Show Notes Episode 15: How do we value art?

How do we derive value for a work of art?

Monetary value

Meaning value

Pattern in these inquiries:

Understanding how the question and supposed answers are built rather than chiseling out one defined answer.

The question is always: when considering such a question, what can be taken into account, and how so?

This show is like interpreting maps and discussing the terrains of a region. The inquiries being regions.

How do we declare that art has value?

Two value systems are proposed for the purposes of illustration: classical period and post-classical period in terms of value systems

 

Why do we make a dividing line in the history of art which we call “modern” art?

Is it a distinct line or a period of transition?

Stylistic concerns, representational approaches, conceptual work

Modern art can mean many things: in addition to the above, it can be about when the artists are the ones steering and deciding the subject matter, scale, format, etc, of art.

Difference: artist is now deciding what the subject matter is.

When painting was the only way to make large color pictures.

The older value system: resembles valuing approaches that we still use today.

This involves recognizable and externalized things that have value that have nothing to do with expectations and not stylistics and can be easily understood in terms of time.

Work as certain levels of precision, volume, time where none of it is variable in terms of voice or style. This classical system of valuing is clear cut and has been around a long time. It was at play in the art world for a long time.

 

Side road: the lens from now applied to then.

 

Once artists define the subject, they begin to steer the stylistic approach. The subject matter and the style are now within the artist’s control.

What are the parameters of the question? What does it mean to pose the question?

Is modern art more about stylistic or subject matter declaration?

It need not be “more about,” but intentionally pitting them against positions the inquiry.

 

Post classical value system doesn’t play by rules that can be clarified at all times. It could be about sentiment, or about who else thinks it has value. It might be worth something because of reasons beyond what can be understood systematically and consistently.

Post classical model of valuing art doesn’t have an outside visible hallmark to it. The foundation of this system is originally steered by there not being an outside valuing system in the first place. It doesn’t have an architecture to it.

 

Is the valuing of meaning separate or different from monetary value in terms of art?

In the classic value system? In the post-classic system?

Is there a clear articulation to the reasoning of a meaning valuing system?

Show notes episode 14: What is the best way to look at art?

There are some ways that offer advantages, perhaps, but not necessarily a “best.” So why phrase it this way? A question can be regarded as a precise linguistic inquiry or as an inquiry that has a heart and many implied inquiries surrounding it. It is not about linguistic exactness. It exists as a conceptual feeling. Like a work of art, where we move in various ways to get a point of view, this inquiry is profound and deserves reverence.

 

Only one work of art to view or many others around: the context of the “looking.”

The viability of the viewability: how much true attention any work of art gets. The drawback to seeing a work of art in a space highly populated with other works of art: viewer fatigue.

Mid-range venues: smaller shows with fewer works of art without viewer overwhelm. Notice what you keep getting drawn back to.

With one work of art for a length of time, we start to look in different ways. We alter what “looking” means.

Looking can equal listening, reading, etc…

The feeling of “I need to move on,” while viewing and you’re in a place with other works, an easy solution is to notice other things. But when that is not an option, then you have the option to take on another approach to noticing.

In a saturated space: the way of looking can easily stay the same, the content of looking can easily change. But when there’s just one work, or a few to look at, we might alter what it means to look.

 

For 45 minutes you’ll only listen to this one 5 minute song. Over that 45 minutes, you might do different things that are called “listening.” Compare this to 45 minutes with no limits of what you can listen to.

 

Looking in such a way that you are keenly aware that you are changing what “to look” means.

 

Are we going to create in such ways that allow for rich pathways of discovery?

 

The benefits of taking on another creative pursuit. When you are creating art, you are looking at works for a very long time. Looking for a long time as a creator in that realm isn’t unusual or a challenge. We do this all the time. We look even as we’re not working. Looking is a form of working with creative production.

 

Music makers know that just listening for four minutes straight through to a four-minute song is not the only way of listening.

 

It can be beneficial to take up another kind of creative pursuit. It allows you to see the ways of the creative process differently.

 

Hypothetical: a musician takes up illustrating. What does a day of illustrating allow you as a musician to see about the creative process? When you take up a creative venture that is less usual to you, it allows you to come up with other definitions of what it means to create. This is in the same way that looking at one work of art for a long time (or listening, or reading) allows you to redefine what looking (listening, reading) means.

Show notes Episode 13: Teaching compared to doing 

What are the differences between teaching a creative practice and doing the creative practice?   

This topic has many branches. The goal of this talk is to chisel out the general considerations.

