"I can still see the reproachful look he [Trotsky] gave Diego Rivera when the latter maintained (which was hardly extravagant) that drawing had been in decline since the cave period..."
— André Breton, Radio Interview with André Parinaud, 1952
I, basically, agree with Rivera on this point. And I'm always interested to hear that someone with politics like Trotsky still holds conservative ideas about art. I've always been fascinated by people with extremely leftist politics not being able to open themselves up to progressive ideas in drawing.
The artwork of Dali, Frida Kahlo, Kozyndan, Paul Pope, etc. has always seemed like 'fake' imaginative image making to me. Dali's imagery is incredibly heavy handed...but for so many people it satisfies. 'It's so well drawn...and what a crazy imagination!'. Work like Kozyndan's will always be popular because people like little cookies in their art ('a bunny fighting a robot???') but to enjoy those cookies they need it to be 'well rendered.'
Cave paintings aren't just historic evidence of the desire to make art. They're incredibly enriching images...examples of the mind working in ways that our own minds today do not work. Breton frames the story to serve up the obvious question: why do revolutionaries not embrace art that shows the mind free of all the trappings of modern life?
And why have we not reached the point as viewers of art that the only 'imaginative' artwork that breaks through into the public consciousness is like Dali (perhaps the most overrated artist of all time?)...lukewarm 'craziness' rendered well. Picasso would be an exception to this, but so many people just view that as 'scribble scrabble' or a cosmic joke the art world is playing. Imaginative image making is never viewed as real art the way Dali or Kahlo are unquestioningly adored.
With Picasso (who I honestly don't even like (Matisse 4 life) but can at least stomach) there's always the discussion of 'yes eeettt iz beyifiul but i do not think he can really draw yes...oh ze blue period shows he can draw? yes well den zis is good.' Whereas I never hear any objection to the automatic placement of Dali in the pantheon of the greats even though it's like sub sub sub Zap cover art.
Adoration is, of course, not where it's at. But I do think abandoning notions of Dali or Kahlo as being more important or 'better' then the drawings you yourself make might be a good thing.
42 comments:
"The artwork of Dali, Frida Kahlo, Kozyndan, Paul Pope"
Who are "Unconnected artists Austin English doesn't like?" I'll take "Hipster Runoff Pastiches" for $800, Alex.
:)
i think, for me, the benefit of artists who frame contemporary life is the mirror they provide, so that i can see myself relating to my surroundings more clearly
i don't feel good when i look at dali, but i wonder how much of this feeling comes from associations i have with dali - college students and 'uneducated people'.
even though cave paintings exist, we are limited in viewing them within a contemporary framework - textbooks, the internet, etc. we retroactively apply concepts like 'painting' and 'art' and these cave paintings become a modern day legend, like the dinosaurs, that gets constantly re-interpreted.
this is my feeling
"With Picasso (who I honestly don't even like (Matisse 4 life) but can at least stomach) there's always the discussion of 'yes eeettt iz beyifiul but i do not think he can really draw yes...oh ze blue period shows he can draw? yes well den zis is good.' Whereas I never hear any objection to the automatic placement of Dali in the pantheon of the greats even though it's like sub sub sub Zap cover art."
1) Has anyone (who is not an ignoramus, a philistine, or a professional contrarian)questioned Picasso's drawing ability since the 1930s or so?
2) If you never hear any objection to the placement of Dali in the pantheon of greats (the canon, in short), then you haven't been listening. He is one of the most problematic artists for art historians and critics. I can assure you that no serious art historian ranks him higher than his peers in the surrealist movement. Consequently, he seems like a bit of a straw man in this argument.
In fact, I'd hard to see what your argument is. Like Sean Collins, I don't see the connection between these artists.
That said, how do you feel about the art of David? Nicolas Poussin? Chardin? Ingres?
austin, i 'corrected' the post's publication date, change it back if you prefer
honestly, those artists are so linked in my mind that it seems obvious although i struggled in writing this to explain why and perhaps didnt do a good enough job. to me they are so similar that it borders on the obvious but I'm still grasping for the right words.
