Response to POSTPRODUCTION

"These artists who insert their own work into that of others contribute to the eradication of the traditional distinction between production and consumption, creation and copy, readymade and original work." pg.13

-Bourriaud states that because of this eradication the original material that is manipulated is no longer primary, does this thought then directly add relevance to Walter Benjamin's' perceived loss of aura?

However Bourriaud's last sentence of POSTPRODUCTION is:

"Because art is an activity that produces relationships to the world and in one form or another makes its relationships to space and time material." pg.94

Is it really not that Altermodernism has distinguished the aura of an object, but has redefined an art works' positioning of time and space, the aura is now manifested not as a specific object 'but as mediums of experience . . . art restores the world to us as an experience to be lived.' pg.32?

Bourriaud states, " To use an object is necessarily to interpret it, To use a product is to betray its concept". What does he mean by this? To clean a toilet with a toilet brush, is to betray its function? Or is that by employing an object in its designated utility, it idea or concept is negated? This seems very obtuse to me.

I understand and appreciate the concept of artists and 'viewers' as tenants of culture. However were does craft fit into this world where the emphasis is put on an artists gaze and not their craft; where the aesthetic is that of flea-market and displacement of history and references, to create a new symbology? Where is the line drawn, can craft and the skill-set that comes with it coexist in the arena of flea market and the artists gaze? I make jewelry, its function is innately to be worn and to adorn, because of it's function does it relate back to Judd's comment that a chair can't be sculpture because it can't been seen when sat in?

-Though seen from another facet, Bourriaud seems to be arguing that the high and low arena's are changing focus and importance. That 'low' art, which is an 'exaltation of outer limits, bad taste and transgression', has a new elevated meaning; low and high have switched places. On that strain, one could argue that metals, always stationed in the outer limits may finally be able to participate in the larger conversation. Maybe. Bourriaud talks of eclectic taste on page 89 and he says the it enables us to find a personal identity, that taste lets us identify by personal strategy of sign consumption. As adornment, jewelry is one of societies most well-known and visual signifiers of class, status, political sway, and 'taste', in this manner Metals succeeds.

Julius Koller

Julius Koller, Universal Futurological Question Mark (UFO), 1978

Martha Rosler and a few she influenced

Renee Green, Relay: University Inc., 2005 Kunstraum Innsbruck

Liam Gillick, Ovningskorning (Driving Practice), 2004.

Top left and right, installation views of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled 1992 (Free) (re-created 2007). Above left and right, installation views of Untitled 1992 (Free) and a re-creation of Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1972 piece Open House (2007), all at David Zwirner Gallery.

Martha Rosler

Martha Rosler, If you lived here . . . 1989; installation and series of performances.

El Lissitsky and Helio Oiticica

Helio Oiticica

Invention of Color

El Lissitsky

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge

Eugene Atget

Corsets, Boulevard de Strasbourge, 1912

"Rue de Seine", 1924

Le Cirque

Walter Benjamin Questions

Benjamin Cheverton, mid 1800's


a) Walter Benjamin's definition of what the Aura of work art is, is based on the presence a piece takes from the time and space in which it was created. It seems a work's aura exponentially increases over time as the work is immersed in a more and more historical context. The Aura is based in the works authenticity and is the origin of who the work is 'valued'. With mechanical reproduction comes a negation of a works authenticity of a work as duplicates can be made and therefore diminishes or distinguishes the aura of the original.

b) With the influx of film and photography into the mass populace came a progressive stance towards film and a reactionary stance towards art. As Benjamin explains with the introduction of photography, painting is released from its responsibility to depict life in a realistic method and allowed to lean towards abstraction. The lens now takes on the role of the surgeon; of depicting life in an ultra-realistic perspective. It seems the reactionary stance the general populace takes towards art is because art's abstraction creates a muffled barrier of our experiences compared to the immersion of film's deceptive reality.

c) As stated above, mechanical reproduction relinquishes art's responsiblity of depicting life realistically. Art is no longer expected to duplicate life. With this freedom also came an emancipation from the bonds of the ritual and the cult; this power transferred to that of the museum. In essence the museum is the modern cult of art. Through this emanciaption the theology of art was created, art for art's sake. However with art's departure from the cult came a new influence, that of politics.

d) Auto-CAD, laser printing, 3-D pringting, interactive art/gaming, online social networks, 3-D movies, 3-D TV's and networks, and mobile technology.

The Art of Today

The Art of 2010/Today:

Below are three images that I think define the last decade and foreshadow what is to come.

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007

Lacey Jane Roberts, We couldn’t get in, We couldn’t get out, 2006-2007.

Marcel Wanders, Airborne Snotty Vases, 2001.

As for naming this time period, perhaps we are in the Post-Post-Modernist Era, I’m not sure. It seems in some aspects we’re attempting to discard or smooth out the discombobulation of Post-Modernism, from the past thirty years and try to make sense of it. It is not so much a strive to discard the Post-Modern, as to see if any clues may have been left behind as to what direction Art may delve into next. As digitally fabricated art and computer generation become a large play in our everyday practice, we must all stop to consider how will traditional skill sets fit into this new medium/aesthetic that is emerging? In terms of craft, Glenn Adamson has attempted to revoke the validity of our historically immersed, hand-based skill set. He believes that we no longer need to lean against this history or knowledge and should view craft not as a field but a genre. I do not agree with him, however as this decade and century progresses I believe it is just that argument that will be tested.

The aesthetics are part commercialism, audacity, shock, and play: Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Part grass roots, DIY, slow movement tendencies to counter our ever-increasing fast paced life and reliance on the global economy: Lacey Jane Roberts. And part immersion into CAD, RHINO and other digital fabrication techniques that are still being discovered: Marcel Wanders. I agree with Dave Hickey, that we will see an immergence or grasp to reclaim beauty in its simplicity rather than its charged political and social stance that has represented it for the last thirty plus years.

	Arists:

Karl Fritsch

Marcel Wanders

Damien Hirst

Jeff Koons

Lacey Jane Roberts

Arthur Hash

Ted Noten