"Radicant" reading assignment 2/22

China 9, Liberty 37 (2008) video still: Sarah Morris

What doest essay “Post-Production” mean to you? How does this affect your (view) of your work?

I have been steeped and shackled in a 20th century modernist paradigm and I am happy to have my mind opened up by reading Bourriaud’s: "Postproduction" and "Radicant." I am becoming aware of a whole range of exciting new art practices and artists that are changing my thinking/understanding about contemporary art and will no doubt affect my artwork.

FUNDOLLAR

QUESTIONS/THOUGHTS:

If we are in the middle of an historical transition, how accurately can we deconstruct a transition? Even with the advents of linear movements haven’t trends in the arts and fashion in fact always been cyclical rather than linear?

Stadia II, Julie Mehretu (2004)

Translation and codes preserve” ancient particularities” on the road to extinction in the face of globalization. Is Bourriaud saying that it lies on the artist in his/her culture, time and space to preserve their cultural aesthetic in the face of Globalization?

Ivan the Fool House, Tsuyoshi Ozawa (2003)

If Hollywood films “no longer bear witness to the way people live” and, according to Bourriaud, there is a reversal in the roles of art and cinema, could that be one of the reasons why contemporary art has become more involved with postproduction art than production art?

Upside Down Mushroom Room: Carsten Holler (2000)

What does it mean to be from a country; but what does it mean to be Mexican in Germany or American in Japan? These questions resonate with me. Travel and relocation are becoming more common and cultures are mixing it up. The term “Creolization” was used in our readings. In the world today, there are more people speaking English who are not native speakers than there are native speakers. Many of these people have learned English from non-native speakers! This phenomenon is happening with the language of aesthetics as well.

In Modernism there is always a passion for “beginning”. The “new” becomes aesthetic criterion in its own right. Isn’t this a very existential concept? “Novelty is no longer a criterion for judging works of art.” Bourriaud

m y q u e s t i o n s/ "p o s t-p r o d u c t i o n" by nicolas bourriaud

24 Hour Psycho clip: Dougla Gordon first shown in Gallway and Berlin in 1996

1. What if you are a 88 year-old artist and you continue to make modernist abstract paintings even in 2010 and beyond…how is your “production” focused art and your artistic paradigm perceived; archaic, unnecessary or not socially relevant, as there are enough ready-made images? Is your work considered useful as possible “pre-production” material to be stored for a later montage?

Example of Situationist Art: key dates 1957-1972

2. Is the advent of the powerful medium of Cinema so shaping our consciousness that it is provoking both collaborative thinking and performance in the visual arts?

“Art takes on a script-like value; screenplays become form.” Bourriaud

This comment makes me think that when artists are incorporating other artists’ work these other works become actors or characters making (guest) appearances. There is a celebration of mis-en-Scene in many of the installations inviting the viewers to be part of the movie.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Pierre Joseph

"Tool Table" by Thomas Hirschorn

Pierre Huyghe "Big Kingdom"

Rirkrit Tiravanija "Untitled, 2002 (the raw and the cooked)"

Philip Parreno

3. Isn’t Post-Production, by Bourriaud, in a way fitting very much into Western Art’s insistence on defining what “new” is happening “now?” Isn’t that idea contributing to a linear concept of a movement or trend? He mentions “…. artists re-examine notions of creation, authorship, and originality through use of cultural artifacts; which is new.”

Liam Gillick (right)

4. An abundance of images bombard us in ways not experienced until the late 20^th century. How much are these fleeting, sometimes unwelcome images are like sounds we don’t want to hear? How much has the loss of control over what and how much we see affected this “new re-mixing” of cultural objects in contemporary art and to the art/music metaphor?

Art today seems to be focusing on the details of this barrage of cultural artifacts and saying “whoa, slowdown…let’s look at that more closely.”

5.doc re-mixing previously recorded music as analogous to what is going on in visual arts today. Could he not have mentioned Jazz, which has been crossing cultural lines, borrowing and incorporating, layering and mixing and challenging Western tradition since its inception?

Giant Steps by John Coltrane (1959)

Walter Benjamin: Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

William Benjamin, a Marxist, German Jew living in France, wrote the essay, A Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in 1935, the same year Leni Riefenstahl came out with the Nazi/Hitler movie: A Triumph of the Will. Hitler used photography and film to aestheticize politics and war very much like what Fox news does today. Benjamin’s essay is primarily about the exhibition value and power of mechanically reproduced film and other arts to reach the proletariat or working man, thus making art accessible to people who would otherwise not have access to it. In this essay Benjamin is advocating that mechanical reproduction should also be used as a tool to politicize art as a means of combating aestheticized propaganda.

