The Beautiful and the Sublime

Heidegger, Danto and Crowdsourcing

June 25, 2011 at 3:45 am (Uncategorized)

In the summer of 2008, I visited Munich. While there, I explored the Alte Pinakothek. Wandering through the halls, absorbed in Rubens’ depiction of the contorted, tortured figures of the damned; the air of reverence in the museum struck me. Patrons spoke nary a word, and if it was, it was in a whisper. Most of the visitors were solitary individuals, listening to art history lectures on the headphones provided by the museum. The mood of the museum was almost sacred—more akin to what one might find when visiting a cathedral than most art museums these days.

Perhaps it was the lovely experience in Munich that made Paris such a shock by contrast. The following March, I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to visit the Louvre.  After waiting in security lines that rivaled most airports, I was shocked to see that most patrons were running from painting to painting, snapping a photo (with flash, no less) and promptly rushing to the next work, pushing their way through to the best position to get the next shot, then onto the next work. As I began to see stars from all the flashes that surrounded me, I looked over at the security guard who, despite the signs prohibiting flashes, had a bored and resigned look, as he remained seated in his chair. It was clear that no one was there to experience art; rather people were there to snap photos to post on Facebook so all of their friends would know that on their trip to Paris they had visited the Louvre.

Perhaps this is why the new trend of crowdsourcing distresses me so much. The museum, which ought to both educate the public and cultivate a feeling of beauty and awe, is increasingly turning to various forms of contests and polling to determine content. A recent article in Art in America, titled “Everyone’s a Critic (Or Curator)” addressed this phenomenon in a manner that was as brief as it was informative. Drawing on the famous “America’s Most Wanted” exhibition, in which the “every day person” was polled to determine their tastes in art, crowdsourcing has exploded in the art world. Stephanie Cash states,

The project was a precursor of crowdsourcing, a phenomenon gaining momentum in the art world. Known as “polling” in the political and commercial spheres, it purports to gauge the majority preference but insidiously also shapes opinion. Now not only are bloggers (expert and otherwise) and respondents weighing in on the internet, but NBA players and Average Joes are being asked to “curate” exhibitions or, as with the ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Mich., vote for the winner of a $250,000 prize for best artwork. [1]

Of course, there are crucial differences between crowdsourcing now and the “America’s Most Wanted” exhibition, which was as much an ironic commentary on the uneducated opinion as it was an attempt to engage the public. In After the End of Art, Danto—who considers the painting to embody the ideals of the much-maligned “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like” type of art museum patron—describes the reception, stating,

The audience that evening, drinking blue vodka (to emblematize the triumph of blue in the chromatic sweepstakes) exchanging gossip and wisecracks, too skewed a population to feel anything save superiority to the implied aesthetics of the common man and woman presumably objectified in the “genuine oil painting” in the gilded frame. But would Mr. Or Ms. Whoever cry out “That’s it!” when presented with their presumed dream painting, so far as they dream of paintings at all? [2]

Danto’s words point to a long-standing division between the member of the art world, with all the requisite breeding and pedigree, in which taste is informed by the right education that provides adequate knowledge of the theory and history of art and that of the casual patron, who may never have taken a single art or art history course, but likes to visit art museums while on vacation. Indeed, it is quite possibly the underlying commentary inherent in “America’s Most Wanted” that has created the climate wherein museums feel compelled to resort to desperate measures to engage the public. After all, the common woman may not know much about art, but she knows when she’s being mocked.

However, this brings a host of other problems. Art museums need look no further than institutions of higher education to see the problem with the consumer-based, opinion-driven model of determining business practices. As student retention and student satisfaction surveys become the primary criteria for evaluating faculty, increasingly students emerge on the job market with no idea how to conduct themselves professionally, let alone problem solve. This gives way to social criticism of academia’s own self-absorption and monomania, and the most intellectual of the disciplines—the humanities—comes under fire, accused of shortchanging the students. This vicious circle has emerged from a long, bloody, brutal war: between the cultural elite (the universities) who are nonetheless dependent on the public for financial sustenance and the intellectually insecure public who nonetheless need the university to be successful and well-educated members of society.  As is often the case in long and protracted wars, both sides are losing.

