What Carey says that is most relevant to my research is the fact that the history of readership and audiences is almost blank (p. 167).
This is particularly true with regards to installations and it's a perspective that we should consider more and more seen the importance that now audiences (can) assume.
But let's start from the beginning.
Introduction
"The Australian critic Robert Hughes voices a general disquiet when he says that the idea of a Van Gogh landscape, the anguished testament of an artist maddened by inequality and social injustice, hanging in a millionaire's drawing room, is difficult to contemplate without nausea. For many, the pleasure of walking round a great public art collection is enhanced by thought that they are in a space where the laws of economics seem to be magically suspended, since the treasures on display are beyond the dreams of private avarice. "
"For some art enthusiasts, indeed, it is the very exclusiveness that makes the arts attractive. 'Equality is slavery', writes the French novelist Gustave Flaubert, 'That is why I love art'. "
"In our own culture the sacred aura that surrounds art objects makes imputations about superior or inferior artistic refinement particularly hurtful and disconcerting. The situation has been aggravated by the eclipse of painting in the 1960s and its replacement by various kinds of conceptual art, performance art, body art, installations, happenings, videos and computer programmes. These arouse fury in many because they seem [...] to be deliberate insults to people of conventional taste (as, indeed, they often are). [...] In retaliation, those who dislike the new art forms denounce them as not just inauthentic but dishonest, false claimants seeking to enter the sacred portal of true art."
"The notion of artworks as sacred implies that their value is absolute and universal. [...] Value, it seems evident, is not intrinsic in objects, but attributed to them by whoever is doing the valuing."
But let's start from the beginning.
Introduction
"The Australian critic Robert Hughes voices a general disquiet when he says that the idea of a Van Gogh landscape, the anguished testament of an artist maddened by inequality and social injustice, hanging in a millionaire's drawing room, is difficult to contemplate without nausea. For many, the pleasure of walking round a great public art collection is enhanced by thought that they are in a space where the laws of economics seem to be magically suspended, since the treasures on display are beyond the dreams of private avarice. "
"For some art enthusiasts, indeed, it is the very exclusiveness that makes the arts attractive. 'Equality is slavery', writes the French novelist Gustave Flaubert, 'That is why I love art'. "
"In our own culture the sacred aura that surrounds art objects makes imputations about superior or inferior artistic refinement particularly hurtful and disconcerting. The situation has been aggravated by the eclipse of painting in the 1960s and its replacement by various kinds of conceptual art, performance art, body art, installations, happenings, videos and computer programmes. These arouse fury in many because they seem [...] to be deliberate insults to people of conventional taste (as, indeed, they often are). [...] In retaliation, those who dislike the new art forms denounce them as not just inauthentic but dishonest, false claimants seeking to enter the sacred portal of true art."
"The notion of artworks as sacred implies that their value is absolute and universal. [...] Value, it seems evident, is not intrinsic in objects, but attributed to them by whoever is doing the valuing."
I agree on this, but we should then look at who is attributing value, and for what reasons? If these reasons turn out to be mainly economic, is that still art?
Part One
What is a work of art?
