conceptual art was: [best work with Flash?]

I am really at a loss for this argument. Am I right, Curt, that your
position is:

1. Art that concerns itself primarily with aesthetics is dull
2. Art that concerns itself primarily with concept is dull
3. Art that concerns itself with a little of both is just right.

Kind of a "Goldilocks and the Three Bohemians"? (Complete with artists going
to museums for porridge).

This is a doppleganger of the flash argument; I like some flash but don't
like all of it, I like conceptual art but don't like all of it, I like
aesthetic (visual/formalist/etc) art but not all of it. I like art but I
don't like all of it. Or even most of it.

In general it seems like you need to budget your critique instead of
spending it all in one place; you can't write off "conceptual art"- maybe
one day a piece of conceptual art may bowl you over, and what will you do
then?

-e.



—– Original Message —–
From: "t.whid" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 04, 2003 10:02 AM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: conceptual art was: [best work with Flash?]


> On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 11:45 AM, Curt Cloninger wrote:
> >>
> >
> > curt:
> > OK. I understand. You're right. I'm applying the term broadly.
>
> I appreciate the explanation but it raises a few more problems imo.
>
> You define these three terms but they really show no reference (which
> you concede) to what the artists were intending, to how the work was
> accepted at the time, or to how later artists built-on or reacted to
> earlier artists ideas, objects, actions etc. Not to be harsh, but they
> seem to have almost no historical knowledge whatsoever and show almost
> no knowledge of what the artists, critics, theorists, philosophers, and
> other writers of the time had to say about the work. I'm not dissing
> your definitions for simply being outside the canon, but if you want to
> redefine historical work you should have some knowledge of the thinking
> presently surrounding it. For example, you're idea of 'pure
> conceptualism' *is* the conceptual art of the 60s/70s, we don't need
> another definition.
>
> Eduardo's post gave us a very clear definition of what conceptual art
> was and how it affected later artist's approach to creating art,
> especially relevant is his description of how conceptual art effected
> artist's critical approach to their own work.
>
> >
> > 1.
> > What Eduardo defines as historical conceptualism I think of as pure
> > conceptualism or anti-object conceptualism. This is art whose medium
> > is the artist statement. I realize "idea" is supposed to be the
> > medium, but ideas can't be transfered mind to mind, so the medium in
> > fact becomes the artist statement (aka "formalistic prose text").
> > Survey says: "Boring Sidney, Boring. Exterminate! Exterminate!"
>
> that's funny. you use punk rock to dis an art movement which was
> extremely anti-establishment, a movement which questioned what many
> considered one of the basic features of art, it's "objectness" and
> funnily enough, one that has now been co-opted by the establishment
> much like punk rock has.
>
> this straw man of the 'artist's statement' being the work that you
> constantly set-up is just simply bogus. As someone who's career is
> partially that of a writer I would think it would be evident how one's
> creative work is separate from one's statement regarding that work no
> matter what form that work may take.
>
>
> >
> > 2.
> > Then there is what I would call object-incidental conceptualism, where
> > an object is used as a prop to convey an idea, but there's no real
> > aesthetic intention invested in the object. Without the artist
> > statement or the title of the piece, the object itself doesn't convey
> > much. Survey says: "Are we there yet? I have to go to the bathroom."
>
> Simply because a viewer may need some information which isn't present
> in a work to understand a work doesn't make the work any less. All
> artwork is appreciated within a human cultural construct which is
> learned. Learning a bit more info to appreciate or understand a work of
> art is sometimes necessary.
>
> >
> > 3.
> > Then there is object-intentional conceptualism, where the craft and
> > cunning invested in the object itself conveys the lion's share of the
> > concept. Survey says: "Fix me down a palette on your floor."
>
> see, this one is extremely problematic. conceptual art has nothing to
> do with the object so it's use in this context simply confuses people
> who know the historical basis of conceptual art. I think you are
> meaning all the other art movements, styles, strategies, and practices
> of the classic, renaissance, baroque, neo-classic, modern and
> post-modern periods which are not conceptual art.
>
> >
> >
> > Note also, I doubt there even exists an artistic approach that has an
> > exclusively aesthetic goal.
>
> agreed (excepting spin art), but this points to why your definitions,
> to be blunt, are useless. they define all art in relation to conceptual
> art. it's a very strange definition for someone who seems to be
> anti-conceptual art. under your definitions Da Vinci is a
> object-intentional conceptualist and that's just silly. i can make this
> point because you have included Beuys who worked before conceptual art
> occurred so he obviously couldn't be influenced by it any more than Da
> Vinci.
>
> > Even a landscape painting has some concept [here I'm using the English
> > word "concept" to mean "concept"]. No art, from Bosch to Klee, is
> > void of concept. And it seems to me the great "art" of "art" has
> > generally involved using aesthetics to address "concepts" in a less
> > than pedantic/didactic/textual/cerebral way. "Art is for all the
> > things you can't say out loud." - entropy8
> >
> > Visceral, multimedia communication is more technichally possible on
> > the web now than it was in 1996. And yet hi-res visuals are still
> > not possible. Methinks it is an interesting time to explore work that
> > falls toward the object-intentional side of my proposed conceptual
> > spectrum.
>
> but the idea of object in the digital networked realm is extremely
> problematic on it's face. no matter how bits the damn thing
> encompasses. which brings me back to my conjecture that work with uses
> conceptual strategies has found it's perfect medium in the Net and web.
>
> > In 1996, a piece like Heath Bunting's "Own, Be Owned, Or Remain
> > Invisible" (which falls toward the anti-object end of my proposed
> > conceptual spectrum) may have been the best we could do given the
> > constraints of the medium. Now we no longer HAVE to go that route.
>
> but strangely, it's just as much an object as any piece of yours.
>
> –
> <t.whid>
> www.mteww.com
> </t.whid>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
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> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
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>

