[-empyre-] Tacticality: 4 Anna

[Cynthia Beth Rubin]

Anna and all -

I want to thank Anna for her thoughtful posts. Often those of us who  
are artists just go on thinking that every one must know the  
conceptual side of what we do, and this is good reminder that we have  
to make it clear that the production of one-liner easily described  
objects is not exactly the focus for many of us.  In the earlier  
discussion on poetry,  Sally  summed it up what (many) artists do - in  
all media and in various art forms:

On Mar 11, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Sally Jane Norman wrote:
> . . . . interested in the non-binaries. the unfathomable in- 
> betweens. including those perversely spawned by digital systems.  
> can't sets of relations be hypothetical/ ephemeral constructs that  
> allow us to conjecture, without having to smack of finitude forever  
> after?


Art Criticism seems to be still burdened with the outdated tradition  
of  connoisseurship that reduced "art" to "collectables" for the  
purpose of categorizing works, even when both the artist and the  
audience saw and experienced more.  Adding to the difficulty of  
discussing art, as Christina just pointed out, is that critics often  
want to talk about identity over ideas.  Perhaps this is related to  
the current trend that assumes that only "young artists" can have new  
ideas? The artist is being packaged, not the work.

On Apr 29, 2009, at 6:47 PM, naxsmash wrote:
> Anna, the pressure in contemporary art practice to produce meaning  
> does often seem to devolve into identity. Emphasis who is , over  
> what is going on . tagging supercedes critical thinking. You speak  
> of this in re being told you "know" what is scarey" -- on this  
> list.  tagging is the updated form of epithet and scapegoat.

As for meaning - can't meaning come from associative experience? Art  
makes us think, it makes our mind wander and open up and make new  
connections.  And thinking is something that humans are supposed to  
find pleasurable.


Cynthia

http://CBRubin.net