Perinola’s notion of “hyper-mystification” strikes me as both a
fascinating and curiously absent position, as identified in Verina’s
post. As such, its obvious that I need review this text in its
entirety, as I am unfamiliar with it.
In the interim, whenever someone mentions an “obligatory holding on
to notions of belief” in relation to art practices, I admit that my
attention is drawn like a heat seeking missile.
So … in an initial read of her post, when Perinola states: “The
hyper- has to do with the treatment of the Artist as being part of
the communication market rather than that of Art. This leads to a
kind of mystification that transforms the personality of the artist,
and consequently, the artwork itself. Perhaps anticipated by Graham
in his magazine works, there is now an additional aspect of a
‘hyperbolic economic evaluation of the signature of some artists
promoted by strategies that belong to the communication market
and not that of art’.
His insistence (perhaps refusal) of not using the term “art market”
or the “design market” or the now-hybrid “art-design market” as a
correlative to the “communication market” simply appears to be
misguided. His (as is seemingly Charlie’s) positioning of a
secularized religious dimension of art practice references back,
arguably, to medieval Monasticism and the legacy of western art
practices throughout the late 20thc. The dynamic of this co-
dependent relationship to capitalism has long been one of contested
tensions and reactionary, if not binary, positioning.
In tandem with this, I note a few recent list references to Bill
Viola’s early work (prior to 1987) which directly speaks to a rather
nostalgic, romantic, mystical, and, yes, narcissistic positioning of
the artist … or in this case the strategies of “art ” practices
developing out of a distinctly anti-corporate, etc.etc.etc. period in
the history of the USA. Given our current global economic demise ….
one could easily assume that this may be a prelude to the
resurrection of this perspective. This is especially relevant since
there may well be ( more than likely ) a fall-out in the economic
flash points of the art market and its subsequent impact on the
various institutions ( and their attendant perspectives) that remain
at the heart of this marketplace – and, certainly, of it’s diverse
set of currency exchanges.
The post continues with his framing of hyper-mystification and The
Shadow
“The shadow, i.e. an obscure site, represents the third regime of art
and aesthetic experience. It is a discussion on preserving the
identity of art in respect to contemporary developments. It is also a
solution to the confusion between art and the communication market
because in this system ‘so-called “artistic values”’ are
reconfigured, not lost, with the world of commerce integral to the
reconfiguration. “
A further delineation of this latter position seems crucial to a
needed further understanding. I refrain from jumping to conclusions
and await further explication as complexities abound – thanks so much –
Chris
On Oct 24, 2008, at 9:08 AM, Verina Gfader wrote:
> In respect to ideas about a perhaps obligatory holding on to
> notions of
> 'belief', there is also a relevant text by Mario Perniola (in: Art and
> its Shadow 2004) who highlights a 'hyper-mystification' in relation to
> the contemporary artwork. If there was an attempt to demystify the
> artwork (as in the late 60ies with work such as Dan Graham's Homes for
> America) then Perniola describes further processes of this
> demystification and its discourse - explicitly in regard to
> contemporary
> work informed by new media and ‘cultural mediation’. What is
> characteristic for this artwork is not a kind of ‘demystification and
> unmasking’ or its denial, but a ‘hyper-mystification’, a mystification
> that further mystifies. The hyper- has to do with the treatment of the
> artist as being part of the communication market rather than that of
> art. This leads to a kind of mystification that transforms the
> personality of the artist, and consequently, the artwork itself.
> Perhaps
> anticipated by Graham in his magazine works, there is now an
> additional
> aspect of a ‘hyperbolic economic evaluation of the signature of some
> artists promoted by strategies that belong to the communication market
> and not that of art’. Hyper-mystification is the process whose work
> constitutes a space of aesthetic, economic and communicative aspects.
> But, Perniola notes, this is a space with very disparate elements. In
> practice, it manifests a ‘shady situation’, the obscure site where
> artists, critics and the audience partake of a disorientation created
> within such space. But described in this way it is also a hybrid space
> equating aesthetics with a spatial, and an economic organisation and
> arrangement. Important is that from Perniola’s point of view, the
> obscure is not a question of the art-object or its perception, but
> is a
> constituent part of the contemporary artistic. It expresses the very
> possibility of operating beside the official mainstream art
> production/discourse. The shadow, i.e. an obscure site, represents the
> third regime of art and aesthetic experience. It is a discussion on
> preserving the identity of art in respect to contemporary
> developments.
> It is also a solution to the confusion between art and the
> communication
> market because in this system ‘so-called “artistic values”’ are
> reconfigured, not lost, with the world of commerce integral to the
> reconfiguration.
