On Tue, 15 Aug 1995, Seamus Malone wrote:
this was supposed to be sent to deleuze not AG sorry
> On Mon, 14 Aug 1995,
Seamus Malone wrote: >
> > On Mon, 14 Aug 1995 ENGROSEN@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Malgosia:
> > >
> > > This problem of the dual status of avant-garde aesthetics as rupture and
> > > as an icon (of rupture) capable of reification according to the logic of
> > > repetition is right on target.
> > >
> > > It might be useful to address for the purposes of illustration a
> > > particular artists work. While most of my work has been on Duchamp and
> > > an implied genealogy arising from his moment, the feminist artist Kiki
> > > Smith might serve to highlight this dual status more precisely, and I've
> > > been working on her corpus of corpses, viscera and fluids in terms of
> > > Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the Body Without Organs, Becoming, and
> > > the cogsci of francisco varela.
> > >
> > > To the point: Kiki Smith's works assault the consumer/observer by
> > > presenting horrific sites for visceral responses; yet at the same time,
> > > they are within the frame and space of the museum and the logic of
> > > artistic consumption--and in fact, for example, her hand-made paper
> > > constructions of human torsos with dangling viscera or fetuses, outside
> > > the thin-paper body proper are remarkable feats of technical skill.
> > > the appreciation of that skill serves as an unstable attractor state
> > > through which the consumer confronts h/er own inability to tolerate the
> > > dehumanization of the (female) body. I'm trying to work this out in
> > > greater detail for an essay due this fall so I'd appreciate the help.
> >
> > I'm not all that willing to give Kiki Smith all that much credit. She
> > does to my mind make all the classic mistakes that one can criticize D&G
> > for, espeically in ATP, so this much I guess is a fair equation. I don't
> > see much space in her work for thinking through class or anything but a
> > very essentialist vision of gender. Some of the earlier work, which was
> > much more hard ass conceptual seems much more savvy to me. In comparision
> > with Cindy Sherman, who deals wit hsome of the same content, even the
> > same ploy of virtuosoity, there is much more room for a contemplative
> > position in relation to the corporeal as opposed to the paly of immediacy
> > that runs through Smiths mid 80-'s on work. It sort of cashes in the
> > Kristeva cult in my opinion which is the cheapest sort of feminist work
> > from this period(no pun intendened, and is essentially a re-hashing of
> > the work and theories of the 70's and a big step back from real critical
> > left-feminists like Kruger, Holzer, or even with her flakeyness recently,
> > Laurie Anderson. Further, Warhol's disaster series offers a much more
> sophisticated horrific site for visceral response but clearly encoded
> into commodity culture- etc. As suspect of his politics as we may be, he
> didn't shirk away to immediate/viscerality (which is necessarily mythical
> and reifies the process of reproduction in art making- but rather
> forgorunded the complicity of reproduction in the horrific.
> > > >
> > > The paradox: how to assault and still retain/refrain the aesthetic
> > > categories.
> > >
> > Not a big paradox- read Mayakovsky, read Eisenstein, Vertov, Meyerhold,
> > Brecht, read Volosinov and Bakhtin, read Walter Benjamin.
> >
> > > Call it complicity perhaps; but one might also suggest that the
> > > aesthetic forces the complicity of the artist and consumer onto a common
> > > visible field for examination. In this sense I see Kiki's work very
> > > much in the Duchamp genealogy.
> > >
> > I just don't see how you get to the level of commodity-consumer critique
> > from Smith's work- I just don't think it is in any way available. She
> > lacks the wit and the coolness, the savvy about the operation of
> > representation itself that is turely Duchampian, I forgot to mention, one
> > of the real feminist heirs to Duchamp- and for many more thant the
> > obvious reasons is Sherrie Levine.
> >
> > > Love to continue this thread to assault the assault aesthetic.
> > >
> > >
> > > mer
> > >
> >
> > Seamus Malone
> > redye@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
http://www.dorsai.org/~redye
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
> Seamus Malone
> redye@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
http://www.dorsai.org/~redye
>
>
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>
Seamus Malone
redye@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.dorsai.org/~redye
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