Rebuttal to Tyler Green

Today, Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes posted the following statement:

Last weekend I subjected myself to the ICA Philly's Big Nothing show. It is a leading contender for the worst show I've seen all year. It is the art exhibit for people who prefer reading about art or theorizing about art to actually looking at it.

It is a show full of art that appeals to the October subscriber base and anyone else who values an idea more than the execution of that idea into a work of art. The Big Nothing attempts to demonstrate that art need not be visually engaging, that it need not be looked at, that all you have to do is think about it and somehow that in itself will be fulfilling. This is an exhibit that should have been a book.

No art exhibit I have seen in years has so thoroughly rejected the idea that art can be or should be beautiful. Well, you can't look at an idea. And art is supposed to be looked at, not just thought about.

I disagree with him completely. Although I haven't yet made it to Philadelphia to see this show in person, and thus I can't comment on its quality, I do have a problem with Tyler's statement. I feel like he is slamming the door on art and its possibilities, and I never expected this from him. Tyler's assertion that no show has "thoroughly rejected the idea that art can be or should be beautiful" is off the mark in my opinion. I think that everyone agrees that art can be beautiful. There's no room for controversy here. However, I hope that Tyler isn't really saying that art should be beautiful. This is inherently flawed because of the old saying, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Beauty is subjective. We cannot, with certainty, say what is beautiful. We can say that X% of the population believes that a particular Monet is beautiful. But because someone, undoubtedly, believes it is not beautiful, does this then mean it isn't art? I've stated on this blog that Cubism, to me, is hideous. It's downright ugly. But it is still art. To link the definition of art to a subjective critique just seems wrong.

Tyler also asserts that this exhibit "should have been a book." I assume he would elaborate to say a book without pictures, only text. If only text, then the book is no different than art theory, fiction, etc. A certain context is necessary to promote "Nothing" art to more than theory. It has to be in a visual arts gallery to mean something.

I would say that all art provokes a thought or an idea. So, why can't we skip the customary middle step of creating a painting, photograph or sculpture, and get straight to the thought or idea? Is it the means to an end that makes art? Or is it just the end that really matters? Sure, a painting is an object. We can touch it, smell it, etc. But when we look at a painting on a wall, is it not really just the thoughts and ideas in our head. The idea behind any work of art isn't in the actual piece of art, it's in our mind. Maybe I'm way off on this one...

Finally, to say that art is supposed to be looked at, and I don't wish to dive into the deep end of philosophy, but who is to say where you have to see it? Is there a distinct difference between seeing an object or act in the physical world versus in your mind? As an artist I have struggled for a long time with the following problem. When I think of creating a piece of art, I visualize it in my head. I can see the final product. For a while I would not/could not bring myself to actually create the piece in the physical world. There was no point. I had already seen it, so why go through the effort of creating it. That is why I spent a year making art that had a degree of randomness. There was no way for me to know what the final product would look like. This kept me interested. I came to believe though that one had to make physical art to be taken seriously. Perhaps if my physical art is one day taken seriously, then I can explore the notion of art in the so-called mind's eye.

I would love to hear more from Tyler on this subject. It's clear that Tyler prefers looking at art rather than reading about it (although he frequently tells readers what art book he is currently reading), he's more interested in the process of creating a piece of art, and he thinks art should be beautiful. These are some pretty broad statements and I would love to hear more details about his thoughts on this matter.

Again, I want to make clear that I haven't seen the show in person, but my comments aren't about the actual pieces of art. My concern is with Tyler's statements about the nature of art.

Comments

[Tyler Green]

Hiya, thanks for taking the time to read and to respond to what I wrote. Some thoughts...

>>However, I hope that Tyler isn't really saying that art should be beautiful.

Correct, I did not say that!

While I didn't say that art should be beautiful, I said that TBN rejects beauty as an imperative and as a possibility. As I've written before, to me it is crucial that art be visually engaging.

>>If only text, then the book is no different than art theory, fiction, etc.

Precisely. And that's all this exhibit is. Hence it could just as well be a book. And if it was a book without pictures, that would be fine with me. I have no real need to look at 80 percent of the work in the show. Much of the work in the show was made to be thought about and not to be looked at.

Go see the show... then follow-up. I'l be interested to see what you think...

[Laodan]

Not so often does one find an interesting debate going on about what art is all about. I guess that J.T. Kirkland initiated one of those rare events.

