This photo by Bruce Weber, from Vogue, is really charming, but honestly they all are.
Cy Twombly's face
One of the more wonderful people in the world, a marvelous woman named Mary Ann Caws, once said that she thought she sometimes picked her research because she fell in love with a face. Cy Twombly has done that for me and I hope one day that I do write something about him.
This photo by Bruce Weber, from Vogue, is really charming, but honestly they all are.
This photo by Bruce Weber, from Vogue, is really charming, but honestly they all are.
bad news calls for Ugly Babies!
I laugh more than I ever have these days at what a mess we've made are making of things. It was in such a mood today that I had a conversation with an artist working on a painting of an 8 foot baby (it's hysterical) and a friend who was wondering why her genitalia made some assume she wanted to talk about babies (it's horribly true), and so that must have been in the back of my mind when searching for something to make me laugh this afternoon, I went to ...
I first discovered this in grad school years ago but ah, how it makes me laugh. Of course, having been introduced to the concept, I have ever since wandered great cathedrals of art snickering and snapping pics of the ugly Renaissance (and yes, other periods...it's definitely not only Renaissance for you sticklers out there) babies that I find. It's so wonderful that great artists made such hideous mini-peeps and that random and unknown artists decided they had better things to do then get the baby right. Contrary to the bar's claim in Williamsburg, Baby's (not) All Right.
I could now wander along New Aesthetics and the impact of digital visualizations IRL... I've been there, it's fascinating, but not for today. Today, go look at ugly renaissance babies, or your "friend"'s recent posts of their spawn on social media (anyone else actually considered not following someone because you just acn't handle how unattractive their child(ren) is? No? Oh okay). Or, for something easier to share with those near and dear...Ugly Renaissance Cats.
I guess the lesson of the day is the world has been ugly for a few centuries.
I first discovered this in grad school years ago but ah, how it makes me laugh. Of course, having been introduced to the concept, I have ever since wandered great cathedrals of art snickering and snapping pics of the ugly Renaissance (and yes, other periods...it's definitely not only Renaissance for you sticklers out there) babies that I find. It's so wonderful that great artists made such hideous mini-peeps and that random and unknown artists decided they had better things to do then get the baby right. Contrary to the bar's claim in Williamsburg, Baby's (not) All Right.
I could now wander along New Aesthetics and the impact of digital visualizations IRL... I've been there, it's fascinating, but not for today. Today, go look at ugly renaissance babies, or your "friend"'s recent posts of their spawn on social media (anyone else actually considered not following someone because you just acn't handle how unattractive their child(ren) is? No? Oh okay). Or, for something easier to share with those near and dear...Ugly Renaissance Cats.
I guess the lesson of the day is the world has been ugly for a few centuries.
The Penultimate Supper
Ah, Monty Python. Still good all these years.
Watched Life of Brian recently, which really everyone should go watch right now (or Black Books, my other favorite UK show) but this is a great if you want to imagine Renaissance commissioning arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Aj7W3g1qo
(No, Michelangelo did not paint The Last Supper. If he had, it might have lasted!)
Speaking of commissions, why do they have such a bad rap in the art world. If we are really over the whole notion of genius (clearly we are not) and (pick your least favorite artist to put here) has convinced us that artists can certainly be money-grubbing like the rest of society, then why are commissions so declassé? Does anyone believe that artists don't take the pulse of the times when they select works for a show? There's still plenty of aesthetic freedom to be had in commissions. (Unless it is a portrait of children, in which case bless the poor artist who has to suffer through that experience with the hovering mother anxiously awaiting to observe her child's newfound beauty.)
I guess to Michelangelo's point in the skit, the penultimate supper is more fun to think about. Too much already determined about the Last Supper. Unless constraints are your thing, it'd be much more fun to create the Penultimate Supper. In fact, someone out there...please do.
Watched Life of Brian recently, which really everyone should go watch right now (or Black Books, my other favorite UK show) but this is a great if you want to imagine Renaissance commissioning arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Aj7W3g1qo
(No, Michelangelo did not paint The Last Supper. If he had, it might have lasted!)
Speaking of commissions, why do they have such a bad rap in the art world. If we are really over the whole notion of genius (clearly we are not) and (pick your least favorite artist to put here) has convinced us that artists can certainly be money-grubbing like the rest of society, then why are commissions so declassé? Does anyone believe that artists don't take the pulse of the times when they select works for a show? There's still plenty of aesthetic freedom to be had in commissions. (Unless it is a portrait of children, in which case bless the poor artist who has to suffer through that experience with the hovering mother anxiously awaiting to observe her child's newfound beauty.)
