On Friday, July 4, 2003, at 08:59 PM, Jim Andrews wrote:

>
>> Your deployment of "art history" as if it consists of
>> a series of irrefutable and objective facts simply
>> will not do.
>> Who decides what 'the canon' is? -"History is written
>> by the victors"
>> It might be the case that certain ways of thinking
>> about art are currently hegemonic amongst curators,
>> academics and buyers but that *proves* nothing.
>> To prove something one at least has to make an
>> argument rather than quoting holy scripture.
>
> Yes! Well said.
>

no, actually, horribly said with well-worn, unattributed quotes and all.

i didn't do what he's accusing me of and he conveniently edits the part
out where i explain that that is not what i'm doing:

"but if you want to redefine historical work you should have some
knowledge of the thinking presently surrounding it. For example, you're
idea of 'pure conceptualism' *is* the conceptual art of the 60s/70s, we
don't need another definition."

i put that part in to try to head off this sort of criticism from
Szpakowski but i forgot that it's a simple matter to edit another's
words in an emailer. (oops, just as I did to JA, please refer to his
email for his full account of my stupidity)

all i'm saying is that if one wants to refute an argument, one needs to
know the argument. not that one or the other is right. I don't think
Curt has read the 'arguments' of other writers, critics, curators or
historians who are influential in the field and his 'hacked'
definitions show that and to me are very unpersuasive.

but that isn't even the major problem with Curt's definitions. their
biggest problem is that they all relate to conceptualism. as if you
could define all art in it's relation to this one period or strategy. I
think that is a deeply flawed understanding of art, artists and art
history.

--
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>

On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 11:45 AM, Curt Cloninger wrote:
>>
>
> curt:
> OK. I understand. You're right. I'm applying the term broadly.

I appreciate the explanation but it raises a few more problems imo.

You define these three terms but they really show no reference (which
you concede) to what the artists were intending, to how the work was
accepted at the time, or to how later artists built-on or reacted to
earlier artists ideas, objects, actions etc. Not to be harsh, but they
seem to have almost no historical knowledge whatsoever and show almost
no knowledge of what the artists, critics, theorists, philosophers, and
other writers of the time had to say about the work. I'm not dissing
your definitions for simply being outside the canon, but if you want to
redefine historical work you should have some knowledge of the thinking
presently surrounding it. For example, you're idea of 'pure
conceptualism' *is* the conceptual art of the 60s/70s, we don't need
another definition.

Eduardo's post gave us a very clear definition of what conceptual art
was and how it affected later artist's approach to creating art,
especially relevant is his description of how conceptual art effected
artist's critical approach to their own work.

>
> 1.
> What Eduardo defines as historical conceptualism I think of as pure
> conceptualism or anti-object conceptualism. This is art whose medium
> is the artist statement. I realize "idea" is supposed to be the
> medium, but ideas can't be transfered mind to mind, so the medium in
> fact becomes the artist statement (aka "formalistic prose text").
> Survey says: "Boring Sidney, Boring. Exterminate! Exterminate!"

that's funny. you use punk rock to dis an art movement which was
extremely anti-establishment, a movement which questioned what many
considered one of the basic features of art, it's "objectness" and
funnily enough, one that has now been co-opted by the establishment
much like punk rock has.

this straw man of the 'artist's statement' being the work that you
constantly set-up is just simply bogus. As someone who's career is
partially that of a writer I would think it would be evident how one's
creative work is separate from one's statement regarding that work no
matter what form that work may take.

>
> 2.
> Then there is what I would call object-incidental conceptualism, where
> an object is used as a prop to convey an idea, but there's no real
> aesthetic intention invested in the object. Without the artist
> statement or the title of the piece, the object itself doesn't convey
> much. Survey says: "Are we there yet? I have to go to the bathroom."

Simply because a viewer may need some information which isn't present
in a work to understand a work doesn't make the work any less. All
artwork is appreciated within a human cultural construct which is
learned. Learning a bit more info to appreciate or understand a work of
art is sometimes necessary.

>
> 3.
> Then there is object-intentional conceptualism, where the craft and
> cunning invested in the object itself conveys the lion's share of the
> concept. Survey says: "Fix me down a palette on your floor."

see, this one is extremely problematic. conceptual art has nothing to
do with the object so it's use in this context simply confuses people
who know the historical basis of conceptual art. I think you are
meaning all the other art movements, styles, strategies, and practices
of the classic, renaissance, baroque, neo-classic, modern and
post-modern periods which are not conceptual art.

>
>
> Note also, I doubt there even exists an artistic approach that has an
> exclusively aesthetic goal.

agreed (excepting spin art), but this points to why your definitions,
to be blunt, are useless. they define all art in relation to conceptual
art. it's a very strange definition for someone who seems to be
anti-conceptual art. under your definitions Da Vinci is a
object-intentional conceptualist and that's just silly. i can make this
point because you have included Beuys who worked before conceptual art
occurred so he obviously couldn't be influenced by it any more than Da
Vinci.

