Nothing up my Sleve
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Nothing up my Sleeve

Date:          2005.08.31 - 2005.09.09.07 (approx)
Music:        "Canyon" by Philip Glass.
Muse on duty:  Malraux.

  "The previous work which gives the start to every artist's
   vocation has usually so violent an impact that we see not 
   only the style that has fascinated him [sic], but the 
   subjects, too, incorporated in the pastiche".
        -- Andre Malraux, "The Voices of Silence",
           Tr. by Stuart Gilbert, LCCN N'70.M336 
           (Doubleday, New York, 1953), P.319.


On this page:  {Authenticity}
               {he Historical Development of a specific Aesthetic Experience



Authenticity

Again we come back to the question: Just what *is* the
"aesthetic experience" and what makes it so odd or so 
"special"?

The range of experience goes from the material to the
spiritual. And on the one extreme, the pure materialist
has no need for novels, art, music, dance, theatre, and
indeed most film, literature, science, etc. All that
exists is the "bottom line"; ie, money, power, position,
politics, technology.

At the other extreme the spirtualist has little need for
the items of the material world. Indeed one of the Tau's
cautions "Know of the material world so that you will
understand it, but do not dweel in it deeply".

So, then what is the essential nature of the "aesthetic"?

The art historian and philosopher Nelson Goodman questioned 
the role of an original work of art in the modern world. 
If the techniques used by forgers are so good that microscopic 
and chemical analysis have difficulty in discerning the original 
from the fake. He articulated the concepts of “autographic” and 
“allographic” forms of art. A painting or a sculpture is autographic, 
while any copy of a musical score of a piece by Beethoven is not a 
forgery since the music itself is allographic. Since the score 
itself it “merely” a means of specifying the art work itself; 
ie, the performance of the piece of music.

Note that a given performance is indeed autographic.

So, what then of the "thing" itself. In the case of copied works,
we accept that they are copies. And indeed, for the most part 
the copy *is* as good as the original. This point was brought
home by Marcel Duchamp's "readymades". One of the most notorius
of them being the "Mona Lisa with the Moustache" or "LHOOQ", 
which when the letters are said quickly in French is said 
to sound like "she is hot in the derriere". To create this
work, Duchamp took a cheap reproduction of the Mona Lisa
(The Lady La Gicanda) and drew a moustache and goatee
(technically a Van Dyke) on it.

The "original" of this work hangs in the headquarters in
Paris of the French National Communist Party in the director's
office (Robert Hue).

Obviously it is a "modified original" (or technically a
"modified readymade") or to use Duchamp's term "readymades
assisted". Naturally many people were upset by this "defacement"
of "great art". And yet, that is what art is supposed to,
well, at least the avant garde.

Now we come to the problem of "ownership", if i (as artist/performer/etc)
create a work of art, shouldn't it be that I control how it
is distributed, seen, or otherwise experience.  Take for
example, my print "blue circle with textures, printed on
two half pieces of paper with a small gap between them".
The web-ready image hardly conveys the tesxture of the
actual print, now does it. In many cases, there is little
"loss" from the web-ready (or other reproduction) of a
print. In some cases, the distinction is so great that
the web-ready version might just as well be done on a
bad photocopy machine wiht minimal toner.

Thus, an image (made available) on the web and then modified
*is* different because the modification is made to a copy
of a unique work. This is not limited to the non-digital
world of the tradtional studio arts. For example, if a
digital image is created that to be properly rendered 
would require a piece of equipment costing $50_000 Altarian,
most people would not be able to "experience" the work
properly. It is *completely* up to the artist (creator)
of the work to decide to what extent the experience of
the viewer is "authentic"; that is, the artist in each
case "autographs" the piece. 

Take for example, the works of Christo & Jean-Claude.
The installations are always ephemeral and very site
specific; eg, wrapping of the Riechstagg, the "Gates"
of New York. The experience of the viewer is authenticated
by the physical presence of the work -- viewing the
work in a picture, even a video made by a carefull
crew is at *best* allographic, and arguably in-authentic
and at worst, cheap, a rip-off, and/or badly done. 

We need only to look at the overwhelmingly bad re-makes
and or sequels of movies to see tribututes to the god of
the in-aesthetic.