I guess to Michelangelo's point in the skit, the penultimate supper is more fun to think about. Too much already determined about the Last Supper. Unless constraints are your thing, it'd be much more fun to create the Penultimate Supper. In fact, someone out there...please do.
Is that all there is?
Hi. I'm back. Kind of. Maybe. Am I here, was I ever?
I get existential sometimes.
So, grad school is over, I have the tenure job, and though I write, profess, and conference about art theory a whole lot these days, somehow I still don't think of myself as a critic. I'm more inclined to talk with artists about their work, in studio visits, over dinners, or just randomly. I like to think about art in relation to ideas, connecting recent and ancient commentary to the visual artefact. Plenty of people are correct in arguing with me that good criticism does these things. They are right. But this blog divests itself of such status. Let's call these musings on art, visual culture, life, the absurd, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Time takes its toll on life and death came to Wooster, who died a couple years ago. The avatar pick doesn't work as well anymore. Now I am the loving caretaker of Izzy Marmalade, the Sweetest Existentialist Cat, also known as Don von BonBon, or Steve, who is a very charmingly sized orange fur mush. Death. Life. Like writing. It comes and goes. It dominates and then doesn't.
I'm not promising much here. I'm hoping to keep posting thoughts here mostly because I get randomly enthusiastic about seemingly depressing topics (I am told) and my friends don't necessarily want to hear about it. I see the whole world smoldering and think...is that all there is?
I get existential sometimes.
So, grad school is over, I have the tenure job, and though I write, profess, and conference about art theory a whole lot these days, somehow I still don't think of myself as a critic. I'm more inclined to talk with artists about their work, in studio visits, over dinners, or just randomly. I like to think about art in relation to ideas, connecting recent and ancient commentary to the visual artefact. Plenty of people are correct in arguing with me that good criticism does these things. They are right. But this blog divests itself of such status. Let's call these musings on art, visual culture, life, the absurd, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Time takes its toll on life and death came to Wooster, who died a couple years ago. The avatar pick doesn't work as well anymore. Now I am the loving caretaker of Izzy Marmalade, the Sweetest Existentialist Cat, also known as Don von BonBon, or Steve, who is a very charmingly sized orange fur mush. Death. Life. Like writing. It comes and goes. It dominates and then doesn't.
I'm not promising much here. I'm hoping to keep posting thoughts here mostly because I get randomly enthusiastic about seemingly depressing topics (I am told) and my friends don't necessarily want to hear about it. I see the whole world smoldering and think...is that all there is?
Teaching Visual Culture: Imperiaism/Globalization vs Technology
Planning revisions to my Visual Culture course, I find myself struggling around certain social issues because I want to include more about the rise of technology and artificial intelligence. Currently I have a week on race, on gender, on imperialism, on globalization, issues that continue to wreck havoc on our human interactions and respect for each other. In that sense they are important ideas to teach to future artists and designers. On the other hand, technology is changing us. Yes, it is racist and sexist. It is biased to those with power and access. It reiterates all kinds of socio-cultural divisions. The rise of technology for me, however, puts in question our valuing of these superficial constructs (race, gender, class, national identity) to bring forth a more fundamental question for all humans: do we matter? Or, is there any meaning to my existence?
I have always been rather fond of the notion that our existence is simply an extension of a massive war between single cell division and sexual reproduction. Both are fighting for domination. I am simply an artefact of the effort on behalf of sexual reproduction. The language around this idea talks about generation and reproduction in ways that I think limit our thinking about it. What if it is really simply, as I said before, about taking over: domination.
This argument emphasizes that humans exist to reproduce. This is where I begin to think something else. For some time, humans have been interested in not only biological reproduction but an abstract one through ideas. As Harold Bloom suggested stressed poets, and as I simply feel standing in front of a classroom, the creation and recreation with modifications (hopefully improvements, whatever those might be) of ideas is a different kind of battle flag. Let us suppose therefore that humans are simply a fallible endpoint of sexual reproduction and the starting point of abstract extension. From mathematics to philosophy to art we are computers. Now, we've made better faster ones.
How would those computers spread? Networks. Can we co-exist? Looking around, sexual reproduction as manifest in humans seems intent on destroying single cell production. With all the efforts of ecologists, we don't value plant life. Bacteria, viruses, etc terrify us and we are intent on producing an ever cleaner world. Why? Cleanliness is not ideal for us, but it would be for technology.
All this is a long way from my visual culture class, but I think about these things because I wonder to what degree I need them to think not about the wars of the past, but of the challenges to come as artificial intelligence is not only an extension of how we live (computers, internet, step trackers and the rest) but determines how we live for us. It doesn't seem that far anymore. Read Trevor Paglen's Invisible Images or watch Amber Case TED talk Everyone is a Cyborg now. From either of those, follow the suggested links on each site and see where you wound up. To what degree did you get yourself there? To what degree, did a computer decide what you would find interesting for you?
