LITERATURE REVIEW The topic for this literature review is the relationship between a work of visual art and

its review or statement. Moreover, there will hopefully also be another aspect to the topic - I would also like to reflect on the writing process itself and attempt to let go of arborescent writing, or at least feel freer to stray away from the rules and boundaries of academic writing we are expected to follow. (Yes, I know I may fail miserably). Academic writing does not leave much room for creativity in terms of form. Conclusion follows development follows introduction. I am allowed my own opinion as long as I back it up, reference and footnote it. I can have my own analysis as long as I am careful to legitimize all my words through those of established/respected/proper authors. Mind sentence structure. Full sentence. Full stop. And I have just used too many I s, which is improper. The material I am going to review are Louis Althussers Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses1, Jae Emerlings Theory for Art History chapter on Jean Franois Lyotard
2

, Jaques Derridas Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences 3, and

the introduction to A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari4. The text by Althusser and the one on Lyotard were chosen because of their content. The text by Derrida and that by Deleuze and Guattari mainly because their form presents different approaches to structures and writing.

1 Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, 1970. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm (accessed 23/02/2011) 2 Jae Emerling, Theory for Art History, New York, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005 3 Jaques Derrida, Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, 1966. http://www.scribd.com/doc/10269031/Derrida-Structure-Sign-and-Play (accessed 23/02/2011) 4 Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

In Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Louis Althusser begins by talking about the reproduction of the conditions of production. It is not a question of reproducing simply the skills of the labour force; the submission of this force to the ruling ideology must also be reproduced.5To ensure this submission, the State apparatus (which is not the same as State power) has two mechanisms. One is the Repressive State Apparatus, a unified apparatus of repressive forces such as the army, the police, prisons and courts 6. The other is Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs)7, the working of which is the focus of the essay. ISAs function predominantly through ideology. They present themselves as a plurality of specialized institutions whose unity is secured, even if contradictorily, by the ruling ideology.8 Some examples of ISAs are the religious, the legal, trade unions, the arts, and the educational ideological apparatus.9 Althusser posits that ideology constitutes individuals into subjects through interpellation,10 and points to the fact that it is not possible to see ideology while inside it.11 If there is no practice except by and in ideology12, both art work and statement function within ideology. Althusssers concepts would then enable me to look at how the work and the statement produce ideology, how they interpellate and constitute the subject and what particular ideologies are being called forth and in what ways. Another question that arises is why are statements needed at all? Do they not ultimately serve as an space for ideologies to interpelate the viewer? Theory for Art History by Jae Emerling offers very accessible and concise introductions to thirty major figures of contemporary theory: four essential predecessors Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, and Saussure and twenty-six critical thinkers. Each chapter surveys a figures biography, major works and key concepts. The focus is on their relevance to art history, though chapters include a bibliography of primary texts as well as secondary criticism. Key concepts are clearly explained and also cross-referenced to other authors discussed.

5 Louis Althusser; p.2 6 I Choose not to Capitalize These Words. 7 Louis Althusser, p.6 8 Ibid; p.8 9 Ibid; p.10 10 Ibid; p.17,18 11 Ibid; p.19 12 Ibid; p.16

The chapter on Lyotard centers on his concepts of metanarrative, postmodern condition, petit rcits, differend, event, figure, aesthetics of the sublime and avant-garde. From these, I found relevant his ideas on metanarratives and their relationship to the event. Lyotard perceives metanarratives as having a negative homogenizing and totalizing drive. Petit rcits expose the unbridgeable gap between metanarratives and the singularity of the event. An event cannot be completely articulated or translated by discourse, but an artwork can communicate the incommunicable.13 This is a very general point, and one that requires further reading of Lyotard, but in my opinion artist statements and many reviews seem to show an effort to locate the art work within different metanarratives. It could be useful to ask the questions - What are the metanarratives present, if any? What is the relationship ideology? In Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, written in 1966, Jaques Derrida discusses the concept of structure. He begins by putting forward the idea that an event ocurred in the history of the concept of structure, an event that has the form of a rupture. This rupture occurred when Western philosophy began to think of the structurality of the structure of its own systems instead of neutralizing or reducing it, and hence began perceiving its structures as discourse constructs.14 Philosophical systems have a centre that orients and balances the structure. This centre, or transcendental signified, holds the structure together, but it also limits the play of the elements in the structure.15 Play disrupts presence and is at tension with history. There are two attitudes one can follow in the face of this, one can mourn the loss of certainty and fixed structures, or one can affirm play and the uncertain nature of meaning.16 Derrida looks at the possibility of reflecting and talking about systems and centres without creating a new system with a centre, but the problem arises that it is not possible to refer to a system without using the terms of that system 17. It is possible, however, to continue using a system while acknowledging its limits, an approach that Derrida calls bricolage18. As an example of decentered writing, I found this essay difficult and unrewarding. There is something uneasy in the total loss of certainty it advocates, and I wonder why is
13 Jae Emerling, p.205 14 Jaques Derrida, p.278 15 Ibid, p.280 16 Ibid; p.292 17 Ibid; p.280 18 Ibid; p.285

between the work and them? Are

they present in the statement or review in the same way? Do they constitute a particular

uncertainty an uneasy feeling. However, I do find it could offer a useful approach to criticism and one possible answer to the trap of binary thinking. What kind of structures are called forth in the work and the statement? What is, if any, their centre? Does the need for a statement to a work of art responds to a need for certainty in the face of a fact - the art workthat exceeds discourse? In the introduction to A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari describe their idea of rhizomatic writing. The structure of the rhizome is different to that of trees and other forms of growth in that there is no pivotal point, no principal root, but rather a multiplicity assemblage. 19 The spiritual reality of the root-tree is binary logic, and this logic still dominates linguistics, structuralism, psychoanalysis and information science20. Rhizomes, by contrast, respond to multiplicity. Multiplicity is not reducible to the One or to the multiple. The points of a rhizome are not hierarchically organized, Any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be (...) A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, social sciences, and social struggles.
21

A rhizome is

an acentered structure made of plateaus, which are always in the middle. A rhizome has as its dimensions lines of segmentarity and stratification. This lines are not to be traced, but mapped following lines of flight.22 What I find interesting about rhizomatic writing is that it transgresses generic boundaries, and a rhizomatic analysis of a text would open up to more readings . Besides, judging by Deleuze and Guattaris own writing- it allows for the inclusion of the writers voice. There is also some appeal in their questioning of the dictatorial centre of systems, but I do find I cannot agree with their claim -consistent with their thinking and stated in relation to literature- that There is no ideology and never has been23. As a conclusion, a possible approach to my essay could be doing my own bricolage by drawing on Althussers ideas about ideology while still regarding discourse as a rhizomatic structure.

19 Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, p.5 20 Ibid; p.5 21 Ibid; p.7 22 Ibid; p.21 23 Ibid; p.4