"The Italian artist Pietro Manzoni, who died in 1963, published an edition of tin cans each containing 30 grams of his own excrement. One of them was bought by the Tate Gallery and is still in its collection. Very well, you may concede, excrement was a bad choice but what about space, what about absolute emptiness? That obviously can't be a work of art, because it's nothing. However, that too seems questionable. Yves Klein [...] once held an exhibition in Paris consisting of an entirely empty gallery. So space can be art." p.4
"The artist must be the agent. But that is wrong too. Starting in 1990 the French artist Orlan underwent a series of surgical operations to reconstruct her face to conform with historically-defined male criteria of female beauty. [...] The operations were broadcast live to art galleries throughout the world. [...] the artist was no longer the agent but the passive victim." p.5
"Nowadays works of art regularly provoke anger or ridicule. For most of the 19th century the situation was quite different. Aesthetic theorists then, as now, were puzzled over how to define a work of art, and everyone knows about the fuss caused by Impressionist painting. But the kind of things - the pictures, books, sculptures, symphonies - that the definition of a work of art would have to cover were not in doubt. " p7
Kant in the Critique of Judgment in 1750 was the first to formulate what remain the basic aesthetic assumptions in the West for two hundred years. According to Kant, judgments about taste are subjective, but talking about beauty is another thing: "The case is quite different with the beautiful. It would [..] be laughable if a man who imagined anything to his own taste thought to justify himself by saying 'this object [...] is beautiful for me. For he must not call it beautiful if it merely pleases him. Many things may have for him charm and pleasantness - no one troubles himself after that - but if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction, he judges not merely for himself, but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things.' [...] for Kant, standards of beauty were, at the deepest level, absolute and universal." p.9
Two other crucial components in Kant's view are the separation of art from life - arts should evoke a pure aesthetic state of mind; in addition they are connected with moral goodness.
"Since beauty, as explained by Kant turns out to be so closely related to whatever mysterious principles underlie the universe, it is not surprising that in his view its creators must be very special people indeed. He calls them 'geniuses' ". p 11
The Kantian inheritance brings with it many superstitions, according to Carey, including such as that art is sacred and is higher than science because it goes beyond truth . . .
"By the start of the 20th century hopes of ever finding art's secret ingredient were fading, and at the same time the art scene was exploding. That was deliberate. To get outside the system, to escape the 'bourgeois' embrace of museums and art galleries, was a modernist drive - one that has continued as an impulse behind the pluralism of contemporary art." p.16
Part One
What is a work of art?
"The Italian artist Pietro Manzoni, who died in 1963, published an edition of tin cans each containing 30 grams of his own excrement. One of them was bought by the Tate Gallery and is still in its collection. Very well, you may concede, excrement was a bad choice but what about space, what about absolute emptiness? That obviously can't be a work of art, because it's nothing. However, that too seems questionable. Yves Klein [...] once held an exhibition in Paris consisting of an entirely empty gallery. So space can be art." p.4
"The artist must be the agent. But that is wrong too. Starting in 1990 the French artist Orlan underwent a series of surgical operations to reconstruct her face to conform with historically-defined male criteria of female beauty. [...] The operations were broadcast live to art galleries throughout the world. [...] the artist was no longer the agent but the passive victim." p.5
"Nowadays works of art regularly provoke anger or ridicule. For most of the 19th century the situation was quite different. Aesthetic theorists then, as now, were puzzled over how to define a work of art, and everyone knows about the fuss caused by Impressionist painting. But the kind of things - the pictures, books, sculptures, symphonies - that the definition of a work of art would have to cover were not in doubt. " p7
Kant in the Critique of Judgment in 1750 was the first to formulate what remain the basic aesthetic assumptions in the West for two hundred years. According to Kant, judgments about taste are subjective, but talking about beauty is another thing: "The case is quite different with the beautiful. It would [..] be laughable if a man who imagined anything to his own taste thought to justify himself by saying 'this object [...] is beautiful for me. For he must not call it beautiful if it merely pleases him. Many things may have for him charm and pleasantness - no one troubles himself after that - but if he gives out anything as beautiful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction, he judges not merely for himself, but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things.' [...] for Kant, standards of beauty were, at the deepest level, absolute and universal." p.9
Two other crucial components in Kant's view are the separation of art from life - arts should evoke a pure aesthetic state of mind; in addition they are connected with moral goodness.
"Since beauty, as explained by Kant turns out to be so closely related to whatever mysterious principles underlie the universe, it is not surprising that in his view its creators must be very special people indeed. He calls them 'geniuses' ". p 11
The Kantian inheritance brings with it many superstitions, according to Carey, including such as that art is sacred and is higher than science because it goes beyond truth . . .
