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    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    61 views220 pages

    DANTO, ARTHUR - The Wake of Art (Essays)

    Uploaded by

    rachelcoc
    ensaios de Arthur Danto

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 220
    the wake of art criticism, philosophy, and the ends of taste A series edited by Saul Ostrow Now Available Seams: Art at Philosophical Context "says by stephen Mele ated and introduced by Jeremy Gibert-Role capacity: History, the Wo Essays by Thomas MeEviley Commentary by 6. Roger Denson and the Self tn Contemporary Art and Criticism Media Research: Technology, Art, Communication "Essays by Marshall Metohan ated and witha Commontaryby Michel A, Moos Lueratare, Media, tnformation Systems ‘Essays by Friedrich A iter ited and itrodaced by Joh Johaston England and les Aesthetes: Blography and Taste ‘ssys by John Ruskin, Walter Pater, and Adrian Stokes ‘Commentary by David Carver ‘The Wake of Art rit Essays by Arthur C.Danto Selected and with aCeeal inoducton by Gregs Horowitz and Tom Hubn Reauty 1s Nowhere: Ethical Issues in Art and Design Edited and Introduced by Richied Roth and Susan King Roth Forthcoming Titles Music/tdeology: Resisting the Aesthetic Edited and with a traduction by Ady Kris ‘Commentary by Henry Klumpenkouwer Critical Vices: The Myths of Postmodern Theory Essays by NieholasZarruge Commentary by Warren Bur Difference/indifference: Musings on Postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage Introduction, Essays, Interviews bed Peformance by Molva Rath ‘Commentary by Jonathan D. Kate Footnotes: Stx Choreographers Insribe the Page ated apd witha Commentary by Elen Alexander teuroduction by Jil Johnston When Down Is Up: The Desublimating Impulse Essays by John Mller Edited and with a Commentary by Ut Woggenig Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation Essays by Stan Allen (Commentary by Dia else Te ae courtney bane ny ied ih arthur c. danto essays the wake of art criticism, philosophy, and the ends of taste selected and with critical introduction gress horowitz tom huhn pyro 199808 (Overs falter Suc) ‘nates Pabltedunder come nde te ‘Geb Arsternatonal imprint, putof The Gordon and Beach Pobtsng Gro. Aight served. ‘No partofthishook my berepoducedor aie in ‘syloom or by snes sore mec, “cdg phon-np ng cording ob ny afer forages eta) “yin, out perma nang ome poler Printed Cara a6 omit Amtertes "The Neen Bit ia Galogng naan Dat ean itt th Cea 4, “Geer (cial von ey ar) thn 1 eH Hoo Goi aa 150190-5701-301-0 For Ellen and Nancy | contents Introduction tothe Series ix Foreword xd ‘An's Means and Philosophical Ends The Wake of Art: Criticism, Philosophy, and the 1 Gregg Horowitz Ends of Taste and Tom Huhn [ESSAYS BY ARTHUR ¢. DANTO 1 Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, 57 ‘and Performance, 1958-1964 2 The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art 63 3 Learning to Live with Pluralism 8 4 Symbolic Expressions and the Self 97 5 Art After the End of Art us 6 Hans Haacke and the Industry of Art_ 129 7 Red Grooms 59 8 Tilted Arcand Public Art_147 9 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 153 10 The 1991 Whitney Biennial 159 1 The 1993 Whitney Biennial 169 12 The Abstract Expressionist 177 Coca-Cola Bottle Aerword:AfterTaste 193 Arthur C. Danto introduction to the series Culture is a response to the changing perspectives that have resulted from the continuing application of structural and poststructural methodologies and interpretations to the cultural sphere. From the ongoing processes of decon- struction and reorganization of the traditional canon, new forms of speculative, intellectual inquiry and academic practices have emerged which are premised on the realization that insights into differing aspects of the disciplines that make up this realm are best provided by an interdis discursive rather than a dialectic model. linary approach that follows In recognition ofthese changes, and ofthe view thatthe histories and prac- tices that form our present circumstances are in turn transformed by the social, economic, and political requirements of our lives, this series wil pub- lish not only those authors who already are prominent in their field, oF those who are now emerging—but also those writers who had previously been acknowledged, then passed over, only now to become relevant once more. This multigencrational approach will give many writers an opportunity to o) analyze and reevaluate the position of those thinkers who have influenced ‘their own practices, orto present responses to the themes and writings that are significant to their own research. In emphasizing dialogue, self-reflective critiques, and exegesis, the Critical Voices series not only acknowledges the deterritorialized nature of our present intellectual environment, but also extends the challenge to the traditional ‘supremacy ofthe authorial voice by literally relocating it within a discursive net- ‘work. This approach to texts breaks with the current practice of speaking of multiplicity, while continuing to constructa singulary linear vision of discourse that retains the characteristics of dialectics. In an age when subjects are con- ceived of as acting upon one another, each within the context ofits own history and without contradiction, the ideal of totalizing system does not seem to suf- fice. [have come to realize that the near collapse of the endeavor to produce homogeneous terms, practices, and histories—once thought to be an essential aspect of defining the practices of at, theory, and culture—reopened each of these subjects to new interpretations and methods. My intent as editor of Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture is to make available to our readers heterogeneous texts that