Creative practice as in painting, writing, dancing, singing, playing an instrument, composing music. The verbal phrase is explored too: compared to, along with, as opposed to.

 

What about when a teacher has a creative practice in the realm that they’re teaching?

Can we teach creative acts?

What are the differences between a teacher of great notoriety in a creative field or lesser notoriety?

Should the teacher within their teaching advocate for the stylistic approach that they emerge from? Or should they teach within their realm broadly while allowing students to go into their own direction?

What is any teacher’s role in the cultivation and construction of any student’s becoming as an artist?

The teacher doesn’t have the practice: what about when that’s the case?

 

A consideration of sports is brought up. I refer to an essay from Consider the volley. The essay is titled “Coaches and Judges” and is reprinted below in the show notes.

The following is an excerpt from my collection of essays Consider the Volley:

“Coaches and Judges”

I want to propose a thought experiment to you. It’s very simple in concept but not so easy to put into practice. It involves marveling at an existing scenario that seems well established but is not an absolute reality. And, in the course of this marveling, allow your thoughts to go where they might go. You might think about alternate realities in which this scenario did not exist. You might also think about the features, the tenets, the parameters of the current scenario. A real scenario is not an absolute reality. It just happens to be the case in the world as we know it. An absolute reality is that the earth revolves around the sun. But an existing scenario is that most people spend most of their waking hours during the daylight hours. There might be good reasons for this. And there might be many good reasons for a lot of the scenarios that exist. But they are not absolute realities that must exist. Existing scenarios might be strongly connected to facts, but they do not have to exist as such. Then you take an existing scenario and simply marvel at the fact that its existence is not an absolute result of fact, or facts. 

This marveling can be emotive, as in, isn’t that something, it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Maybe you’ll start to realize what else might be otherwise if this weren’t the case. It may seem redundant to point out the fact that some of what exists must exist, and some of what exists doesn’t have to exist. But this seemingly redundant fact can lead to interesting insights about the parameters of what seems to exist.

I would like to try this thought experiment for a moment with judges. Let’s marvel for a moment at the fact that there is such a social role for judges. There are individuals whose job it is to make profound decisions that affect people’s lives. 

Let’s consider how someone becomes a judge. At the federal level, they are appointed and then go through a confirmation process. At other levels, they are elected. What about outside of the realm of law? How about judges in competitions? The judge is expected to have some valued experience and a demonstrated ability to reason regarding the relevant phenomena of the arena. This differs from arena to arena. A judge in figure skating understands figure skating very well. But a judge in the court understands the law and its procedures, not necessarily every kind of case that appears before them. A criminal judge need not be an expert in crime, but in the laws and legal procedures pertinent to crime. This distinction is the difference between judging performance versus judging on the basis of procedures, principles, and precedents. I propose that whether in sports, legal matters, or other competitive situations, judges exist in arenas that are fundamentally non-volley. And I mean this in the literal and figurative senses. 

A non-volley situation at the literal level does not contain the fundamentally intuitive nature of volley sports. Let’s suppose you are watching a game of volley ball and you’ve never seen this sport or any other volley sport before. How much would you need to be told to figure out what’s going on? If you were told nothing, you might at first think that the goal of the game was to keep the volley going. But after a few points, after a few disappointed expressions from the losing side, and after a few victorious mini-celebrations from the scoring side (and corresponding reactions from the audience) you would understand enough of the game to continue watching. Some of the smaller details of how the game works (those arbitrary add-ons about the fact that serving is different, or how scoring works) might enhance your experience of watching the game. But they are not necessary to the fundamental experience of understand what is going on. Volley sports need no judges. They might involve a referee, a decider for various rules or calling certain moments that are not easy to discern. But you will never have a judge fundamentally decide who the winner is the way you would in judgment sports. 

Figure skating is a judgment sport primarily because it is a turn-taking sport. I am not on the ice at the same time as my competitor. If my competitor is a professional and I am an amateur, they may only need to score a 4.5 to beat me. But why would they only want to score a 4.5? In judgment sports it would be absurd to have such a stratified competition. The better competitor would basically be faced with two possibilities, both of which are doomed: either perform just well enough to win (which would be far below normal capacity), or perform at normal capacity thereby illustrating the absurdity of the match in the first place. 

