Robert Hughes's The Shock of the New

[Heroique]

...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]

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]

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]

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]

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.]

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/l...jectID=5494219

[Jody_S]

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]

Paul,

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

No.

[paulr]

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]

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.