"By the start of the 20th century hopes of ever finding art's secret ingredient were fading, and at the same time the art scene was exploding. That was deliberate. To get outside the system, to escape the 'bourgeois' embrace of museums and art galleries, was a modernist drive - one that has continued as an impulse behind the pluralism of contemporary art." p.16
Most of the contemporary art I see is not a rebellion against the establishment. Modern art instead was clearly against the set of values of art galleries and museums.
"For Danto, the exhibition of Andi Wharol's Brillo Box sculptures at the Stable Gallery on East 74th Street in April 1964 marked a watershed in the history of aesthetics. As he saw it, it 'rendered almost worthless everything written by philosophers on art' . [...] " Anything, Danto concluded, could be a work of art. What could make it a work of art was nothing in its physical make-up but how it was regarded, how it was thought of. {[...] For Danto the Brillo Boxes celebrated a moment of historical emancipation". p 17
"Meanings are not things inherent in objects. They are supplied by those who interpret them. " p.20
"Modern art, as seen through, for example the spectrum of the Saatchi phenomenon, has become synonymous with money, fashion, celebrity and sensationalism [...] Art's surviving role in our mass media society, declares Robert Hughes, 'is to be investment capital'. Effective political art is now impossible, because an artist must be famous to be heard, and as he acquires fame his art acquires value and becomes ipso facto harmless. 'It provides a background hum for power'. [...] Hughes also condemned the reliance of modern art on shock tactics [... ]. The critic of postmodernism Fredric Jameson [says]: 'Aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally'. " p26
"An increased reluctance to accept authority of all kinds - medical, scientific, political - was a well mapped trend of the later 20th century, and scepticism about the art world's posturing is part of it. Improved access to higher education is one underlying cause [..] but another factor counteracting the acceptance of the art-world views is the advent of mass art. [...] the rebellion of the many against the few." p 28
"My answer to the question 'what is a work of art?' is 'A work of art is anything that anyone has ever considered a work of art, though it may be a work of art for only one person'. " p29
Assumptions about a separate category of works of arts belong to the 18th century and are not valid anymore. We can only answer yes or no if we are asked what a work of art is, and "if this seems to plunge us into the abyss of relativism, then I can only say that the abyss of relativism is where we have always been in reality - if it is an abyss." p30
"For Danto, the exhibition of Andi Wharol's Brillo Box sculptures at the Stable Gallery on East 74th Street in April 1964 marked a watershed in the history of aesthetics. As he saw it, it 'rendered almost worthless everything written by philosophers on art' . [...] " Anything, Danto concluded, could be a work of art. What could make it a work of art was nothing in its physical make-up but how it was regarded, how it was thought of. {[...] For Danto the Brillo Boxes celebrated a moment of historical emancipation". p 17
"Meanings are not things inherent in objects. They are supplied by those who interpret them. " p.20
"Modern art, as seen through, for example the spectrum of the Saatchi phenomenon, has become synonymous with money, fashion, celebrity and sensationalism [...] Art's surviving role in our mass media society, declares Robert Hughes, 'is to be investment capital'. Effective political art is now impossible, because an artist must be famous to be heard, and as he acquires fame his art acquires value and becomes ipso facto harmless. 'It provides a background hum for power'. [...] Hughes also condemned the reliance of modern art on shock tactics [... ]. The critic of postmodernism Fredric Jameson [says]: 'Aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally'. " p26
"An increased reluctance to accept authority of all kinds - medical, scientific, political - was a well mapped trend of the later 20th century, and scepticism about the art world's posturing is part of it. Improved access to higher education is one underlying cause [..] but another factor counteracting the acceptance of the art-world views is the advent of mass art. [...] the rebellion of the many against the few." p 28
"My answer to the question 'what is a work of art?' is 'A work of art is anything that anyone has ever considered a work of art, though it may be a work of art for only one person'. " p29
Assumptions about a separate category of works of arts belong to the 18th century and are not valid anymore. We can only answer yes or no if we are asked what a work of art is, and "if this seems to plunge us into the abyss of relativism, then I can only say that the abyss of relativism is where we have always been in reality - if it is an abyss." p30
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