Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 13:26:09 -0400
From: whitfb-AT-amanda.dorsai.org (Whit Blauvelt)
Subject: Re: Simon Ford's article


At 06:22 PM 5/28/95 EDT, avant-garde-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu wrote:

M,

>Whit, this is not only a loose sense, it is also a very different sense 
>than the one Ford, and I, have been focusing on.  The artistic
>movements which aim for the destruction of the institution of art are
>not necessarily the same as those "involved in what will be the best
>of what emerges in the near future".  (There is something very funny
>to me about this phrase; it reminds me of a sign in a diner I go to:
>"Please order from where you will be sitting".)  So are these two
>senses connected?  Or what?  

So, answering my question, you don't think any art is better than any other
art, or emerges in time? I take it you're saying the true avant guarde must
aim to destroy the "institution" of art? Well, of course, creative acts are
often corrosive of institutions. But this hardly means they must embrace a
doctrine of destruction. The destruction is incidental to the inadequacy of
the institutions to accommodate the creative; a byproduct. Making it a goal
is like playing rock to make your ears ring, rather than for the actual
values of it.

>Your leadership post, I am sorry to say, was not an example of you
>reaching your true potential.  I was explicitly talking about cult and
>submission, not leadership in general.  I do find the concept of
>"leadership" very weird when applied to art, and there may be much to be
>discussed there, but this post of yours just didn't do it for me.

Thanks for your faith in my "potential." We obviously have our discourses
grounded in different areas of concensus, since you're own obvious
intelligence appears to have been diverted, from my perspective, into the
elaboration of premises without either foundation or geometry. The concept
of "leadership" is of obvious application in looking at how art is learned
and done, and your program of a "leaderless" art history is a far stranger
story to tell - not even a good fable, from what I've seen of such attempts
- and at a far remove from the testimony of the artists themselves, except
for the few who falsely claim no influences.

I do like your posts, and am not trying to start a flame war. But I'm
puzzled by this strange limb you've climbed out on and called your own.

\/\/ I-I I T         = < [  whitfb-AT-dorsai.org  ] > =          nyc usa



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