This particular kind of turn-taking sport is also non-interactive and, for most observable features of reality, non-causal. In other words, if my opponent goes before me and gets a perfect score, that does not have an effect on what I do in an absolute sense. It might psychologically affect me. But it is not the same as an opponent returning the ball to me over the net. Baseball is turn-taking equivocally. Opposing teams swap roles. And the opposing teams are always interactive. This is also a turn-taking sport where the interaction is causal. I hit a grounder towards left field. You rush to get it in time to get the player out who is “forced” to second base. I make it safely to first because your side couldn’t make both plays. In baseball, and in all interactive sports, there is a need for someone with judgment capacities. The referee is there to make occasional calls and to enforce rules that, to most, are obscure. But these referees are not judges. They are not calling the entire game at all times. The interactivity renders the judge unnecessary. 

But a judgment sport is not interactive. A volley sport, on the other hand, requires a contradictory cooperation. You and I create a back and forth because of two complementary and contrasting wants: the want to win, and the want to sustain the gameplay. 

When I am returning the tennis ball to you, there are two things in my mind: to make sure that I at least return it, and to hopefully return it in a way whereby you cannot. If I am too frequently over-concerned with mere return, then maybe you’re too good for me to be playing.  The opposite is true if I am frequently certain that you will not return. 

In a mismatched volley, a conscious adjustment has to be made on the part of the better-skilled player. The lesser-skilled player just has to play to their optimal performance. In this case, the play, the volley, becomes central. We can look on as outside evaluators, as judges. But such a looking-on will only be peripheral to the actual doing. The better player, in this instance, becomes like a judge by leveling their play down to their opponent’s. My father teaching me to play chess in “Consider the Volley:” he took on the judge role as the better player. 

By taking on the judge role as the better player, you are also becoming like a coach. Realizing that you could actually win, you place the continuity of play above winning. But, in so doing, you are giving your lesser opponent a unique opportunity  to constantly play at their pique level. Playing easily enough so that the opponent can stand a chance while pushing the challenge so that they’re always on the edge of defeat elevates you from player to educator. You have left the domain of trying to win this game and entered the realm of bettering the overall play of the game as it exists. 

Coaches are kinds of educators. In order to be a coach, some ability to judge in that realm is necessary. But the role of the coach goes far beyond the role of judge, of decision-maker. A coach must articulate—in language—so much that is difficult to describe. A coach must see the player’s current state of being and next possible state of being better than the player can. Coaches have better sight into the sport. But here’s the interesting thing: they might not necessarily be better at playing. The experience required to be a coach often ages the coach out of their optimal skill. 

Many coaches arrive at the state of coach-hood at a point in their lives when their conceptual ability in the sport (the ability to understand the problems, solutions, the ways and means of confronting the issues in the sport) far outranks their actual playing ability. It’s a strange thing about sports to realize that the accumulation of strategic expertise often arrives long after the window of peak performance. But it suggests that strategic insight in the play of a sport (and possibly things other than sports) is not necessarily demonstrable in one’s current abilities.

This is a compelling situation, a wonderful valley in the landscape of reality. But it could be easily taken to mean its opposite: that not doing something extraordinarily well is a prerequisite to being able to pontificate and advise on it. To be sure, great coaches at least had, at one time, professional-level abilities in whatever they are coaching. And it is simultaneously the case that one might rise to a mid-range level in their playing career but become an outstanding coach. In short, the ability to do the thing you are coaching does precede the coaching. But it does not necessarily correlate in ability and it certainly does not need to exist simultaneously. 

This reversal of reasoning is different. It is the idea that in all things, the conceptual and the application are separate. And therefore, anyone can advance in either realm regarding a particular activity. Of course, anything is possible and human reasoning and imagination are powerful suppliers of advancement. It is certainly possible that I (someone who is not a good cook) might be able to imagine and reason my way into being a great advisor, a great coach, on the art of cooking. That possibility is dim. 

The ability to dole out “here’s how to do it,” is far different from what I am doing as an essayist. As an essayist, I use whatever is in the environment of my thought in order to arrive at a conceptual quagmire, in order to elucidate, question, leave you baffled. I don’t need deep experience playing volley sports in order to use them as central placeholders to illustrate a concept. I’m not advising you on how to play the game. But if I were to try such a thing, I’d be going beyond the reasonable bounds of being an essayist.

In the next essay, “Stop the celebrity hegemony,” I’ll refer back to this reversal as an important mistake. (the belief in the all-purpose sage, embodied in the celebrity). In short, just because they can write songs and sing, or act in films and shows, does not mean they have good ideas about politics or how to live life. 

