On Diebenkorn and Critique

For some time now, the De Young has been ferociously advertising for its Diebenkorn special exhibit. Inhabiting the exhibit are several of his Berkeley works, amongst them abstract depictions of local landscapes (santa cruz, berkeley, chabot valley and others), along with more reflective and meditative pieces emulating the still-lifes of Cezanne and the nudes of Matisse. There was also an extensive collection of works that didn't fall within either of these categories.

Others were depictions of interiors, of the the worlds in which we reside and from which we look out on to the public world, not to mention the places where we find our solitude, spaces for personal reflection and recreation, of ourselves as human beings. These were the most intriguing to me, in fact, and perhaps both because they publicly displayed the private worlds of people, the objects and totality of things they use to live out their daily lives and create whatever it is that they are, and their perspective on the world outside, informed as it may be by their class status and the attendant 'protected visibility' that their elevated balcony or two-story building may privilege them.

What can be said to be depicted didn't at all overshadow the makeup of the composition. Just as enchanting were the colors, which he used both to fill voids and to populate centers. Even before I attended the exhibit, I was enthralled by how vivid and vibrant some of his works were (as seen online or elsewhere). Visiting DY, I was not disappointed in the least. Layered over one another, and sometimes melded carefully into one another, the bright reds, florid yellows and bold blues he used captivated me. It is almost a travesty to leave the exhibit and to return to the mundane normalcy of everything else, when one can find such visual ecstasy found in one such place. My experience with them still satiates and seizes my body.

His theoretical observations on his work were arguably more telling of his motivation than any compositional aspect. Aware of his artistic categorization as an abstract expressionist, he retorts, visually and discursively with his protests on the implications of being situated into a greater historical 'movement'. In one commentary, he notes that abstract expressionism was a 'stylistic straitjacket;' he felt the constraints of the style and the desires of others to locate him within it were so limiting that he was unable to experiment to the degree that he yearned for. I sympathize with him here, too; I have worried something similar with regard to the academy, and I haven't resolved this worry either. I wonder if he ever did. He reflectively continues, describing his own creative intentions and overall mission. He postulated that he was not experimenting in the ways others were and was not trying to push envelopes or create something entirely new and offensive or novel; he was trying, instead, to extend and develop a tradition, to deepen and explore its formalistic qualities and implications more completely. At first glance, I read this as a dismissive Dylan-esque deflection, but reading it again, I sense that they both must've been more honest than they intended to be. But it is hard to tell.

As I casually strolled through the gallery, I thought on how watching others appreciate art was as pleasurable as any other part of the experience. I typically walk very slowly through exhibits, if I have the time. I dote on particular painting and note their colors, study their texture, attempt to discern the form and consider its placement juxtaposition with other pieces. This way of looking requires a kind of casual relationship to art that it really deserves but that often we don't have time for. In contrast, I see others passing so quickly, some moving at a middling pace and others just glancing as they walk by. A few, however, took much longer and fixated on only one or a few paintings, some even brought sketchpads and had attempted to recreate some of the works. One man drew what he saw adorned in the galleries, attempting to imitate and emulate its forms, shapes and composition. Others converse about the art in the context of their lives, talking about what they've seen, what other art they've witness and perhaps any art theory or history they may know. It's a very social activity for many, but I just as much appreciate being there alone. Being with others entails a kind of obligation to move at their pace, an attention to your relationship that might detract from your observations and interactions with the paintings. When I'm alone in a museum, I can casually stroll and reflect as I will, taking time to stop and sit or study a description or a painting, even to view others as a they view. So much happens in such a small, enclosed place. If only there weren't such high income barriers to the enjoyment of art by all.

As I walked around in the exhibit, I was reminded also of my own desire to think on art as part of a social totality, or as much as is possible without impinging on a sense of artistic and authorial autonomy. I don't want in the least to tell an author, an artist, what they are doing, but I do like sparking conversation, asking the right questions, bringing relevance of an art work to a debate about money, about politics, about other things. A close friend and I had a conversation about this last night as he revealed some of his new work to me. We conversed on the particularities of the art object he was working, something I had no idea he was doing. I didn't impose my own thoughts on his motivations and his work, but I did find occasion to discuss a few things regarding the work. And all the while he maintained his desire for it to be a conversation starter. Perhaps this can be the place of the art theorist, of taking what is out there and meditating on what it might be implying, done only in conversation the artist and others. I'm still unsure of how I might situate myself in this regard, and I certainly don't want to remain in the abstruseness of academic art or 'high art.' Popular culture interests me just as much. But I diverge. My experiences sparked these conversations, this is what Diebenkorn did, too, or at least the presence of his works.

