File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1998/bourdieu.9803, message 28


From: "Lynne" <lmpett-AT-essex.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Labour
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 09:31:15 -0000


Tobin: I'm in complete agreement with you re The Full Monty!

> On the whole I concur with Rakesh's assessment that Marx's concept of
labor
> has little role in the value of art (although I don't think the notion of
> "genius" is very useful).  *Titanic* may be the world's most expensive
> movie, but that doesn't in itself make it the world's best movie,
whatever
> awards it receives (I'm speaking only in principle: I haven't yet seen
the
> movie and so have no judgment about it, though I was rooting for *Full
> Monty* anyway).
> 
> It's certainly true that artists can obtain one or another sort of
> "qualification," but what this is and how it is obtained varies
drastically,
> and its relevance to their actual artistic product is highly debatable. 
For
> instance, if my memory serves, Marlon Brando studied under the Actors'
> Studio, Meryl Streep learned acting at Yale University, and Bob Hoskins
had
> no formal training at all.  They are all very different actors, but (1)
does
> their different experience actually make one better than the rest, (2)
how
> many dreadful actors have exactly the same backgrounds, and (3) does
anyone
> in the audience care or even know what their training was?  Or to take a
> different approach: Olivier was a fine actor in some things, but his film
of
> *Hamlet* should be taken out and shot (sorry about the pun).
> 
> Also, the amount of labor spent on any particular work seldom has much
> bearing on its quality.  Time and again, one hears about artists who
slave
> over some work that never meets with critical or even the artist's own
> approval, but then they pop out with something first rate that took
hardly
> any effort at all.  I've experienced this myself: one of my best articles
> (in my view) poured out of me faster than anything else I've ever
written.
> 
> Finally, you write that "the quality of product does play a very
important
> part in its value formation."  Does it?  When?  Did it for Van Gogh,
during
> his lifetime?  Whose criteria of quality are to be invoked?  For what
> purposes?  Here we really do return to issues of habitus, field, and
market.
> 
> I do think one can speak of quality in art.  Admittedly, off-hand I'm not
> sure how to go about defining it (oh dear, it's that certain "je ne sais
> quoi"!), but the concept of labor isn't adequate partly because of the
> issues of habitus and field.  Anyway, as I see it, between the person who
> mindlessly gobbles a brilliantly prepared salmon and the one who savors
an
> apple and a chunk of bread, I'd say the latter had the better meal.
> 
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus-AT-gwi.net *or* tobin.nellhaus-AT-helsinki.fi
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
> 
> 
> 
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