This brings us to the so-called "shared experience". In
the present case, the work exists in two forms (as intended
by the artist).  

The first is (arguably) the "more refined" or "better"
experience, participants in the room are given the two
pieces of paper and instructed how to hold/place them
so as to get "the best" of the work. The on-line version
is a badly made photo. The color and texture are destorted
by the web-ready reduction of the image. Albiet, a higher
quality image could be made, but the exposure itself is
flawed:  Slightly out of focus, Bad lighting, And the
print curls outward, thus spoiling the "illusion" of
flatness - the earmakr of "art on paper".

As to the concept of "ownership" the example is given
of ??artist?? whose work was purchased and hung in
the home of a friend of the artist. When the artist
needed the work for a show, the *owner* said no. When
the owner was out of town, the artist visited the home
and told the housekeeper that he had come to "do some
maintenance" on the work. Instead, he cut it from
the frame and took it with him and displayed it in
the exhibit.

In a second case, the printmaker/sculptor Richard Sierra
decided to print a second edition of a print. This 
insensed a person who had bought one of the first edition
prints. (There were quite a few in the two editions). At
news of a lawsuit, Sierra had a friend who was a marksman
fire several bullets into the entire second edition 
(stacked one on top of the other). Technically, there
is no second edition. There is a new edition known as
a "print variant"; ie, the original matrix is printed,
and then the print itself is altered. Had the original
matrix been modified (eg, etched further, burnished, etc),
then the new "edition" would be refered to as a new
edition of the "subsequent state" of the print.

Note that is is important since one of the main ideas
of printmaking *is* to make more than one "original"
-- that is more than one allographic copy of the 
autographic original matrix. It is common practice 
for the printmaker to "proof" the matrix with a print,
evaluate the print, work further into the matrix 
(creating the next "state" of the matrix), print the
matrix again (ie, proof it), and proceed thus until
at some point the matrix is printed and a "final"
edition is produced. In practice, several editions
of several different states could be produced; eg,
State 3, edition of 100; State 12, edition of 50.

When the matrix is "struck", it is either destroyed
entirely (or at least cut in half), or a "strike mark"
is made to clearly indicate that the previous edition
and any sub-sequent editions can easily be distinguished.



"blue circle with textures, printed on
 two half pieces of paper with a small 
 gap between them" - 2005 (presumed destroyed)

   
The Historical Development of a specific Aesthetic Experience

I wish to now look at the gathrering layers of the experience
itself; ie, something along the lines of a "the extent to which
the "viewer" becomes more and more deeply involved with the 
aeusthetic experience of the "thing".

For example, we might well know the name Van Gogh. And we might be
aware of the slef-portrait with the bandarged ear. And we might then
no more about his life, and specifically his later life and his
suicide. All of these bits of "knowledge", "rumor", gossip, etc --
we then bring these in as authrnetic aspects of our aesthetic 
appreciation of the work of art. 

But, what if we "approach" a new work of art the artist's name and 
works we are un-familiar with; somewhat different in the modern
internet-ready, multi-medaia area. Our evolving aesthetic experience
with this person grows by layers. We may encoutnrer their work for
the first time in an advertisement; ie, as a crude "pastiche" attempt
by the advertiser to "borrow" on the creative works on one person and
use that to sell something. (We make no moral judgement as to the
"properness" of this, since we are to be well assured that all of
oh-so important *intellectual property rights* have had made to them
the proper gestures, rituals, and litigations.)  

Next comes into our mind a curiosity of the work; perhaps a style that
we have not seen before? eg, Jacson Pollock's drips, Seraut's "dots",
Hellen Frankenthaller's broad swatches of colour, etc. We begin to fit
this "unknown" into our "known". The next encounter with the work of
art or the artist might come some time later. "so and so (whome we knew)
studied under X" (the artist that we recently encounterd for the first
time).


