I just ran across a really smart point by JL Wall, in response to last week's long Eminemmy discussion about the relationship between art, morality and community. Excerpt:
The matter of wondering where the limit should be drawn is nothing new, and it is not new that the question should often appear either unanswerable or the answer utterly arbitrary. Denying that there is a limit at all, however, is frequently more dangerous than misplacing it. Art for art's sake along will not suffice, though the piece may still be beautiful. Art is like anything else - it must exist in the real world, our world: in Wendell Berry's construction, "its real habitat is the household and the community."Joyce's Ulysses and Pound's Cantos may not be common in the life of most households. But they are a part of my life and mind - exist, that is, in "my household" (though at 21 and in college, there isn't much of one) - and so long as I exist as a part of a community, they are a part of the lives of those communities of which I am also. Art must be consumed by the living, and so must enter life. The only way it can truly be for its own sake is for no human eye to ever behold the finished piece - for it not to be art.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
The difficulty with defining art as acceptable ( re: the crossing the line discussion) when it exists within a household or community is that Wall uses an example - Ulysses - a book that was famously banned by the courts as being pornographic when it was first released. So Mr Wall would not have been allowed Ulysses as part of his community
because a court ( prompted by outraged moralists of the time) banned the book.
It might not have been the worst thing in the world if the coprophilic material, at least, in Ulysses, had remained unpublished.
Wall is arguing for an excessively limiting form of art. There are many examples of art that are morally neutral; the morality or immorality is read into it by the reader/viewer/listener. Art's place in the world shifts with time and changing cultures; to try to pin a work of art to one moment and one point of view means you ignore all the other possible meanings and interpretations another person could have. Who can say which world the art exists in? You see it in your world, and I see it in mine.
Reminds me of another beautiful art: sculpture. And a neo-Classical sculptor: Alexander Stoddart, the best in the world. http://www.alexanderstoddart.com/
Seth, if Stoddart is the best sculptor in the world, then sculpture is now dead. I'll admit he is an excellent craftsman. But do yourself a favour and take in some Rodin. Rodin took the human form and told stories with it, stories of hope, triumph, despair, dogged persistence. You may or may not like those stories, but they are there. Stoddart's works are designed to decorate the sides of pompous government buildings. Nothing wrong with that - government buildings need love too. But let's not pretend that it is great art. It is formulaic and derivative.
The only place where Stoddart seems to break out and work to his own artistic vision is in his busts. he does busts not only of the rich and powerful but also of a London waiter, and some of those busts are clearly more than just portraiture. Not great, perhaps, but good.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.