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r.e.
4-Jan-2012, 15:12
Turns out the whole series is on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aivdd#p/u/8/ByIlGYQxUMY

Heroique
4-Jan-2012, 15:21
A great critic, a super writer, a charismatic personality, and a good person.

A favorite excerpt from his companion book:

“Look at an object: your eye is never still. It flickers, involuntarily restless, from side to side. Nor is your head still in relation to the object; every movement brings a fractional shift in its position, which results in a miniscule difference of aspect. The more you move, the bigger the shifts and differences become. If asked to, the brain can isolate a given view, frozen in time; but its experience of the world outside the eye is more like a mosaic than a perspective set-up, a mosaic of multiple relationships, none of them (as far as vision is concerned) wholly fixed. Any sight is a sum of glimpses.”

Robert Hughes helps us see better.

Nathan Potter
4-Jan-2012, 21:29
Excellent Heroique. The intelligence from a scene can come from only one tiny spot in the retina and it's mirror in the scene. Oh, the rest of the scene is there and vaguely visible but not really available for critical evaluation. Hence as Hughes suggests, our eyes dart around the whole in glimpses, each glimpse then stored in our memory which finally reassembles it into a whole. All results in an image that is part scene and part photographer's mind. Really a most marvelous process, eh.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

Brian C. Miller
7-Jan-2012, 00:21
I watched the entire series after you posted the link.

I thought that what Hughes said at the end of the last segment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShV1h85dnkc&feature=related) was particularly poignant. Where is art now? Nowhere, which is what I've been saying for a long time. "I don't think there's been such a rush towards insignificance in the name of the historical future as we've seen in the last fifteen years." And it was Hughes who showed me how and why, and now I have so much more understanding of it. What once was the realm of art, communication, has been surplanted by other forms. Art lost its voice to communicate, and it also has lost its shock value. And so what is left to it? "The famous radicalism of 60's and 70's art turns out to be a kind of 'dumb show.' A charade of toughness. A way of avoiding feeling." And he's right, that's not art. It isn't what art should be, or seek to be. "It's done by individuals, each mediating in some way, between history, and a sense of the world. This task is literally endless."

So we all load up the camera, and go photograph!

paulr
7-Jan-2012, 08:37
Where is art now? Nowhere, which is what I've been saying for a long time. "I don't think there's been such a rush towards insignificance in the name of the historical future as we've seen in the last fifteen years."

Yawn. That's the stock answer of someone who's given up looking and retreats into their prejudices. The real answer is that art is almost everywhere. There's probably never been a more heterogenous period, with more people doing more things, looking forward, backward, inward, or joining forces with other mediums or modes of inquiry.

Heroique
7-Jan-2012, 11:26
That’s the stock answer of someone who’s given up looking and retreats into their prejudices. The real answer is that art is almost everywhere...

I think Hughes would agree w/ you that art is “everywhere.”

He might disagree about how much of it is significant.

Yet as pessimistic as he can be about the state of serious art, I don’t think he’s “given up and retreated into his own prejudices.” Even if he sometimes seems conservative in his tastes, he is, of course, nothing of the sort.

Here’s what I mean. At the end of The Shock of the New (the book), he says:


“Perhaps (or so one devoutly hopes) artists are waiting in the wings now as they were a century ago, slowly maturing and testing the imaginative visions that will enable them to transcend the stagnant orthodoxies of their time, the endgame rhetoric of deconstructionism, the crust of late modernist assumptions about the limits of art.”

He goes on to add:


“It is a curious fact of art history, perhaps only a coincidence but perhaps not, that its entries upon fresh creative cycles after periods of exhaustion so often fall between the years '90 and '30. ...In each case, the first rush of creative ebullience was followed by winding-down, academization, and a sense of stagnancy which fostered doubts about the role, the necessity, and even the survival of art. So, too, with our own [20th] century.”

He wrote that around 1990 – the beginning of this so-called “90-to-30” creative cycle.

Here we are in 2012 – halfway through the period.

I don’t remember Hughes sharing any exciting updates. But even if he hasn’t, I can guarantee you that he’s watching for culturally transformative art to be born again. He’ll never go blind, or give up his ever-intelligent, broad-minded & history-informed search.

Brian C. Miller
7-Jan-2012, 17:05
YouTube: The New Shock of the New (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDTEejaDC1M) segment, with David Hockney, also, The Business of Art (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUh_NSpiTsY&feature=rellist&playnext=1&list=PL3632A34112081001).

"The New Shock of the New" is his update, but I can't find it available for sale or full-length viewing.

paulr
7-Jan-2012, 20:15
I think Hughes would agree w/ you that art is “everywhere.”

He might disagree about how much of it is significant.

How much is significant in any era?

I'm not suggesting that all eras are equal, but I think it's an almost pointless exercise to worry about the quality of the era you're in. Each era produces great art and insignificant art. Probably the only thing that distinguishes a great era is the quality of the average art. How awesome are songs #50 to 200 on the pop charts?