provide a view thatlooks ahead to new and differing approaches, and back toward those views that make the dialogues and debates developing within the areas of cultural studies, art his- tory. and critical theory possible and necessary. In this manner we hope to con- tribute to the expanding map not only ofthe borderlands of modernism, but also of those newly opened territories now identified with postmodernism. Saul Ostrow foreword art's means and philosophical ends with hazards, for when long-held beliefs ate challenged, imperiled or discarded, those practices premised upon them are threatened with demise, Some people celebrateand rally tothe new, seking opportunity or redres, while others believe all they once cherished will wither and di. Within such an environment, cross- ing from one field of operation to another often compounds the pitfalls thatone ‘might encounter in such moments of transition. The mast significant ofthese trapsisthat the sense of one’s words and deeds is transformed by the changes of content This slippage results ina vernacular interpretation of the new terms, because they are placed within the discourse networks ofthe old order. Such was the case with the transition from modernism to postmodernism in the early 1980s, when terms such as difference, appropriation, simulacra and post-human ‘were misunderstood and misused. A case in point isthe concept ofthe “end of at” and tshstory, as well sits posthistoricl state, as put forth by Arthur Danto. A well-respected philosopher teaching at Columbia University, Danto crossed over into the realm of art criticism and cultural commentary, cai becoming the art critic for The Nation. Its during this time that he devel- coped. notion of posthistorial criticism that accedes to the fragmentation and pluralism of art in the mid-1970s. Danto's critical position—perhaps influenced by the Cagean aesthetics of the sixties that typified the general reaction to the subjectivism of abstract expressionism —is characterized by the abandonment of the quest to privilege his own interpretations or any historically valorized aesthetic goal. Yet it was not until Danto published a collection of essays entitled The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (1986) that he gained art world prominence. Following The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981), which Danto called “an ontological inquiry,” The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art was concerned with “the kind of history that something of that ontological kind entails.” In 1997, After the End of Art et about to “work out the logic ofthe relevant narrative,” which “ends on a note of radical pluralism.” The three books together forma tr ogy, a “total system of thought, far from a series ofapercus.” Iwas neither Danto's credentials as an art critic nor the fact that he was engaged ina philosophical inquiry that caught the art world’s imagination, however. It was instead the radicalness and finality of the idea ofthe “end of ar." It was not long before journalisticaly oriented ar critics turned “the end of art” and the term “posthistorical” into slogans and sound bites. It was through such writing thatthe vast majority of those inthe art world came to understand Danto’s propositions as either meaning that art could no longer be made, for «everything had been done, or that it now was defined by taste or by its ability to “mean” given that all other criteria seemingly was historical, Danto's terms and 8 caricature of his position were bandied about and used to substantiate every manner of subjectivis as well as niilist stance secking validation within the realm of postmodern theory. Intheir commentary accompanying the essaysby Danto collected in this vo ume, Tom Fuhn and Gregg Horowitz seek not only to put what had been philo- sophical propositions back nto the context of philosophical discourse, Through «a close and critical reading of these texts they reveal the role that Danto's con- cepts of the symbolic and taste implicitly play in the formulation of hs views ‘They begin by demonstrating how Danto’s postion differs from critics who Foreworo often use philosophy opportunistically to substantiate eclectic ill-defined and sordic methodologies. Central to this the factthat Danto uses artas the object, of philosophy rather than vce versa. It was neither Danto’s credentials as an art critic nor the fact he was a philosopher that captured the art world’s imagina- tion. Instead it was the radicality and finality of the idea of the “end of at” as they had come to understandit In the art world, Danto's “end” was interpreted as meaning that artists tional narra- could now assume arts grounding in philosophical and ins tives. To put this embrace of the end in perspective all one need do is search the art magazines from the mid-1970s and the 1980s to discover the glee with which the end of abstract painting had been repeatedly received. This idea of the “last painting” or the “end of art” is a significant characteristic of the vision of modernism that developed in the United States. The idealization of the end is a consequence of an overwhelming desire for a material and conceptual resolution to the problem of art’ essential nature, and its vul- nerability to the vagaries of taste. The irony is that Danto’s view of aposthis- torical, self determining art suggests neither the termination of art—its making—nor does it promote an “anything goes” attitude, Instead it proposes a revision of our conceptions and relation to art’s general criteria and future development. Danto's conception ofan’ practice its capacity and history is framed by a Philosophical tradition extending from the thought of G. W. F. Hegel. There- fore, when Danto proposes that art has entered a posthistorical period he is asserting that