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THE YOUNG MUSHROOM AND THE OLD MUSHROOM |
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| I would like to use the mushroom as a model of a pattern of growth. When the mushroom is young it is fairly obvious which direction it is growing. As the mushroom matures however, it "mushrooms". The mature mushroom is expanding like a balloon being inflated. Imagine this mushroom is made up of the various tribes, factions, movements,etc. that make up the art world.There are many movements, tribes, factions, etc. in the art world that either consciously or unconsciously use some version of the argument of historical necessity, grand ancestry, or their position relative to the frontier or "cutting edge", to validate the work they are doing. The problem with these arguments is that they are using a perspective that is inside the mushroom of historical growth to view themselves. An example of this is the argument that believes in some version of Clement Greenberg's view of the necessity for abstraction leading to non-objective art, and then abstracting out the object itself to arrive at conceptual art. So conceptual art is "the cutting edge" or the surface of the mushroom. Everything else is back from the surface and therefore not as valid. I would argue that this is only taking into account a small portion of the mushroom. A slice of the pie if you will. And although from any point on the surface of the mushroom you can trace | a line directly back to the base, this does not mean that it is the only valid line. Because the mushroom is expanding like a balloon "the cutting edge" is actually moving in directions that are diametrically opposed to each other. So from any point on the surface it can appear as if "those other artists" have lost their way and don't know that the work they are doing is invalid because they are not on the cutting edge. There is the added confusion that from the perspective of any given point near the surface those who are closest to a privileged point on the surface, but not on the surface, appear to be more valid than those who are on the surface, i.e., "the cutting edge", but at a point that is diametrically opposed to that privileged point. * see illustration The art world is full of factions and cliques that privilege one point or another and assume it to be the "cutting edge" , which it may be, but it is only a small portion of a mature culture that is "mushrooming". Such arguments only show what a limited partisan perspective is being maintained. Of course getting outside of the little point that validates what you like requires considerable effort, and it requires even greater effort to make judgments regarding quality and validity once the narrow perspective in or on the mushroom is abandoned and the whole is perceived from the outside. | |||||||||||||
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Purse Building Home Critique Cleft Palette Cleft Palette Metropolis-June'98 Appreciation-August'98 Young/Old Mushroom Front of the Flock Bandwagons Conclusion
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THE MUSIC OF OUR YOUTH SYNDROME |
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| The music of your youth is the music that is popular, or "in" with your clique, roughly from the time you are 15 to 25 years old. This is of course a time that you are very impressionable; just beginning to consciously define yourself; starting to engage in courtship, and all of this is accompanied by music. So it is fairly natural that you would have strong emotional ties to this music. I wish to use this phenomenon which is very apparent in popular music to illustrate a problem in art appreciation. I have heard numerous people argue, with varying degrees of clarity, why the music of their youth is the apotheosis of all music. The argument usually goes something like this: X, music is the best music there ever was because it foregrounded qualities, G.H.I.J.K., All music that came before this was leading up to this apotheosis. Music before music X, music W., foregrounded qualities, C.D.E.F. ,and some latent qualities of G. Before that, music V. foregrounded qualities A.B.C., but music after music X. was degenerate because it foregrounded qualities K.L.M.N., which are either not important to good music, or actually detrimental to good music. I have heard this sort of argument for "Big Band" music, 50's rock and roll, 60's rock and roll, and all sorts of sub categories of music. I have heard similar arguments for visual art | for everything from the "High Renaissance" to the "Conceptual Art" of the 60's and 70's. The problem with all of these arguments is that they fail to take into account that the "degenerate" period that followed their chosen high point was not interested in foregrounding the qualities that make that point the supposed apotheosis. It is not that music X. doesn't have qualities ,G.H.I.J.K., or that they are not more pronounced than in other music, it is whether or not they are the qualities that determine superiority or not. One could pick any qualities and argue that because a thing has these qualities it is superior. For example: the letter A. is the most beautiful letter in the alphabet because it is a triangle and the triangle is the most beautiful shape. The letters, M.N.V. and W., are good letters because they partake of the triangle but are marred by distracting elements, etc. This of course sounds quite absurd but is the basic structure of the argument used all the time to privilege whatever one wishes to privilege. I do not wish to discourage people from preferring one style or period of music or visual art over others, which seems inevitable; however, I do wish to encourage people to develop an awareness of their prejudices and an appreciation for those qualities that are deliberately foregrounded in works that do not foreground the qualities they prefer. | |||||||||||||
FRONT OF THE FLOCK |
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