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ambiguous systems of meaning
Currently reading anthropologist/activist/theorist Eric Michaels' fascinating Bad Aboriginal Art. I've taken lots of notes from this book, but the observation that's sticking with me most particularly is one that isn't about Aboriginal art at all, but rather about contemporary Western art:
"[In contemporary art] the relationship between [figurative elements] may be masked, so we assume that the logic of these literal relationships is only accessible through the artist's idiolect. ... The viewer is tantalized by the conspicuous display of meaningfulness in a composition that itself fails to establish these meanings."
I like the anthropological clear-eyedness of this pair of statements, the way that in a few words they manage to explain a lot of the appeal of someone like Matthew Barney or Matthew Ritchie. (It's worth noting that I don't think Michaels intends this as a critique or as evidence that contemporary art is somehow a "scam": I imagine that he might agree that the process of being tantalized into investigating a curious new idiolect can be quite pleasurable.) |
Thursday, August 19, 2004
1:46 PM
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