When I was in art school a friend of mine offerred a rhetorical question that blew my mind. "Where does art happen? In the viewer, in the artist, in space?
I was dumbstruck by the question, not because it offered some profound insight, but rather because I'd never even considered it. It may be one of those questions that can't, or shouldn't be answered, but two recent shows offer some clues to an answer.
I've long maintained that Marcel Duchamp is the most over-analyzed and misunderstood artist in recent history. The genius of pieces like "Fountain" lies in the elegant clevage established between form and content. In many ways these "Readymades" are brilliant editorial cartoons, yet they derive no small part of their power in their ability to convey a sense of esthetic beauty which only bolsters the profound intellectual content they embody.
The subversive profundity of Duchamp's work should not lead observers to the false conclusion that he was somehow anti-art. I believe that he was really a sort of anti-esthete, at least as pretains to the tendency of esthetic doctrine to degenerate into a cloistered and stifling orthodoxy. When we consider his career we see an artist who was an avid proponent of the primacy of visceral beauty, and the fact that his work was so richly invested with humor and intellectual depth does nothing to betray such advocacy.
Yet Duchamp, like Pollock and Warhol, has been picked to pieces, disassembled and replicated in the worst manner imaginable. The result has been the most vapid and appalling form of pseudo-intellectual simulacrum. The art world is rife with examples of those who would seek to carry forth the innovations of Pollock, and yet in so many instances they offer absolutely nothing new to the dialogue, nor do they betray a convincing understanding of just what made his work so breathtakingly valuable. They're like musicians who know all the chords and none of the songs.
Last month I had the good fortune to stumble across "The Innocent Eye?" at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago. This show, which was a closely currated selection of amateur photographs from the 20th century, brought me back to that question of "where art happens," and I filed it away for further consideration.
In this case the value of the work is two-fold. First there's the esthetic experience of the amateur photographers, individuals who are obviously responding to esthetic stimuli, even if their powers of esthetic judgment are "naive." It's obvious that some of this work is meant to be editorial, some is meant to be artistic, and some is meant to simply provide a document of events.
And yet there are several pieces in this collection which are both technically and viscerally engaging, whether by intention or good fortune. I should demonstrate at this point a recognition of the fact that these are not art objects, and yet it seems such a slippery slope to offer such a pronouncement. How is one meant to establish the artistic veracity of an object without first defining just what art is? This fool has no intention of pursuing that fool's errand.
The point I'm trying to make here is that there's tremendous esthetic value in the curatorial aspect of this show. Nicholas Osborn, the man who has amassed this collection of "found" images, is clearly in posession of a learned eye, and his selection fo imagery creates a fascinating narrative of it's own.
The beauty of this show is that it doesn't try to be more than it is. As with many shows at Hammer, we're not faced with a didactic literary agenda. Rather, we see an enjoyable and appropriate emphasis placed on the art of choosing.
Central to the nature of art is the act of choosing, whether overtly and intuitively. It's beyond obvious to note that really great art demonstrates a conflation of many things - talent, instinct, proportion (seemingly the most rare and difficult to find nowadays), and volitional intent. So it's clear that the act of making good choices, whether they pertain to subject matter, medium or form, is a primary component in the creation of art.
Osborn's collection shows us precisely this, thereby illuminating just one facet of "where art happens." It may not be "art," but it's valuable and enjoyable nonetheless.
By contrast have a look at this tremendous review in Thursday's Chicago Tribune. I'm compelled to withhold comment on the specific piece in question until I've actually seen the exhibit, but Mr. Artner's terse analysis of the piece "Him" by Maurizio Cattelan is most certainly germane to this issue.
It seems that Mr. Cattalan, an artist who by Artner's analysis seems to have taken conceptual reductiveness a tad, er, far, doesn't even see his "work" until it's been finished and installed. This sort of detachment may have legitimate historical predicate - we're told that Giotto, for example, employed painters to work on his frescoes. Regardless, doesn't it seem just a little de-humanizing?
Art, like Soylent Green, is people. Or at least it ought to be. But such high-concept, low-involvement work is really more akin to manufacturing than creative expression, and it's just a little hard to conceive of an artist enjoying an esthetic experience with such little involvement in the process of creation. As Artner so correctly observes,
"...So all the terms in which the work has been discussed are not artistic but historical and sociological."
Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a firm believer in the naturally humanizing potential of art. There's a vicarious arc which travels from the creator (small "c"), through the inanimate object to the viewer. The wonder which often accompanies the viewing of truly brilliant artworks is often a result of the sense of connectedness which is created between artist and viewer - they are, in essence, joined in the process.
How can it be that something pure and essential is not lost when the act of inspired creation is eliminated from the process? It's all about choices.
I see the point you're trying to make David about the de-humanizing aspect of Cattalan's work. In reading Artner's review, it's hard to tell if he's more upset over Cattalan's literal "hands-off" in making "Him" or the lack of any artistic merit or quality in the piece.
I wonder though, if Cattalan and Duchamp aren't more similar than they appear. The example of the "Fountain" isn't anymore "hands-on" than Cattalan's sculpture - the idea reigns, than the execution of that idea, found or pre-fabricated, it doesn't matter. The result is what counts.