“Conversations in Contemporary Art,” Barnard Magazine, Summer 2018.
Contemporary pseudo art’s stranglehold on the culture is reinforced by countless prestigious institutions—among others, my alma mater Barnard College. Since 2011, Barnard has been offering alumnae and friends a “lifelong learning” course entitled “Conversations in Contemporary Art” [more], aiming to demystify such work through an insider view of the artworld.
Taught by art historian Kathleen Madden ’92, the program was initiated by Diana Vagelos ’55, a generous supporter of the college, and Joan Snitzer, director of the college’s visual arts program. Vagelos (who also collects art with her husband, Roy) says of the course: “It helps people overcome ignorance of what’s happing in modern art, which is so different from what most have been brought up with.” Indeed!
An article praising the program in the Summer 2018 Barnard Magazine prompted me to pen the following letter to the editor:
The view of today’s art espoused by Kathleen Madden ‘92 [in “Conversations in Contemporary Art”] is one that many art lovers question. We do not think that visual art made in our own time, in a familiar cultural context, should require expert intervention to be appreciated. Nor do we consider the primary role of art to be getting us “to talk about the issues of the day.”
As I argue in Who Says That’s Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts, the primary role of art was always to embody important values in a directly graspable and emotionally compelling way. Today’s “conceptual art” requiring expert explanation grew out of the explicitly “anti-art” gestures of the 1960s. It was not art then, and it should not be considered art now. Programs such as Barnard’s “Conversations” sadly perpetuate its false claim.
I’m happy to report that the letter was published in the Fall 2018 issue of the magazine. Judging from a discernible uptick in sales of Who Says That’s Art?, I suspect that at least a few of my fellow alumnae were responsive to my contrarian view—as was a classmate who had posted a class note in the Winter 2018 issue about the book’s “highly critical view of much of contemporary art.”
Any chance that Snitzer, as director of Barnard’s visual arts program, might be curious enough about my Commonsense View of the Visual Arts to search for a copy of the book in the Columbia University Libraries catalog and inform her students about it? My guess is (to borrow the immortal words of Eliza Doolittle) not bloody likely—given the sort of paintings Snitzer herself produces, pictured here.
Michelle; Your argument may be weakened by your blaming certain artists, like DuChamp, for undercutting presumed established art standards. Those artists simply were at the place and time, in an art context, where they could exemplify broad and unfocused cultural shifts. In the case of DuChamp and others it was the breakdown of faith in hegemonic sociology-political-cultural power structures. With today’s re-emerging authoritarian regimes and conflicted social angst, there might be a renewal of a canonical art outlook. However, I think it’s more likely that high culture will continue to antagonize canons of authority to offset their favoring of popular mediocrity and separation from contemporary life.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
William, politically focused arguments such as that you offer hold no water in my view. Genuine art has always transcended politics.
As for Duchamp, his life story reveals a total anomie. As Louis Torres and I observed in What Art Is:
Re Mike Hire’s comment about the “psychological encounter with art”, it’s true that modernism in art can be said to have begun when artists had to seek or invent new audiences for their work. The old patronage of State or Church had all but ended, c 1750-1800.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
That may help to explain William Blake’s work, but it surely doesn’t account for Duchamp’s vagaries. The seventeenth-century Golden Age of Dutch art was in part a response to such changes in the market for art, but consider what it produced!
I’m curious if you are familiar with Wm Blake’s statement that “The last judgement will begin when everyone is an artist,” and if he was perhaps familiar with and responding to Hegel’s ‘end of art’ idea?
Yet, If ‘everyone is an artist’ then ‘everything is art’ and ‘life itself’ is then ‘art.’
To me, it seems Duchamp began the ‘fulfillment’ of this ‘prophecy.’
thank you,
mike h
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Mike, I’m afraid I’m not familiar with Blake’s statement and have no idea what he meant by it.
But as I argue in Who Says That’s Art?, art is about life and therefore implies a distinction between the two. Collapsing the distinction in effect eliminates art.
As for Duchamp, I argue that his work was in fact anti-art, not art. See “Duchamp or the Baroness?–What Difference Does It Make?.”
