There is an interesting discussion forum thread on Edward Tufte’s site right now. It is inspiring because it shows that good things happen in the New England winter after all and it is also an inspiring use of an Internet discussion forum and photos on the Web.
Much as I love the depicted cold and snow, however, I think it is off to Miami and then Panama…
I skimmed the thread. Sadly, Professor Tufte seems to have lost his mind.
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Clearly not for faint of art
DAVE BARRY
Posted on Sun, Jan. 18, 2004
Whenever I write about art, I get mail from the Serious Art Community informing me that I am a clueless idiot. So let me begin by stipulating that I am a clueless idiot. This is probably why I was unable to appreciate a work of art I viewed recently, titled: Chair.
I saw Chair at Art Basel, a big art show held recently in Miami Beach. It attracted thousands of Serious Art People, who wear mostly black outfits and can maintain serious expressions no matter what work of art they are viewing.
This is hard, because a lot of Serious Art consists of bizarre or startlingly unattractive objects, or “performances” wherein artists do something Conceptual, such as squirt Cheez Whiz into an orifice that has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for snack toppings.
But no matter what the art is, a Serious Art Person will view it with the somber expression of a radiologist examining X-rays of a tumor.
Whereas an amateur will eventually give himself away by laughing; or saying “Huh?”
[rest snipped]
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Full text: http://tinyurl.com/22ows
Alex, as much as I’ve appreciated your critiques of psychopharmaceuticals in previous comments here, and as much as I think Dave Barry is a very funny guy, and even though I’ve had my fill of some kinds of conceptual art, I beg to differ on what seems to be a dismissal of this sculpture, Larkin’s Twig. For me, it’s beautiful, simple as that. I’m even sympathetic to Graham Larkin’s comment to Edward Tufte, where he writes that he’s a bit of an oddball amongst some art historian tribes insofar as he likes working with real objects vs. reproductions and insofar as he appreciates an object’s aesthetic character apart from its socio-political implications. (I [used to be]/ am a social art historian [one of those neo-marxist types], so I know exactly who Larkin was aiming at…;-) In some art historian circles, Larkin is a heretic on that account alone — arguing for intrinsic aesthetic value — but let’s forget about tribes for a minute. To my mind, the issue that Barry and Larkin rather pussy-foot around and leave unnamed is patronage, or: who has got the money and/or space to put up a piece like this? In Europe, it used to be the church and the nobility, way back in the 17th & 18th centuries. Le peuple in the 19th, what with the rise of the salon, and if not the people, then at least the bourgeoisie. America had a truly great moment in the wake of WWII when its turn came, and big money (think MoMA patrons) and big space conjoined to allow the production of big paintings (think Pollock, think Rothko, et al.). These things depended, certainly, on the aesthetic sensibilities of extremely gifted individuals and their audience, but crucially, too, on the availability of patrons. Edward Tufte proves himself to be an interesting patron, of his own productions as well as of innovative ideas, whether his own or others’. What’s interesting for me, who is a shelter magazine slut, is where the line is drawn profitably for discernment — both the artist’s and audience’s — between high decoration and high art. Maybe there is no single line, or if there is one, it’s in a pile of sand, and therein lies a danger of making art irrelevant. Or perhaps the line that matters is the one of play — which I think is as valuable as science / engineering — and if Tufte knows how to play, and if Larkin knows how to suggest play, and if the people who put this thing together know how to play, they’re doing their bit to keep art alive, and in helping art, there’s something helpful, in a communal sense, in their activity. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re mandarins and that most people don’t “get” their play or its products at all, and it doesn’t solve anybody’s problem of how to decide if it’s art or if it’s House Beautiful, but it’s not a bad way of playing, and perhaps a heck of a lot better than the closed circuits that determine so much of everything else we do.
Having said that, can I just add that I’m deliriously happy not to have to endure another New England winter, regardless of how good Larkin’s Twig makes the weather look? Today I saw rhododendrons blooming, the narcissi are pushing up, the grass is green (it’s had a good dose of rain), the snowdrops are already on their way out, the winter pansies have been going non-stop, and I haven’t worn a hat all season. Larkin’s Twig would look less effective here, in this lush landscape, but in a New England winter it keeps alive a promise of beauty, endurance, delicacy, and fortitude in the face of brutal, wind-chilling odds, and reminds viewers that the price of some things can’t be measured in money, even though it took money to make the art in the first place.
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