File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1995/avant-garde_May.95, message 46


Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 11:37:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: vance <vance-AT-CWU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Simon Ford's article




On Mon, 29 May 1995, Whit Blauvelt wrote:
vance wrote:
> >Pomo would hold that the avant-garde was, as stated before, the result of 
> >modernism's belief in the concept of the individual genius, and their 
> >parallel belief that art was progressive, so that each new century 
> >brought improvements over what came before (Renaissance was better than 
> >medieval; baroque was better yet; impressionism another improvement; to 
> >the pinnacle of this direction made manifest in modern art).
> 

Whit replies:
> Thanks for clearing some of my confusion. Where would my own view fit into
> this battle. On the one hand, I agree that the new in art is not better than
> the old; on the other, I agree that a failure to renew art through
> exploration and development leads to stuff that is markedly _worse_ than the
> old. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is no better than "Stairway to Heaven" - but
> it's infinitely better than playing "Stairway" (or something like it) yet
> one more time. You have to run fast to keep even, and culture continually
> tends retrograde without the attentions of those who can somehow find the
> new. These people are few, but multiply their effect, as in the Seattle
> music scene, by encouraging followers to more fully round out the potentials
> they develop.
> 
Sounds like you're somewhere near what I think. But, though I admit the 
possibility that it may be individuals who "somehow find the new", I also 
belive that often they have this discovery of new coping methods thrust 
upon them by the changes in society, and as I mentioned earlier, if they 
hadn't come up with their method, someone else would have been forced to 
initiate another similar coping method.

vance:
> >Pomo, on the other hand, would firmly repudiate the concept of the 
> >Cartesian self, thus thus repudiating the sense of the autonomous 
> >individual, thus rendering such concepts as genius and private ownership 
> >obsolete. They would also hold the parallel belief that art does not get 
> >progressively better, but is simply different and laterally displaces 
> >that which came before.
> 
Whit:
> One need not be Cartesian to believe there's a place in the world for genius
> and private ownership. Your last statement, however, is fine by me.
> 
I'm not certain I disagree with you on this point. Most of what I've 
written is a statement of what pomo believes, not necessarily my own beliefs.

> >This would lead to the concept that new ideas and paradigms are 
> >collective creations of the culture, not the creation of specific individual 
> >genius. Furthermore, in endorsing the concept of pluralism, the pomo 
> >believes there are many valid directions that may be simultaneously 
> >pursued; art shoots out in all directions at once; it does not progress 
> >in a straight line. 
> 
> So why not a model of plural geniuses moving in different directions.
> Einstein does relativity, the Sex Pistols do punk, Jim Dine sculpts,
> Mandlebrot discovers fractals. None of this is straight line stuff - each is
> a fractured equilibrium. Each is a clear example of individual genius.
> 
I guess my point it that I am (with the exception of a very few cases, 
such as Michelangelo and Einstein) suspicious of the genius category. I 
believe that many of these so-called geniuses are either the product of 
the media or just happened to get credit for an idea that many were 
involved in, or just happened to break their idea into the culture a 
brief moment before someone else did so--as the history of simultaneous 
creation often hightlights. I don't know if I'd argue with the concept of 
genius if it were used a thousandth as much as it is.

> >If such art has no direction, if it explodes out in all directions, how 
> >can there then be an avant-garde, if the term comes from the military idea 
> >that a few advanced individuals point out the direction that the many 
> >(the army) will later follow?
> 
> If art has all directions, this is quite different from art having no
> direction. Avant-garde's importance as a metaphor is from the parallel of
> there being an exploratory party. This does not at all imply that there are
> not other parties going out in other directions; nor that military action
> need follow.
> 
I think my point here is that each artist of any import is now considered 
hir (I like Malgosia's pronoun and will steal it, as any good creator 
does :) own "exploratory party." And these parties are each exploring on 
their own, not to lead others--which can be perceived as a totalitarian 
pursuit. 

> Forming a small group to explore the frontier worked quite well for the
> Beats, for Bebop, for the Abstract Expressionists, for Grunge ... it may not
> be the only model, but it's the way much significant art is done (and please
> note the collective nature of these groups, too, small and forward as they are).

But groups such as abstract expressionism quickly became the academy 
under the cult of the autonomous individual and the worship of genius. 
One person's vision simply drowned that of others. The academy was so 
powerful that it was rife with all kinds of shibolleths, from the proper 
method to sign you name on a painting to the proper manner to strip (in 
lieu of framing) each painting.

vance


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