In much the same way, museums’ chief aim ought to be to educate the public. Perhaps the public may see works of art that don’t fit their standards of what art “should” be, perhaps the feature exhibitions are by artists they have never heard of, but that is where the education needs to begin. One ought to feel a little bit humble when viewing a masterpiece that is 200, 500, 1000 years old or more.  They ought to experience a wide range of emotions when viewing a work of art: wonder, fear, serenity, and disgust. Indeed, if this is not occurring, I dare argue, then the artwork is not doing its job.

So, if crowdsourcing is not the answer, then what is? The answer to that comes through Martin Heidegger. Art, for Heidegger, stood to reveal truth. It was only when one slowed down enough to become absorbed in a work of art that the truth, the Being, of the thing depicted could reveal itself. In order to do this, the work needed to have preservers. Preservers didn’t mean majority opinion. Even a small group would qualify as preservers. These preservers would “know” the work. Here, Heidegger is not speaking about education, but rather states that “knowing does not consist in mere information and notions about something” [3]but rather  that the person truly knows the truth being revealed by the work. This preserving elevates it to a level more significant than mere theory. Theory might give someone an intellectual appreciation of the work in terms of its history, its formal qualities and so forth, but it doesn’t in and of itself reveal the work’s significance. Heidegger states,

Preserving the work does not reduce people to their private experiences, but brings them into affiliation with the truth that is happening in the work. Thus it grounds being for and with one another as the historical standing-out of human existence in reference to unconcealedness. Most of all, knowledge in the manner of preserving is far removed from that merely aestheticizing connoisseurship of the work’s formal aspects, its qualities and charms. Knowing as having seen is a being resolved; it is standing within the conflict that the work has fitted into the rift. [4]

Being a preserver does not require any formal training. Certainly, we still want the formal training of curators in presenting works of art that are historically important and display significant artistic achievement. However, the role of the public ought not to be that of mere consumers: the role of the public ought to be as preservers of the work in service to the work itself. The public should not be disdained, but neither should museums prostitute themselves in an effort to woo them.  Rather, an atmosphere should be cultivated in the museum which is one of deeply meaningful discovery, one that rather than trying to compete with the high-speed world of social networking, should provide a refuge from it: a place where the public can slow down and become absorbed in the work itself. If art museums wish to create an image for the public, that image should be as a place where one can escape their absorption with the world, with their lives, with all of the things that prevent them from seeing the truth of the work, of the meaning of the objects they encounter in the world, of Being itself. Here is a place where you won’t be marketed, where you won’t be rushed through, here is a place where you can experience what it’s like to view a work of art while learning about everything the work of art has to offer. The public can be empowered, but within boundaries and constraints that communicate the awe, wonder and humility that the work can bestow.

-Amy Lapisardi

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Katie Gingrass Gallery and Kant: A philosophical Analysis of “Au Naturel”

April 24, 2011 at 12:15 am (Uncategorized)

April is a good month for nature. April is associated with spring, with Easter and with Earth Day. What better way to bring in the spring than by contrasting Katie Gingrass Gallery’s exhibit, Au Naturel, with Kant’s aesthetics?

Au Naturel boasts of a plethora of artists. Indeed, samplings of the work of twelve artists competed with one another for space on the gallery walls. The work ranged from realistic depictions of nature to interpretations that seemed to emerge directly from the unconscious. Since my goal is depth of analysis rather than breadth, I will be focusing on the work of three artists: Karin Haas, Christine Alfery and Colette Odya Smith.

The theme of the show was nature. 18^th century philosopher Immanuel Kant famously said in the Critique of Judgment, “Nature is beautiful because it looks like art, and art can only be called beautiful if we are conscious of it as art while yet it looks like nature.” [i] Art, for Kant, must be able to stir a universalizable judgment of beauty. This emerges through what Kant calls disinterestedness. Far from being mere apathy, disinterestedness is when the individual views the art without being “prejudiced in favor of the existence of the things, but be quite indifferent in this respect, in order to play the judge in things of taste.” [ii] Our judgments in turn serve as an exemplar: it may not be the case that everyone who views the work of art will conclude it to be beautiful, but rather that they ought to. The person of taste therefore sets a standard by making an assessment that has the quality of being universal.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in a work of art that depicts nature for Kant: it shouldn’t merely replicate our sensory experience of nature. We ought to have the awareness that we are viewing a work of art. Technique should be “punctiliously observed” without being “painfully apparent.” [iii] That is, while Kant may be a formalist, the formal qualities must not be such that one simply thinks they are looking at a technically proficient rendition of a natural scene. The work ought to additionally be original: artistic genius doesn’t merely replicate or follow the rules that she has been taught, but rather “has a talent for which no rule can be given” and “hence originality is its first property.” It is here that the relationship between nature and genius is most pronounced as “nature, by the medium of genius, does not prescribe rules to science but to art, and to it only in so far as it is to be beautiful art.”[iv]