its project is no longer ordered nor defined by those acts that expand its conceptual parameters or test its theoretical criteria. In concrete terms, Danto is not merely seting out to separate Kant’s critical judgment fom Hegel’ view of history, butis also acknowledging that what he has come to rec- ‘ognize is that itis no longer in conflict wit, butisnow a product of its social or {ideological base. The logical conclusion he draws is that art now gains its status through the act ofbeing interpreted “as art,” and in turns tobe judged based on the appropriateness ofits narative. ‘The mythic scenario of Danto’sepiphany—in which he comes to realize that art has come to its end—is set in 1964, against the backdrop of Andy Warhol's oxi xivd roReworD exhibition at the Stable Gallery. Danto mistakes Warhol's Brillo boxes for the real thing, With this act of misperception he becomes aware that arthas reached the stage where itno longer symbolizes the imagined self ofits maker, sought to give representation to some “otherness,” or even to extend or challenge its ‘means, but has come to confront reality itself, Modernism has now transformed. art in general from a “thing” in its history to a thing within the critical terms that separate art from the “real.” Art defined as an object, to be interpreted as such logically means the residual modernist critical terms and practices that had been developed to reveal its universal qualities (and which had their origins in the Enlight- ‘enment's secularization of Christianity’s transcendent values) could now be discarded, because art is a concept rather than a category of objects. Given that Danto is speaking philosophically, Warhol’s work is not the embodi- ‘ment ofthis tate of affairs nor the personification of the end its history, but, like Duchamp’s, constitutes nothing more than an example of its terms and conditions. The quantitative difference between Warhol and Duchamp’s work lies in the fact that Duchamp still had a historical point to make while Warhol, in playing off of the readymade, could with confidence feel that hhe was merely addressing a norm. In the 1980s, the work of artists such as Sherri Levine and Robert Gober came to occupy the space that Danto, ‘on that fateful day, recognized as existing between the “real” and its trans- figuration into art. If we apply Danto's own criteria that any and all responses toa situation must beappropriate, that in some manner reveal or contribute toour understanding of the situation to which they are a response, we must ask ourselves what the situation was that the Brillo boxes addressed. This of course paradoxically returns us to a history of modernism and to the fact that within its varied for- ‘ulations, one ofthe central characteristics attributed to the modemist project is that its agent, the avant-garde, had the task of simultaneously maintaining art’s practices within an environment that threatened to bring such practices to an end, ether by exhausting their means or by achievinga transcendent utopian state, By struggling both for and against these conditions, atists often found themselves in the contradictory position of advancing their goals by struggling to reestablish art's necessity through an articulation of the untenability ofits existence, In the face ofthe desire to establish is limits they reopened art's his- tory and grounding to interpretation. This knowledge of art's extremities was to be the end of art—that is, art coming to and revealing its formal and philo- sophical standing. For W. J.T. Mitchel, Jasper Johns use of flags, targets and maps to pic- ture art’ critical terms brings the modernist project to a close; fr this sym- bolizes at's resignation that it may no longer aspire to “otherness” because it hhas come to be circumscribed by its surplus—its history, critique, and the like. The interesting thing is that Johns, Warhol and Duchamp each supply the means to bypass those thorny issues of art’s ineffable qualities raised by formalism. Its this inexplicably self-conilicted state that has made art cities, historians and philosophers uncomfortable with at, Postmodernism’s sup- posed resolution ofthe conflict means they can now ground thir practice in the means by which the self determined art object is to be interpreted. Such « project unites art with the criticism, history, and philosophical interpreta- tion that seek to chronicle or explicate art’s practice feom conception to historicization. Saul Ostrow tet Marcel Duchamp, Rotorelie (Goldfish), 1935. © 1997 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Pars/Estate of Marcel Duchamp. | | the wake of art criticism, philosophy, and the ends of taste grege horowita fom huhn section one: introduction MODERN ART CRITICISM IS A MONGRE- lized activity. It isa strange hybrid of several different practices that are all, even when considered individually, themselves paradoxical. Critics offer public reports of private experiences: they strive to offer objectively valid reasons for subjective judgments; they bring knowledge ofthe traditions of art to bear on contemporary art, whichis often hostile to tradition; they write in journals of popular opinion but on the basis of imputed expertise. Art criticism i clearly central to the modern artworld, yet, suspended ast is within and between these is also, intellectually, vaguely disreputable. It should thus be no surprise that critics who believe themselves to be doing some- thing intellectually respectable and culturally significant are driven to theoretical self-reflection, Denis Diderot, Charles Baudelaire, and Clement Greenberg, as well as contemporary writers such as Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Crow, and Lucy Lippard, have been impelled to offer philosophical and histori incompatible aims and norms, ta