And therefore we have bigger questions to ask. To whom do we give credence? Who can tell us about the things we do? Can I not do the thing and advise on it? 

But credence is connected to the very things we’re talking about. Who has the authority to talk about “how to” is also connected to how we define the parameters of precisely what the activity is in the first place. Is the volley only what happens during the volley? Or does it include what leads up to and follows the volley? Replace “volley” with any other activity. Where does any activity begin and end? What are its parameters?

The coach and the judge are societal roles that legitimize interesting quagmires about the differences between doing and thinking, between strategizing and playing. The mere existence of these roles ought to remind us of the fact that even if we are very good at doing something, we might not fully comprehend every aspect of why we’re good and what exactly we are doing. 

More broadly, the existence of the coach and the judge roles demonstrates that we are capable of making sense of things that are out of the bounds of our current doing. Coaches and judges can make better sense of what is happening (or has happened) without engaging in the happenings. The existence of these roles also illustrates our reliance on and reverence for people who take on the role of explainers, of sense makers for things they are not currently doing. So we make sense of things after a long career of doing those things at a point in our lives when we no longer have the same capacity to do those things (coaches). And we make sense of things in a conceptually procedural and theoretical way applicable to limitless possibilities that we never need to participate in (judges). And we make sense of things by relying on such commandeers of sensibility. 

Show Notes Episode 12: Is Fiction Communication?

This is an exploration of the parameters of the question, the mapping of where we can go. Yes, no, maybe: is fiction a kind of communication? All three possibilities are explored.

 

The subconscious finger-wagging, let’s avoid.

 

None of the fictional worlds would have existed had the original writer not created those potentialities to carry on in that way… as if you are, as a writer, inventing instruments of imagination. Is that communication? Do we overburden the concept by making it work with one approach?

The construction of imaginative instruments and parameters… is that what fiction writing is?

A stage for the performance of the imagination.

Allowing readers to construct in their imagination because reading is, after all, a creative act.

 

 

 

Non simultaneous communication

What the creator cannot see: the reaction

And the reactor does not impact the directionality of the creation

In fiction writing

Show Notes Episode 11: Is art always human centered?

Is art always human centered? The notion of the anthropomorphic, the idea that art is always human centered, to what extent is that idea valid? Is the landscape the ultimate example of art that humans can create that isn't human centered? Is there something in the fingerprint of human creation that always leave a telling trace? Or is it possible for humans to create art with no trace of the human? And what does such an exploration prompt in the course of explanation? 

Show notes Episode 10: The Life Beyond the Light in the Window

We have this phenomena of artistic creation of the life beyond what’s shown to us

This is a symbolic representation of said phenomena

How does this work in fiction, in non-fiction, in visual conveyances?

The light is also placed there for us, as we are our first audience but modally different. We are the audience to a creative process, with the need to sense that more needs to be said. So we reach to say, to tell about the life beyond the light in the window.

 


Show Notes Episode 9: Crossroads


Two topics at once in this episode: the crossroads and the newcomer. A consideration of the meanings of the crossroads as a hybrid place unto itself. The newcomer is a role that individuals take on, a contextual role. Like the crossroads, the newcomer is intensely aware of then and what's ahead. A consideration of the painting by Emily Shanks, "The Newcomer at School," and an interpretation of what each of the people in the picture represents. 


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emily_Shanks_Newcomer_at_School.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Shanks



Show Notes Episode 8: The temporary and the preserved

Does art celebrate the temporary by trying to preserve it? Or is it an exultation of permanence? Is there such a thing? Is memory the only mold humans have to preserve? Perhaps recycling is the ultimate perpetuity, the collective embrace of reconstitution. When does a moment begin and end?

Louise Nevelson:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Nevelson

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81006

Guiseppe Pitrè:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Pitr%C3%A8

 

Marcel Duchamp

https://www.moma.org/artists/1634-marcel-duchamp

The Persistence of Memory:

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79018

Show Notes Episode 7: Who's There?

 

What is pervasive? What is elemental? What is contained within demarcations and what runs the gamut of existence? From the first two words of Hamlet to the self portrait and the fruits of or as destruction, to the assertion of the artist as inextricably bound visionary with the talent. Diego Velazquez and the portrait of the self via the portrait of the powerful other. Francis Bacon, the scream, the mouth, the difference between expression and communication. The artist as declarer of what art is, Marcel Duchamp. The critiques of conceptual art, art that does not respond to current events. Invictus, The Desperate Man, a silent scream.

