23.7.14

"The rest of the book is too mediocre to occupy us."

Exam reading. The cracking wit of an otherwise bone-dry study of French aesthetic theory – Histoire de l'Esthétique Française 1700-1900 (1920).

... The rest of the book is too mediocre to occupy us....:
 
... His aesthetic is grounded on absolutely nothing; therefore all the criticisms we can heap on Cousin, we can repeat with even more severity when judging the aesthetic of Lamennais... :
 .... We could not cite the passages in which this [ aftorementioned] idea is developed, because one would have to copy the entire book....

This scholar Théodore M. Mustoxidi was author of only one other book – Qu'est-ce que la mode? also of 1920. 

19.4.14

Cynicism and Culturepreneurship

 Aleksandra Mir being interviewed here on how the 'prophecies' of her book, Corporate Mentality (2003, pdf) are being fulfilled ten years later through cultural entrepreneurship courses, much like the one being created at my own university, and the one she mentions here:

"...I recently learned that the art school Central Saint Martins is offering a graduate degree in 'Innovation Management,' with the purpose to 'synthesize opportunities.' This is perhaps the closest to the Ford and Davies 1998 Art Futures prediction of the Culturepreneur. I find it hilarious that we have arrived at this. It is a symptom of an ever growing culture industry with lots of room for middle managers in it of course. Yet, I believe that no matter what forces or structures are in place, the art itself still always stems from a sensitive and delicate source, willing to take risks and thrive, not thanks to, but despite the odds." 

Whereas contemporary artist collectives like K-HOLE or DIS magazine follow after collectives like the NE Thing Co, General Idea or Bernadette Corporation in their parody of corporate structures and jingoism (what writer Huw Lemmey calls the "language of dickheads") what distinguishes them is their apparent willingness to enter fully into the world they parody and profit from it – staking out a position of critique and at the same time profiting from that position when ostensibly selling their cultural savvy back to clients.  In light of what critics have called the 'capitalist realism' of today's contemporary art, and its negative image – the well-intentioned "girl meets oil" cases of the corporate world – the point past which all differences between sincerity and cynicism can no longer be restored is both poetic and horrific territory.

9.4.14

"Art, Conflict & The Politics of Memory" Part I

http://sites.duke.edu/artconflictandthepoliticsofmemoryspeakerseries/

Part I of the Art, Art History & Visual Studies Doctoral Student Speaker Series, "Art Conflict and the Politics of Memory," organized by Ivana Bago, Laura Moure Cecchini and I. Link here. Photos below.
http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/collections/overview/americas/mesoamerica/murals/
http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/collections/overview/americas/mesoamerica/murals/  
Duke Professor Esther Gabara speaking with Dartmouth Professor Mary K. Coffey about her fantastic paper on Meso-American prophecy, José Clementé Orozco (details of his mural above), and Walter Benjamin.

Duke Professor Pedro Lasch Syking with the activist and artist Milica Tomić. Below,
Milica Tomić,  “Container” image from a Forensic Performance –(Re) Construction of the Crime.
http://milicatomic.wordpress.com/

11.2.14

Some heartening (?) thoughts c/o Deleuze the night before I leave for the CAA Conference.

       Art is just territorial pissing,
  ....or some other sort of angry display.
and talking is dirty.... But nothing is so shameful as the intellectuals who travel only to do so.