Let me be clear, I do not agree with Kirkland. I find that it was kind of cheap to argue about the few words of Tyler Green about the ICA Philly's Big Nothing show. I clicked on the link that Tyler Green gives to the "Artists Who Just Say No To Everything." By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN in the NYT and I better understood what he is alluding at. See this extract from Kimmelman's article:
"In the end, if nothingness equals nihilism equals nonsense equals nowhere equals the ineffable equals anarchy equals opposition to the powers that be, then all art eventually becomes linked by six degrees of separation. The impulse to cleanse, purge, simplify or otherwise express the opposite of what's extravagant and opulent is really nothing new. The pendulum has swung throughout art history." "What results is chaos."

Yes I agree fully. We have been subjected for the last fifty years to much confusion, it has indeed been a very chaotic road for artists.
Now let me explain what I mean by coming back to Kirkland's words.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
That's untrue. This kind of assertion is only the result of massive repetitions by relativists. REALITY is not relative, what is relative is our observation of reality. And if reality is not relative then how can we claim that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? Beauty is not subjective, it is part of reality and is thus objective as Ouspensky discovered so long ago. What is subjective is our observation of beauty. So reality is beauty but our rendering of reality is not necessarily beautiful. That is the central question that the artist should ponder. What artists try to render is the beauty of reality as they come to see it.
I'am not trying to imply that realism is the attainment of beauty. Realism is only one way at rendering reality, there are many others. Impressionism, expressionism, cubism, surrealism, futurism, abstraction, all are ways at trying to render reality. What I mean is that our human ways at rendering reality are not necessarily harmonious and beautiful.
The artist is human and too often as a human, he is interested in what can be obtained from a work of art, forgetting the creation itself. In other words, as KIMMELMAN and GREEN write nothingness is not beauty, it is chaos.
We have to start to be honest with ourselves. NOTHINGNESS is not a representation of reality, it is simply a cheap CHEAT by a human who for whatrver reason calls himself an artist.
Ok I guess that you have by now understood that in my vision, art is all about the artist's representation of reality that he wants to share with society at large... It has been so in animist societies (primitive art), it has been so in the time of the gods (religious art), it has been so in the realist period (landscapes and portraits for the new rich bourgeois) and it continued to be so for the impressionists, expressionists, cubists, surrealists and other modern schools.

I guess that is what Kirkland in an impressionist fashion tries to tel us when he writes "the idea behind any work of art isn't in the actual piece of art, it's in our mind". Yes the artist's idea is in his mind that's a fact. But the artist's idea is not necessarily behind all his creations. Herein lies one of the most important facet of art.
A work should only be treated as a work of art when it gives the artist's vision about reality. Remember the princip of honesty, when the artist reaches out for something else (recognition, greed, prestige or whatever else) he can't be honestly be trying to transmit his vision of reality... And when the artist becomes cynical he surely has totally forgotten about sharing his vision... he wants to reach some result. Only greed or the yearning for prestige of for money are then at work and this cannot be called art.
So I come to my conclusion, cynicism only leads to nothingness in term of art and nothingness only leads to total chaos.
We now know from the sciences of complexity that chaos is not a permanent state of affairs. As Kinmmelman writes "the impulse to cleanse, purge, simplify or otherwise express the opposite of what's extravagant and opulent is really nothing new. The pendulum has swung throughout art history". The pendulum does stop at this chaotic nothingness is is ready to swing the artists toward the urge to create real works of art, toward the trial at rendering the beauty of reality.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Thanks to Tyler for responding. I was hoping to have more of my questions answered but that's ok.

I'll try again with a couple of other questions:

1) Why must a work of art be visually engaging, if visual at all? A lot of Minimalist works are not visually engaging. Would you then say that they are not works of art, or would you say they are works of art, just not beautiful or visually engaging?

2) I don't agree that the TBN show should be in a book. I attempted to make a case that by being in a visual arts gallery setting, it then held added context that made it important. By being shown at ICA, it provoked you to express your thoughts on Nothing art as a whole. Had it been a book, it would likely have been ignored. Though you are denying Nothing as art, it has provoked thought. Would you agree? Why is it a bad thing that art be made to think about rather than to look at?

As I said in my post, I don't believe I need to see the show in person. My writing was not in reaction to the quality of the work, but your statements about Nothing art. Had you stated that you felt this particular show failed to advance the concept of Nothing as art, I wouldn't have a problem. Instead, you have admonished Nothing art altogether, and I still don't understand why.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Hi Laodan. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I'm glad that I've initiated some sort of "debate." I'll do my best to respond to your comments.

