as such by an artist. Beuys did not be=
lieve in the elitist isolation of the art object from everyday life, saying=
, "It has become the territory of a few intellectuals, far from the life of=
people." He renounced the distinction of the category "aesthetic" by claim=
ing "aesthetics is the human being in itself." In moving beyond this limita=
tion, he hoped to apply the artistic principle of creativity directly to so=
ciety.


And I cannot but help but say, yeah, but, boy oh Beuys, you're work is co=
llected in museums and you're included in art history books.


The moment Beuys "thingifies" creativity and exhibits it in front of a ga=
ggle of curators and critics, that is the moment that he has created art. =
The limitation that I see in Beuys is that he is more like the an evangelis=
t-cum-madman in the attic of academia, struggling to show the way to those =
who have not seen the light. Testifying that, YES, creativity can be found =
everywhere AND THUS should be embraced by the museum, the academy and the s=
alon. He cannot but help to function within that socio-economic framework.


That's great if you want to be an artist but ART is not Life. It is an as=
pect of it. Actually, Art is a spec in the multiverse of LIFE.


If everything is art, then DOMESTIC LIFE is art. MOTHERHOOD is art. Why i=
s it then that motherhood is still considered breeding and not a creative p=
rocess? Because mothers have had bad PR. Art is a commodity and the more yo=
u market your work as art, the more people will agree with you that, yes, b=
ut of course, how can I not see that it is indeed art! If I had spread my =
greatness to the world and called the birth of my children performances, th=
en I would have the cachet of being a artist. Alas! a breeding Annie Sprink=
le I am not.


If life is creativity and creativity is life, it cannot be sculpted, mold=
ed, qualified or quantified. Life and creativity cannot be art because the=
y cannot be curated nor collected. Art is the attempt to apprehend the unat=
tainable. It is a failure that some make it look more fabulously than other=
s.




Liza

Pondering the social sculpture, P1
The moment Beuys "thingifies" creativity and exhibits it in front of a
gaggle of curators and critics, that is the moment that he has created art.

This seems rather cynical to me, Liza. Perhaps you are tongue-in-cheek,
however?

I attended my first meeting of curators (I am not a curator) some months
ago. A prominent Canadian curator (I cannot remember his name, Jean
somebody-or-other from the National Gallery) said that "an artist without a
gallery is nothing".

There are basically two types of personal power. There's power that can be
bestowed on one by institutions or critics or curators or publishers or
awards committees and so on, or, in the case of other occupations, there are
other sources of power that can be bestowed on one. The other type of power
is one's own power. Not over others but within oneself.

It seems to me that Jean what's-his-name is no friend of artists when he
says what he said, for it seems to me a negation of the notion that art is
first and foremost an expression of an individual's own power and human
dignity, power not over others, but power to realize what they themselves
wish to realize. It is a gift to others of insight or song, intense
perception or joy, sadness or mystery…

The precondition of art is not exhibition and acknowledgement or place
within the institutions of art. Instead, it is the moment of insight and
awareness, mindfulness in the full context of being alive. Doris Lessing
said that "love is the delicate but total acknowledgement of what is." Art
is a recognition of the shared nature of our experience and aspirations and
stories, and an attempt to present these with their full significance
honored and acknowledged.

It makes me sad to hear 'important' curators say what the curator said. It
distances artists from the institutions. How can you work with a bozo like
that who is supposed to understand art but doesn't have a clue?

ja

Pondering the social sculpture, P1Hi Andrew,

I'm not that sure if Liz is being that cynical, some of her points are quit=
e important, adding blood to the discourse.

Yet in repsect of that curator you mentioned - I totally agree that the ind=
ividual concerned does not realize how backward such a statement as this is=
"an artist without a gallery is nothing". It is posturing nonsense. One go=
od thing about public forums such as this, is that everyone gets questioned=
which keeps us all on our toes. We get challenged by all sorts, forcing us=
to reevaluate various assumptions. This curator person, needs to be challe=
nged publicly - for such blitherings are lazy and spoilt notions, gatekeepi=
ng antics, blocking the potential for those who are breaking out of such em=
pty regime like impositions.

Having said this, I would not even bother with people like that, there are =
so many more interesting people who are more emotionally developed who do n=
ot rely on gallery systems to justify their creative explorations. There ar=
e other ways around the wall…

marc

The moment Beuys "thingifies" creativity and exhibits it in front of a =
gaggle of curators and critics, that is the moment that he has created art.=


This seems rather cynical to me, Liza. Perhaps you are tongue-in-cheek,=
however?

