Z Score,T Score, Percential Rank and Box Plot Graph
Purity and decadence
1. “Alice was beginning to get very tired
of sitting by her sister on the bank,
and of having nothing to do: once or
twice she had peeped into the book
her sister was reading, but it had no
pictures or conversations in it, “and
what is the use of a book”, thought
Alice, “without pictures or
conversations?”
2. Purity and Decadence
Idea art, chi chi conceptualism, ikea art
‘versus’ form, colour, visual pleasure...
A phoney opposition?
3. • “Should art be concerned with (and preserve at all costs) its own
specialised laws, issues and competencies and address an
elevated elite public, actual or ideal? For some, this preserves
the Utopian vision of creative human expression untainted by
kitsch or political doctrine; for others, it maintains an insulated,
socially exclusive and gendered art, with attendant discourse,
which feeds the market in novel objects and provides state and
corporate agencies with symbols to be used for whatever
ideological reasons they wish. Alternatively, should art engage
with the social and cultural world at large to give expression to
those issues, controversies and interests that are stifled by
dominant ideologies? For some this preserves the power of art
to engage critically with what Baudelaire called ‘the transitory,
the fugitive, the contingent of the present, in a way that
addresses a constituency for whom culture has a broader social
base; for others, this is naive, conscience wringing whine leading
to bad art and special pleading. “
Francis Frascina
3
4. “There is a danger in this rivalry of thinking that art
which is not visually interesting must ipso facto be
clever, or alternatively of discarding visually
interesting art as being ipso facto not clever.“
Dave Beech
Artmonthly
6. Key features of Conceptual Art
• The dematerialisation of the art object -anti
optical - anti formal. Concept over Form.
• Resistance to the art market / to corporate
buying power. Critique of the institutions of
art (museums, critics, dealers)
• Investigation of the status of the art object -
the ontology of art -art that didn’t look like art.
• A rejection of the myths of modernism -
especially in relation to ideas of expression, Reading Position for Second Degree Burn,
authenticity (see collaborative practice) 1970, Jones Beach, New York, Duration of
Exposure: 5 hours. Dennis Oppenheim,
• New mediums - the embrace of non
1970-1974.
conventional forms for artistic communication
- text, photography, video, performance- the
search for more democratic forms of
communicating.
• A questioning of the social role of the artist -
artists no longer mute doers.
• A re-imagining of the role of the spectator - a
shift from a passive consumer of aesthetic
objects- to an active reader and interpreter
7. The ontology of art
The Conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth remarked that the
‘purest’ definition of conceptual art
would be that it is an inquiry into the foundations
of the concept ‘art’.
John Baldessari
‘What is Painting’
1968
8. “Art doesn’t require being able to
draw, or being able to paint well or
know colours, it doesn’t require
any of those specific things that
are in the discipline, to be
interesting”
Bruce Nauman
13. Neo Conceptualism (1990-98)
Artists react against what is seen as the parochial,
out dated conservative appearance, tone and
values of the British art world. Conceptualism has
a pure, ‘international’ style.
A generation of younger artists, specifically in
London at Goldsmith’s college and in Glasgow at
GSA ‘rediscover’ (copy, appropriate or repackage)
the work of first generation conceptual artist from
the late 1960’s and 70’s.
Partly this shift is stylistic (black and white,
minimalism devoid of signs of the hand or
‘touch’) . It also asserts the primacy of the idea,
for some, at the expense of the form or material.
Unlike first generation (60’s and 70’s)
conceptualists, these artists were keen to transport
‘idea art’ into the everyday.
18. Damien Hirst
The Asthmatic Escaped II, 1992
Glass, metal, camera on tripod, shoes, clothing, film, saucer, plastic cup and lid, candy bar,
and inhaler
87 x 168 1/4 x 83 3/4 in. (221.0 x 427.4 x 212.7 cm.)
21. Socially Engaged?
Work in Progress1995
The men in 'Work in Progress' are wearing either Inter Milan or
AC Milan football team shirts. The type of portrait is familiar
from football publicity photographs, where the players stare
Roderick Buchanan
ahead with their arms held behind their backs. However, instead
of being Italian sportsmen, the players are from amateur five-a-
side Glasgow teams. Their separation into two sets alludes to
the need of individuals to lend themselves a separate identity,
while at the same time maintaining common bonds of
knowledge and agreed opinion. The implied rivalry echoes the
competition between the two Glasgow football teams, Rangers
and Celtic.
