Date: Mon, 29 May 95 18:23:02 EDT
Subject: Re: Better art, leadership, destruction


Whit wrote:

> 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.

I most definitely do think that some art is better than other art.  Do
you recall what it is I said that led you to think otherwise? 

As far as the striving to destroy the institution, Ford, in his article, 
takes this as his working definition of the "true avant-garde".  Now
the thing about your use of the word is that, if I understand you
correctly, you'd call Tizian, for example, an avant-garde artist.  Or
would you only call him that to the extent that he self-consciously
thought about leading the way into the future?  This use of the word
is fine with me, but it is not exactly the problematic that the Ford article 
addresses.

I guess the argument that connects Ford's notion with yours would go
as follows: the institutionalization of art is a straighjacket which
has to be overcome if one is to reach anything significantly new. 
Therefore there can be no avant-garde in your sense which does not
also explicitly address the overcoming of the institution.  Or: the
institution is too powerful and too absorptive to permit the emergence
of anything truly new without an all-out, conscious war.  The incidental 
destruction you talk about can never be successful (continues the
argument): it always ultimately turns into a feeding and fattening.  
The institution is no more inadequate to accomodate the creative than 
a fox is to accomodate a goose. 

> 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 don't think that "influence" implies "leadership".  Obviously every
artist, and every person, is influenced by numerous other artists and
persons.  But these things are very complex and personal and subtle. 
For example, one may be profoundly influenced by works which one considers
inferior to some other works.  Influence depends on needs of the moment, 
on chance encounters, coincidences, intuitions, proximities, personal
readings, momentary receptiveness.  It does not, I think, form a natural 
friendship with the robust notion of "leadership".  Neither does one need 
the concept of "leadership" to express the fact that there is good art 
and bad art (often made by one and the same person), better artists
and worse artists.


- malgosia 


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