Equal Art

Monday, January 21, 2008

"Equality"

In Sally Banes' book we are introduced to three ways in which the ideals of equality helped artist to make certain choices in three distinct ways.

The first way was by leveling differences of equality. This was achieved in several ways. One way was by eliminating the star system. Another way was by being decidedly amateurish. This ideal is shown quite nicely in Andy Warhol's "The Kiss" in which ordinary people become the stars and the production quality is so simple that almost anyone could do it. This ideal makes a comment about ideas of class systems. And in some ways by making ordinary people stars Warhol satirizes the star system as a whole. One last thing, by showing homosexuals kissing and interracial kissing Warhol makes stars out of those who would normally not be found in the popular culture of the early 60's.

The second way of equalizing was celebrating the ordinary. In other words by taking something that happens in daily life, or a thing like in John Cage's case "noise" and elevating it to the level of art. In some ways one could call it the affirmative action of the ordinary, a past excluded entity, given the special privilege of being the primary focus of art. This can be seen in Yoko Ono's film "Eye Blink" in the which the most ordinary thing in the world, the blinking of an eye, is slowed down and given the special privilege of being the primary focus of concern. Of course on a broader level one could argue that in seeing a blinking eye we are reminded of the fact that all people, in all the world, do the same thing, blink. Thus equality is not only something to believe in but something that is as natural as a blink.

The third way of equalizing was by the "radical juxtaposition of structure." To put it a different way, when the everything on the canvas, dance or film is seemingly random or else arranged in some sort of "off" manner. The collaboration of ideas together. No film immediately comes to mind. The film "Dots 1 & 2" shows us somewhat this idea. However, to be perfectly honest the film that comes to mind most is a film I saw once called "Cats and Pants" at a traveling avant-garde film festival. It showed numerous pictures and cats and pants and a voice would tell us whether or not we were viewing cats or, maybe, pants. I understand the theory of this part of the democratization process, but to me it seems to be the weakest part. Though, in many cases, the most interesting to watch.

Black Mountain College

Since there are already prompts up for later posts I figured I should go ahead and answer the first one. So Black Mountain College, the home of artistic liberation and a sense of a community that seems to be so important in the Avante-Garde community. I can't begin to imagine the amount of drama that would have occurred at a place with so many artistic thinkers and ideas swimming about. While the idea is certainly sound and a great deal can be gained by throwing yourself into a situation like Black Mountain, I am not sure it would have been right for me.

My perfect day begins at noon. In which I slowly roll out of bed and then prepare myself a marvelous lunch. A lunch to end all lunches. Then I stick in a film and watch it and when it ends either get a snack or stick in another film and repeat until time for dinner or else bed. Without the constant reinforcements of some structure I don't think I would ever accomplish anything. While my artistic sensibilities of writing screenplays are something I would probably do anyway, without a sense of structure, I know that I would probably do nothing else but waste away. A raisin in a world of grapes. So, while I admire the faculty and students of Black Mountain College, I know myself too well to think that I could excel in such a place.

I have always wanted to be some kind of artistic-y, intellectual-y kind of person, but for some reason I always seem to come up just short of artistic brilliance and into the realm of mediocre. Perhaps a place like Black Mountain would be a good place to increase artistic skills. However, like I said, I just don't think its me.

I have one final thought on this whole Black Mountain College issue. And it is a stupid thought. Did anybody else think about the awful film Accepted?

Test Blog of Puppy

This is only a test. Had this been an actual post insightful commentary, criticism and a whole plethora of information would have appeared.

The picture to the left is of a puppy. It is a puppy because I say it is a puppy.