Karen Haas’ work exemplified the originality of which Kant spoke: her unique work—delicate pencil drawings of animals and nature—was extraordinarily detailed, with a soft blending of colors. Marten’s work seeks to symbolically represent her own relationships. The interplay of the animals displayed a beauty and simplicity that, upon closer look, showed a profound complexity. Most provocative was the work, Marten, in which she depicted the furry woodland creature with a smaller marten springing from the main figure. At times, the marten’s fur looked almost spike-like, adding an almost imperceptibly subtle surrealism to the drawing. The pencil drawing Raccoon was similarly striking. Sandwiched in-between Raccoon and Marten was a piece “untitled” which was a floral piece. The symbolism on this piece was less obvious and at times seemed overpowered by the other two.

Christine Alfery presented mixed media works that she described as “driven by dreams and feelings” where she sought to “create language that is universal” and which would allow her to “not be afraid of the mysterious.”[v] The most evocative of these was Red Winged Black Birds. One is immediately drawn into the dreamscape by the vibrant reds and oranges. It is as if you are carried alongside the small bird silhouettes, illuminated by patches of color. Indeed, it is a work that appears to emerge directly from dreams and inspires the awe of nature. Here one encounters the experience of Kant’s free play of the imagination that he says “always takes place when a given object by means of the sense excites the imagination” which then “excites the understanding to bring about a unity of this collective process in concepts.”[vi] Viewing the work, I felt my own imagination excited and was well aware that I was not just subjectively enjoying the work, but arriving at a universally valid judgment of taste.

In a truly Kantian spirit, Colette Odya Smith expressed her intent to “move between abstraction and representation to show different viewpoints”[vii] through her rich pastel interpretations of the natural world. Her works, Drifting, Rich Remains and Cast Loose, which she described as being “inspired by God’s viewpoint”[viii] enveloped one in a sea of blueness. Upon continued observation, the subject matter came into view. In Drifting, after a few stunned moments of looking at what seemed to be abstraction, part of a tree revealed itself. If Kant’s aesthetic theory tells us that a work of art should depict nature—and do so in a way that renders it as distinctly artistic without overwhelming us with its technique—then no work could better exemplify this than Drifting.  The technique is obviously very well developed—there is no question—but the technique never takes over the work, you never get the sense that you are merely looking at a technically proficient nature scene, but rather are temporarily lost in a delicate unfolding of the environment that is as interpretative as it is accurate.

In conclusion, the artists represented at Au Naturel are as numerous as they are diverse. At times, the gallery seemed to overwhelm the senses with its choices. I would have preferred to see fewer artists represented so that more work of each individual artist could be exhibited. That said, the exhibit provides a sampler that enables one to see the many different styles represented by a variety of artists, both locally and nationally.

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Academia Meets the Art World

April 20, 2011 at 2:02 am (Uncategorized)

Welcome to the official launching of The Beautiful and the Sublime. The purpose of this online magazine is to create a bridge between academia and the art world by publishing a unique kind of arts review: reviews of current gallery openings, theater productions and dance performances through the lens of classical and contemporary aesthetics. Whether it’s Aristotle or Danto, Hegel or Ficino, Deleuze or Kant, you can expect to see careful yet accessible analyses of the arts with a philosophical slant.

I am looking for submissions from writers with both knowledge of aesthetics and an interest in reviewing the arts. Articles should be between 500 and 2000 words. While submissions should exhibit a comprehensive knowledge of aesthetics, it should be written for an intelligent but diverse audience. Please send all submissions and inquiries to submissions@beautiful-and-sublime.com

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