And now I can converse with others on it. Serving as a kind of anchor to our community, his work has been exposed to have an effect on us. Now, we must take our stance and come to terms with it in some way, as so many have and are. This is also what interests me about museums. About how something might be displayed, and we view and engage with and take positions on it. These positions are informed by the work and are not just there. We must be confronted with and by something for us to have such conversations, just as theory does with and to us when we are thinking and want to find ways to regulate and develop it. Art presents us with ways of seeing, with ways of depicting and experimenting with the tools of composition and representation. In viewing such works of art, we can think on what it means to represent, how such things are represented, and on what it says that representation is happening, is occurring in such a way. Museums, in a profoundly beautiful way, open up to the public conversations regarding art. And although they also imprison it, in a way, precluding it from existing in a more-public space or in the original situations of the art, it is the compromise option that provides some context and some accessibility for people like myself, who are where we are.

In this way, I'm as interested in the elements and makeup of art as I am in the ways in which circulates in and around people, and I recognize this even as I was talking with another friend, and as I was thinking about how great art seems to proliferate the references it makes to different times and places, other occasions of the production of works of art in the history of art, inflected with a longstanding commitment to experiencing and thinking and representing what others have already, a kind of homage to what has been and taking account of their perceptual insights necessary for making any kind of advancement into a future of further reflection on what it means to be human and what it means to represent. At the end of the day I was also left with another thought: I wondered if I was as interested in the art as I was in the person producing it, and that the art was just a way of accessing this, in a way. A way to understand them and how they produced, how they viewed the world and thought about color, different aspects of how art is produced, different styles and forms. This is what I appreciate so much about speaking with these friends. I appreciate their thoughtful and intentional contributions to conversations on what it means to be human, what we are capable and the beautiful capacity we have to observe, critique and produce.

Increasingly, however, I feel I am interested in this practice of critique and want to proliferate the ways in which people may be able to do so; how I finally pursue this existential urge is unclear.  But it is something of which I'm aware, as critique is a way of rendering our world personally intelligible, of taking all of what it is that we know and applying it to our immediate experience, be that literary, artistic, academic or otherwise. Without critique, we would not be taking necessary stances on our being, on our experiences and knowledge and how they fit up with where we are at a given time. And in this way, critique doesn't need to have a certain character or cast; it just needs to be inflected with our willingness and courage to confront dominant meanings and rebut, counter and return them, and sometimes forcibly, with our own.

It is in this way that we render the whole world a series of arguments, of debates and conversations, exchanges and decisions. This is how we may make rhetors of the worlds inhabitants yet, of making them critics, as a world of critics is a more reflective and self-conscious and perhaps even happier world, ironically so (but do we really need happiness)?. I realize now that any and all of what I do must consist in and constitute the proliferation of critique. If this means teaching, I must teach. If this means politics, then I must politic. But I most create in others the possibility and habit of holding their world accountable to them and doing so in an informed, argumentatively-respectful fashion that is democratic and accessible. This is how we may create better world, by endowing its participants with the thought and communication resources necessary to express themselves in multiple ways and to render their environments their own, not merely remaining at the level of worlds others have produced. So far, this means art, politics and philosophy, not to mention capitalism and popular culture. I want to give people the means to critique and come to terms with these spheres, to make informed and effective decisions, decisions different from what we see and have seen. This is critique, and this is what I want to give to the world, to leave it with. I just need to contemplate how I might leave it with them.

But, and I must ask this, to live a life contended: are there other ways to create critique, to encourage and cultivate critique? This may get into questions of what critique is and how it is inculcated, and Adorno certainly has his own perspective on it, but I feel I must get into this question on another day. At present, its seems fundamentally philosophical, of taking what is out there and translating it into language such that we understand how it functions. This transcription process may be unfair, but it does give us a way of tangibly holding it, something to grasp and relate to others. This is the power of rhetoric too, of encouraging and developing these skills, of focusing on the importance of critique. This is what I've been so intrigued by rhetoric. But before I get there, I know I need to study society more, study art more, study politics more. Study representation and policy and forms of art and artistic composition and Marxism and philosophy and popular culture and the media. There are many things I need to study, and so I must use time effectively and adequately to do so. As there is so little time in the world and so much to do, and we must create the kind of agency that the world needs now, that everyone needs to know how to participate in it and find some kind of happiness and site of contentment while at the same time being honest to themselves about their political commitments and the political realities of their day. Fitting these two together will be the challenge, but whatever I decide to do, I must be faithful to these aims, to finding ways to furthering and advancing these missions, to bringing us together as a community and eliminating what excludes and divorces us from one another, whatever that may be, in whatever form it may come.

