Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 12:01:01 -0500
From: ostrow-AT-is2.nyu.edu (Ostrow/Kaneda)
Subject: Re: appropriation/self expression


>Well, when I use the term "self-expression", I assume that "self" includes
>the shaping-of-and-being-shaped-by cultural environment, shared knowledge,
>collective identities, community ideals, etc.  I don't really see how one
>can think of "self" in separation from these things.  But if this term
>is so rusted through as to be unserviceable, I will gladly abandon it;
>I have absolutely no love for it.

only because it is ususally used to infer that there is an inanate self, a
core subject thatcan or is expressed through art,  and that his self is the
primary focus of artistic production. In turn this core self is usually
understood as constituting the emotional self,  This ideal was  first
associated with romanticism became thre trope of AbEx.  It was and still is
used  to signify the ideal of individualism
>Saul wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>I didn't mean to imply any such reduction, but your proposal doesn't make
>the professionalism of the artist any more palatable to me.  What I object to
>is the idea of a separate group of people who are professional developers
>of expression -- irrespective of whether one prepends "self" to this.
>What is a "professional cultural producer"?