I attended my first meeting of curators (I am not a curator) some month=
s ago. A prominent Canadian curator (I cannot remember his name, Jean someb=
ody-or-other from the National Gallery) said that "an artist without a gall=
ery is nothing".

There are basically two types of personal power. There's power that can=
be bestowed on one by institutions or critics or curators or publishers or=
awards committees and so on, or, in the case of other occupations, there a=
re other sources of power that can be bestowed on one. The other type of po=
wer is one's own power. Not over others but within oneself.

It seems to me that Jean what's-his-name is no friend of artists when h=
e says what he said, for it seems to me a negation of the notion that art i=
s first and foremost an expression of an individual's own power and human d=
ignity, power not over others, but power to realize what they themselves wi=
sh to realize. It is a gift to others of insight or song, intense perceptio=
n or joy, sadness or mystery…

The precondition of art is not exhibition and acknowledgement or place =
within the institutions of art. Instead, it is the moment of insight and aw=
areness, mindfulness in the full context of being alive. Doris Lessing said=
that "love is the delicate but total acknowledgement of what is." Art is a=
recognition of the shared nature of our experience and aspirations and sto=
ries, and an attempt to present these with their full significance honored =
and acknowledged.

It makes me sad to hear 'important' curators say what the curator said.=
It distances artists from the institutions. How can you work with a bozo l=
ike that who is supposed to understand art but doesn't have a clue?

ja

ABSOLUTELY!
Point taken!

Liza


At 11:33 PM +0100 11/16/02, unbehagen.com wrote:
>Hi Liza
>
>well it's good to hear the opinion of a mother
>
>and indeed FATHERHOOD, which is the topic of the whole discussion,
>is much more problematic
>
>Christophe
>

At 7:25 PM -0800 11/16/02, Jim Andrews wrote:
>
>
>The moment Beuys "thingifies" creativity and exhibits it in front of
>a gaggle of curators and critics, that is the moment that he has
>created art.
>
>This seems rather cynical to me, Liza. Perhaps you are
>tongue-in-cheek, however?
>
>I attended my first meeting of curators (I am not a curator) some
>months ago. A prominent Canadian curator (I cannot remember his
>name, Jean somebody-or-other from the National Gallery) said that
>"an artist without a gallery is nothing".


Which is my point. Nowadays, art is about recognition within a
certain social and economic framework. It has nothing to do with the
power of creativity.


>
>There are basically two types of personal power. There's power that
>can be bestowed on one by institutions or critics or curators or
>publishers or awards committees and so on, or, in the case of other
>occupations, there are other sources of power that can be bestowed
>on one. The other type of power is one's own power. Not over others
>but within oneself.
>
>It seems to me that Jean what's-his-name is no friend of artists
>when he says what he said, for it seems to me a negation of the
>notion that art is first and foremost an expression of an
>individual's own power and human dignity, power not over others, but
>power to realize what they themselves wish to realize. It is a gift
>to others of insight or song, intense perception or joy, sadness or
>mystery…
>
>The precondition of art is not exhibition and acknowledgement or
>place within the institutions of art.

It should not be but it is these days.

It's funny but a lot of the artists who took to the web did so
because they were outsiders of the "art world". Now some enjoy being
inside it, others not. What I find interesting with what is being
produced on the web is that, regardless of what we call it, it is
radically changing the way we perceive creativity. That is why I am
most drawn to interactive pieces; because they blow the lid on what
is acceptable as art. I always go back to Maurice Blanchot's line
about reading: "A book that has not been read is a book that has not
been written". In other words, a book (and one could say a work of
art) is a physical, intellectual and emotional experience.

As a witness to what happens inside places like the National Gallery,
I can attest that net.art is a thorn in a lot of curators sides for
this very no-thingness. Software is not a thing. HTML is not a thing.
Even if you decided to renounce the code jockey route to net.art,
just because it is on the Internet it is not consider a thing, a
commodity (unless you print it out, put it on a CD and create a deed
to the code).

This no-thingness is what I find most exciting about the medium.
That's why, in the end, this movement is signaling the end of, not
only the gallery, but the art "world" as we know it.

