Art and Authority

[Dave Monroe]

Will try to keep this brief, but ...

--- Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
>
> Then I'm not sure their theororizing is that
> relevant to Pynchon's work, which generally seems to
> question if "any" cultural artifacts are capable 
> of being redemptive, i.e., able to make up for what
> has been lost in the acquisition of Culture.

This is Bersani and Dutoit's point about Beckett as
well.  And I believe Bersani might be in no small
agreement ...

Bersani, Leo.  The Culture of Redemption.
   Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1990.  

Haven't been on to Rothko and Resnais yet, Victoria
Nelson's The Secret Life of Puppets is one hell of a
book, even if I disagree with her valorizations, my,
after her characterizations, Aristotelian materialism
vs. her Platonic idealism, but it's one of those books
about EVERYTHING, so ... but, again, B&D are hardly
faulting SB on this point.  Description, not
pre/proscription here ...

> The mutual dependence on the possiblity of at least 
> being fooled into thinking that there might be
> something like the phenomenon of individuality loose
> in the world has not come cheap I'm not sure even 
> religion pick up the tab let alone art, et. al.

Kind of lost me here, but ...

> You have to watch that "It is as if..." trope. To my
> reading, it is as if these two have put alot of
> words in other peoples' mouths.  Don't really feel
> like I've "been led to believe" as much as they
> would like to lead me to believe. Art is what you
> can get away with, isn't it?

As, perhaps, is criticism.  Such pronouncements have
always troubled me as well, but that "it is as if" is
perhaps notable only for its relative weakness--and,
perhaps, honesty about its provisionality--compared to
much criticism, which would simply assert that that
was what an artist or author or director or whoever
indeed intended in the first place.  Paraphrase ... 
 
> I think this notion about having to do work is
> really quite interesting, especially as it applies
> to creating or appreciating (recreating?) artistic
> productions. It may be that the moral consternation
> surrounding art, and maybe concerning the move
toward
> abstractionism in particular, is really at the heart
> of this little debate. Maybe the artists in question
> reflect (or project) an uncertainty or insecurity
> over the value of their own labours, which is
> heightened by the thought of the audience having to
> do work to appreciate their productions. I'm
> reminded of Pynchon's comments comparing the "work"
> of the writer/artist to mortal sin. 

I think much such "moral consternation" has to do with
an attempt to foreclose rethinking of said
already-performed cultural work, something which
"difficult" works seem often to demand, if not always
quite actually generate.  In related news ...

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-People-Royal-Portrait.html

> ... reading Pynchon is only difficult if you're
> worried about getting it "right." 

It's difficult for some merely because they're worried
about getting a "moral," a "resolution," or even a
"plot" (rather than many, many such ...).  It's
difficult for me beacuse my fundamental question seems
to be, what possibly could have provoked all this ...

> But they have at their disposal the means of
> production and distribution, and they are deemed
> important enough to be discussed, the hallmarks of
> authority, (or at least marketability) despite any
> putative denials on their part.

The history of twen cen high culture seems to be the
recuperation for capital-A Art's (or Literature's, or
...) sake of even the most evasive of objects, no? 
Though point well taken, subversion from within is
"doomed" to a failure here (which may be the point as
well, for Beckett, for Pynchon), and it seems naive to
disingenuous to opportunistic for anyone involved to
believe (or, at least, claim) otherwise ...
 
=== message truncated ===

And here's where Yahoo! cut us both off, so ...

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com