  *** GOOD PLACE for quote by Insley (the aesthetic of the avante garde
   regarging good/bad experience in TIME ****

A case in point occured with an acquantence who is a big history (esp the
history of Judeo-Christian era), and the subject of ??name?? Escher came 
up, and he violently reacted against Escheer for two works *** show the 
grass hopper on the bishop's tomb ***

And then another work that he proceeded to describe to me. Whereupon the
tiny litle bulb went off in my head. And almost laughtingly said, ah, but
that's just acopy! Escher was doing that as an exercise. THe origina is
by Hiermonious Bosche (the "hell" panne). And before I could explain the
concept by which artists "practice" and "study" by volunatarily making
hand-drawn *reproductions* of works of art, the person blurted out, "Well
I could never like anything by someone who would paint sch things!!"

THis I would have to say (in or palentolgical examination of the historical
geographic layers of the vearious strata of art and art history -- and more
specifically "the nature of the aesthetic experience" would have to be
classified as a "case of mistaken identity"; or, at very worst a "bad art
trip, man -- like not cool, real bummer".

And yet this is possibly the most common sort of experience that T.C. MITS
comes into contact with art. [Note: T.C. MITS is taken from the delightful
book "The Education of The Celebrated Man In The Street", by Lillian Lieber].

So, one of the most common experiences is thus: Mistaken Identiy and/or
"The Argument from Ignorance". [Note 4]


  


First Exhibit

In the modern, photographic, digital-enabled, web-ready world, 
what then is the role of life drawing, or drawing in general 
for that matter? For example, Priscilla Lima’s drawing of an 
old woman, titled “Beauty” shows us the image of a person who 
would hardly be considered anything but “plain” in today’s 
glitzy Hollywood crazed world where people spend fortunes 
to remake themselves into “beautiful people”. The very image 
screams for the portrayed woman to be sent on TV for a 
complete make-over. And yet, Lima’s drawing reveals a 
sensitivity to the person drawn that would be lost in 
almost any photograph. Needless to say, a make-over 
would erase the very character of the person portrayed. 

Thus art seems to break the rule: Beauty is what the majority 
thinks it is; or at least what TV would have us believe it is.

Similarly, the “rules” are broken by the two collage pieces by 
Virginia Robertson (Collage Series: Fall 2004) and Rani L. 
Rautela (Dot Study). The pieces purport to be drawings and 
yet seem either disjointed as if uncertain of concept (in 
the case of Robertson’s piece) or almost deranged (in the 
case of Rautela’s piece). But, both are purely autographic 
pieces. Each is a unique solution to the great question of 
“What is Art?”; each explores the use of two dimensional 
space in unique ways that would perplex most people who 
think that “Great Art” begins and ends with the Renaissance. 

Each piece succeeds, simply because it IS modern; in short, 
it takes chances – breaks the rules.

In addition the drawings and design pieces, small metals 
and 2-design works are included. Indeed, these works as 
well “break the rules”. The three-dimensionalzed versions 
of various Picasso drawings of women are “beautiful”, only 
because we are all familiar with the authentic cubist drawings 
by Picasso. Hence, the two-dimensional is given 3-dimensional 
form. Thus, far from pretending to be forgeries of Picasso’s 
work, they celebrate the originality of the work. Thus, passing 
through the stages of becoming allographic representations of 
Picasso’s autographic “script” and upon contemplation, are 
clearly autographic in their own right.

And the reverse process can be seen in the work of Zoetina 
Veal’s (Trichosis #0) and Resi Douglas (Tranquility) where 
by the electric nature of line and shadow, they essentially 
force the two dimensional work off the picture plane and 
into the third dimension. Other works go even further.

Second Exhibit

Ceramics (unlike sculpture) relies entirely upon the 
creation of unique works of art. Each piece is therefore 
completely autographic. However, the concept of repetition 
presents an almost allographic question. For example, if 
a ceramist creates a series of pieces in a tea set. The 
pieces even though “hand thrown” on a wheel, are all unique. 
That the ceramist has tried their best to make the pieces 
identical (as intent, we assume), does not deny the actual 
uniqueness of the pieces.

In the display the Studio Gallery, the ceramic works on 
display are all entirely unique from each other. Whether 
it was the intent of each artist to create autographically 
unique pieces (ie, clearly different from the works of other 
artists, or from their own work), or to create allographic 
copies of some other work is a question that can not be 
answered easily. Each piece on display carries with a heavy 
burden in the context of art history and the philosophy of 
the aesthetics. Regardless, the works captivate us with both 
their diversity of physical appearance, as well as their 
unity in the world of ceramics. 