As my students prepare for careers in the various art and design fields, I don't want them to be racists, sexists, or unaware of the mass privilege they experience from living the lives of plenty that they have even as they struggle with student loans, jobs, and supporting families. On the other hand, they should think about how technology informs the choices they make, what they desire, what they observe, how they think, and therefore what they will want to make, be asked to produce, and need to create. Those social factors influence computing, but I can't help wondering for how long. A future where being human is common ground doesn't seem that far away. As soon as the networks of data become more powerful than we are, more informed than we can be, that's the day that we are dominated, wherever we are, whatever we look like. Will teaching about 18th-20th century imperialism help then?
I have always been rather fond of the notion that our existence is simply an extension of a massive war between single cell division and sexual reproduction. Both are fighting for domination. I am simply an artefact of the effort on behalf of sexual reproduction. The language around this idea talks about generation and reproduction in ways that I think limit our thinking about it. What if it is really simply, as I said before, about taking over: domination.
This argument emphasizes that humans exist to reproduce. This is where I begin to think something else. For some time, humans have been interested in not only biological reproduction but an abstract one through ideas. As Harold Bloom suggested stressed poets, and as I simply feel standing in front of a classroom, the creation and recreation with modifications (hopefully improvements, whatever those might be) of ideas is a different kind of battle flag. Let us suppose therefore that humans are simply a fallible endpoint of sexual reproduction and the starting point of abstract extension. From mathematics to philosophy to art we are computers. Now, we've made better faster ones.
How would those computers spread? Networks. Can we co-exist? Looking around, sexual reproduction as manifest in humans seems intent on destroying single cell production. With all the efforts of ecologists, we don't value plant life. Bacteria, viruses, etc terrify us and we are intent on producing an ever cleaner world. Why? Cleanliness is not ideal for us, but it would be for technology.
All this is a long way from my visual culture class, but I think about these things because I wonder to what degree I need them to think not about the wars of the past, but of the challenges to come as artificial intelligence is not only an extension of how we live (computers, internet, step trackers and the rest) but determines how we live for us. It doesn't seem that far anymore. Read Trevor Paglen's Invisible Images or watch Amber Case TED talk Everyone is a Cyborg now. From either of those, follow the suggested links on each site and see where you wound up. To what degree did you get yourself there? To what degree, did a computer decide what you would find interesting for you?
As my students prepare for careers in the various art and design fields, I don't want them to be racists, sexists, or unaware of the mass privilege they experience from living the lives of plenty that they have even as they struggle with student loans, jobs, and supporting families. On the other hand, they should think about how technology informs the choices they make, what they desire, what they observe, how they think, and therefore what they will want to make, be asked to produce, and need to create. Those social factors influence computing, but I can't help wondering for how long. A future where being human is common ground doesn't seem that far away. As soon as the networks of data become more powerful than we are, more informed than we can be, that's the day that we are dominated, wherever we are, whatever we look like. Will teaching about 18th-20th century imperialism help then?
Seeing Things
Neil Harris in his book on J. Carter Brown’s directorship of the National Gallery (Culture Capital) explains how our nation’s capital came to be appreciated through graphic and literary presentations. Samuel F.B. Morse painted Congressional proceedings, but cartoonists provided caricatures of politicians that encouraged interest in the “farcical as well as tragic features of government” (Harris 40).
Films and plays, however, really helped rally interest in the workings of government with themes “reflecting attitudes toward partisanship, corruption, power, and pretension” (Harris 41). Before television, government was a largely mysterious affair, occurring at a great distance from most every day lives. Films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Born Yesterday, and State of the Union provided peeks into these places of power.
Television has changed some of that by providing us closer looks at Congress and the White House, but still we must remember how much we are influenced by what we see, or rather are given to see. There are parts of the world that I have never seen, but that I can describe because I have seen them in film and on television. We cringe at critical remarks in the 19th century about ‘exotic’ locales and people that are often derived from the Romantic imagery of the painters who visited, composed, and returned with canvases in hand. Art and stories do tell us something about a culture and a time, but sociological research also reveals those things that remained unacknowledged.
I feel compelled to mention this here because I am such an advocate for the role of poems and stories in encouraging interest in art and artists. I really do think we can use them to tell us about responses to certain works and movements over the years, why and how they have continued to appeal. There is a place in the history of art for the stories of art. BUT, all that being said, we must also remember that these are fictional accounts. They have dramatic requirements that allow them to warp evidence to the contrary. After all, as I’ve said before, why ruin a good story for want of a few facts?
