From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 11:16:57 EST
Subject: Re: Biologism Two


In a message dated 06/11/2003 07:38:20 GMT Standard Time, 
villanova-AT-btopenworld.com writes:


> Subj:Re: Biologism Two
> Date:06/11/2003 07:38:20 GMT Standard Time
> From:    villanova-AT-btopenworld.com
> Sender:    owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:heidegger-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU">heidegger-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU</A>
> To:    heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> 
> 
> Paul Murphy
> Totalitarian art is hideous, Capitalist art is just lemonade candy floss 
> heavensent super-multiple-orgasm

Jud:
I was generalising of course Paul, but I made no comment about 
'democratic/capitalist art - so how do you know that I consider it: 'lemonade candy floss 
heavensent super-multiple-orgasm?'  

Paul Murphy
> I think your being a bit reductive
> some Totalitarian art is good, in that it cleverly subverts the codes and 
> tenets of the system, the system these artists had to work under, 

Jud:
Pieces that cleverly subverted the codes and tenets of the system were 
usually weeded out and denounced as 'Anti-Soviet' or 'degenerate,' etc.;  by the 
eagle-eyed lackeys of the state [mostly failed or artist manques] and either 
destroyed or not displayed. In the sixties I was lucky enough (and as a welcome 
break from religious iconry and Soviet tractors)  to be allowed into the 
off-limits storerooms of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow by the director who was a 
friend of my friend. He showed us stuff from the immediate post-revolutionary 
period when Soviet art blossomed and many of the pieces were wonderful. (Yes, 
it's all very subjective)  Then the dead hand of Stalinism decreed that all art 
should be in the service of communism, and should depict the people's struggle 
against...blah, blah, blah...and the burst of creativity and interpretative 
innovation dried up...well...almost.  From the time of the clamp down, the 
gallery officials continued to  collect  worthwhile, (Yes, it's all very 
subjective) more cutting-edge stuff, and there it was wrapped in sacking...the 
creativity of a people (Yes it's all very subjective) unseen by the people and wrapped 
in sackcloth waiting [teleologically] the fall of communism and the 
throwing-open of the shutters and the showering of the shekels.

Paul Murphy
just as we have to work under this 'free market' (i.e. free if you have 
money) system.

Jud;
You are not suggesting that the public should be FORCED to buy  art are you?  
At least western artists are free to create anything they like, which is what 
all artists should have the right to do, for many claim [hypocritically?]  
that they are more interested in expressing themselves rather than making money 
out of it. 
 If the public doesn't like the art (Yes it's all very subjective) they can't 
be forced to buy it can they?  What's that you say - it's the Gallery Agents 
and Dealers fault?  OK, then take your pictures to a public place and display 
it there, as they do in many cities [London, Paris, Prague] and cut out the 
insensitive, uncouth and uncomprehending middleman. Let the public judge - let 
the market decide. Casting pearls before swine? Feeding strawberries to a 
donkey? (Yes, it's all very subjective)  


Paul Murphy
> some Stalinist art is now recovering a price and is found to be of interest 
> to experts and the more general public.
> 
> Jud:
> I suspect that it is for the novelty value, (Yes it's all very subjective) 
> for most were a Soviet version of the cover page of the old American Harper's 
> Weekly. Sugar-sweet sweethearts hand in hand and backs towards a tractor, 
> gazing across a landscape of  rows of corn sheaves, or a crane-driver showing 
> his son the controls of his huge machine, a red-cheeked girl in national 
> costume pushing the button to inaugurate a new dam surrounded by clapping Uncle Joe 
> clones with Stalinesque mustachios. (Yes, it's all very subjective)  I 
> understand some of Hitler's daubs fetch a high price - do you think it is for the 
> aesthetic value of the pieces, or because they were painted by the architect 
> of the holocaust? 

 I read recently that the imprisoned murderer Charles Manson   sells his 
paintings [from prison] like hot cakes - why do you think the ghouls buy it?  Its 
artistic 
> merit, or because it was painted by the hand that slit Sharon Tate's 
> throat?  It is a mistake to judge the value of art by its price. (Yes it's all very 
> subjective) 

Paul Murphy
> yes Hitlerism reduced women to the status of baby machines, throwing out 
> Aryan warriors by the truckload
> the problem is that you throw out lots of statements that uncritically 
> accept our system in contrast to horrible red or brown supra-nationalist States, 
> but what about some real, rather than fantasy politics?

Jud:
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by: '[you]  uncritically accept our 
system.'  Do you mean the system on which the creation and sale/distribution of art
is carried out, or are you referring to the capitalist system in general?  If 
the latter I believe that Capitalism is like the curate's egg - OK in parts.
I don't get involved in the rants on this list against America or Israel  
because I just can't summon up enough outrage to do so - I expend all my hatred 
on Nazism which burns me out, and  which seems a lot closer to me, for they are 
the ones that bombed the Fish and Chip shop on the corner of our street when 
I was a kid.  :-)  I prefer to sit and follow the Flickering Films of the Marx 
Brothers, and quibble and  kibitz at  the Quivering Kitsch of Being and Time 
for my entertainment nowadays. (Yes, it's all very subjective.) 




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