The “Aura” of a work of art, Benjamin states, is based in its authenticity and uniqueness in time and space. Early art’s original purpose was to be a magical, cult object ritualistically created for the gods and no one else’s eyes, such as in the cave paintings of Lascaux. Its exhibition value was not considered. A piece of art now may have much cult and monetary value but might be tucked away in a vault, and never or rarely exhibited but there may be many copies of this artwork sold in gift shops or garden stores for much less money. The original piece of art still retains its cult value though never seen. With the advent of mechanical reproduction art has become more accessible to many and freed from the ritual that it once depended on to define it thus “…mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual" and also has become more of an available, affordable commodity.

During a period of High Modernism in the 1950’s through the 1970’s painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and De Kooning among others renewed this idea of the art object as a spiritual, universal presence or event often created on the floor with ritualistic movements, such as in Native American sand painting. This Abstract Expressionist art movement that also included lyrical abstractionists, action and color field painters, who epitomized the idea of a subjective art that not only created cult objects but called upon primitive ritual. Many people outside the art world never saw or understood this elitist art.

Below, trailer for Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" and an example of the use of aesthetics to advance the political agenda of Nazi Germany.





Below,The Odessa Steps scene from Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" and an example of the use of film to reach the masses and to make a point about the horrors of war.






The digital world is changing the face of art today. The ability to take an original and be able to save it but rework multiple copies has changed the level of risk involved in creating art and it has also made high quality reproduction possible. Optical and mechanical special effects used in film making are rapidly advancing, as are film and photographic editing tools and graphic design tools.

modern movement and music: Martha Graham

Modern Art / Post-Modern Art / Art of this Time:

The Modern Art Movement

The Modern Art Movement had its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and Frank Stella wrote a book in 1986 called "Working Space" citing Caravaggio as the first Modernist painter, but it is generally thought that this movement in the arts officially began with the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution in mid-century 19^th century and when the Academic Ideal of the beautiful was challenged. Edward Manet’s “ Dejeuner sur L’herbe” posted below, was seen as scandalous and thought by some to be the beginning of “Impressionism” and Modern Art. This painting also has elements of a Post Modernist work as it references older paintings, in particular, The Pastoral Concert, by Titian (1510) that hangs in the Louvre.

The Modern Art Movement championed work that was innovative. It is generally thought that it came to an end as the definitive movement of our time in the late 1960’s. The main principles of this movement were: the independence and genius of the artist (the auteur), self-consciousness of the medium, and a celebration of the subjective internal, universal truths and the spiritual rather than the objective subject.

The main critics and art historians associated with this movement among others are: Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Walter Benjamin, T.J. Clark, Arthur Danto and most importantly, Clement Greenberg.

Well known artists of the Modern Arts Movement include: Claude Monet, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Jacob Lawrence, Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois among many others. Five examples of Modern Art are below.

"Le Dejeuner sur L'herbe" Edward Manet 1863

Jacob Lawrence 1950's


Frank Stella "Jill" 1959-60

David Smith

Primo-Piano 1962

De Kooning "Untitled" 1949

The Post-Modern Art Movement

The Post-Modern Art Movement began to emerge in the late 1960’s as a reaction to the elitism and institutionalization of Modern Art and primarily to the writings and philosophies about “high” and “low” art of critic Clement Greenberg. Post Modernism is also a reaction to late 20th century capitalism, the consumer society, the technological revolution and globalization. Feminism and Multiculturalism also play a part in the change and confusion in the role of the artist in society.

The prominent critics and art historians associated with this movement are: Michel Foucault, Frederic Jameson, Rosalind Krauss, and Donald Kuspit.

Some of this movements important visual artists are: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiet, David Lynch, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami among others.

Art of this Time

The name I would give the art of this time_2010 would be: “Limbo of the Pastiche." A new, solid direction in the arts is still in its infancy and forming; the main element of this time in the arts seems to be, according to Eleanor Heartney, an “anarchic pluralism.” Critics and art historians associated with this movement aside from Ms. Heartney are: Nicolas Bourriaud, Dave Itzkoff among others.

Some of its prominent artists are: Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, Yue Minjun, Takashi Murakami Dana Schutz and Tracey Emin.

Some "Posts"

Post-Production, Postmark, Post-enlightenment, Post-renaissance, Post-human, Post-Marxism, Post-office, Post-modern , Post-Christianity, Post-feminism, Post-structuralism

Post-haste, Post-postmodern, Post-Greenberg, Post-capitalism, Post-master, Post-mortem

Post-nasal spray, Postnuptial, Postnatal, Post-hoc, Post-doctoral, Post-cranial, Post-embryonic, Posterior …