 

Hamlet

https://www.folger.edu/hamlet

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1524/1524-h/1524-h.htm

Rembrandt Self-Portraits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portraits_by_Rembrandt

Research Barnett Newman’s views on art and his analysis of Cezanne’s apples:

Painters Painting documentary (De Antonio & Tuchman, 1984, page 43)

Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Innocent_X

Francis Bacon’s Portraits of Innocent X

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_after_Vel%C3%A1zquez%27s_Portrait_of_Pope_Innocent_X

Interview with David Sylvester in “Fragments of a Portrait”:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13696820/

Marcel Duchamp

https://www.moma.org/artists/1634-marcel-duchamp

Plato's Symposium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_(Plato)

Gustave Courbet “The Desperate Man”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_D%C3%A9sesp%C3%A9r%C3%A9

 

“Invictus”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus

Network the film:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

 

 

Show notes Episode 6: The Black Box

From Ilya Repin’s paintings in the 1800’s to what our descendants might make of our lives in hundreds of years: the black box and the unknown. Expectations, moments, questions, sketches, input, output, what happens in the process?

The procession can’t be witnessed. Kahlil Gibran “On Children,” and how the present cannot decide the future. Who were the secondary English teachers of the 1700’s? Perhaps the intellectualizing was in the everyday ways of being in various professions. The black box of the past and the future. How storytelling can cultivate awareness of self.

Wikipedia entry on "They Did Not Expect Him": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Did_Not_Expect_Him

Ilya Repin's "Religious Procession in Kursk Province": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Procession_in_Kursk_Governorate

Kahlil Gibran and "On Children"

https://poets.org/poem/children-1

The Black Box Concept in AI and Systems Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Gutenberg Project Full Text of Jane Eyre:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1260

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(figure_of_speech)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

Show notes Episode 5: What makes a costume real?

Costumes, cosplay, derivative imaginative experiences. When does a costume become real? Is a persona a mask? Can it become real? The pathway on the stage becomes real when the audience walks through it.

How fiction can vibrate to the frequency of real. The audience decides that this is an enactment experience. We put on the costume and align with another form of being self. Synesthesia and the experience of becoming; self to character. Not necessarily synthesis. Derivative imaginative play. Solidly not real. Beyond the cover of the song. The notion of the influence. Costumes as a scaffolding technique of becoming as a creative.

Show notes Episode 4: Tapestries of meaning

The public good, the fallout shelter, we’re having an assembly today. The wonderful ruckus of it all. Thrown together, pieced together, stitches and seams all showing. From Victory Gardens to Patrick Henry, to Giuseppe Pitrè and Guiseppe Arcimboldo; from Great Wave immigrants to rainy day assemblies.

Victory Gardens:

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/victory-gardens-bloom-across-the-1940s-city/

Ottmann, Michelle Melissa Althaus; Maantay, Juliana A.; Grady, Kristen; and Fonte, Nilce N. (2012) "Characterization of Urban Agricultural Practices and Gardeners’ Perceptions in Bronx Community Gardens, New York City.," Cities and the Environment (CATE): Vol. 5: Iss. 1, Article 13. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol5/iss1/13

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180602042934id_/http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=cate

https://www.nybg.org/planttalk/victory-gardens-make-a-comeback/#:~:text=Bronx%20Green%2DUp%2C%20NYBG's%20community,post%20on%20the%20Hand%20Lens.

 

Guiseppe Pitrè:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Pitr%C3%A8

 

Zipes, J. (2009). The Indomitable Giuseppe Pitrè: Research article. Folklore, 120(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/00155870802647809

https://www.academia.edu/3384433/The_Indomitable_Giuseppe_Pitr%C3%A8

 

Patrick Henry:

https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/hc/america-i-1761-1837/i-the-give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death-speech/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_liberty_or_give_me_death!

Arcimboldo:

https://www.nga.gov/artworks/142008-four-seasons-one-head

Show Notes for Episode 3: The Universe, End to End; Art and the Scale and Scope of Conveyance

When do the measures of the universe meet in a tight corner? Is the universe of artistic conveyance large enough to embody contrasting notions of validity? Considering Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” Reaching to the ends of a natural ethic from Robert Burns’s “To a Mouse.” Are we reaching to the stars or to the earth right in front of our feet with our artistry? The universe of referentiality from the still life to the landscape. Considering Helen Frankenthaler and Clara Peeters. Considerations of my own works including symphonies in the sink and people of the fork. This is a consideration of the layers of referentiality in the workflow of creating art. Considerations of photography, using Procreate, and how photography and digital tools become part of painting workflow.