'1) Has anyone (who is not an ignoramus, a philistine, or a professional contrarian)questioned Picasso's drawing ability since the 1930s or so? '
so many incredibly intelligent people i know question and dismiss picasso all the time.
i think of a certain relative...a very smart guy. once we were in a bookstore and he picked up a copy of the wasteland, flipped through it and remarked that it seemed like gibberish. i know that if he spent time with it, he'd get a lot out of it, but there's plenty of people who aren't 'ignoramus, a philistine, or professional contrarian' who still dismiss a lot of the art that you think has been free of any questioning.
and a lot of times those people embrace stuff like kahlo. it's an interesting contradiction that i'm trying to figure out myself and I think it's worth talking about.
dismissing an artist for making well rendered art is just as short-sighted as dismissing an artist for making "scribble scrabble."
I'm defeated as to the significance of the opening paragraph... Wouldn't Rivera be the conservative one, in preferring art that's 25,000 years old? And doesn't it follow that an illiberal, disciplined revolutionary would necessarily have conservative, utilitarian arpproaches to art?
...I suspect Trotsky would approach art much in the same manner of a content-generating blogger: "How does the work, and my perceived engagement of the work, advance my positioning towards already pre-determined goals? It doesn't? Into the dustbin of history."
I've been wondering about the relationship between "new" forms of art and leftist ideologies recently myself. I don't think there is an essential connection there. I think what has really happened ( this is the short version) is that Lefties tended to embrace "new" art at different ( often revolutionary) periods; "new" art for a "new" man, etc. But I'm not so sure that these changes in art would not have happened regardless of ideological movements on the left. Ezra Pound, T.S Eliot, Knut Hamsun, H.P lovecraft where all Rightists, after all.
I think the real forces that cause these sorts of shifts are mostly technological; the sudden ubiquity of the printed image, the sudden ability to hear what music people are making thousands of miles away, the photograph, etc.
Most artists I know are really pretty apolitical. They're not really tuned into ideology in a concerted way. It's not like they read up on political philosophy beyond taking a stab at Chomsky here or there. I think their motives are to create, or live in, systems that encourage them to meet their desires as aesthetes.Right now, that's a kind of weak-kneed Leftism, but I think it can go any way, really.
It certainly doesn't help that most Rightists really do believe that Contemporary Art= Leftism, simply because the Institutional powers that support that work ( and of course attract those who reflect the desired image back to them) are Globalist/Left in character.
But I don't know in what way "radical leftism" would add up to being more "open". If being "free" is the concern, I would hook up with Neo-Conservativism, as it posits that global marketplaces are bound to eventually rule ( so why not tear the band-aid off and get it done faster with war?) the globe.
It seems like skill in a very quantifiable, easily comprehensible form is what most folks (like my Grandma) value. "This" looks like "that." There's verisimilitude or prettiness. It's more difficult for them to see the craft in Picasso's loopier work, that it comes, not from diligent practice and study of a particular methodology, but in locating what is possible and exploring that. People gravitate toward kitsch, and I think that the artists you listed are interested in using forms they know and understand and not in challenging their own notions of craft or taste or "good." It's a way of setting a goal for yourself and pursuing it very methodically which is a different way of working than one I, for instance, value more, which is about searching and pushing for something new.
chester brown is a right winger, but does he draw with his left hand?
i thought hamsun accepted nazism along with insanity. like a two-for-one deal, which he traded for his twilight years.
i like the political bent these comments have taken, but alas, i'm a fairly apolitical "creative-type". i will now study my shoe.
boston hangnail, don't hate on salvapablo picassali. he(they) ain't done you no wrong.
melting clocks, quasi-african face-warps, gigantic eggs and misogynist minotaurs all have their places in my heart.
alas, i can never force them into yours.
its not well rendered art im dismissing...sorry for my lack of clairty. i like edward hopper,lucien freud, jamie hewlett, etc as much as any of my other favorite artists. its a cheap mix of well rendered art and cheap gimmicks that im trying to get at...
It's not that rendering skills are no good, it's that they aren't the whole thing. And yes, despite its difficulty and power, perspectival rendering is as much a trick and set of conventions as anything else.
Austin, do you see something like this in comics with a bias towards cartooning and cinematic storytelling? I think that bias is lessening (thanks in part to some of the people I see on this site) but its still there.
