Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 12:10:36 -0500 From: ostrow-AT-is2.nyu.edu (Ostrow/Kaneda) Subject: Re: appropriation/free art I'm sorry I'm just deopping into this discussion in such a hit and run manner but= time being what it is and the issues being address being more deserving than a off the cuff response ......... but > > >-malgosia wrote > >At the same time, the notion of having "professional artists", a class >of people who are paid to produce self-expression, is in contradiction to >the way I see art. > This statement raises a lot of questions, but they all stem from whatone might mean by "Self" and the expression of that 'self'. I would hope we are not talking 19th century Romantic ideals, Instead I would propose that we understand the artist ( in its most resent incarnation circa 1960-70) as a developer of modes of expression , these constitute not only forms and contents but also methods and subjects. Therefor a professional artist is not merely reducible to 'self" consciousness , intuition and conscience or self-satisfaction but also might=be thought of as being a professional cultural producer whose practice individually or collectively constitutes a form of agency. What is confusing ( to both the producer and the audience/ consumer) is that the job discription is constantly in a flux because the cultural environment that informs these producers' self-identity and in turn is affected by their produce is never static ( often dispite the attempt to universalise both sigure and field). This is due in part because such producers affect the very base upon which their work is premised. The either its mine or commodity aspect of Malgosia's statement would rob such production of any significance. Art after all is a cultural catagory, itrepresents shared knowledge as well as embodies/ externalizes the collective identities and ideals of the community that embraces it. SAUL P.S. Why the concern for appropriation? it is twofold one is that arleast from a classic Marxist point of view this is what capital does it appropriates social wealth, not just monetary wealth but wealth in all of its diverse forms. It does this to maintain its hegemony. The second reason is that the fastest road to banality for cultural and social discourse is for its contents and forms to be circulated in a decontextulized manner. The control of content resides in controling the means of distribution given we do not control these means we are forced to at least consider how might we maintain the viability of our practices that are content driven, --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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