[-empyre-] self and others

[Christiane Robbins]

Indeed, its been an energetic few weeks on empire.  As such, it hasn’t  
been easy to keep track of all of the issues on the table.   However,  
it seems that we always keep landing on this flea ridden canard –  
“what is art ?”

Most specifically to this list -  how do we think of it and what forms  
does it – can it take”?  The domain of art practice seems to be  
broadly accepted as a given.  There are references upon references to  
“great works of art” and that we should be concerned with these  
significant works ( primarily "masterworks" of the 19th/20thc).  A  
pivotal question is left begging-  what guarantees these works of art  
their centrality – as an ontological constant - within this discussion?

Without question, it is simultaneously dynamic, provocative,  
insightful and, at times, frustrating when what art is … and isn’t … 
are bandied about, professed and sanctioned by experts from  
disciplines from sociology, law, computer science, literature, etc.   
Within these posts there often seems to be an offer of a bifurcated,  
inherently contradictory notion of contemporary art practice(s).  Art  
has been positioned ( and beautifully articulated ) as an endeavor  
which seems ensconced in this utopian, self-referential, romantic,  
nostalgic, mournful exercise of self-expression.  I think it was  
Lyotard who said sometime ago that there was an element of  “sorrow in  
the Zeitgeist.”   In the positioning of such a sense of loss, I see a  
jettison of the framework and substantiation of the late-20thc  
capitalist directive of the “professionalism of the field” – of an art  
practice that streams itself as a “career path” within capitalistic  
economies and systems – such as the academy.

I, too, find making art pure pleasure - incredibly so at times!  Much  
to my chagrin, I also realize that pleasure can sustain one only so  
much .

So please forgive, and humor, my own naiveté to ask you all this  
question, how then does one negotiate and then reconcile these  
seemingly disparate tracks - pleasure and "professionalism" ?  This  
may ring particularly relevant in revisiting notions of complicity –  
as its been parried about during the past few weeks.




On Jan 13, 2010, at 6:36 AM, Johanna Drucker wrote:

> Nice turn to these exchanges. I also really appreciated Gabriela's
> point and the follow-up by others.
>
> If we think of art as the act of form giving, we recognize that forms
> partake of symbolic systems. As social creatures we
> 'interpellate' (hideous theory word) shared symbolic systems (signs,
> stories, genres, dance moves, rules of the game etc.). But of course
> collectively and individually, we shift those symbol systems (for
> better and worse--think of personal choice and fashion trends).
>
> I've fallen from my pure structuralist beliefs. I no longer think we
> are only 'subjects.' Individualism may be a founding mythology of
> western culture, absorbed in the most opportunistic ways into
> contemporary consumer culture, but I think it has grounding. You are
> not me, even though, to recap all the polit-theo-talk in Pogo's terms,
> "We have met the enemy and he is us."  A great deal of cult studs
> analysis comes to that.
>
> Life is short. One of the pressing questions is what does one want to
> spend time on? The term "therapy" seems to carry a dismissive tone. I
> find making art pure pleasure, but it is the pleasure of bringing
> something into being, an act of making-as-knowing, that intensifies
> awareness. I'm an awareness junky.
>
> Johanna
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