the emperor’s new clothes

[IdleRich]

There's a generous reading of the 'anyone could do that' critique that goes the art industry is parasitic/incestuous and that 'anyone' isn't meant to he comment on skill and rather anyone can be grist for the mill, provided they make themselves available to it.

I'm not totally grasping what you're saying there - I'm sure that's down to me cos I didn't sleep last night but could you explain it to me.

 

[sus]

one of the things I hate about art criticism is when someone says "anyone could do that!" - yeah, but they did and you didn't, that's why it's art

This is also the canned response though, we need to go up a galaxy brain level, transcend the opposition instead of taking sides.

I think what "My kid could do that!" folks are saying is that the technical skill involved is low, and this confuses them, why something is heralded as special which seems to require no special aptitude

I think what "But they didn't think of it!" folks are saying is that the real skill they + the conceptual art world care about is making a move in a game, and situating yourself—both choosing the right move, and conceptualizing it properly—that this is what makes the work "special," the social-conceptual accomplishment and not the technical one.

I think what "My kid could do that!" folks would say is, "Well why do I care about the art world's insider baseball game?" Bourdieu calls this an "autonomous field"—the performers are performing for themselves and for their friends, who are also performers or embedded in the tradition.

I think what "But they didn't think of it!" folks would say is, "Well I do, I find it interesting and provocative"—and at this point there's really no recourse, just different preferences.

"My kid could do that!" folks would say, "Art folks who claim this is interesting are engaging in preference falsification; it's classic emperor's new clothes; there's nothing there, they just claim to like it." The problem is there's really no way to know, is there?

Because neither extreme is true: it's crazy to think there's some conspiracy of mass delusion among vizart folk, where they're all lying about what they like and find interesting. It's also crazy to think that what we find interesting isn't a social and performative phenomenon. It's not a question of "preference falsification" vs "true belief"—it's a question of how much preference falsification, and at how unconscious a level—or even the question of whether authentic, asocial preferences exist in the first place. (Or if it's all Girardian mimesis...)

 

[sus]

I'm not totally grasping what you're saying there - I'm sure that's down to me cos I didn't sleep last night but could you explain it to me.

If I understand Linebaugh correctly, he's saying "There is an interpretation/conceptualization machine, and people are successful in a sort of semi-random way, where you can get 'picked up' or serendipitously 'fit' the narrative, people's agendas at a given moment, and you'll get turned into an Important Artist by this machine"

 

[linebaugh]

If I understand Linebaugh correctly, he's saying "There is an interpretation/conceptualization machine, and people are successful in a sort of semi-random way, where you can get 'picked up' or serendipitously 'fit' the narrative, people's agendas at a given moment, and you'll get turned into an Important Artist by this machine"

I knew youd feel me on this one sus

 

[sus]

Yeah, exactly, then why didn't you fucking do it and be the one sitting on a pile of money or whatever, fending off criticism of how easy it was to do.
Criticism is a funny thing though, I really hate the absolute other side of that coin where you have people saying "Well, you have never made a blockbuster action movie so you can hardly criticise can you?" - I notice a variation on that on the Guardian website almost every day, someone slates some shitty film and there is a passive aggressive response "Please can you link to your list of successfully published and critically adored books - which obviously you must have if you have the temerity to criticise Jeffrey Archer."

A propos of "we need to go up a level"—I think it's perfectly reasonable for people who are outside a game to criticize a game, and criticize whether it's productive/worth playing. Yeah, sure, if you or I gave our entire lives to understanding the art world game, trying to make moves within it, connecting with gallery owners, proselytizing our work, staying up late crafting PR spins on it—maybe we'd get a windfall at the end! But is that really a game you wanna play? And besides, the randomness aspect—this "getting picked up by the machine, being in the right place at the right time"—means that you can simultaneously criticize the basis of selection (what is granted the title of being a "winning move" in retrospect) while also not thinking it's particularly profitable to play.

 

[sus]

Actually, there are some parallels here with crypto.

"It's so dumb, it's just people scamming each other, riding pumps'n'dumps, it's not productive at all, it's basically gambling" --> OK, so if a monkey could do it, why don't you? Ostensibly because you think it's not a worthwhile game to play, yeah? That succeeding at it, while lucrative, wouldn't be especially valuable—and failing even worse.

