Jean-Francois Lyotard, "Answering The Question: What is Post-Modernism?",' The Post-Modern COndition: A Report On Knowledge', Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1984, pp.71-82
Bruce Barber, "Found Situations 1970-1972" ZX#4 Situationa, ed.Paul Cullen and Grant Thompson, Auckland ; Maukau School of Visual Arts, 2008, pp.10-14
While Lyotard eventually makes for interesting reading, I’m not going to pretend it was an easy read. The dude could talk the hind leg off a donkey. Bruce Barber is somewhat easier to digest - but then again, his text wasn’t translated from French.
Lyotard discusses the idea of Eclecticism and (to me ) kind of took the standpoint that cultural eclecticism ( as displayed in the example of one who listens to reggae and eats McDonalds, wears French perfume in Tokyo) as a negative. He brings up the idea of an ‘anything goes’ culture, something which struck me as kind of interesting when read today, now, in a contemporary situation. How can we not be a culture that is summative of a collection of cultures? What is so darn wrong about eating Japanese and while watching a Bollywood movie? As if it wasn’t obvious, it’s kind of hard to exist (unless maybe you are in rural New Zealand) without being exposed to one other, if not many other cultures. Why is it that a collection of ideas/Images from other cult4res is considered “kitsch”? It is true that allowing such endeavors blurs lines of taste and perhaps creates a cycle more of monetary transactions, but what is said culturalism is indeed to your taste?
“Anything goes” doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of or slackening of taste, it’s kind of more about liberality and the idea that art doesn’t fall within the strict boundaries of portrait painting only. Because, lord, how boring would art school be with only this.
And even if many people don’t necessarily understand art (in the sense of a common language), it doesn’t mean that they don’t appreciate it. To use a little Bruce anecdote – my older sister, who is a stay at home mum with little education in art, came to the Elam open day at the end of 2008. While wandering through the spaces where students were showing, she pointed at a cardboard box taped to the wall (no offense intended to the artist) and whispered to me, “Is that art or a joke?”
Aforementioned box on the wall was in fact art, and while my sister didn’t have the slightest idea what is what about, she appreciated that someone had obviously thought long and hard about that box.
I agree that J-F is a difficult read, but I think not so much for reason of being wilfully opaque. While I did wish he would just say what he meant in language I could understand, after several goes at reading it I now feel that part of the difficulty is the unusually high ideas per column inch ratio.
ReplyDeleteBut I think you may have misread his sentiment on eclecticism. Here is man who blames the horrors of the 20th century on a "nostalgia for the whole and the one". If nostalgia for an imagined ideal society where everybody knew their proper place is the cause of war, if the unitary "grand narrative" is to be challenged, how better to do that than create your own unique and eclectic lifestyle mix?