Well, I have to say that I'm not sure, Chris.
Aside form my love of AE, & other abstractions, I do feel strongly that formal concerns are vitally important to a working art.
But I'm not thinking this through fully right now. Just want to say that there's always an edge, a place to push toward, that is formal, but cant help but be something to do with content & all that that contains as well. Every writer comes from 'a' political background, & whether escaping or embracing it, will include (whatever we mean by) 'politics' in her/is work; but the more that writer engages form concerns the better able wills/he be able to do so.... That's where I tend to come from, critically...
Not sure about McLuhan's negative influence. He was, as are we all, inconsistent, contradictory, & full of interesting isights (which can be used by others in varied political ways, whatever he intended; as is also true of most art). This certainly proved true at the big McLuhan conference here last year, where varied social views emerged from encountering his thinking.
Much to consider, & no time right now...
Doug
On 2013-04-24, at 12:13 AM, Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 24/04/13 15:34, Chris Jones wrote:
>> This is probably vital; the complete disconnection between a formal practice and the theories of form, which appear as something else again.
>
> Just adding another comment:
>
> For artists formal considerations are vital, without this art will fail. But it is more a question of the relations, social, political and historical and formalist needs. The outside forces which impact on form need to be accounted for in some way, even if it is possible to think only in terms of formal problems. It can get difficult because there are outside forces which are inside.
>
> However, it is fairly clear that abstract expressionism which is purely concerned only with the abstract application of paint to a surface runs into a dead end. However, branching off before abstract expressionism is pop art which, contra Arthur Danto's, continues the history of art. Andy Warhol was well read in /Nietzsche/ and continued with an historic modernism. In Australia, Jeffrey Smart continued a figurative again in opposition to Abstract Expressionism. It is curious that the official government position of art here, argued for an apolitical and ahistorical abstract expressionist and purely formal position on art. Hence, not even a purely formalist concern can espace political and governmental concerns and become politicised in this way. This is curious.. Conceptual art here did take on to a degree political concerns... my involvement in the first gay mardi gras took off from my interest in conceptual art as opposed to abstract expressionism. But I guess you got to live through this....
>
> --
> BLOG http://abdevpoetics.blogspot.com.au/
>
Douglas Barbour
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