Re: Weltanschauung

[barney@sgi50.wwb.noaa.gov (Barney Quinn)]

Tina,

I read your post this morning. It's an important one. Part of me wants
to reply to it, and another part of my is saying, "God stop me before
I post again." Think I'll type on because you have struck a chord
which resonates with me. I'll probably get flamed for what follows. So
be it. I may well want to flame myself by the time I'm done.

The exhibition which you attended did exactly what it was supposed to
in the world of contemporary art. The guide's comments weren't
helpful, and point to the core of one of the central problems with
"art" in our times. No, I didn't smoke anything for breakfast. Please
permit me a disclaimer before I continue.

I am middle-aged, with formal training in physical science, arts, and
theology. It's been a long time since I have been in the academy. So
long, in fact, that, particularly by modern standards, my education is
quite classical and traditional. I say this not as a value statement,
but so that you will know, as they say, "where I'm coming from."

I'm Irish, and I was raised in a home where my Father and Grandfather
tossed a coin to see who would take which side in an argument, and
they would both fight to the death, as it were. I am a round-earther,
but I can, and will, teach it round or flat. For our purposes here I
am going to try to give an even handed presentation of two different
sides of an argument. My innate sentiments are on the "classical" side
of the fence.

I was taught that art, in its classical sense, has to do with the
deliberate application of pre-agreed upon conventions. We, as
photographers, have things such as the Zone system, pre-visualization,
and "one strong center of interest," as examples. I'm sure we all can
provide examples from other fields such as music, dance, painting,
etc. Using this definition of art solves some problems, and also
buys some real trouble.

I was also taught that Modern art is based on a communications model,
along the lines of Aristotle's "speaker, speech, audience." If you, as
the creator, and I as the viewer, get together and agree that it is
art, then it is art. This solves some of the issues people have with
the classical definition of art, but it also buys another, different,
truck load of problems.

Contemporary art is more of a process than it is single, specific
works. Modern art is concerned with finding out what it is supposed to
be about. This isn't a problem which J. S. Bach had, to name a
musician. The rules of modern are art that you are supposed to be
working out what the rules are. The content is that it is trying to
figure out what the content is supposed to be. The language is that
you are supposed to be inventing the language. The world of
contemporary art is made up of a collection of small communities, each
with its own viewpoint, each advocating that art is what that
community says it is.

Here's the punch line -- We. as Leica users, out making the best
"traditional" images we can, are, by definition, doing contemporary
art simply because we are members of a community with a view point,
which we advocate. Zen, huh? In many ways the modern and the classical
worlds are like alternate quantum realities...you can live in one
sometimes, and the other at other times, but it is hard to live in
both of them at once.

The problem with "classical" art is that it has rules, and sooner or
later that gets us into the question of authority. How many lines does
a sonnet have? Says who? The pope? the guy paying the bills? The head
of the art department at the university? The second half of our
century has been, for good and proper reasons, one huge, richly
deserved revolt against authority. Classical just doesn't work for
some people.

Modern Art's supposes an aesthetic kind of dialectical
movement...Leica meets Holga, and out of the conflict comes a new
vision. The problem here is that although you can make statements
like, "That's not a good example of a symphony," or that's a great
novel. You can't, IMHO, make a persuasive case that a statue is
superior to a poem. It finally has to resort to the same appeals to
authority which it started by finding objectionable. 

So what? When it is viewed in these terms we have a situation wherein
both arguments have strengths and weaknesses. Both have fatal
flaws. Neither can win the fight, so we all go round and round.

Let's look at it in a slightly different way. Let's compare in to the
struggle between poets and grammar books. Language has rules, says one
side, and they have a point. But, say the poets, language, like old
coins, gets worn out and we need to mint new. They have a point,
too. Times do change. Progress does come from this conflict, but we
all have stomach aches because we are in the trenches, helping to slug
it out.

The exhibit you saw did what it was intended to...two communities, two
viewpoints, two languages side by side where they can be compared. You
did what you were supposed to. You decided which language worked for
you, and you were able to re-affirm your commitment to classical
photography. That's a good thing, and an afternoon well spent,
IMHO. The guide failed by judging rather than guiding, and by falling
into the "authority" trap.

Having said all this I also gotta say that there is such a thing
as junk. The out of focus stuff may have been hard to access because
there was nothing to access. You have to decide if that makes it bad,
or if it just makes it a failed experiment, which is the fate of most
experiments. And we all have to decide how open or how hard we want
our hearts to be. There is a middle ground. The fact that something
has no meaning to me may mean that it has no meaning, it may mean that
it simply isn't to my taste ( which is hardly a hanging offense), or
it may also be a chance for me to learn something.

Barney
barney@sun1.wwb.noaa.gov