/Liza

At 3:37 PM -0500 11/16/02, curt cloninger wrote:

>more interesting to me lately – if art falls in the forest, does it
>make a sound?

yes to the forest.
no to the gallery.

<snip>

>If following Beuys leads one to make or do cool stuff, wonderful!
>If following Duchamp leads one to make or do cool stuff, wonderful!
>But if following those paths leads one to make or do a bunch of
>contrived, self-referential, scene-dependent, unforgivably
>uninteresting stuff, alas for one.

hear hear

/LS

Jim Andrews wrote:

> >There are basically two types of personal power. There's power that
> >can be bestowed on one by institutions or critics or curators or
> >publishers or awards committees and so on, or, in the case of other
> >occupations, there are other sources of power that can be bestowed
> >on one. The other type of power is one's own power. Not over others
> >but within oneself.

One could safely recognize that the former is not_ power.
In fact, it'd give one a better perspective of what is going on.

Evenso, to recognize that the 'positions' in 'institutions'
need to 'match' internal capability does not bode well
when it comes to the realization that internal 'capabilities'
are_ hierarchical, and not everyone even is capable of being
a 'high' artist in the true sense of the word (devoid of
the jaded commentaries typically attached to it), because one of
the major baits of contemporary art is that 'anyone can be'.

Good luck trying to have anyone recognize that this misplacement
causes a great deal of suffering for humanity overall, however.

Moreso, another 'attractive' feature of these forums is actually
this 'great equalizer' that supposedly negates the value of
such power (which is individual authority, dignity, etc. and is_
reflected in one's work as relevant to 'authorship').

Rather the opposite, this is stampeded out by herd-like behavior,
clawing, feeding, and debasory behavior.


Liza:

> It should not be but it is these days.

No it isn't. If you want to play up to that propaganda, do so,
but acknowledge that you are CHOOSING to do so.

> It's funny but a lot of the artists who took to the web did so
> because they were outsiders of the "art world". Now some enjoy being
> inside it, others not. What I find interesting with what is being
> produced on the web is that, regardless of what we call it, it is
> radically changing the way we perceive creativity.

Actually no, it isn't. Most of you (those who've engaged in
writing) don't 'perceive' any creativity at all, but are rather
spinning your wheels in programmatic and culturally conditioned
behavior. It is in fact the medium that DICTATES to the passive
'artist' what 'creativity is'–a very crippling 'agenda'
driven by (..) (no, not a conspiracy theory)

> That is why I am
> most drawn to interactive pieces; because they blow the lid on what
> is acceptable as art.

Do they? I haven't seen anything that blows the lid on what is
acceptable as art at all. Blowing the 'lid' of what is acceptable
as art is a fairly juvenile approach to things.

Look ma–I threw a bomb. There is childish flippant destruction,
(downawd spiral) and there is destruction connected to growth
(upward spiral). The majority of activities exhibited here are
masochistic and ignorant self-destruction of the latter sort,
meanwhile closing vast avenues for actual_ artistic_ development.


> I always go back to Maurice Blanchot's line
> about reading: "A book that has not been read is a book that has not
> been written". In other words, a book (and one could say a work of
> art) is a physical, intellectual and emotional experience.

Not really.

> As a witness to what happens inside places like the National Gallery,
> I can attest that net.art is a thorn in a lot of curators sides for
> this very no-thingness.

Wishful thinking but not. No more than conceptual art is a thorn for its
no-thingness.

> Software is not a thing. HTML is not a thing.
> Even if you decided to renounce the code jockey route to net.art,
> just because it is on the Internet it is not consider a thing, a
> commodity (unless you print it out, put it on a CD and create a deed
> to the code).

It's very much a thing. What kind of thing is another issue.

> This no-thingness is what I find most exciting about the medium.
> That's why, in the end, this movement is signaling the end of, not
> only the gallery, but the art "world" as we know it.

Dramatic but untrue. This 'movement' is simply degenerating (at this
point).
The galleries will be along to sort out your corpses sooner or later.
No worries.

Mwa.

`, . ` `k a r e i' ? ' D42

> > > The precondition of art is not exhibition and acknowledgement or place within the
institutions of art.

> > It should not be but it is these days.

> No it isn't. If you want to play up to that propaganda, do so,
> but acknowledge that you are CHOOSING to do so.

I agree: it isn't. Only in the self-deluded, vain minds of the pompous pseudo-patrons is it
true. And in the minds of those who chase or dance with them.