As for the Left and art... It's sad seeing Soviet art have a flowering just after the revolution, as if the artists really did believe some new society was being made. Man that must have been a crappy wake up when all that cool modern stuff was purged.
"its a cheap mix of well rendered art and cheap gimmicks that im trying to get at..."
that sounds like a pretty bold statement for something kind of hard to quantify, but I'll bite: how is Dali a cheap gimmick, and how do your problems with artists of his 'caliber' have to do with concrete, inherent issues of the work and less to do with your own insecurity or taste?
I doubt that you're suggesting this but looking at your own work-- how are 'awkward/scribbly' drawings somehow the 'progressive' as you suggested? Or what is imaginative ways/progressive ways of image making? Couldnt someone inversely argue that your own drawing style and the drawing style of your peers isnt so much a personal style but a trend? I mean this whole scribbly scrabbly drawing style is all around you, and has been around forever.
I mean, asking why people like Dali is like asking why Young Lions reviews basically amount to, "well the plot is aimless, but wowzers the dude can really draw!"
People like a pretty line, they like a catchy hook, and it sounds like there is a Dali or Paul Pope in your midst who thinks he is closer to Duchamp.
Hamsun was not insane. I think those who wanted to hold on to his work but were uncomfortable with his politics presented that as a solution.
As far as "challenging the good" goes, I'm not sure if the artists I listed were interested in that, per se. They were interested in challenging their respective forms ( maybe not Lovecraft, who was idiosyncratic) and, in turn, the reader/viewer. But I don't know if challenging the "good" has been a concern for that many artists, leftists or not.
A lot of early-modern Rightists were interested in folk arts and archaic forms, as well as pushing hard at what technology could offer ( Futurists)..I don't think that relationship between Left/New and Right/Old is essential, though it trends that way right now.
Trotsky, being a materialist, would have likely pointed out that you can't divorce the aesthetic of cave painting from the primitive tools available to those artists.
I'm also confused about the bait and switch that you presented where cave painting is later referenced as a form of "progressive art."
As far as leftist thinking and the modern arts goes, it's all over the place. Surrealism, Dada, post-modern Conceptual Art, this stuff is all dripping with post-marxist thought.
For better or worse though. I agree with Austin in the sense that the philosophy/art interplay might alienate artists from a more naturalistic interpretation of their experience.
It's certainly important that artists make images in emotionally direct ways such as the cave painters, or even perhaps someone like Austin. I don't think that fact conversely dismisses all those that do not however.
Politics, in general, I think, is about simplifying and making cartoony difficult and thorny relationships, making them into a system. I'm the typical apolitical artist, too, and, as such I might just be ignorant, but I can't think of a political ideology that isn't reductive and doomed to the fate of anything utopian.
Cave paintings have an urgency to them that art-as-product lacks. Urgency, as in the authenticity of spontaneity, could be seen as an antidote to consumerist art. Scribbles can also be kitsch, and I worry about the use of that as a style, a way to easily access and communicate "human experience."
U - I meant "good" more as taste and not as morality.
i don't know hw this discussion became 'well rendered' (a bad term to begin with but my fault for introducing it) vs 'scribble scrabble.'
as i said before i love 'realistic' (also a horrible term) artists. i get just as much from them as anything else...cave paintings aren't noteworthy for me because of their simplicity, but for their originality of thought.
that's what rivera was talking about, in my view. drawing has fallen off because the purity of though involved has declined.
i think lucien freud shows a lot of the spirit of cave painting that rivera is advoating for in his tight compositions.
so does dan clowes, yknow?
im also not interested in leftist or conservative notions of embracing experimental art. it's more that ANYONE, left or right, who has deeply held beliefs that goes against the common grain dont make the same choice in their aesthetic view...in what art they let into their hearts.
'
that's what rivera was talking about, in my view. drawing has fallen off because the purity of though involved has declined.'
typos galore. ...the purity of thought inovled, for rivera, has declined.
There is a social and economic dimension to all art, save perhaps the art of someone like Darger who literally squirrels it away. Anything that possesses economic and social dimensions is political in nature, there is really no way around this. A lot of contemporary art focuses on being socially subversive, yet it's sold for thousands of dollars in a gallery to members of the ruling economic class. This is one of my favorite aspects of Paper Rodeo, it was free, which makes it economically subversive. Graffiti is the ultimate form of economic subversion in art.