For ceramics, the great “dividing distinction” is: Functional 
or non-Functional? But the question in terms of the “fine arts” 
is hardly as clear-cut as it might appear. For example, 
Aaron B.W. Ostrom’s “Toucan at Inguacu” ostensibly purports 
to be serving tray; clearly functional. However, its aesthetic 
decries this in the detail to which the work is approached. 
Surely, the simpler approach would have been to paint a picture 
(take a picture), laminate it to a wooden tray, and then use 
it as a commonplace serving tray. That this work of art might 
be considered “purely” functional is at best specious. 

On the other hand, Marilu Delgado’s “Primitive Women” purports 
to be a statue, about as non-functional as one might expect. Yet,
 clearly it could be used as a paperweight, pencil holder, or 
even as a doorstop. That such effronteries might offend the so-called 
“art loving public”, should be held off by Marcel Duchamp’s concept 
of the reverse ready-made; eg, he proposed using a Rembrandt as an 
ironing board. His most famous (or infamously held by the art 
loving public) ready-made was of course the urinal, turned on 
it’s back and titled “Fountain”.

In addition the works in the Studio Gallery, the Forum Gallery 
exhibits photographs, digital works, prints, and watercolors. 
In addition there are two installed pieces by Jorge Misum; 
“Cornerstone” and “Peace”. The corner-installed piece 
(Cornerstone) echoes back to an installation piece by Joseph 
Beuys wherein he tossed bits of animal fat into a corner, 
filling the space much in the same way as Misum’s piece does. 
Interworking with Misum’s first piece, his ceramics instructor, 
Du Chau challenged Misum to introduce a piece that embodies the 
concept of “peace”. The fragility of the installed piece is 
readily apparent, whether it achieved its goal the viewer will 
have to decide for themselves. 

The final exhibit in the fall student art show will encompass 
those two vast and mighty areas of art: Painting and Sculpture. 
For much of the art loving public, this is what “real art” is. 
Each student will choose their one best piece that expresses 
what they fill is their best work. For some, this will be a 
representational work that attempts to mimic the photograph. 
For some, the works will be completely abstract, and thus 
attempting to enter into the dialog of the modern.

Third Exhibit

With Duchamp’s attempt to introduce a urinal as a work of 
sculpture, most art historians agree that this change in the 
dialog of art began the modern era. If we take a photograph 
of an assembly line making urinals, then our photograph is 
“mere” documentation of manufacture of functional plumbing. 
If, however, we take the photo so that it captures a certain 
“look” about the assembly line (perhaps the use of repetition, 
perhaps the composition of the break of space, etc). 

In that case, one could maintain that the photograph itself 
was a work of art; and therefore, not “mere” documentation. 

And while the works of painting are clearly autographic, what 
are we to make of cast sculpture? Clearly hand-wrought, 
one-of-a-kind sculpture (like ceramic pieces) are autographic 
and therefore unique works of art. But, of the casting of 
several pieces, what are we to say? If we “assume” that the 
castings are made with the direction or permission of the artist 
(even if the artist was not involved in the actual casting of 
the piece from a mold that was made at the behest of the artist), 
then we are faced with the apparent dilemma of deciding whether 
the works are autographic, or merely allographic copies and that 
only the original form (from which the mold was made) is the only 
autographic work; and hence the autographic work becomes the mold, 
rather than the casting. 

The most famous example of this problem is that of August Rodin’s 
statue, “The Thinker”. The original cast statue was considered 
obscene and destroyed. The version that exists today is the 
second casting. Indeed, there are several castings of Rodin’s 
statue “Balzac”. Without falling prey to the so-called 
“intentionalist fallacy”, it is clear that the reproductions 
reference the original work (whether it be the first casting 
or the mold itself). As you walk among this exhibit, let these 
questions of the original work, a photograph of the work, and 
this (written) description of the work enter into your mind. 

These are the kinds of thoughts that artists often entertain 
while creating art. This, and the questions: What IS art? Why 
am I doing this? And of course: Where am I going to get money 
to by some more cadmium yellow, deep hue paint?

--30--
	
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