Anodyne
Thursday, July 27, 2006
 
Propositions

1. Artworks can validly illustrate, comment upon, dramatize or stage their own coming-into-being as content. Example: Dan Graham's Schema (1966).

2. This self-reflexivity is not "postmodern," (stylistic quotation; pastiche) but "modern."

3. Criticism impacts artworks' coming-into-being.

3a. Hypothetical example: an artist makes projections and still photographs. Critics argue that the artist's skills stress duration (cutting; montage; rhythm; narrative) over static composition. Moved by this criticism, the artist reflects upon her practice. She accepts the criticism's premises, and ceases to make still pictures.

4. Criticism can equally validly be incorporated into artworks. Example: our hypothetical artist makes a projection about a film director who makes narrative films and still photographs. Think Wim Wenders, or Larry Clark, or Tacita Dean. Characters in the projection critique the director's still images; their criticisms are surrogates for those the artist experienced. These criticisms now enter the artist's work as content. But, significantly, the artist withholds her own judgement of the criticisms, presenting them as objectively as she possibly can. Result: an autonomous art work that critiques and analyzes aspects of its creator's own art production.
- posted by cjb @ 2:09 PM


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