Eryk Salvaggio wrote:

> Kind of a "Goldilocks and the Three Bohemians"? (Complete with artists
> going
> to museums for porridge).
>

Hey Rhizome, Long time, no see…

Here's a little something from way back in 01' for ya'll.
(comes with poor spelling AND poor code)

http://tinjail.com/concept/index.html

Enjoy.

Hi T.Whid et al.
<almost no historical knowledge
whatsoever and show almost
no knowledge of what the artists, critics,
theorists, philosophers, and
other writers of the time had to say about the work.
I'm not dissing
your definitions for simply being outside the canon,>
But this last sentence is precisely what you are
doing!
Your deployment of "art history" as if it consists of
a series of irrefutable and objective facts simply
will not do.
Who decides what 'the canon' is? -"History is written
by the victors"
It might be the case that certain ways of thinking
about art are currently hegemonic amongst curators,
academics and buyers but that *proves* nothing.
To prove something one at least has to make an
argument rather than quoting holy scripture.

<agreed (excepting spin art), but this points to why
your definitions,
to be blunt, are useless. they define all art in
relation to conceptual
art.>
I'm sure Curt can and will defend himself on this -my
reading is that he was engaged in a little bit of
independent thought here.
In fact he defines all art not in relation to
conceptual art but to the idea of 'concept' itself.
Instead of appealing to holy writ, party line or "art
history" or whatever -he goes back to a dictionary
definition and then demonstrates how it is quite
possible to see all artistic endeavour as falling some
way along a conceptual continuum to support his
altogether reasonable point that the best art (indeed
most art) contains elements of both the conceptual and
the aesthetic.
What bothers me about the response to Curt's post is
that he seems to be being attacked for the very thing
that was best about his post -the application of
striking and original thought to the problem at hand.
It's not necessary to agree with everything he says to
prefer this to the repetition of the orthodoxies of
"art history".
best
michael




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> Your deployment of "art history" as if it consists of
> a series of irrefutable and objective facts simply
> will not do.
> Who decides what 'the canon' is? -"History is written
> by the victors"
> It might be the case that certain ways of thinking
> about art are currently hegemonic amongst curators,
> academics and buyers but that *proves* nothing.
> To prove something one at least has to make an
> argument rather than quoting holy scripture.

Yes! Well said.

the canon is in his head.
pop gun canon.
so much rhetoric, so little time.
o and then there was some art somewhere.

ja

—– Original Message —–
From: "Jim Andrews" <[email protected]>
To: "List@Rhizome. Org" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 04, 2003 6:59 PM
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: conceptual art was: [best work with Flash?]


>
> > Your deployment of "art history" as if it consists of
> > a series of irrefutable and objective facts simply
> > will not do.
> > Who decides what 'the canon' is? -"History is written
> > by the victors"
> > It might be the case that certain ways of thinking
> > about art are currently hegemonic amongst curators,
> > academics and buyers but that *proves* nothing.
> > To prove something one at least has to make an
> > argument rather than quoting holy scripture.
>
> Yes! Well said.
>
> the canon is in his head.
> pop gun canon.
> so much rhetoric, so little time.
> o and then there was some art somewhere.
>
> ja

I do not know if people may realize this, but much of what is being written
on the Rhizome list may end up being part of the "canon." Just to make my
point, I will briefly remind all of us that one of the reasons why the
net-community opposed or supported the recent change by Rhizome to a
membership resource is because the artworks and texts that Rhizome stores
are no longer available to the net community at large. This, in a way, is
like the public library charging a small fee for checking out the
information it offers. But this issue has already been widely discussed in
the past, and I only bring it up to show that Rhizome is largely a vehicle
for historization. If this were not true, the membership issue would not
have been as widely discussed by the various mailing lists in the net-art
community.