Austin, perhaps the cave-artists think was pure because their economic and social realities were pure. Another example of art in this vein is Zen calligraphy which also strives for a purity of presence in the artist himself, which the image made being a reflection of this state.
Austin - right on!
@ian disagree re "Graffiti is the ultimate form of economic subversion in art."
corporations use graffiti, conceptual art, as well as other 'subversive' methods in 'guerrilla advertising' and to promote/create 'brand consciousness'
even santiago sierra, the most aggressively 'subversive' artist i can think of today, will probably eventually (very soon?) see elements of his work become the 'next thing' for ad agencies.
see also: "freemium economy"
'In many cultures, societies, religions, and cosmogonies, there is some myth or memory of a distant past when humankind lived in a primitive and simple state, but at the same time one of perfect happiness and fulfillment. In those days, the various myths tell us, there was an instinctive harmony between man and nature. Men's needs were few and their desires limited. Both were easily satisfied by the abundance provided by nature. Accordingly, there were no motives whatsoever for war or oppression. Nor was there any need for hard and painful work. Humans were simple and pious, and felt themselves close to the gods. According to one anthropological theory, hunter-gathers were the original affluent society.
These mythical or religious archetypes are inscribed in all the cultures and resurge with special vitality when people are in difficult and critical times. However, the projection of the myth does not take place towards the remote past, but either towards the future or towards distant and fictional places, imagining that at some time of the future, at some point of the space or beyond the death must exist the possibility of living happily.'
-from the wikipedia entry on 'utopia'
@Blaise, That book "FREE: The Future of a Radical Price" looks interesting, but I'm discouraged that I have to pay for it.
Blaise- Good one! But I'm the idiot who misheard what Austin was saying!
BAT CAVE PAINTINGS
totally
I'm not so sure free equals economic subversion. Signs/symbols can be encoded and read in so many different ways, and in our media age, where they can be consumed in abundance, and usually for free, I think it's the content ( as opposed to form) that's really capable of sending specific messages like "subvert the economic order".
So, it's much more about what Tux Dog is saying and doing than how you came into possession of it.
Also, don't let the Doctrows fool you; "free", or open-source media is just going to be exploited by those with the most access to bandwidth, while those who actually create will no longer be able to earn money from their creations. What's to stop Pepsi from using your radical jpeg?
I think the most radical thing you could do right now, in terms of economics, is to support a fully monetized internet.
Also,
Also, I think you can find some edification of the political-philosophy urge ( whenever you talk about what "everybody else" is doing, you're being political ( sorta)) without necessarily becoming an ideologue or a dogmatist.
I read a site called Front Porch Republic that features leftists and rightists all concerned with promoting localism and anti-globalization, for instance.
Also, it is quite possible to be political, or have a political philosophy, without being an ideologue. Ideologies are proscriptive; there's lots that frays away at the edges.
@uland 'Also, don't let the Doctrows fool you; "free", or open-source media is just going to be exploited by those with the most access to bandwidth, while those who actually create will no longer be able to earn money from their creations'
can you elaborate
Having just debuted a relatively large run (for alt comics) free comic, I can say that half the kick of putting something free out is knowing that it will sometimes end up in the wrong hands. For example, at our release copies ended up in the hands of both a mentally ill homeless person as well as a sophisticated academic, all in the same night!
Free tears down a lot of social barriers.
free tears down my cheek
breaks my hart
tom, that is.
just kiddin
Blaise: The way I see it, copyright issues have only come about because of digital media; we're able to use all of this stuff really easily, and distribute it easily, but we'll get in trouble with copy holders if we do.
The solutions promulgated by guys like Doctorow, if I understand it correctly, is to essentially get rid of limitations that make it more difficult for "creatives" to use what they will. There is no real way to do that without letting Pepsi at your stuff too.It's not like, if you let go of your own copyrights, you can choose who uses it and for what purpose. So, if that occurs, Pepsi can grab images from whomever, sounds from whomever, and employ them in a number of different ways in a-traditional media.
From the "cubicle creative" perspective, it might make sense: There's all this great stuff out there, if I could only "remix" it and "give it back", we'd all be happy.