This kind of question may be interesting for sociological reasons, but can it really be useful to artists? Or art lovers? Great art, interesting art, relevant art, is all out there to be seen. In fact there's more of it than you'll ever see, no matter how badly it's outweighed by the forgetable.

I grow weary of generalizations about eras in art / music / literature because they inevitably collapse when confronted by examples of actual work by actual people.

r.e.
7-Jan-2012, 20:42
As Brian Miller points out, Hughes did do an update.

I'm currently reading his new book about Rome. There are some criticisms that he is a bit fast and loose in the first couple of chapters, where he indulges the mythology of Rome's beginnings a good deal, but the book is wonderful.

A must read for anyone thinking of going to Italy or, for that matter, interested in Rome.

One can quibble with Hughes, but he is a very good writer with a talent for making one think. If you wind up disagreeing with him, having thought through whatever the disagreement is, well I think that that would sit with him just fine.

Here is what the Sunday New York Times Book Review had to say, a few weeks ago, about his new book: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/books/review/rome-a-cultural-visual-and-personal-history-by-robert-hughes-book-review.html?pagewanted=all

Heroique
8-Jan-2012, 00:53
”The New Shock of the New” is his update, but I can't find it available for sale or full-length viewing.

That’s great news. It seems that his companion books usually follow the television series – after a certain period – in greatly expanded form. At least, that was the case for both The Shock of the New from the early 1980s, and American Visions from the later 1990s. So the book version for this probably hasn’t appeared yet, but I’ll be eager to read it when it shows up.

And someday Hughes might treat us to “The New New Shock of the New”!

Heroique
8-Jan-2012, 00:54
...I think it’s an almost pointless exercise to worry about the quality of the era you’re in. ...It may be interesting for sociological reasons, but can it really be useful to artists?

I mostly agree with you – it naturally concerns Hughes because he’s a also a great historian.

(Funny, I got into Hughes via his history of Australia’s founding, The Fatal Shore.)

But I think artists are (or should be) concerned about the nature & quality of the art of their own times, too – especially if an artist’s work is to be a reaction to (or dialogue with) their times. To put it another way – if artists are to “transcend the orthodoxies of their times,” as Hughes says above, they’ve got to know what those social and cultural orthodoxies are, form judgments about them, and communicate them in their art. (I understand, of course, that doing so isn’t the only important objective of serious art, nor its only important process.)

Brian C. Miller
8-Jan-2012, 02:05
I've been watching Hughes' American Visions, available in 10-minute segments on YouTube. He included a little bit of photography this time, and gave a bit of coverage to Jacob Riis. It was interesting how Riis worked: burst in the door during the middle of the night, and then pop off his flash powder. Hughes also covered Stieglitz, but for paintings, not photography.

It's one thing to know that what's around you is stagnant. It's another thing to have a cogent analysis given to you. It's like getting the schematic to a lock, along with a set of lock picks. Now, with imagination and effort, those locks can be picked, and doors can be opened. That's what Hughes' series is for me, a set of schematics, and a verification of much of what I think about art. I don't think he's totally right about everything, but I do agree with most of it.

Robert Hughes
17-Jan-2012, 11:32
BTW the Robert Hughes of The Fatal Shore fame is not the same person as myself. I'm just a guy with a lucky name.

Michael Alpert
17-Jan-2012, 12:01
How much is significant in any era?

Probably the only thing that distinguishes a great era is the quality of the average art. . . . I grow weary of generalizations about eras in art / music / literature because they inevitably collapse when confronted by examples of actual work by actual people.

Paul,

Don't you think these statements are self-contradictory?

Also, as a famous N.Y. catcher might have said, the "only thing" might not be the only thing--not even "probably" the only thing.

Michael Alpert
17-Jan-2012, 14:12
I guess I am in a posting mood today. It seems to me that Hughes characteristically presents his general opinions as if they were factual truths. (This way of writing is also an occasional problem here. Given my sometimes foolish statements, I plead guilty.) His pronouncements are sometimes as shallow as they are clever. I think the American art-historian and author David Sylvester had a more finely tuned approach than Hughes. Sylvester always tried to describe his actual experience when looking at of a particular piece of art. Generalizations were stated later, if at all. I think his book on Modern Art and his little book on Giacometti provide a more cogent basis for thinking about art, including photographic art, than Hughes' books and programs. Sylvester had the good sense to not embrace everything in sight. He also refrained from rejecting unfamiliar categories of art by--as they say--shooting from the hip.

r.e.
17-Jan-2012, 21:14
I guess I am in a posting mood today. It seems to me that Hughes characteristically presents his general opinions as if they were factual truths. (This way of writing is also an occasional problem here. Given my sometimes foolish statements, I plead guilty.) His pronouncements are sometimes as shallow as they are clever. I think the American art-historian and author David Sylvester had a more finely tuned approach than Hughes. Sylvester always tried to describe his actual experience when looking at of a particular piece of art. Generalizations were stated later, if at all. I think his book on Modern Art and his little book on Giacometti provide a more cogent basis for thinking about art, including photographic art, than Hughes' books and programs. Sylvester had the good sense to not embrace everything in sight. He also refrained from rejecting unfamiliar categories of art by--as they say--shooting from the hip.