This also isn't a one way process, and it will as much involve being with and around people as it will being in school and learning about what there is to critique. Knowing critique is knowing people and what they need and knowing what isn't being taught to them. Meeting up these two is my goal, and in whatever way I can, I will do so. 

Reflections on EXT/INT-version

I think we've essentialized the categories of 'introvert' and 'extrovert' to the point of absurdity. It's not as if we received an INT v. an EXT stamp at birth. We live in circumstances and and are formed by the pressures of a real, living, and dynamic social situation and our basic coping mechanisms on a daily basis reflect these, as we must fit ourselves to its pressures. Seeing our own basic relating tendencies as intrinsic is kind of a problematic way of looking at human behavior then. http://betweenletters.quora.com/How-to-Live-With-Introverts?ref=fb

Artistic Ramblings

I find artist descriptions to be interesting. Often they are attempts to rationalize and ascribe logic to the lives of individuals who go on to produce things, reading into those artistic objects their aspirations, experiences, tendencies, hopes, thoughts and ideas. But is art so simple, as with political protest, or really, any kind of human action and endeavor? There is no formula like artwork=experiences+thoughts*materialresourcesforexpression. This is a delusional byproduct of certain modes of inquiry that seek to homogenize and explain to the point of absurdity. There is an enormous amount of creative agency, of decision and deliberation, consideration and determination that will forever be beyond or outside of what we can render intelligible and reproducible. Art does not fatalistically follow from events but is one of the most real and profound examples of human agency and capacity to produce something from nothing, to take what is and to transform it into something completely new and novel, fashioning objects that subsequently inhabit the world and inform how we think and live and be. This is why we must protect the space and stature of the artist, whatever project they they actually engage in; their work is key to the stability of our world and our own ability to continue residing - and doing so happily and contentedly - within it.

Non Profits are Not the Solution

There is something deeply problematic about the nonprofit, as it parades as a beneficent, moral institution that fulfills and satisfies some mission but does so at the cost of its workers. I say this without the proper literary substantiation, a project that may come from this. But speaking from personal experience, administrators and managers use the mission statement as an excuse or perhaps as a tool to under-compensate employees. Exploiting a downturned market and reduced prospects for continuing or graduating students, the program systematically undervalues them by undercompensating.

Undervaluing is itself a phenomenon worth examining, as it has myriad psychological and physical effects, all of which are infinitely prominent in our own society. In undercompensating individuals, a company shows their lack of appreciation for their services, based on some kind of market calculation of what is in demand and what is available.

This is where the Market serves little purpose but to justify the efficiency-seeking denigration of workers. Similarly, a hierarchical command structure, expressed in management decision-making and supervisorial relationships, basically justifies autocratic attitudes and the predispositions of individuals to control others. In my own experience, this translates into passive-aggressive behavior where outright conflict is thought to lay in wait or has already occurred.

We need a whole new way of organizing that is liberated from the constraints of efficiency and from the chronic and seriously devastating undercompensation of workers. A part of this fight will be subverting the very theories that underpin such management practices. Another will be a radical reorganization of earning flows.

It is surprising, for all of the harmful effects crushing debt and recurrent bullying have had on the financial woes of citizens around the globe and our nations high school students, that private industry remains so uncompromisingly tied to a structure that is so psychologically damaging and spiritually effacing, too.

These are no empty claims either. Self-actualization, a Rogerian concept, is virtually impossible in said management structure, the likes of which predominates in the United States. How may we be able to find ourselves if we are constantly being ordered and directed to do this and that project? How can we really separate work and post-work? This aspect of the work world seems so essential to it as to make it possibly definitive of it.

As I write this, I'm reminded of a story a starbuck's employee friend told me. A dissatisfied customer, after having left the store and nearly consumed their drink, decided it appropriate to call starbucks and complain their inability to reach, with a straw, the last few drops of coffee remaining. they proceeded to castigate whomever they reached, using the opportunity likely to vent frustrations accrued from so many other places, aggression that is understandable and rational but misplaced. It likely even derived from problematic work relationships, as I see it.