First, I want to make clear that I'm not trying to argue with Tyler. I understand that his post was a gut reaction to what he felt was a bad show. He was not trying to advance any critical art thinking, nor did he likely spend hours formulating his thoughts. I read his blog daily, and today those few, short paragraphs inspired me to "respond." By writing a more formal essay on my thoughts about Nothing art, I hoped to encourage him to give it some thought and share his thoughts. So honestly, I don't mean to gang up on him... this is just one of the first times I've disagreed with him.

You state, "We have been subjected for the last fifty years to much confusion, it has indeed been a very chaotic road for artists." My only response to that is - how many times do you think that has been said about a 50 year period in the past? I don't think this feeling of chaos is anything new. Everything is a process of discovery. We (the U.S.) as a nation once believed that slavery was acceptable. We now believe that gay marriage is wrong. I would be inclined to say that our thoughts on marriage is in chaos, but the same could be said about slavery, women's right to vote, segregation, etc. Don't deny Nothing art quite yet. In 100 years it could be a large chapter in the art history books. I applaud ICA for taking a shot at making it work.

Beauty is in reality? I agree, but can you tell me where? Surely it's not everywhere in reality. If it is, then I am way off base in thinking that the recent beheadings in Iraq are some of the most disgusting acts I have ever seen. The reality of that act is not beautiful, nor are the current wildfires on the west coast, or Hurricane Isabelle, the Holocaust, or any other disaster. Racism is not beautiful. Hatred is not beautiful. Perhaps you mean some reality is beautiful, intrinsically, while other reality is not. Could you then please point me towards the book that lists what is beautiful? When a man tells his wife that she is beautiful, should she question him? "Oh thanks dear, how kind!! However, Ouspensky says that my traits aren't really such that I look beautiful. So thanks for blowing smoke up my butt!!"

It seems that you are saying only physical objects or acts can be beautiful. Can a person's soul be beautiful? Can a thought? If not, then I'm more confused than ever.

You state, "What artists try to render is the beauty of reality as they come to see it.
I'am not trying to imply that realism is the attainment of beauty. Realism is only one way at rendering reality, there are many others. Impressionism, expressionism, cubism, surrealism, futurism, abstraction, all are ways at trying to render reality." So, what would you say to a person like me who does not make art from reality? Someone like Bridget Riley... is she an artist? Is her work beautiful? Do you think that she is trying to render something in reality? What about Robert Ryman? If you think yes, how do you know? I agree with your list of styles that render reality. But you don't discuss Minimalism or Conceptualism. Are these "styles" art? If not, how and why are they excluded?

A little further you state, "NOTHINGNESS is not a representation of reality, it is simply a cheap CHEAT by a human who for whatrver reason calls himself an artist." You said earlier that Nothing art is chaos. Perhaps an artist is attempting to render a chaotic reality through Nothing art. You would have to agree that there is no such thing as Nothing, right? Everything is something. So an artist, using Nothing (a thought, text, found object, etc) could be using that something to render a chaotic reality. No? And while we're at it, you seem to imply that you can define the term artist, and by inference art, for us. Please do. I'm interested to know if I'm an artist.

On down you state, "art is all about the artist's representation of reality that he wants to share with society at large." I don't wish to nitpick, but as part of your definition of artist, are you suggesting he has to share it with people... meaning that it is a necessary condition to show your work to be an artist? This is beside the point but it caught my eye.

My statement, "the idea behind any work of art isn't in the actual piece of art, it's in our mind," should have been clarified. In this case I wasn't speaking as an artist but as a viewer. I believe that when we view art, we are seeing an idea. We don't see red, or a tree, or an emotion. We see our personal idea of red, a tree, an emotion. It is not of total significance what the artist's idea was, because most of the time we don't know his/her idea. So I am suggesting that physical works of art are merely ideas, accurate or not. Why then can't art BE the idea? Why must something physical provoke the idea for it to be art?