References and Searches:

1.     Walt Whitman – "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

Search terms: "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer Walt Whitman full text"

  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45480/when-i-heard-the-learnd-astronomer

 

2.     Robert Burns – "To a Mouse"

 Search terms: "To a Mouse Robert Burns full text"

 Link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43816/to-a-mouse

 3.     Helen Frankenthaler – Thoughts on abstract painting

 “A red-blue against the white of cotton duck or the beige of linen has the same play in space as the duck, or that duck assumes as important a role as the red shape” (De Antonio & Tuchman, 1984, pp. 82-83).

She further tells us that:

 “The plate that the apples are on is as important as the apples themselves. It isn’t as if background meant the background is a curtain or a drape in front of which there is a table on which there is a plate on which there are apples” (De Antonio & Tuchman, 1984, pp. 82-83).

 Reference: Painters Painting documentary (De Antonio & Tuchman, 1984, pp. 82-83)

 4.     Clara Peeters – "Table with Orange, Olives, and Pie"

 Search terms: "Clara Peeters Table with Orange Olives and Pie painting"

 Link: https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/still-life-with-fruits-and-cheese/24d41c72-0228-4701-8baf-b888a6e8882e

People of the Fork painting 40” x 40”

People of the Fork digital painting

One of the “Symphonies in the Sink” paintings

One of the “Shelf Life” paintings

An article where I discuss artistic processes and pedagogical approaches and reference abstract art and Frankenthaler in a different context:

“Constructing a Pedagogy of Apparentness”

Show Notes - Episode 2: A New Gorgon

1. Roland Barthes – Mythologies

  • Search: "Roland Barthes Mythologies summary"

  • Link: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/56917/mythologies/9780099529750.html

2. The Odyssey by Homer

  • Search: "The Odyssey Homer full text"

  • Link: http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.html

3. Artemisia Gentileschi – "Judith Beheading Holofernes"

  • Search: "Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Beheading Holofernes painting"

  • Link: https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/judith-beheading-holofernes

4. Francisco Goya – "The Third of May 1808"

  • Search: "Francisco Goya The Third of May painting"

  • Link: https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-3rd-of-may-1808-in-madrid/fe6f5c01-8b85-4e70-b56a-7bb58b70982e

5. Édouard Manet – "The Execution of Emperor Maximilian"

  • Search: "Édouard Manet Execution of Emperor Maximilian painting"

  • Link: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436945

6. Yue Minjun – "Execution"

  • Search: "Yue Minjun Execution painting"

  • Link: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/yue-execution-t07608

7. Shakespeare’s Macbeth

  • Search: "Macbeth full text"

  • Link: https://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html

8. Chiaroscuro (Art Term)

Show Notes - Episode 1: The Reaches of Artistic Testimony

In this pilot episode, the foundation of the notion of “An Infinite Language” is explored. From the process of painterly seeing to Ozymandias and the enduring voice of the arts and the artist.
Some highlights:
Can you paint with words?
The artistic voice is more enduring than absolute power. 
The everyday person has the power to tell, to convey and sculpt our notions of what happened.
What voice carries on?
Creative output is an infinite language, it cannot be relegated to, cannot be limited to solving the world’s problems. Art is not a for-hire form of expression that is only used for problem solving.
What is the contrast between Ozymandias and the message in Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statue of Liberty? "The New Colossus" is a message of hope, a claim that the way of lifting up is the golden door. Other works discussed: Guernica by Picasso, David's the Coronation of Napoleon 

Key References:

1.     Percy Bysshe Shelley – "Ozymandias"
Search: "Ozymandias poem Percy Bysshe Shelley"
Link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias

2.     Pablo Picasso – "Guernica"
Search: "Picasso Guernica painting"
Link: https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica

3.     Jacques-Louis David – "The Coronation of Napoleon"
Search: "Jacques Louis David The Coronation of Napoleon painting"
Link: https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/coronation-emperor-napoleon-i

4.     Emma Lazarus – "The New Colossus"
Search: "Emma Lazarus The New Colossus poem"
Link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

5.     The Colossus of Rhodes
Search: "The Colossus of Rhodes statue"
Link: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Colossus-of-Rhodes

6.     Robert Motherwell – General Search
Search: "Robert Motherwell artist"
Link: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/robert-motherwell-1654

7.     Jack Whitten – General Search
Search: "Jack Whitten artist"
Link: https://jackwhittenart.com/

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