Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Monday, 6 Apr 1992 10:36:51 CDT
From: <U19807@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Uncritical thought (was: Unintelligentsia (was: Re: Spider...))
 <1ftdM2#1g99Gs5TPRq58zf2Wj63gxKO=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
 <92092.120001U19807@uicvm.uic.edu>
 <1g11jx#2s4vDL4MyVsg6zdv8cB5JJSg=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>


In article <1g11jx

>In <92092.120001U19807@uicvm.uic.edu> U19807@uicvm.uic.edu wrote:
>>>The art-literature crowd may be slowly letting go of Marxism, but they      t
>haven'
>>                                                       -------
>> Another blatant assertion on your part,Eric. Not every "art-lit" critic is
>> a Marxist. T. S. Eliot was anything _but_ one.

>I'm well aware of this.  Nevertheless, the art-lit crowd was for a long time
>predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller.  My description stands.

Maybe so-but is this such a crime? It could be said that if being a Marxist
or a former Communist is cause for alarm,then SF writers such as Fred Pohl,
Mack Reynolds,Terry Bisson or countless others could be called "avant-garde"
simply due to the fact that they hold (or held,as in the case of Pohl and
a few others in the Futurians) political views you seem to dislike.

>> >lost their fundamental, damning arrogance.  Ever since the creation of the
>> >`bohemian' concept of the artist's role and the rise of Modernism, fine
>arts
>> >has been dominated by a self-conscious elite which legitimized its control f
>o
>> >the arts by its claim to be an aesthetic and/or political `revolutionary
>> >vanguard'.  Thus, `great art' had to be redefined away from that which
>> >*communicated* with the masses to that which teased, agitated, upset and
>> >indoctrinated them.  The `fine artist' was locked into a stance of
>perpetual
>> >alienation from and confrontation with his/her surrounding society.
>>
>> I'm getting nothing but a broad paintbrush in the face from assumptions like
>> these. With logic like this,you could assert that Surrealism and Social
>> Realism are identical,as they both "seek...to agitate and indoctrinate"
>> the masses. Never _mind_ that the purposes of both schools/movements were
>> at cross-purposes (and Surrealism was viewed as "decadent" by most          c
>sycophanti
>> Stalinist art-dogma mouthpieces),but if you're going to play around with
>> broad definitions,expect them to bite back occasionally.

>The fact that those schools had different political goals (though not that
>different; both were Marxist) is completely irrelevant.  The *relevant* fact
>is that both viewed art explicitly as a tool of indoctrination and
>"conscousness-raising".

But were they that identical? By your standards,both are "improper" art in that
they seem to "indoctrinate",but Surrealism is held by quite a few (including
myself,and I have no training as an art critic) to be totally superior to
social realism as a school of art.

>> Incidentally,you also set up a hidden political argument that artists have
>> to be subservient (as opposed to at odds with) society. Funny,but that's
>> exactly how Stalinist and Nazi "art critics" looked upon art....as a propa-
>> ganda tool,not as a (potential) form of criticism against the society they
>> sought to set up.

>Nonsense.  Criticizing the art-literature crowd for being locked into an
>alienated stance does not imply that they ought to be "subservient".  In
>fact, if "fine arts" were healthy I'd expect to see a Gaussian distribution
>on that axis, with a few "alienated" artists at one end, a few "subservient"
>ones at the other, and a large middle hump that simply did their own thing
>without any political agenda at all.  And in fact that *is* what you see if
>your drop the intelligentsiya's blinders and look at popular and folk art
>without sneering or filtering it for political correctness.

"Political Correctness"? You must be kidding. I merely pointed out that since
you tend to lump all modern art into one huge pile in which a "them versus us"
(i.e.,"aesthetes" vs. "Joe Public") battle must be waged against "Avante-garde
elitism",you're making a point that art must _not_ criticize society or even
examine it in such a fashion that Joe Public (whoever the hell _he_ is) can't
understand it.

Likewise,I find your definition of "popular art" nebulous. Are those Camel
cigarette ads with the Camel with penis-surrogate noses "popular art" simply
because some people stoop to buying lighters with those same camels em-
blazoned on the product?