National Gallery of Scotland
22. Criticisms of - reaction against ‘idea’ art
“Today we have nominal triggers
for regurgitating arguments better
rehearsed elsewhere, which are
neither illuminated nor in any
sense present within the work.
This is work that is essentially
literary. Work that repels the
senses and takes us off to the
library. The press release is the
pitch, is the interpretation, is the
whole work ready to be phoned
around the world. Art that in
deconstructive logic is a footnote
to the text which justifies its
existence. “ Christine Borland
Mark Wallinger
“Fool Britannia: not new , not
clever, not funny”
23. The lost radicalism
• ’Saatchi’s taste is very much for art that
looks like advertisments, and who -except
an adman -would want to own one of
them?” Julian Stallabrass High Art Lite pg. 201
• Idea art becomes ikea art -”you got to have
a good idea” - the tyranny of the good idea
• Fetish made of ‘being seen to be sharp and
smart’ - chi chi conceptualism
24. “People having been looking at work and
saying that’s a nice idea. I really hate
good ideas, why not write them down? “
Robert Johnston
Untitled magazine
25. “The only thing Neo
Conceptualists share with
Conceptualists is the use
of the word conceptual.”
Terry Atkinson
29. Paintings back! (again..) Did it ever go away?
• Visual pleasure - return of the
seductive, opulent,
unashamed reveling in the
pleasures of painting.
• A reaction against the
dominance of photographic,
video, installation ‘idea’ based
art, as well as the use of ready
made and the lo fi
• A desire to produce work that
was resistant to easy
incorporation with the
machinery of the culture
industry (educational
workshops - too easily
pitchable one liners)
30. “Inevitably , the yba cult of
personality became tired. .New
artists and curators began
looking elsewhere. Artists
wanted to make art without
anyone peering over their
shoulders. They became
enthusiastic about making
things again. Art started to look
like it was having more fun while
artists remained serious in how
they reflected their concerns…
Cynicism was finally passe and
the art star a bore..”
Dick Price
‘Die Young Stay Pretty’
Martin Maloney
31. Dan Perfect
David Thorpe
Daniel Coombes
Chantal Joffe
32. “In the art world, this new
tendency has been seen
largely for what it is: a
cynical ploy, given the
growing dissatisfaction
with the antics of high art
lite, to push the art market
on in a direction that
Saatchi can control”
Julian Stallabrass
Saatchi and Sensation
‘High Art Lite’
33. Dave Hickey
• Key texts “Air guitar” “The Invisible Dragon - Four
Essays on Beauty”
• A critique of the austere, censorious politically
correct culture that has, for Hickey, engulfed
American art since the early seventies.
• Hickey’s writing aims to place questions of
aesthetics - of visual pleasure, experience, fun
and most importantly for him beauty, back on the
agenda.
• “A lanky graduate student had risen to his feet
and was soliciting my opinion as to what “the
issue of the Nineties” would be. Snatched from
my reverie, I said, “Beauty”, and then more firmly.
“the issue of the nineties will be beauty [..] the
total, uncomprehending silence that greeted this
modest proposal lent it immediate credence for
me. “ (Enter the Dragon on the vernacular of Beauty pg. 11)
• His essays aim to invoke a relationship to art
based on enthusiasm and being a fan, rather
than theoretical interpretation, critical
deconstruction or a demonstration of arts social
usefulness.
34. • Theological nit picking and sensory deprivation
“What is the good of
music? What is the good
of painting? There is
nothing truly beautiful
that can be used for
anything; everything that
is useful is ugly, for it is
the expression of some
need..The most useful
room in a house is a
latrine”
Theophile Gautier
(1811-72 Preface to
Mademoiselle de
Maupin)
35. • “The artist Renne Green has enumerated some current art world cliches
exemplified by Hickey’s thinking:
• Art is borderless
• Thinking causes over seriousness and the deflation of fun and beauty, which
are equated with aesthetic pleasure.