> Even a landscape painting has some concept [here I'm using the English
> word "concept" to mean "concept"]. No art, from Bosch to Klee, is
> void of concept. And it seems to me the great "art" of "art" has
> generally involved using aesthetics to address "concepts" in a less
> than pedantic/didactic/textual/cerebral way. "Art is for all the
> things you can't say out loud." - entropy8
>
> Visceral, multimedia communication is more technichally possible on
> the web now than it was in 1996. And yet hi-res visuals are still
> not possible. Methinks it is an interesting time to explore work that
> falls toward the object-intentional side of my proposed conceptual
> spectrum.

but the idea of object in the digital networked realm is extremely
problematic on it's face. no matter how bits the damn thing
encompasses. which brings me back to my conjecture that work with uses
conceptual strategies has found it's perfect medium in the Net and web.

> In 1996, a piece like Heath Bunting's "Own, Be Owned, Or Remain
> Invisible" (which falls toward the anti-object end of my proposed
> conceptual spectrum) may have been the best we could do given the
> constraints of the medium. Now we no longer HAVE to go that route.

but strangely, it's just as much an object as any piece of yours.

--
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>

notice the anti-art spin of this article:

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/97770p-88502c.html

i hate this crap (though, the work isn't very good imo)

ps. fuck guiliani.
--
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

HIGH-lair-EEE-us

this is my fave:

"...rip that canvas, boyo!"

http://www.literarymoose.info/=/destroy/canvas.html

from the author:

Pros: Useful for meditations on the nature of the Universe.

Cons: Perfectly useless. Finally I have reached my CSS Nirvana of
creating a totally useless effect. I don't think I'll ever
beat this record...

>Bizarro CSS hacks to be found here:
>
>http://www.literarymoose.info/=/css.html
>
>This all seems pretty cool. I should say that right now I can't even
>see most of them 'cause I'm sitting at a Wintel box using MSIE 5.
>(Ech.) But using a gigantic bullet as a background circle ("The CSS
>Rounded Box") is kind of awesomely clever and kind of endearingly
>useless. As a big CSS fan I love this sort of wonkery. It also gives
>me a warm fuzzy feeling to see entries that say things like:
>
>Works in: Opera 7.x/W, Firebird 0.6/W, Mozilla 1.4/W, Safari 1.0
>Fails in: Internet Explorer, Konqueror 3.1
>Crashes: Netscape 7.0/Mac
>
>Hey, people kind of have a choice as to what browser they can use
>today! When the heck did that happen?

--
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

At 1:05 -0400 7/3/03, Curt Cloninger wrote:
>t:
>> Is curt simply talking about anything whose goal isn't simply
>> aesthetic? the dreaded pomo? what?
>
>curt:
>I hope I'm talking about what I'm talking about. I'm trying discuss
>in concrete detail, as clearly as possible, specific paradigmatic
>approaches toward net art creation. Yes, I am questioning the value
>of entire movements and approaches that have been accepted as
>established artistic practice in academic, critical, and
>professional art circles since the 60s. I'm wanting to discuss
>their particular merit in terms of our current medium. If this
>seems quixotic or irksome, if you've already settled these issues to
>your own satisfaction, I'm easily dismissed with a few historical
>references and a glib, "Can he be serious?"

++
twhid:
I'm not trying to dismiss you but simply pin you down so that our
discussion doesn't fizzle out from misunderstandings due to the fact
that we're talking about 2 different things. It seemed that that may
be the case from your examples of conceptualists, you're applying the
term much more broadly than it's generally used. I don't use it so
broadly and gave a specific explanation of what I think constitutes
conceptual art. You seem to apply the term to anything that has a
goal other than the aesthetic. that definition is way to broad and
that's not how I would use it (see below).

>
>t:
>I find it extremely weird that you
>> would include Hirst under a conceptualist definition but let Beuys
>> off
>> the hook.
>
>curt:
>You're misreading me. I'm highlighting the devolution of
>conceptualism. Beuys was an earlier conceptualist whose craft and
>sensory aesthetics were more intrinsically related to his concepts.
>Hirst is a later conceptualist whose craft and sensory aesthetics
>are less intrinsically related to his concepts. Beuys is a
>conceptualist whose work I like. I consider him a sculptor and an
>experimental educator. Hirst is a conceptualist whose work I find
>mildly amusing at best. I consider him a well-meaning byproduct of
>art world foppery.
>

++
twhid:
Yea, but you're not. conceptualism (how it's historically been
defined) has absolutely *nothing* to do with material craft (not that
it has nothing to do with craft) except in terms of negating it. it
has only a tangential relation to sensory or visual aesthetics (see
Eduardo's excellent post). so there could be no devolution of
conceptualism in the terms you apply and the artists you highlight as
your examples aren't conceptual artists anyway.

perhaps what you mean is that there has been a devolution of art
quality in general because of conceptual art's influence?
--
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>