Michelle,
Thank you for your response. Sorry, my email suddenly went off and I didn’t realize this was posted, and I actually mentioned this at Hyperallegeric in response to the Cenedella article.
I’m very pleased to find your ‘contrarian views’ and have been exploring and enjoying your thoughts on Art. I’m still working through my ‘understanding’ on various levels. My ‘study’ was psychology into ‘special ed’ and then into ‘art’ later—best friend was serials librarian at National Gallery – long story.
“Without contraries there is no progression,” and “Opposition is true friendship,” as Mr Blake has said. Very curiously, Blake and Duchamp are my ‘art heroes’ – seems impossible , but. . . .
Will be enjoying your posts.
Best,
mh
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Thanks for exploring my work and for your kind words about it. As you might expect, I’m astonished by your reverence for both Blake and Duchamp. Blake was a genuine artist and an authentic mystic. But I fear you’ve been gulled by Duchamp. He was a charlatan entirely lacking in moral or spiritual compass—notwithstanding the artworld’s absurd inflation of his importance. On the latter, see also “Museum Miseducation: Perpetuating the Duchamp Myth.”
Happy reading and best holiday wishes,
MMK
Great! Emails working !
Re Blake and Duchamp: It’s about the psychological encounter with ‘art’ — for me, the conflict of ‘Art’ and the ‘world conflict’ at that time- the beginning of a new Age for human history – and the role and identity crisis of the artist. In Blake’s time also, to serve the Empire or ? at the time of revolution. But let me do some more reading before I start asking questions I’ll likely find you have already answered.
Very best again,
mike h
Michelle,
As have your previous posts, this one made me pause, read (including comments) and examine my own definition of Art. It is a peculiar word, akin to the word Love. Often used, rarely defined and subject to each individual’s interpretation. Thanks for stimulating some brain cells today.
With Regards, Jeannemarieart
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
I’m glad you found it of value, Jeanne. I’d love to know how your definition of art compares with the one offered in Who Says That’s Art?.
Michelle,
Jenefer Robinson’s scholarly discussion of pre-cognitive assessment is worth a close reading. I’m inclined to think, yes, previous cognitive experience helps to form affect. Our feelings may be automatic and not assessed in rational ways and yet still “flavored” by past cognitive judgments. I’d be interested in your view of Robinson.
More broadly, at different times art has different content and purposes. At different times different kinds of people become artists. It’s very hard — maybe impossible — to find a common thread through all art of all times by all artists. In one way ,at least, contemporary art tests the likelihood or absence of that common thread.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
William, I assume you’re referring to Robinson’s book Deeper than Reason : Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music, and Art. Though I haven’t read it yet, I surmise that her account of emotion has much in common with the view that Ayn Rand articulated in the 1960s and Louis Torres and I discussed in What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand. For a brief discussion of Rand’s view in relation to current neuroscience on the subject, see chapter 7 of Who Says That’s Art?, “What Do Cognitive Science and Evolution Tell Us about Art?”
I think it’s good that you are actively promoting your view, both in your book and in letters. Of course you know that I am among the many who strongly disagree with your argument. If your view has any merit it might be found in new scholarship on empathy and affect in art judgement. Essentially, it may be that affect is a precognitive judgement that precedes cognitive assessment. Thus liking an artwork may occur before and despite cognitive — or analytical or “informed” assessment. Anyway, your outlook is certainly anti-art because it rejects the role of uniting art with evolving life experience and instead favors ideal, artificial models. To add fuel to your fires, see Talking Art, by Gary Alan Fine (2018). It makes the Barnard model seem hopelessly archaic.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
William,
A careful reading of Chapter 7 of Who Says That’s Art? (esp. pp. 155-65) should make clear that, contrary to your claim, my view in no way “rejects the role of uniting art with evolving life experience and instead favors ideal, artificial models.” In fact, I argue that the emotional response to art is based on a subconscious judgment arising from a wealth of personal life experience. While one might characterize it as “preconscious,” it is not precognitive, for it incorporates information from cognitive contact with reality gained through perceptual experience.
But as I’ve repeatedly emphasized, liking a work is a very different matter from judging what category of object it belongs to.