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Textbook All About Process The Theory and Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor 1St Edition Kim Grant Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook All About Process The Theory and Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor 1St Edition Kim Grant Ebook All Chapter PDF
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All
About The Theory and Discourse
of Modern Artistic Labor
Kim Grant
I really did believe that process would set you free. . . . A signature style is
about how it happened, not what is made. I think of myself as an orchestrator
of experience.
—Chuck Close
The elevation of artistic process over product has become a, perhaps the,
central cliché of artists’ statements in recent decades. Like most clichés it
has a basis in truth; many contemporary artists employ processes that pre-
clude or eliminate the production of durable objects. The ubiquity of the
cliché, however, suggests that artists’ devotion to process is far more mean-
ingful than a simple descriptive statement. The fact that so many artists
consider themselves to be primarily engaged with process, albeit understood
in varied ways, reflects widely shared assumptions about the meaning and
purpose of art and the work of the artist. The embrace of artistic process is
a value claim, and it is the purpose of this book to explore the history and
significance of process as term of value. How and why have so many artists
embraced process as the most significant aspect of their activity? How was
artistic process perceived and valued in earlier periods of Western art? How
has the creation of art objects been theorized and evaluated in comparison
to the production of craft and industrial objects? What general social and
cultural attitudes have contributed to the elevation of artistic process?
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more complete than that
which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and . . . we call
complete without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and
never for the sake of something else.
—Aristotle
The artist’s process of creation was not a significant topic for general discus-
sion or analysis before the nineteenth century; indeed, before the Renais-
sance, artists were barely separated from other skilled manual workers. All
forms of manual labor were ranked relatively low in Western societies, which
valued abstract immaterial activities and functions more highly than physi-
cal and material ones. Arguments for the elevated status of the fine arts
originating in the Renaissance emphasized the artist’s intellectual work and
largely ignored the manual labor necessary to produce artworks. In discus-
sions of the artist’s work prior to the nineteenth century, the dominant trend
is one that remains powerful today: the privileging of the intellectual and
conceptual over the manual and material. Nevertheless, attitudes and ideas
that characterize modern interest in the artist’s process have roots in earlier
discussions of the artist’s labor.
Aristotle’s definition of a worthy pursuit quoted above is precisely what
artists now so often enshrine in their statements about artistic process—an
activity that is complete and desirable in itself without reference to a goal or
end product. This is ironic given that Aristotle uses the craftsman’s activity
of making as an example of a lesser pursuit because it is always oriented to
the requirements of a specific goal.1 Activities that are not directed toward
Baazi, 53
Baboons, 197, 249, 252
Baobabs, 79
Barri leaves the Somali camp, 276;
is pursued, 277;
is attacked by his pursuers, 277;
and shoots Ismail Robli, 278
Baringo, Lake, 4, 136
Bei Munithu, 84;
treachery of, 298;
insolence of, 316;
repentance of, 329
Bhotan, 94
Bilali, 14, 176
Blood-brotherhood, 84;
ceremony of, 113, 147
Borana country, 235;
people, 235
Buffalo hunt, 151;
herd of, 192;
horns destroyed by hyænas, 296
Burkeneji, nomadic habits of, 163;
first meeting with, 208;
village of, 209;
temerity of women of, 209;
chief of, 210;
belief in their weapons, 223;
dress, 223;
donkeys, 223;
insolence of, 224;
relations of, with the Rendili, 241
Dasturi, 331
Date palms, 175
Desertions, 20, 155, 259
Dhurra, 52
Dirito, 82;
arrival at village of, 82;
assists us to drive animals, 132;
treachery of, 298
Docere ben Ali, 12
Doenyo Sabuk, 18, 24;
in sight of once more, 347
Doenyo lol Deika, 136
Doenyo Ebor, 66
Doenyo Egere, 66
Donkeys, 16;
troubles with, 25, 38;
eaten by Wakamba, 137
Doti, measurement of a, 53
Doum palm, description of, 162
Galla-land, 3
Game very numerous, 43;
vast herds of, 150, 172, 191;
scarcity of, 179;
absence of, 201
Game-pit, adventure in a, 21
George joins the expedition, 18;
takes a bath, 26;
sickness of, 33;
narrow escape of, 100;
illness of, 115;
drives hostile Wa’m’thara from camp, 134;
adventure with a rhinoceros, 267;
shoots a rhinoceros, 293
Giraffe hunt, 280, 285
Gilgil, 339
Gnainu, fight at, 118
Grant’s gazelle, good sport with, 294
Green Camp, 162, 188, 293
Gregory, Prof. J. W., D.Sc., 4, 180
Guinea fowl, 206
Hall, Mr., 49, 344
Hamisi ben Abdullah, 12;
death of, 128
Hannington, the late Bishop, 137
Hannington, Lake, 136
Hippopotamus, 54, 255;
an anxious moment, 261, 284, 287
Hohnel, Lieut. Ludwig von, 4, 213
Honey, 53
Hyænas, 296, 331
Jamah Mahomet, 9;
refuses to cross M’bu, 57;
visit to, at Munithu, 83;
appearance of, 93;