Comments on: Image, art, language and gender

By: Thought Leader » Bert Olivier » Blood, iron, sex and time

Thought Leader » Bert Olivier » Blood, iron, sex and time — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:55:21 +0000

[...] a discussion of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, see my piece, “Images, language, women and patriarchy“, posted on Thought Leader on March 11 2008, and republished in the e-newsletter of [...]

By: Avril Gardiner

Avril Gardiner — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:32:26 +0000

Why should art have a “function”? And what is the “essence” of “art” – its ontological status? In common language: “What is “a work of art”, or , what is “art”, and how do we go about defining these concepts? Pragmatists do it in terms of its “function” (where the boundaries between “essence” and “function” invariably become fuzzy), others in terms of its “inalienable or distinctive moment ……, regardless of differing degrees to which it operates in various artworks in relation to spectators”. And do we even need to consider getting clarity on these matters before we can proceed with a meaningful discussion on “Image, art, language and gender”? I believe these are the fundamental questions we should be considering before attempting a detailed critical analysis of (the proposals in) Olivier’s thought leader with the same title.

In his third paragraph he asks: “What is the function of art?, and then proceeds to give one answer, which – in the context of a question such as “What is the function of art?” – I must assume he takes to be the only, and also the defining, function of art: “It is to interrogate the status quo, to dislocate, defamiliarise it, …….. to bring about a ‘wholesome unrest’ in the soul.” Surely this is only one of its possible functions (if, indeed, it needs to have a function at all)? I can arbitrarily list at least 10 more “functions” which – at least on the surface – have nothing to do with “interrogating the status quo”. A claim that “interrogating the status quo” is the function of art will surely have to be based on some more fundamental principle, and once proposed or identified, the discussion can then move in that direction.

The discussion should, in fact, become even more radical than simply argueing about the (one) function of art. What do we mean when saying that art has a “function”? Why should it have a “function”? Why can’t things not be “functionless”? And if art (or any other activity) does not have a “function”, does it necessarily mean that the activity is also “meaningless”? And finally: What is the meaning of the concept “meaningless”?

I agree 100% with Olivier’s concluding remarks: “As long as we do not fall victim to the ideological tendency to foist just one set of meanings on these images [“the inalienable or distinctive moment in all art”, in Olivier terms], as long as we keep the possibility of another set of meanings open ……, we may also be able to resist the tendency ….. to subject it exclusively to the rules of logic – as if that is the only function it has.” Indeed. Art does probably have more than one “function”, and an in-depth examination into this matter might be a fascinating journey of a paradoxical nature.

Avril Gardiner
PS (1) : I suspect that by asking “What is the function of art?” Olivier is actually asking “What is the proper / appropriate / ethical function of art?”, or “What should the (meaningful) function of art be?”, but I might be totally wrong.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:44:32 +0000

How on earth, then, to encourage and expand right-brain activity?

By: Bert

Bert — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:32:39 +0000

Alisdair – What I said about art, above, is valid for all art, whether it is medieval, religious, Indian, or whatever. And if you had read a bit more carefully, you would have seen that I used the word ‘degenerate’ as a synonym for ‘deteriorate’, that is, as a verb – which has nothing to do with your random noun-associations. Or do you usually just say the first thing that comes into your head?
Jon – Strange, that you have such a modernist understanding of art’s political, social or cultural irrelevance, which is what follows from the view that artworks are ‘just there’. Even Plato already acknowledged that art has the power to move people to ‘do things’, which is why he banned the poets from his ideal republic. Art is multivalent, polysemic – in other words, no one can restrict the way in which art ‘works’ to just one function.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:56:17 +0000

You hang it on the wall, or stand it in the room, and you look at it. That’s it.

Its art. It’s just THERE.

The only “problematisation” (loathsome Marxist jargon,that) is when you imagine that object in the room or out in the courtyard is something more than what it is. Sheer relentless egg-headery utterly ruins art.

By: Alisdair Budd

Alisdair Budd — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:18:39 +0000

Ars Gratia Artis.

And you’re very Eurocentric with failure to recognise religious art as an integral part of world cultures by the use of fetishes and landscape gardening. (Stonehenge, Easter island Statues, Songlines.)

Let alone body/ sexual art with tattooes and dress being a statement of tribal grouping or individuality depending on whether you have facial tattoes in a Maori canoe or Kensington high Street.

And be areful about using the word “Degenerate” in any context in western art.

It’s what the Nazis used to term the Jewish, modernist and leftist art they stole for their private collections after killing the artists.

There were several exhibitions of ‘Degenerate art’ in Nazi Germany as symbols of the subhumaness of the painters and proof of ascendancy of the Master Race.