 I'm sure there are myriad and easily explicable examples to be found everywhere, and yet it continues and often with the rationalization that it was only single individuals, populating managerial spots and inhabit the system itself that deformed and misapplied its mandate, but I argue a different position. The very notion of hierarchy and reduction of the power of decision-making is itself problematic. In the work place, for human beings to be treated as human beings, we must struggle to proliferate these spaces, creating new hopes for direction organizations in different directions and even for a self-setting of the environmental conditions.

And yet, we are forced to maintain our participation here, as we must work to survive, to achieve subsistence and some modicum of autonomy over ourselves and our progress. Here is the binding constraint that prevents all movement.

Capitalism and Human Bonds

This morning, as I was re-listening to a song I excitedly shared with a friend to solicit their thoughts, I realized that I was listening to work of art that reflected the prevailing conditions of production as much as any economic textbook might attempt to do.  The song lamentedly recalls the challenge of creating new social bonds, of accepting the dissolution or disrepair of old ones and even prescribes and active and distracted form of coping with such changing social relationships. The melody is light-hearted but taut and energetically, unrelentingly and resolutely but hopefully defiant. The audience to which the musicians play is of a distraught generation, appraised of the challenges of creating long term bonds amidst the constant pushing and pulling of capitalist productive means and their constant tendency for establishing the constraints and limits and conditions of social connections. This is the logic of the market. As competition inevitably requires changing flows, humans implicated in the system (symbolized as figures and variables themselves) are subject to its logic as much as any capital. They are forced to adapt to a world in which lasting human relationships are not the norm and perhaps not even what is celebrated as the highest form. Even a quick look at divorce statistics may substantiate this point.

Whether this is negative is another question, entirely, however, and one that I'm not necessarily or mainly concerned with. Many positive relationships exist and come from this particular social formation. Even new or recapitulated forms like polyamory are worth discussion here, as they attempt to find a kind of medium by establishing lasting connections with some but leaving open the possibility of including others in one's life. This system is not perfect either but is perhaps a stopgap measure, but it all falls apart if the communication component is seen lacking, as trust itself is called into question. What concerns me is that Capitalism as an economic system does carry with it particular kinds of social formations, and as I'm always looking for ways in which to disclose the reality, existence and peculiarity of of capitalism (much like Brecht or in his emulation), its particular nature and how it affects our lives uniquely, relationships became a natural part of this attempt. Our very human bonds are immersed in and conditioned by productive relations, as much as we attempt to extricate or hide ourselves. They are determined by our working lives, our need for food and sociality, our adherence and conformity to the working day and engagement in forms of investment, communication and entertainment. It is impossible to depart from being Capitalistic within Capitalism, but one certainly can be critical. And, as the only potential avenue for creating a new world, critique may be the only viable tool we have for staying ourselves against the depredations of the system and the multiplicity of effects it has, that we are a part of, that seem disconnected, fragmentary and contradictory. But, if you look closer, if you think about songs like this and related works of art as forged within this milleu, then you begin to see the parallel logics, you see how much sense it all makes.

Do not resist these analyses. See their validity and accept them and live with them. Living genuinely and sincerely and self-honestly is the only way in which one can be faithful to others and to a higher project of alleviating inequality and domination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIA5e4esp1g

Post-Marxist Mutterings...

Last night, after seeing Dirty Wars, a documentary on J. Scahill's book, which catalogs his findings regarding various 'obscene' military programs that go far beyond the pale of what is normally considered acceptable and justified given the extant 'threats' to freedom that exist. The movie was engaging and well-paced; the major critique I had was one that another uttered, what a girl I met there named Emma observed: that, in spite of its effective representation of particular instances involving recent wars, it's completely silent on the historical trend of which this is only a singular instance and small part. Notably, there is complete omission and mum-wording about US support for and intervention into various Latin American states at different stages in the history of the region. Imperialism is as American as apple pie, and as much a part of our relations with external countries as any other method or technique. I firmly assent to her observation and feel this would've solidified and generalized some of the overly particular claims implied or advanced in the film.

Although the film was interesting, it sparked an even more engaging conversation, one that prompted me to return to reading books that I haven't in some time now. In conversation with some old friends and some new friends, we spoke of what could be done given the prevailing conditions of oppression and domination. As is often the case, one almost immediately put forth the option of revolution, which is always frustrating to me. It's obvious and easy to say such a thing and not at all interesting or helpful to any project of actually conceiving of steps to take to address concrete problems. This stuck with me, and makes me realize that I probably can't learn much from them as far as my own knowledge of my particular area of interest goes. But having this conversation did remind me of this, but how I may go about pursuing them is still up in the air.