>
> Also interesting, provocative, relevant:
> Elisabeth Schweeger's text "Wild Shores - Material for Art, On
> Necessary
> Anachronisms Against Global Infantilisation" (in: The Discursive
> Museum
> 2001), which begins with Louise Bourgeois quote: "Art is a
> guarantee of
> sanity", addresses the asymmetrical relationship between the "great
> potential in the form of cultural resources [today's united Europe]
> possesses", and the "danger that art will lose all standards, becoming
> subordinate to a purely commercial aesthetic". "The question
> remains as
> to whether we can say that art has won all its battles, as it is now
> employed throughout the world as a formula for aesteticization in all
> social disciplines; therefore, it can no longer be considered
> isolated,
> as it is now inherent to the system. Or does its sale, its
> disappearance, the general global situation demonstrate a devastating
> and final defeat?"
>
> I wonder how the problem posed at the ICA relates to the issues raised
> above, so that the discussion on "live and media arts" is necessarily
> subsumed in the 'general global situation' - and what it says about
> the
> status of art. .
>
> Thinking about the 'programming of art' --- actually involves (in a
> literal sense) both the 'program' and 'art' -
>
>
> Verina
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> ----- Forwarded message from [log in to unmask] -----
>> Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:20:07 +0100
>> From: "Gere, Charlie" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: "Gere, Charlie" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] "the art form lacks ...depth
>> and
>> cultural agency"
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> Sorry not to return to the month's official thread, but Josie's
>> email
>> has engendered some more thoughts about new media art and
>> mainstream art
>>
>> In Human, all too Human Nietzsche writes that
>>
>> 'Art raises its head where religions relax their hold. It takes
>> over
>> many feelings and moods engendered by religion, lays them to its
>> heart, and itself becomes deeper, more full of soul, so that it is
>> capable of transmitting exultation and enthusiasm, which it
>> previously
>> was not able to do. The abundance of religious feelings which have
>> grown into a stream are always breaking forth again and desire to
>> conquer new kingdoms, but the growth of the Enlightenment
>> undermined
>> the dogmas of religion and inspired a fundamental mistrust of
>> them?so
>> that the feelings, thrust by the Enlightenment out of the religious
>>
>> sphere, throw themselves into art.'
>>
>> As I suggested in my last email this religiosity is what I
>> perceived
>> in Josie's response to Twombly. Nothing wrong with that. In a
>> godless
>> universe art becomes the last refuge of transcendent feeling, even
>> in
>> a negative sense (much contemporary art operates as a kind of
>> 'negative theology', invoking transcendence through negation). At
>> another level our engagement with contemporary art is often a
>> matter
>> of faith, a need to believe that a pile of bricks, a grey canvas or
>>
>> some graffiti squiggles are meaningful beyond what they appear to
>> be.
>> Duchamp knew this well and even described his art in terms of
>> transubstantiation. In a brilliant recent essay Bernard Stiegler
>> describes what he calls the 'mystagogy' of contemporary art. In
>> lacanian terms Art is the locus of the big Other, whether that is
>> God
>> or History. I think this can be seen very clearly in relational
>> aesthetics. In his book The Inoperative Community Jean-Luc Nancy
>> remarks that ?? the true consciousness of the loss of community is
>> Christian: the community desired or pined for by Rousseau,
>> Schlegel,
>> Hegel, Bahktin, Marx, Wagner, or Mallarmé [or Bourriaud, Kester,
>> and
>> all the relational aestheticians: CG] is understood as communion,
>> and
>> communion takes place, in its principle as in its ends, at the
>> heart
>> of the mystical body of Christ?. (This gives me an opportunity to
>> slip
>> in a plug for a little book by myself and Michael Corris critiquing
>>
>> relational aesthetics -
>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Non-relational-Aesthetics-Transmission-
>> Rules-Engagement/dp/1906441049.)
>>
>> Institutions such as the ICA or Tate are absolutely invested in the
>>
>> quasi-religious mystagogy of contemporary art (though it could also
>> be
>> argued that the real God they serve is money, which as Philip
>> Goodchild points out in his recent book The Theology of Money, has
>> taken the place of the Judaeo-Christian God as a supreme,
>> transcendent
>> value). This is I think the source of their resistance to New Media
>>
>> Art, which for me is like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, pulling back
>> the
>> curtain to reveal that the great Oz, the big Other, is nothing but
>> a
>> funny little man manipulating some levers and shouting into a
>> microphone, or in other words art is nothing but a manipulation of
>> material means and techniques. This is perhaps why NMA does not
>> invoke
>> the kind of emotional reactions that other Art does. That is
>> perhaps
>> both its strength and its weakness. It repudiates the mystagogical
>> claims to transcendence that Art still needs to be believed in. No
>> wonder Eshun and Bourriaud and all the others don't want to have
>> anything to do with it. It is not in their interests to have the
>> curtain drawn back, which NMA arguably does by engaging in the
>> fundamental technicity of all art through its own practice, which
>> is
>> otherwise disavowed. They'd rather have the big green shouty head.
>>
>>
>>
>>>> Bourriaud took the microphone and said something like: "Well,
>> the
>>>> problem is there is no good media art. Can you name one good
>> media
>>>> art work? No? That is the reason."
>>
>>
>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>>
>>
>>
>>
Christiane Robbins
- JETZTZEIT -
... the space between zero and one ...
Walter Benjamin
LOS ANGELES I SAN FRANCISCO
I
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