In theory, you could look at art and like it or not. Actually in theory you do nothing of the sort. Theory posits all sorts of conceptual pathways and constraints to how we engage with art. Sometimes, I go to an exhibit and the theory postulated behind the work seems utterly ridiculous. Sometimes, theory seems to be all the work has going for it. And sometimes, some very rare and gifted artists manage to produce work that is totally wonderful and has a theoretical conceit–I am thinking here of Cy Twombly, whose work I am currently particularly engaged.
One of the recurring issues is the degree to which art relates to reality. Is it an analysis, presentation, insight into the current state of things? Should it be? I could start with Plato, discuss Hegel, mention Ruskin, all of which I may do as I continue to circle around this issue but for now, as I am reading Breton this fall, I will talk about his take on Tanguy.
Despite Breton’s approach to art as being engaged in a meaning full dialogue, in a 1942 essay on Tanguy, Breton distances theory from the creative production process. Tanguy's works are excellent and are entirely intuitive. Their relationship to theory can only be identified a posteriori, he claims. Theory and creative works may be swimming the same channel but they are coming from two different sources. Theory, in particular psychoanalysis and Gestalt theory for Breton, posits the same quest to recognize the Mother, that is the darkness of the origin, the womb, the cosmos and the conscious that Surrealist art attempts to present through their own efforts (think here of Goethe on the Mother).
Dali famously wore a diving suit, at the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibit in London, to represent the way that he plumbs the depths of the unconscious. Though the images that the artists offer may not be those of ‘reality’ they are at the very heart of the real. What is particularly real-ly funny was his inability to take off the mask, so that without the aid of the delightful Edward James (a surrealist patron and poet) he would have suffocated.
Reality sometimes intrudes on art, without a theoretical basis for doing so.
Showing posts with label Tanguy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tanguy. Show all posts
Friend's Art
Last night over a glass of wine, a friend announced that she was not sure whether she actually knew what friendship was. A philosopher by training, she was inclined to determine what it was that others professed as friendship. A philosopher by inclination, I willingly embarked on my own attempt to describe what I think friendship is and discovered that her Socratic move left me perplexed as well.
One glass of wine became two and I decided that friends for me are people I trust, who challenge me and my views but on whom I can depend in an emergency. This, however, gets tricky when I think of the numerous friends I have had whose creative work I would reluctantly discuss. Virginia Woolf, for example, hesitated to review Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians and was relieved from the obligation by an editor who thought she might be perceived as showing bias. On one hand, bias seems inevitable. But anyone who has creative friends, actors, directors, painters, musicians, writers, composers and so on, also knows that one's feeling of intimacy with them does not necessarily blind you to the faults of their work. It just makes it harder to express them. On the other hand, a relationship with the artist can allow a friend to better understand the impetus and direction of the work. If a review partly exists to explain the effort to a wider audience than perhaps few besides friends could do so well.
Friendships are sometimes used as a trope for an exhibit but it is done successfully in the case of the Calder and Tanguy show I recently saw. Peggy Guggenheim famously wore one earring by Calder and one by Tanguy to show her bi-partisan appreciation of surrealism and abstract art. Tanguy and Calder were friendly, and she was a friendly collector of both. In this instance and perhaps in all instances, there is no Platonic ideal of friendship but truly something that is created between people each and every time, being redefined with the nature of the people involved. The art of some of my friends I have never liked but am thrilled that others do, on their behalf. Other friend's work is truly wonderful but I can never express it or convince them of my sincerity since I am merely a friend.
One glass of wine became two and I decided that friends for me are people I trust, who challenge me and my views but on whom I can depend in an emergency. This, however, gets tricky when I think of the numerous friends I have had whose creative work I would reluctantly discuss. Virginia Woolf, for example, hesitated to review Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians and was relieved from the obligation by an editor who thought she might be perceived as showing bias. On one hand, bias seems inevitable. But anyone who has creative friends, actors, directors, painters, musicians, writers, composers and so on, also knows that one's feeling of intimacy with them does not necessarily blind you to the faults of their work. It just makes it harder to express them. On the other hand, a relationship with the artist can allow a friend to better understand the impetus and direction of the work. If a review partly exists to explain the effort to a wider audience than perhaps few besides friends could do so well.
Friendships are sometimes used as a trope for an exhibit but it is done successfully in the case of the Calder and Tanguy show I recently saw. Peggy Guggenheim famously wore one earring by Calder and one by Tanguy to show her bi-partisan appreciation of surrealism and abstract art. Tanguy and Calder were friendly, and she was a friendly collector of both. In this instance and perhaps in all instances, there is no Platonic ideal of friendship but truly something that is created between people each and every time, being redefined with the nature of the people involved. The art of some of my friends I have never liked but am thrilled that others do, on their behalf. Other friend's work is truly wonderful but I can never express it or convince them of my sincerity since I am merely a friend.
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