Two areas of concern stayed with me as I left the bar yesterday evening, along with a feeling of fallenness and a general sense that my opinions and observations were falling on deaf, unappreciative ears, or perhaps just those that didn't know how to listen to and incorporate what I was saying into their world views, which is something I should consider more strongly as well. The first regards violence. Often, advocates of revolution express (often naive) willingness to stomach and tolerate violence for some higher purpose or goal. Such a promise of one's body and others' bodies has a kind of profound and dramatic cast of high-stakes to it, that the prevailing conditions are so unconscionably intolerable that they can no longer be stomached. But I think that such claims often lack the kind of support or justification I feel they need. And they are often redolent of hot-headedness as much as anything else. My own hesitation with violence, in contrast, resides in a deep investiture of trust in Arendt's observations both on the trauma of various wars and failures of economic planning and the fact that violence itself is just not productive, only destructive. If we hope to create revolution, then it must mainly be based on a kind of democratic polity that represents a kind of power in discourse and dialogue. As well, given the high-stakes of advanced military technologies, so much more killing is possible; though Baudrillard might contest my claim in arguing the strength of the signal such technologies send and how they actually prevent the actual use of them. This aside, violence should not be taken lightly, and this is why I want to say that I'm against it on principle. Perhaps I could find a situation where I would think it acceptable and even preferred. But generally, unless there is a categorical decision to eliminate this option entirely, then what happens is we must trust those making the decision to judge the ends appropriate for such means. And this decision is normally not opened to many, as it should, and it often lends itself to the influence of many other interests, some perhaps monied, which may see benefit to the adoption and implementation of such policies. In any event, this is why I somewhat-firmly claim a non-violent position, and I depart from Chomsky here. Permitting violence at all lends itself to a means-ends calculation that may not satisfy general desires of what is actually permitted. And again we are removed from the political process.

It is at this point that my second major contribution enters. In turning the conversation to matters of political engagement and apathy, I highlighted the importance of ideology, of those aspects of our lives that reinforce our positions in a given political economy and entrench us in our daily habits and the justness of our routine and contributions to reproducing capitalism. This point, too, fell on deaf ears, and they seemed entirely uninterested in pursuing or following the point. In pursuit of developing today, I went back and read sections in Boltanski and Chiapello's The New Spirit of Capitalism to think on these ideas more, and I encountered some worthwhile thoughts to meditate on. Boltanski proposes a new way of understanding ideology, different even from a marxist one but compatible with what I was trying to get at yesterday. In discussing ideology, I wanted to stress how such a semiological system of justification is tied up with personal conflicts over what is worth one's own work and contribution. That is, I want to grant what marxists often do not and that is each person has a need to feel their work is worthwhile further than just what they can get back in profit or self-aggrandizement. This is one of the driving arguments of the book, reminiscent of A. Smith and the theoretical construction of the invisible hand. Basically 'the hand' gave people this sense that they could work and live and their contributions would in a roundabout way turn into general social welfare and betterment. This is exactly the kind of legitimation that Boltanski was referring to and what I tried to get at last night, or at least in part. Additionally, I wanted to discuss the significance of studying works of entertainment and what they teach us about what is acceptable and worth our own commitments of time. In any case, B's observations are profound because they humanize even the capitalist, and recognize that they too are caught in this system, and in a way left precarious but still see it is a preferred to other systems. In so doing, he also implies that, once they no longer feel such things, there may be potential for change. Even Marx didn't so far as to say this, or at least as far as my knowledge of his work goes. But it is nonetheless an important consideration, something to remember.

These were the two main points I was trying to make during the course of the conversation, and what I feel activists and marxists need to hear, to understand that they are working with people too and people that deserve consideration, as selfish as they may be in many instances. But the fact I wasn't heard wasn't the only reason I left the conversation a little upset. I think, in the short time knowing her, I'd developed a minute crush on the girl, and I felt my own lack of recognition was somehow tied up in such interest, in some way or another. As well, I think I really can only be around people in such situations for around 2 hours or so before feeling awkward and needing my to return to hole to read again. Oh, the habits I've developed...

In any event, another day has finished, and another is to come...