I agree that Hughes is open to the complaint that he writes in plain English about history, culture, politics, art and everything in between. I do not consider this to be a fault, although his presumption obviously makes him a target. I agree that Sylvester was a terrific critic, but it is apples and oranges. His scope was much narrower.

Re Giacometti, and for the hell of it, here is one of Cartier-Bresson's photographs, taken two blocks from where I used to live: http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5494219

Jody_S
17-Jan-2012, 22:52
And who gets to say what is 'significant'?

Who gets to determine what is 'transcendent'?


There are more 'artists' alive and working today than the sum total of all artists who have ever lived in all of human history (don't ask me for a quote, I pulled that out of my ass). What you or I consider 'significant' or 'transcendent' is irrelevant. What can arbitrarily be determined as 'successful (commercially)' is also irrelevant, in the eyes of history.

paulr
18-Jan-2012, 18:50
Paul,

Don't you think these statements are self-contradictory?

No.

paulr
18-Jan-2012, 19:00
But I think artists are (or should be) concerned about the nature & quality of the art of their own times, too – especially if an artist’s work is to be a reaction to (or dialogue with) their times. To put it another way – if artists are to “transcend the orthodoxies of their times,” as Hughes says above, they’ve got to know what those social and cultural orthodoxies are, form judgments about them, and communicate them in their art. (I understand, of course, that doing so isn’t the only important objective of serious art, nor its only important process.)

Well, sure ... I think it's important to be aware of the nature of the art around us. But I don't think it's important to judge its quality, especially in terms of how our own era ranks against any other. It's just a distracting exercise.

And we have a long, long historical record of these exercises in every era. Each Golden Age(tm) has been populated by conservatives who judged their present an embarassment compared with the past.

I think it's important to be aware of contemporary art as a conversation, for the purpose of joining it, extending, disrupting it, or whatever you want to do ... but not judging it. That task is always better taken up later, by people who have the advantage of hindsight.

Heroique
6-Aug-2012, 23:55
And who gets to say what is ‘significant’? Who gets to determine what is ‘transcendent?

Well, Robert Hughes certainly thinks he gets too, and I don’t know of any other critic, besides George Bernard Shaw, whose claims of “significance” and “transcendence” have been more thrilling & challenging & helpful to me.

Heroique
7-Aug-2012, 00:11
Robert Hughes, RIP. :(

July 28, 1938 – August 6, 2012

He was a man of many great books.

Brian C. Miller
7-Aug-2012, 08:33
And who gets to say what is 'significant'?

Who gets to determine what is 'transcendent'?

The guys who do the show get to define that. It's their show, after all.
Try this exercise: shout "BALDERDASH!" and "HUMBUG!" quite loudly. Then open your window and shout, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Then go do something constructive. And try not to get killed just for TV ratings.

And goodbye and goodnight to Robert Hughes. (The art critic, not our local variant here.)

Shen45
8-Aug-2012, 16:55
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/hughes-a-seeker-of-new-horizons-20120808-23ub7.html

cosmicexplosion
8-Aug-2012, 17:52
its quiet possible that what happens is that as one ages the shock becomes less and less, simply due to history unfolding like a giant fractal of bricolage, throwing it self into the future with the impotence of understanding, the feebleness of will, desensitisation?

as we soak up the world and see through is disguise, much of it falls away, like the cloud uncovering the moon. we prioritise our short life...

it also appears that the whole notion of art, struggles to exist in the realm between the sacred and the profane, between the impulse and the market place. ones ego and drive, v ones purpose as an individual and culture.

and what one is as a universal entity. what is a human and what is our relationship to the self and world.

are we an image of god, or are we a bunch of atoms, just another animal?

in aboriginal australia, if an elder paints one line incorrectly in a ceremony, all the barrumundi (fish) die, the question of an exhibition to sell art is the antithesis to his intentions.

robert hughes was a alcoholic, does this explain his resignation?

he was also in a car crash a few years back that broke every bone in his body! ( its been said)

to say that art is dead, is a bit like saying creativity is dead, and we should take the word infinite out of the vernacular.

We humans channel this universal principle through our eyes and hands,

i can only feel sorry for people who are stuck in an intellectual paradigm.

which is a dead realm to be sure.

to quote goethe " Grey, grey are all the theories, but green is the tree of life"

R.I.P
Hughsey
you put the ozzie larrikin on the map!