A wise banana once said: "Everything's a game; the trick is finding out which are worth playing"

 

[sus]

Great thread Mvuent

 

[WashYourHands]

If I understand Linebaugh correctly, he's saying "There is an interpretation/conceptualization machine, and people are successful in a sort of semi-random way, where you can get 'picked up' or serendipitously 'fit' the narrative, people's agendas at a given moment, and you'll get turned into an Important Artist by this machine"

Like @luka and Gaby Roslin

 

[IdleRich]

A propos of "we need to go up a level"—I think it's perfectly reasonable for people who are outside a game to criticize a game, and criticize whether it's productive/worth playing. Yeah, sure, if you or I gave our entire lives to understanding the art world game, trying to make moves within it, connecting with gallery owners, proselytizing our work, staying up late crafting PR spins on it—maybe we'd get a windfall at the end! But is that really a game you wanna play? And besides, the randomness aspect—this "getting picked up by the machine, being in the right place at the right time"—means that you can simultaneously criticize the basis of selection (what is granted the title of being a "winning move" in retrospect) while also not thinking it's particularly profitable to play.

It has to be perfectly reasonable surely yeah. I was saying that the following two things are equally worthless to me are a) The idea that only someone who is not only in that field but who has succeeded hugely in it is allowed to criticise and b) Utterly dismissive criticism that has made no attempt to engage with or understand what is going on.
That's totally trivial isn't it? None of us are - as far as I know - internationally successful film directors but we of course never hesitate to criticise films or wonder if we are in fact entitled to do so. In fact, as we criticise films as a watching experience, it's not even clear that being a successful film maker is an advantage here. If I watch a film and express an opinion on it to you, you want to know about the experience of watching it not the experience of making it (though knowledge of the latter can possibly inform the former).
And also, it goes without saying that criticsm that attempts to understand something, engages with it and provides a response to it or even a dialogue with it, more worthwhile than a thoughtless dismissal which often comes from ignorance.

 

[Mr. Tea]

A couple of years ago I read a book a while back called Their Brilliant Careers - Jenks mentioned it in the "what are you reading now?" thread and the idea intrigued me. It's a very funny book

https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/their-brilliant-careers

But one chapter is particularly relevant here. It is based (I suppose) on the Sokal Hoax (for those who don't know, there was a scientist called Sokal who was annoyed by the "pretend philosophy" of Theory types such as Derrida and so he submitted an essay linking quantum theory to literary theory or something like to some philosophy magazine that duly printed it, after which he gleefully pointed out that it was total and utter gibberish - cue much embarrassment and loads of arguing). Anyway, in the book there is something equivalent that happens, but then it turns out that the magazine was itself a hoax to trap him or something - and then it transpires that prior to that there had been another hoax which had been created to trick them into creating a hoax magazine. Something like that anyway, I forget the details but the story is very cleverly done. I would highly recommend the whole book in fact, every chapter is different and interesting in its own way.

Haha, as soon as I saw this thread I thought of the Sokal hoax.

Regarding the journal being a "trap" specifically set up to fool one man into writing a deliberately nonsensical article, and thereby making *him* the actual hoax victim, that sounds somewhat far-fetched given that Social Text was started in 1979 and is still going (it published Sokal's hoax paper in 1996).

Social Text - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

An almost infinitely nested fractal universe of hoaxes begetting hoaxes is, admittedly, a pleasingly Borgesian idea. But I think the reality of the Sokal case is that he stitched them up fair and square.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah it's not claiming that. I mean, in the book the whole argument is transplanted to poetry I think, but yeah hoaxes within hoaxes is the point, not to attack the SH. It uses that as inspiration and jumping off point only.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Oh I see. Well fair enough, consider me duly hoaxed.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Oh I see. Well fair enough, consider me duly hoaxed.

Or maybe I should actually read posts properly before responding to them, instead of just skimming them and assuming I've got the general gist.

 

[boxedjoy]

if you liked R Kelly a lot would you listen alone, or is it about social policing and giving people a bad impression of you?

I love R Kelly's music and wrestle with it - it has brought me so much pleasure over the years but there's no world that exists where context doesn't exist and he's not a massive sex beast, and it's always going to be present when I experience the music.

 

[sus]

Anyone pay attention to "Sokal Squared"?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Anyone pay attention to "Sokal Squared"?

Read about it at the time. Was there much to it other than a re-run of the original idea?

 

[IdleRich]

I love R Kelly's music and wrestle with it - it has brought me so much pleasure over the years but there's no world that exists where context doesn't exist and he's not a massive sex beast, and it's always going to be present when I experience the music.

Yeah, we all pay lip service to separating the art from the artist but when there is a truly scummy artist suddenly it's not that easy after all.

 

[boxedjoy]

I always think about how there's no context-free version of "Free Nelson Mandela" or "Candle In The Wind 97" and that it's unfair to pretend you can listen to some things without background and authorial intent but not others.

 

[version]

It's rarely applied with consistency. There are some cases people can do it with and some they can't and it isn't always down to how bad the person in question was or is.

 

[boxedjoy]

Yeah it's really easy for me to write off e.g. solo Chris Brown because the music and performance does nothing for me regardless of his public persona