With this in mind, I will state that to dismiss T.Whid's historical citation
of conceptual art being tied to a specific time period in history seems
unfair. There is a difference between citing a historical period to better
understand a current situation and imposing such period as an irrefutable
fact. T.Whid wanted to clarify that Curt's usage of the term "conceptual"
was too broad, based on previous written material. This is no different
than someone in the near or not so near future trying to understand how
Flash artwork would relate to conceptual strategies in the artworld at
large, and threfore using the writings by all of us who are part of this
thread to make a specific point.

Another thing about history is that this one is no longer an "untouchable
canon." Part of postmodernism dealt with the dismantling of "irrefutable
facts." Today, history as well as science can only function based on
constant questioning of established material. As a matter of fact (no pun
intended), this was a major factor in much of the material that was written
about conceptualism. Here is how Lucy Lippard writes about such movement:

"There has been a lot of bickering about what Conceptual art is/was; who
began it; who did what when with it; what its goals, philosophy, and
politics were and might have been. I was there, but I don't trust my
memory. I don't trust anyone else's either. And I trust even less the
authoritative overviews by those who were not there. So I'm going to quote
myself a lot here, because I knew more about it then than I do now, despite
the advantages of hindsight."

And she also defines conceptual art as follows: "Conceptualart, for me,
means work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is
secondary, light weight ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious and/or
dematerialized."

The above is part of an essay from a book I already cited: Reconsidering the
Object of Art:
http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1996/Articles0296/CR0296
.html#anchor3023558 which was also a major survey exhibition at MOCA.

The ethnographer seems to have more of an authority – at least Lippard was
there, right? This is a completely postmodern tendency. Lippard
understands that her essay could be seen as problematic because one of
conceptualism's main aim was to question history itself. So, how does one
historize a movement which developed in order to question the historization
of the work of art? By using a deconstructive approach which admits to a
certain bias. This is also a strategy that has been used by Rosalind Krauss
in many of her books including Passages of Modern Sculpture, where she
admits to applying a normative analysis approach to the artwork that she
discusses throughout the chapters:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262610337/qid57398850/sr=1
-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-7087561-2759861?v=glance&s=books

So, History is not stable, if anything that is one thing that postmodernism
has left us with. History is always being revised, this is what
post-colonialism, literary criticism, etc., has and is doing to much
material from the past. To say that T.Whid's definition of conceptual art
based on a specific period in time is not valid because it imposes a "
historical canon" seems unfair to me. It is an easy way out.

It would be much more fruitful to reevaluate his definition of conceptualism
with other historical sources, other writings that might shed a different
light on how such term might be used. This is how history is rewritten.
Sure one can say that it is those who are in power who get to write history,
but the first step to rewriting is dependent on taking the time to look up
what has been written in order to make a constructive point.

If we are going to dismiss "the canon," let's do it with sources, not with
dismissive comments. The canon is weak, but generalizations are much
weaker.

Eduardo Navas

> With this in mind, I will state that to dismiss T.Whid's historical citation
> of conceptual art being tied to a specific time period in history seems
> unfair.

To clarify, I was reacting to Curt's earlier post about canon, not to T.Whid's post.

There are canon from Timbuktu to Yonkers, L.A., Paris, and Brazil.

Art is involved even beyond art. All the intersecting fields… wonderfully diverse, for the
most part, really. And that diversity is part of what makes canon far less powerful, less
centralized, less consented to.

Canon. Somewhat long and tedious subject, isn't it.

ja

On Friday, July 4, 2003, at 08:59 PM, Jim Andrews wrote:

>
>> Your deployment of "art history" as if it consists of
>> a series of irrefutable and objective facts simply
>> will not do.
>> Who decides what 'the canon' is? -"History is written
>> by the victors"
>> It might be the case that certain ways of thinking
>> about art are currently hegemonic amongst curators,
>> academics and buyers but that *proves* nothing.
>> To prove something one at least has to make an
>> argument rather than quoting holy scripture.
>
> Yes! Well said.
>

no, actually, horribly said with well-worn, unattributed quotes and all.

i didn't do what he's accusing me of and he conveniently edits the part
out where i explain that that is not what i'm doing:

"but if you want to redefine historical work you should have some
knowledge of the thinking presently surrounding it. For example, you're
idea of 'pure conceptualism' *is* the conceptual art of the 60s/70s, we
don't need another definition."

i put that part in to try to head off this sort of criticism from
Szpakowski but i forgot that it's a simple matter to edit another's
words in an emailer. (oops, just as I did to JA, please refer to his
email for his full account of my stupidity)

all i'm saying is that if one wants to refute an argument, one needs to
know the argument. not that one or the other is right. I don't think
Curt has read the 'arguments' of other writers, critics, curators or
historians who are influential in the field and his 'hacked'
definitions show that and to me are very unpersuasive.

but that isn't even the major problem with Curt's definitions. their
biggest problem is that they all relate to conceptualism. as if you
could define all art in it's relation to this one period or strategy. I
think that is a deeply flawed understanding of art, artists and art
history.

–
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>