Also, I agree that Grancher was justified in what he said.

There's a poet in Canada by the name of bill bissett who never wins awards but everywhere he
goes the house is packed and his books just get better and better. He's still poor as a
churchmouse and lives from selling his books and paintings and tapes mostly himself. And he's
more open to change and acknowledging the work of new writers than the pillars of writing. More
experimental. More compassionate. Not defending a bastion. Real, for the most part. That'll be
acknowledged when he's dead and less of a threat. Not because he's mouthy. He isn't. Just
because he's real and doesn't acknowledge the power structures of art, has better things to do.

There are such people, Liza. And, ultimately, they are the powerful ones in art. The artists.

I remember reading something Artaud wrote. In the 30s? Anyway, he said something like 'the art
scenes are a pigpen. but especially now.' maybe they're always already a pigpen, especially now.
but maybe there will be a shining day someday.

ja

Terrence writes;

Why do people get so idealistic about art work anyways? The safe academic
forms which i see as the new academy, that replaced the old one the moderns
waged a ware against are safe forms that get you into grad school. You have
to concern yourself with what is important to you and your abilities to
understand it. TO be natural about it I suppose Art is for many just
something to wile away the time and share with friends but rarely about
lofty ideals to make important statements about your life and/or times. most
art including both the new academy forms and art informal/ povera is
recyclable. Lord Thompson bought "Massacre of the Innocents" by Peter Paul
Rubens for 100 million and donated it to the Ontario Meus. ( a tax off no
doubt). So what? it like graffiti gets recycled out of its time at a huge
disparity in values. Their meanings get lost in street labels and historical
stylistic importance or monetary value. Real graffiti like the massacre of
the innocents is more important in its time then white trash drunk art or
Maybe some web art is e-white trash art, not worth consuming or wasting time
in mentioning, but if you keep working it it just might dig up a few
diamonds of insight reflecting these times.. I think it is more important
that artists get a life, then do art about it or the world through their
original voice/ web site.

T.

the remax man sold my leaky condo



>
>liza deduces:
>
>If life is creativity and creativity is life, it cannot be sculpted,
>molded, qualified or quantified. Life and creativity cannot be art because
>they cannot be curated nor collected. Art is the attempt to apprehend the
>unattainable. It is a failure that some make it look
>more fabulously than others.
>
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>conceptualism and beuys aside, i think the reason people get all stuck-up
>on nomenclature (art, creativity, life, objects, anti-art, social
>dialogue/sculpture) has less to do with media discrepancies/variabilities
>and more to do with moral opinions of worth. if an artist seeks to attain
>personal enlightenment through her art, is that a worthy thing? if an
>artist attempts to apprehend the unattainable, is that a worthy thing? if
>an artist recontextualizes a social action as art, is that a worthy thing?
>are social/political actions of any worth to begin with? is rearing a
>child of any worth? so then is rearing a child art?
>
>more interesting to me lately – if art falls in the forest, does it make a
>sound? for every howard finster southern folk artist who gets some
>limelight and some gallery time, there are thousands of people down here
>welding funky yard art that only the residents of their particular cove
>ever see. i have a friend in the midwest who does insane graffiti art on
>old cars. then he and his friends get together and trash the cars. he
>takes pictures of this stuff and emails it out to like ten people. one
>time his friend accidentally punched his hand through a glass window while
>doing this, and they took pictures of that.
>
>to me, that's cool. it's just normal people making cool stuff. is it
>performance art, an installation, videography, found objects? they don't
>care about any of that. they are making cool stuff. It's not the same as
>raising a kid, which is a beautiful, valuable thing that does require great
>creativity. but rearing a kid is just doing something along the allotted
>path of life. To do it well is like fine craftsmanship.
>
>"We have no art," say the Balinese: "we do everything as well as possible."
>
>Which is great, but spray painting a VW bus and then trashing it is not
>really along the allotted path of life. That's a different kind of
>"unnecessary" activity that seems more like "art" to me.
>
>I don't have it all figured out, but I will say this: There is so much
>mediocre crap happening in the net art scene, it's hilarious (or sad). I
>get these press releases, and visit these sites, and there's just nothing
>to them. Strip away the theory and the
>"i'm-in-dialogue-with-this-current-thing-happening," and the work itself is
>just blank and contrived.

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