I've been interested in the correlated binaries of mind/body, human/animal, male/female throughout all of my recent work (we acknowledge of course the “impossibility” of these dualisms, alongside their persistent discursive and cultural powers). In my dance studies courses, I talk with students about why dance is often barely recognized as a legitimate art form, or why it seems so regularly feminized, or considered “lower than”— or a “step-child” of— the arts. One perhaps too obvious reason is that the body is literally the instrument in dance and choreography, and the body is so material / feminized / animalized as to prove threatening and “dangerous”; it is something that has to be tamed by concepts, or meaning, in some way. I think it could be productive to ask whether a similar dynamic has been at play in relation to form in visual art. Has “the material body of the work of art as perceived through its visual qualities” been— however half-consciously— deemed too lowly, feminine, creatural/material, in contradistinction to the masculinist and humanist “conceptual” apparatus, its “meaning,” so that the material form has come to be something that must be tamed or “made low,” abjected and disavowed, in relation to the work’s meaning or concept.
Secondly, if we take seriously Deleuze’s claim that viewing (or hearing etc.) art is a primarily affective and bodily experience— alongside the idea that the viewer’s conceptualizing or cognitive ascertaining of the “meaning” of an artwork is secondary to that, or post-affective— then we can ask whether the rising prominence of “concept” and its concomitant devaluing of form could be understand as having been a kind of defense against the affective/bodily power of visual art. Have we wanted the concept to reign because it keeps us more “in control,” more so-called “human” (and masculine) in the face of art, literally in the moment that we interface with artworks. That is, has telling ourselves that it’s the concept or meaning that matters— that we must search for the “idea” in the moment of engaging with art— staved off or contained the affective powers of art, which actually render us vulnerable, bodily, quivering creatures? Have we considered it obvious that it is too girly / bodily to value the affective force of a work of art, first and foremost? Would that make us “just” like animals, somehow?
6 comments:
Carrie, I'm really glad you brought up the association between form and the body (and thus femininity, animality, etc.) and this as a possible reason for form's inferior status in the visual arts. It seems very clear to me that this is a widespread -- if only semi-conscious -- undercurrent in the art world. It's interesting to hear you speculate that what's at work here is fear -- a visceral resistance, perhaps, to any reminder that we are animals -- because the sense I get in the visual arts is, on the surface at least, precisely the opposite. My sense is that form is seen as weak, "soft," meaningless, and mindless - the very opposite of powerful or threatening in any way. But I suppose you're suggesting that the casual dismissal is really a cover for a deeper feeling far more difficult to inhabit. In any case, I've always found it a bit puzzling that for previous generations (and I'm thinking here of Clement Greenberg's time -- mid-20th century), form in the arts was decidedly masculine: detached, "pure", elevated above the messy earthly and bodily. What changed??
That said -- and this to your second point -- there is an undeniable discomfort that most people have in the face of, for example, abstract art. When there's no clearly discernible "idea," no ready "meaning" or "message" to latch on to, even art world people will go grasping after imported concepts. The anxiety is interesting (if occasionally painful) to observe. Perhaps this is exactly the being rendered "vulnerable, bodily, quivering creatures" of which you speak. This anxiety is usually attributed to people's discomfort with ambiguity, but perhaps it is much more. Perhaps it's not so much a response to what is *absent* as it is a kind of flinching from the power of what is *present* (i.e., material and form).
Res¬ponse to Carrie re 1.2 (Charlene Spretnak)
On dualism, Carrie asks whether the Western mind, by “telling ourselves that it’s the concept or meaning that matters — that we must search for the ‘idea’ in the moment of engaging with art — staved off or contained the affective powers of art.” Yes, the need for rationalist concepts to override affect is an insecure, defensive response that has been present since Plato warned that emotions “pollute” the rational capabilities of the [male] Greek citizen. Finally, the role of affect in perception and cognition is coming to be recognized as a key element in conscious thought, which is often a reaction to an instantaneous flash, often unconscious, of a feeling of attraction/like or revulsion/don’t like. The emergence of modern socialization taught boys to deny emotions in order to be rational thinkers. (Women were considered hopeless on this since they seem to experience feelings as carrying truth and revealing insights.) Modern, humanist education also instilled an anthropocentric disjunction from nature. Renaissance humanists were quite taken, for instance, with the esoteric teaching supposedly conveyed by Hermes Trismegistus that the true role of [male] humans is to become as terrestrial gods on Earth, with nature as the raw materials for human use.
Response to Carrie, Taney, Charlene (Jon Sakata):
In resonance with both of your responses to Carrie’s, hearing Bacon’s words about his desire to get sensation on to the nervous system as violently as possible; without being slowed down by the storytelling/narrative function. Might there be something akin to this in how concepts and meaning slow and filter (out) the potency and ‘the power of what is *present*’?
Jon, just reflecting on my own experience, I would say that that is exactly what concepts and "meaning" do, not just in art but in any encounter with the unfamiliar: they effect a cool distancing from the immediacy of the real, which, unnamed and unconceptualized, might otherwise overwhelm me -- certainly emotionally, but also perhaps *physically*. It interests me so much that you're coming at this from the sphere of music, which would seem to me the most immediate and most physically intimate of the arts, and thus the most impervious to this kind of distancing conceptualization. You seem to be getting at this in your previous post, but I wonder if you would say a bit more about how this rationalist/humanist imperative that's so taken over the visual arts has manifested itself in your field. (And yes, to answer a question you posed in that previous post, it is most curious indeed that the very composers we tend to valorize as the greatest "humanizers" are in fact the ones who've taken us furthest *beyond* ourselves.)
Yes, Liz Grosz beautifully elaborates Deleuze's and Darwin's ideas, and often talks about music and dance in such affective registers, as being the most "infectious" or contagious of the arts. Add in what I might call the enhanced powers of vibratory presence, in those forms, and it does explain in some ways why music and dance are the forms where perhaps one "becomes other," "gets lost" in the mystic experience, a bit more readily. The cool distancing is harder to maintain, I find, when watching a powerful performance or dance work, or witnessing live musical performance. And it would be worth positing that the immediacy of the real is both what we seek (as performers and observers) but also what can be threatening or frightening about art (or at least Zizek would want to insist on the terrors of the real!).
Indeed, Carrie. I've been thinking about what you said about fear of art's power being the underlying (and likely unconscious) force behind the low valuation of form. Charlene also pointed to this, calling it "an insecure, defensive response" that's been with us since Plato. While this seems absolutely right to me intellectually, I've been struggling to apply it to particular instances in the art world. Because as I suggested above, people's dismissal of form as empty and secondary at best (there for no other reason than to deliver the "content") seems to exude none of the uneasiness you would expect from denial. It is usually issued with all the force of certainty, as if it were a given that we needn't ever question. But I suppose this is the nature of this kind of thing: the emotional complexes that give rise to a certain response get crystalized as the response settles into the cultural imagination, leaving just this response, manifesting as a given, so that everyone is spared the original feeling.
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