• To think means to think too much,and is in conflict with expereincing (which
is thought of in binary terms and is thus associated with feeling,i.e feeling/
experiencing vs. thinking).
• Hickey strangely presumes that people - and educated art audiences in
particular - cannot take pleasure in a demanding work, or a political work, or
even a play of ideas”
• Julian Stallabrass
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• Art Incorporated
36. • In his books he constantly alludes to his rich and
cultured background, but systematically fails to see the
connection between this socialisation within culture, and
his subsequent feelings of being so at home within art.
Instead of acknowledging that his sense of belonging is a
cultural privilege, intrinsically linked to social
inequalities within the broader culture, he turns it into a
kind of magical gift. But, Hickey’s sense of belonging
within culture is simply not available to everyone. In this
respect he perfectly typifies Bourdieu’s remarks that the
greatest mystifers are the most mystified.
•
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37. Early One Morning
Whitechapel Gallery
London
06 July - 08 August 2002
Their work demonstrates a sensuous enjoyment of materials, which they activate in dynamic
and unexpected configurations. Largely abstract in composition, their work reclaims beauty
and pleasure, sampling from the formal strategies of Modernism at the same time as design,
fashion, music and advertising. Their works can be spatial, tactile and riotously colourful.
http://www.whitechapel.org/images/disappearer360h_0.jpg
38. Installation view at Whitechapel
Gallery
“I wanted to undo the idea of minimalism as incorruptible, overlapping it
with ideas of faith, death, magic, things that are all very messy in a way. I
like the idea of corrupting, of scratching the pristine surface. It’s like the
object tries to be itself but we bring something to it that changes it, a
bizarre occultism. “
Eva Rothschild
39. New Formalism? A Reactionary Turn?
“Why is that whilst the world
outside spirals in ever tighter
circles of terror and repression,
and the potential avenues of
avoidance or resistance become
squeezed by the growing
dominance of capital and its civil
and military bulldogs, artists
retreat further into a hermetic
world of abstraction, formalism,
deferred meanings and latent
spiritualism?”
Nick Evans
Tired of the Soup d’Jour?
Variant
EVA ROTHSCHILD
Early Learning, 2002
42. • “Such art can only really be appreciated by
those involved intimately with its production
and reception. It encourages true cultural
commitment, mitigates against larger
audiences and provides few points of access
for curators who need to fulfil educational
programmes”
Neil Mulholland
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46. The Subjectivity of Beauty or the
Tyranny of Good Taste
• “The things that seem beautiful, inspiring
and life-affirming to me, seem ugly, hateful
and ludicrous to most other people.”
•
Pat Califia, Macho Sluts
55. John Russell
• THE ARTIST PRESENTS THE SPECTACLE OF FOUR TEN BY THIRTY-FIVE FEET BACK-LIT
TABLEAUX, DIGITALLY PRINTED ON VINYL, DEPICTING SCENES OF PEOPLE STANDING IN A
SEDUCTIVE AND INFINITE OCEAN IN THE THROES OF ECSTASY. These are people SAYING ʻYESʼ TO
LIFE – CAUGHT IN THE THRALL OF THE EVENT AND SPREADING THEIR DESIRE THROUGHOUT
THE WORLD LIKE A CONTAGION. It may be unclear whether these poses are the result of ʻFREE WILLʼ or
whether they are fixed as narrative or compositional elements within a wider ʻphilosophical context,ʼ but in
fact these questions are subsidiary to the performative or ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE of the works as the
staging of a staging, or PRESENTATION OF A PRESENTATION. A SELF-ARTICULATION OF THE
FICTION OF AN ARTWORK-AS-EVENT-AS-PROPHECY-AND/OR CURSE OF THE UNLEASHING OF
THE POWER OF THE FALSE. In this respect the SHIMMERING SUN-SOAKED PLANE OF THE OCEAN is
equivalent to the illuminated surface of the picture/object plane, both PITCHED SUPERFICIALLY AT THE
SURFACE OF THINGS as an absolute (abstract/virtual) flatness – an incorporeal realm where the forms,
passions, shapes and rhythms of this flatness might slip and explode as ideas, shapes, states of affairs,
bodies and forces in the real world, FROM WHICH THEY ARE ANYWAY NOT SEPARATED.
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