But what about the creators of the raw material? Those who aren't salaried at some agency?
As far as I'm concerned, the problem with copyrights is that they haven't become strict enough in response to digital media..
I mean, they won't let you make copies from a book at Kinkos, but we can grab any image online and use it however.
I've seen my drawings turn up on flyers and in a fake Juxtapoz type book printed in Hong Kong.
Maybe it's not in the money managers interest to protect independently owned material?...
Creative commons license.
How about we just get rid of Pepsi?
The voluntary creative commons license is a fine middle ground/temporary solution, but it's proponents hope that eventually, all creative works will be issued under it, and they're actively opposing any measures that might make it more difficult to "share" copyrighted materials online. In terms of distributing media online, if that precedent takes root, it's going to be next to impossible to use distribution channels without complying. Who is going to buy your single, when there are millions available for free? Why would a distributor ( or band-width owner), even list your single if it's going to be passed by?
On another note, how fucking privileged do you have to be ( or Canadian) to not need/want to get paid for anothers use of your original creation? It's fine when you're employed by all kinds of NGOs and get tons of grants, like Doctrow, but for me, it means I paint houses while people use my work to make money for themselves.
I think the whole concept of "free" ( not just economic) needs to be reconsidered, on almost every level; the way to proceed is through guilds and severe protectionism. What, are we going to follow the boomers suit?The people that thought pretend wealth was just as good as the real thing as long as it bought them a new Prius, or a condo in Florida?
I don't want to make art that will just become a commodity in the capitalist/consumerist market. I don't think it's immoral to participate in that system, but that's not why I draw. It doesn't matter to me if Pepsi "steals" my art. I enjoyed making it, but I don't feel like I own it. I don't feel more legit or pure because of this - I just get bored working on projects other people have designed or are in control of. I appreciate it when people other than me like what I've done or if it sparks a conversation between them and me, and I like to make physical books because that's what I grew up with. I work 40+ hours a week, play with my little girl and my wife, get up at 4am most days to have a couple hours in the studio - my life is really full and good.
Creative Commons just seems like the PC way to be a capitalist these days. Markets don't sift out the bad. Share, share, share, steal, steal, steal. More inputs = better outputs.
Well, you have to acknowledge that the work you make would be really hard for anybody to use to sell anything. There isn't really a market-based "use" for your work.
Regardless, I don't consider the novels, comics, films and music I really appreciate to be mere commodities. That's only the most basic term you'd begin with. Anything that you reproduce in order to distribute is a commodity, whether or not any are sold, so you have to take it into consideration. The first way I approach it is is with basic ethics concerns; Is it fair/right/good of me to use the product of someone's labor/passion without their permission? Is it okay in certain contexts, or should the artist have a kind of right to decide in which ways, if any, their work can be recontextualized?
On the second level, does the hypothetical ability to use anything you want to really improve our ability to make better stuff, and culture as a whole?
I don't really think so. People have always been able to privately use any/all materials, after all. They just haven't been able to copy/distribute/sell the work ( unless it's a Warholian type thing, I guess).
I tend to think that creating out of whole-cloth is more edifying and enriching on a personal level.
Ultimately, my concerns for maintaining independent artists ability to make money in order to support themselves outweighs any potential good that might come from chipping away at it.
U - totally right re the marketability of what I'm making. I wonder if other people are making work with a market in mind or if they're just more successful at attracting an audience? My point about markets is that the benefit accrued by distributing something is not often related to the amount of work put into creating it. What is the proper way for determining how funds are allocated to artists? Is it the market? Does Joe Marvel Comics deserve to make more money than Jason T Miles? Does Chris Ware deserve to make more than Grant Morrison? Why? Is it based on work or marketability? I don't know how to answer this question. I feel like I put a lot of effort into what I make, but I realize that it wouldn't appeal to most people. That's one of the reasons I make it cheap or free. The reward is making it and having someone else get something out of it. I feel conflicted about the morality of file-sharing, for instance, but I partially rationalize it by trying to gift the product of my effort. I don't think I'll ever make money at this, but should I change what I'm doing so that I will?
I enjoy All Star Superman more than Acme Novelty Library or Jason Miles over X-Men. Who put in more effort? Who deserves more money?
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