A good story is a good story and over wine or on a Sunday night before a busy week ahead, that is what I want. I want drama! Give me House of Cards! But, Monday morning, don’t expect me to believe it. A peek into a place of power is not a good solid look. That requires more than sitting on the couch. It requires the hard work of investigative journalism, whose tales are far longer and more warped than any novel or film, and which we often ignore until it becomes entertainment…
All the President’s Men, Lincoln, The Butler, Selma.
These are fictions. But if well done, they might just make us wonder about what we’ve seen, what we think we see, what we might see if we looked more carefully.
Films and plays, however, really helped rally interest in the workings of government with themes “reflecting attitudes toward partisanship, corruption, power, and pretension” (Harris 41). Before television, government was a largely mysterious affair, occurring at a great distance from most every day lives. Films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Born Yesterday, and State of the Union provided peeks into these places of power.
Television has changed some of that by providing us closer looks at Congress and the White House, but still we must remember how much we are influenced by what we see, or rather are given to see. There are parts of the world that I have never seen, but that I can describe because I have seen them in film and on television. We cringe at critical remarks in the 19th century about ‘exotic’ locales and people that are often derived from the Romantic imagery of the painters who visited, composed, and returned with canvases in hand. Art and stories do tell us something about a culture and a time, but sociological research also reveals those things that remained unacknowledged.
I feel compelled to mention this here because I am such an advocate for the role of poems and stories in encouraging interest in art and artists. I really do think we can use them to tell us about responses to certain works and movements over the years, why and how they have continued to appeal. There is a place in the history of art for the stories of art. BUT, all that being said, we must also remember that these are fictional accounts. They have dramatic requirements that allow them to warp evidence to the contrary. After all, as I’ve said before, why ruin a good story for want of a few facts?
A good story is a good story and over wine or on a Sunday night before a busy week ahead, that is what I want. I want drama! Give me House of Cards! But, Monday morning, don’t expect me to believe it. A peek into a place of power is not a good solid look. That requires more than sitting on the couch. It requires the hard work of investigative journalism, whose tales are far longer and more warped than any novel or film, and which we often ignore until it becomes entertainment…
All the President’s Men, Lincoln, The Butler, Selma.
These are fictions. But if well done, they might just make us wonder about what we’ve seen, what we think we see, what we might see if we looked more carefully.
Book Review: Capital Culture, J.Carter Brown, The National Gallery, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience by Neil Harris
Capital Culture is a detailed account of J. Carter Brown’s influence as Director of the United States National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., but Neil Harris’ fifteen chapters also offer a view of the changes that occurred in museum culture during the 23 years of his tenure. The book centers on the changes that Brown was able to impose during his time at the National Gallery, by using specific shows and internal situations as case studies for the transformations that helped turn the gallery into a world class museum. The blockbuster exhibitions that Brown spearheaded were often met with disapproval despite their public success. Harris is even-handed in presenting critical declamations, both aesthetic and political, alongside his archival research into the driving reasons for the National Gallery’s efforts into these shows.
The emphasis on museums as sites of cultural education rather than excited engagement stems in part from the origins of survey museums arising out of princely collections. Brown’s move away from this pedagogical tradition incited much criticism, and though such departures have grown common place, they are still treated with hesitation, attitudes which may not serve to encourage contemporary audiences who increasingly arise out of a culture of choice rather than instruction. J. Carter Brown was an innovator and the book argues on behalf of his successes, despite any failures, for making the National Gallery an important cultural center. Harris convincingly claims that Brown’s vision transformed the museum stage and readers will likely find inspiration in Brown’s dynamic belief in art for all.
A full review will be available at the Journal of Curatorial Studies in the summer of 2015.
CAPITAL CULTURE: J. CARTER BROWN, THE NATIONAL GALLERY, AND THE REINVENTION OF THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE, NEIL HARRIS
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press (2013), 616 pp., Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-226-06770-4, US$35.00
The emphasis on museums as sites of cultural education rather than excited engagement stems in part from the origins of survey museums arising out of princely collections. Brown’s move away from this pedagogical tradition incited much criticism, and though such departures have grown common place, they are still treated with hesitation, attitudes which may not serve to encourage contemporary audiences who increasingly arise out of a culture of choice rather than instruction. J. Carter Brown was an innovator and the book argues on behalf of his successes, despite any failures, for making the National Gallery an important cultural center. Harris convincingly claims that Brown’s vision transformed the museum stage and readers will likely find inspiration in Brown’s dynamic belief in art for all.
A full review will be available at the Journal of Curatorial Studies in the summer of 2015.
CAPITAL CULTURE: J. CARTER BROWN, THE NATIONAL GALLERY, AND THE REINVENTION OF THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE, NEIL HARRIS
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press (2013), 616 pp., Hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-226-06770-4, US$35.00
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