You conclude with, "The pendulum does stop at this chaotic nothingness is is ready to swing the artists toward the urge to create real works of art, toward the trial at rendering the beauty of reality." I agree that Nothing art is not all that new. Duchamp went down that road with the urinal, for example. There are surely others. I'm still not comfortable with your assertion about creating REAL works of art by rendering the beauty of reality. I'm so tired of rendering the beauty of reality. Still-lifes for example... yawn! Artists have been rendering the beauty of a bowl of fruit for ages. And while I respect the artist for being able to do so (my bowl of fruit would look awful), I wonder why you are so against artists trying to expand the notion of art. Do you believe that the advancement of art is just going to be along the lines of impressionism, cubism, etc? What if I learned how to place electric stimuli on your brain to produce in your mind an image of a bowl of fruit? Nothing tangible results, but an image of a bowl of fruit is in your mind. Are you completely against that as art? What about a virtual reality bowl of fruit?

Perhaps my open mind is getting the best of me. I can't possibly bring myself to say what art is or who is an artist. Those definitions have always changed and it's unreasonable to think what is taken for granted today couldn't be changed in the future.

Like I've said many times on here, my education is limited to a BS in Economics from a top liberal arts school. I don't have graduate degrees in art history or philosophy or physics. I'm not suggesting that I know everything. Is the South Beach diet better than Atkins? Should we allow gay marriage? Should marijuana be legalized? Society doesn't know the final answer to any of these. I doubt that we have this art thing totally figured out either.

One final thought... if beauty is not subjective and is a part of reality, and you cannot produce a list of what is and is not beautiful, then we are only left with the eye of the beholder. What good is it to say beauty is in reality if we can't identify with certainty what that is? To me, it's useless. I'll decide what I think is beautiful and leave it at that.

As a disclaimer, I don't mean to come off as if I'm on a tirade or that I'm attacking Laodan. I'm simply trying to get my thoughts down while they're still fresh. I apologize if it seems I'm attacking anyone... it is NOT my intent.

[laodan]

Hi J.T,

I did not feel the least attacked. We have a conversation, point. It is not easy to convey in a few short sentances the content of one's thinking so many confusions arise...
Instead of answering to your response,if you are interested, please visit my blog where I posted the first draft of most of the chapters of my book.
This should answer most of your questions.

Best

[shreve]

A work of art in a visual-art context should be visually engaging. That can mean attractive or repellant, but something has to be there. If not, it's not visual art, or at least it's not good visual art. Music without sound? I know, I know, John Cage, but once that's done we don't need show after show of it. I'll throw a bomb in here - I believe the larger problem is art that is content to be clever and witty rather than engaged in any meaningful way with reality.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Thanks for chiming in Shreve. I still have a problem though. Since you really can't have nothing without having something, then that means something visual has to exist (well at least until we can communicate telepathically). So by "visually engaging" I would assume that since everything is visual, then the question boils down to how we define engaging. Does engaging mean "pretty" or "beautiful," or does it mean "interesting" or "thought provoking?" Could it be both? Then by extension, could Nothing art be visually engaging? You can see something and it can be interesting (the latter is a matter of opinion, or so I believe). Of course, this all hinges on the "something" being a piece of art and not some other object.

I do agree with you about witty art. I personally don't enjoy it, but I can't consider it non-art. That would be entirely too limiting for me.

And can we really have music without sound? Is there not always some sort of ambient noise? Has anyone (in music, not physics) ever been able to control the environment entirely so that there is no sound? I don't know, so I ask...

[Joseph Barbaccia]

Perhaps we begin to split hairs. So be it.

Art is an idea. A meme. A mental construct. For whatever reason or non-reason, an artist manifests this idea into being. (sings, sculpts, assembles, etc.) This meme is filtered through the artist’s intent and craft and through the artist’s past and present during the manifestation. An art object (painting, song, book, etc.) results. It exists in time in part of our objective reality. What an everyday thing. What a miracle! I fart therefore I art. The art/meme is inherited by the created object, song, poem, whatever. It resides there and is duplicated when viewed or listened to, or read or played. When this happens, again the art/meme is filtered through the mind and body of the viewer (critic). Yea or Nay! Attracted. Repelled. As I have said before, you have to take it in. Like a gene, a meme can be passed on and on and on. Venus of Wallendorf anyone? Did I spell that right?
This reads spotty. But it’s simple really.

[Joseph Barbaccia]

Oh yes I forgot. Nothing does exists because something exists. The question is WHY is there anything?

But that's a different blog.

[J.T. Kirkland]

Hi Joseph,

Perhaps nothing does exist... it would seem it must. However, is "Nothing" something that can be created or harnessed? Where is nothing? If we can't access nothing, then what use is it to the artist? Although the ICA has a show about Nothing... it's really about something, right?

So... I'd say that Nothing, in the (visual) art sense, is always something.