Another point: Back in the (your) good old days,"popular" (read: pre-avant-
garde,or whatever bugaboo you wish to call it) art was backed primarily by
wealthy patrons (the Dutch _burghers_ shopping at galleries during the Dutch
Republic's early years is a good example-works commissioned by royalty is
another),and fine art-whether of an "avant-garde" nature or not-is still fi-
nanced by the wealthy...as are museums,museum wings,galleries,and the like.
This has _not_ started with the Modern Art era-it's been like this all the
time.


>> Primarily because artists tend towards showing _subjective_ of what their
>> art should be,and not yours or mine. Would you prefer they do paintings
>> of Elvis on black velvet,if that's what society supposedly demanded of
>> them?

>Hardly.  I *would* like to see the decadent modern attitude that the
>artist is the only arbiter of what `art' is consigned to the scrap heap
>where it belongs.

You're playing conspiracy theorist here again,Eric. Even _artists_ tend to
dice each other up over distinctions of what is real art and what is not,and
it's ridiculous when you make the argument that you wouldn't like public
opinion-even if uninformed and prone to manipulation by demogogs _a_la_
Jesse Helms (and I'm not talking funding here,I'm talking judging art by
a moral yardstick)-to determine what is art and what isn't,after you've
stated something all too similar to exactly that.

>> Art-and literature (and SF is no exception)-is not static as a arena of
>> creation,Eric. It has to change due to the possibility of extinction through
>> uncreativity. Once again,there were more than a few critics ("fossils" might
>> be a better word) who failed to comprehend the abilities of the artists and
>> writers you've conveniently name-dropped above,as they were "purveyors of
>> the destruction of real art",or some similar appellation. Are you insisting
>> that since those critics abhorred the aforementioned artists/writers' works
>> that they were _justified_ in their sterile view as past art as some un-
>> changing "golden mean"?

>No.  Heck, I *like* Surrealist and Dadaist art.  But the *attitude* that came
>in with it --- the ideological baggage, the elitist rejection of common
>experience, the "revolutionary" arrogance --- *that* has got to go.  And
>*will*
>go, no matter how hard you cling to it or how furiously as you deride its
>critics for alleged "know-nothingism".  The times, they are a'changin'....

I didn't call them know-nothings. You're confusing me with Dan'l,actually. >:)

Incidentally,just about every school has had a revolutionary mind-set of want-
ing to overthrow an art "establshment". Go back far enough,and the Encycloped-
ists wanted to trash the feudal regime for its (political as opposed to artis-
tic) support of stale intellectual and artistic ideas. Why does this only
seem to begin with the _current_ era in your opinion,Eric?

>> >This could only go on so long before the whole self-conscious `art world'
>> >condemned itself to sterility and irrelevance, and the rest of the
>> >surrounding culture caught on and stopped buying into the con.
>>
>> Why do museums featuring modern art exist,Eric? Why don't they go totally
>> backrupt due to the surrounding culture's refusal to "buy into the con"
>> of modernist art? Sheesh.
>
>Why are they screaming in distress, "de-acquisitionining" to meet their
>operating expenses, and perpetually running desperate campaigns to pull in
>more visitors that have only slight and transient effects?

Groan....because fine arts has _always_ been underfunded,no matter the era.
Van Gogh died virtually broke,and Rembrandt (to bring up a perfectly sound
non-"Modern" example) didn't exactly end up prosperous,either. This is gonna
sound quite repetitious,but fine art has _never_ been widely patronized by
the populace at large. This didn't start recently,Eric. It's inaccurate for
you to say it did,as it would be a case of the historical tail wagging the
dog,to use a particularly cliche.
>If we had a healthy arts subculture, art would have something to say to
>the average Joe and art museums would be as popular as baseball games.  And
>they were, in the last century.  Only part of this change can be linked to
>the emergence of mass visual media.  Most of it predates that emergence, and
>can be clearly laid to things artists did to themselves.

"Mass visual media"? This sounds disturbingly similar to Television,Eric-unless
you're talking comic books. And you know how dismal most TV has ended up since
_its_ inception....

      ** Chris Krolczyk,esq.  * DISCLAIMER: My opinions are in **
      ** Maniac-at-Large      * no way endorsed by the Univer- **
      ** U19807@UICVM.BITNET  * sity of Illinois at Chicago.   **
      ** u19807@uicvm.uic.edu * So there. Nyaah.               **
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