From: "michelle phil lewis-king" <king.lewis-AT-easynet.co.uk>
Subject: RE: deleuze-guattari-digest V1 #981
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 13:55:06 -0000


Dear Charles Alexander,

 I was was writing in response to the notion that there was some kind of (in
my view hypothetical, transcendent and therefore nihilistic) aesthetic
bottom line and writing how, as a painter, I understand art as production..
a deeply critical production in the sense that it  is an encounter at or
relating to a turning point. I would agree with you that this is not
necessarily arts 'function' or intention . This element of reversal in art
is, for me, 'deeper' than any aesthetic sense and gives it its nature and
force as an event. This demands the viewer, reader etc to actively
participate in the production of what they are encountering.. the
criticality therefore might not be intended by the artist.. it is out of
their hands. Everything in art has the possibility of being turned around.
This is 'critical' as 'crisis' rather than as 'rigorously discriminating'...

Phil.


> I'd like to know more what you mean here by "deeply 'critical'" -- my
> emphasis on the "deeply" -- just that such art, I think, is
> critical by its
> own being (deterritorialized or not, although the former is probably
> inevitable), rather than by any necessary intention. Criticality
> is not, by
> any need, its primary bent.
>
> charles

>  I've always been drawn to the experience of art as production rather than
> contemplation, interpretation and judgement and have recognized and (lost
> myself to) a certain chaos which occurs in that production, 'something'
> produced which undermines any previously held conviction .. something
> therefore deeply 'critical'. .. art demands that we work if we are to
> encounter and realize it's criticality...is production  nihilist?
> Is looking
> at a painting (for example) nihilist?
>