Ort and Abjecthood

Granted, Fried does not quite go as far as saying that literalist (a term Blogger.com prompts me to spell-check and offers, as a replacement, "Federalist") art is abject. He does, however, here and there in his essay, come close to denying it the status of ort - I mean "art". Perhaps the Daly-dadaist in me this morning wants to tweak Fried's nose (or mustache / goatee if he ever wore one) and say "hey, don't forget to have fun". Granted, again, Morris, Judd and Smith - the latter in particular ("Die"?) - didn't seem like cheerful fellas either. But maybe it was all dead pan. Nevertheless, here we are: it's Monday morning and no one, not one soul, alive, dead or in-between - about to be put underground  - has deemed Fried worthy of a blog post.

I understand the reluctance, especially if you consider the lengthy and serpentine qualities of Fried's study of Courbet's Burial. These are enough to put me in a somber or funeral disposition. If Fried could have buried the matter, sooner, and once and for all. Put it at rest. If he - and Courbet - could have let the coffin bearers do their business and the priest deliver his sermon, the matter might have been sealed, the grave  filled.

Enter Duchamp. Elle a chaud au cul (et Fried n'a pas froid aux yeux!). An early example, I find, of the process of turning painting into object - not abject (she/he is cute with the facial hair). But here we have a classic, perhaps one of the most popular works of art in history, turned on its head. A few marks and letters: it is no longer what it was. Dealt with in such a fashion - active and irreverent alteration vs. beholding - The Joconda has just been objectified. One no longer is "absorbed" by the content of Da Vinci's painting but is aware (theatricality, here I come) of its re-purposing, aware of the hand of the artist-joker.

A Burial at Ornans online

Hello! It might be a good idea to access an image of Courbet's painting online: the one published in Fried's original text is very hard to see. I found this one (google Art Project) to offer a good zooming option. It also includes ALL of the painting - some of the other pictures I accessed cropped out elements on the edges, including Wikipaintings, believe it or not! Zooming will come in handy when Fried starts to deconstruct the painting and goes into finer details - like the shovel in the open grave he mentions on several accounts and which I have yet to find. If your computer is a slow-poke, allow a few seconds for the resolution to fully generate - at close range you should be able to see the cracks in the paint.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art: 1912

Kandinsky was a Russian painter and theorist. In the introduction of the book it explains that at this time, modern artists were beginning to understand that their obligation to society was to be a "spiritual teacher to the world".  On page 26 he says, "The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is the movement of experience. It may take up different forms, but it holds at the bottom to the same inner thought and purpose."  He was primarily concerned with the painter's inner experience creating what is in a painting.  He compares the "life of the spirit" to a triangle. On the bottom of page 29 the note 3 poses interesting questions such as, "Is everything material? Or is everything spiritual? Is whatever cannot be touched with the hand spiritual?"  In the Spiritual Revolution section, page 36, Kandinsky says, "Every age achieves a certain measure of freedom, but beyond the boundaries of its freedom the mightiest genius can never go. But the measure of freedom of each age must constantly be enlarged."  I think here he is explaining how one cannot go outside of the level of consciousness of that time, but each period of time the freedom of ideas gets a little bit more enlarged and opened to new thoughts and spiritual growth.

When you see the color of a palette in a painting, immediately one "receives a purely physical impression", which can be one of pleasure but it is a short superficial impression. He goes on to says that, "Only the impressions caused by very familiar objects, will be purely superficial" (43).  The second result of looking at colors is their psychic effect, where the colors produce a spiritual vibration which is "one of the guiding principles of the inner need". Inner need= impulse felt by artist for spiritual expression, to set art free. (45)

Kandinsky says that, "If we begin at once to break the bonds which bind up to nature, and devote ourselves purely to combination of pure color an abstract form, we shall produce works which are mere decoration, which as suited to neckties or carpets."  (67/68) I think about decoration and adornment a lot in my own work so my question for you is, What do you think about Kandinsky's critique and praise of what he claims to be mere decoration and do you agree with what he says?  Here he is explaining that there is no "inner need" in decoration because many of the used patterns are from a different time that do not concern the contemporary culture.

Principles of Architectural History: The Four Phases of Architectural Style, 1420-1900

The discussion on “purposive intentions” in this chapter is part of Frankl’s broader discourse on the methodology for architectural analysis taking into consideration social functions as well as spatial, visual, and corporeal form.  Frankl explains the social effects of experiencing architecture by identifying buildings’ social functions (“purposive intentions”) and attributing the building program with a significant cultural role. The “intention” of the building program, therefore, is according to Frankl at the foundation of the architectural and social traditions of a given culture. And as buildings assume the function of "molded theaters of human activities," the human activities (social interaction) they are designed to embody (expressed in the building program) become the essential elements in determining their "life" and in providing tools for the interpretation of their meaning.

Frankl attempted to include human intention (and activities) in the study of architecture, where the history of the building program becomes part of cultural history providing a bridge between "art and life." According to Frankl, the interpretation of social interactions occurring in buildings parallels to the reading of a painting’s iconology.  And human activities, because they are the architectural program’s most essential elements, are to be used for the reading of a building’s iconology. Such iconology in architecture, therefore, is culturally dependent, and inexorably changes along with changes in society and it is lost with changes in building use.

The “purposive intention,” Frankl explains, consists in “the practical and material certainty of purpose that determines the building program and hence the spatial form.” The “purpose” of the building program, according to Frankl, together with other functional characteristics of the building (such as construction and architectural features specific of a particular building type), provides the means for its understanding in special cultural or historic circumstances.[1] Determined by two overlapping networks that are respectively the "soul" and the "mind" of the building program, the "purpose" determines the movement throughout space and gives the space its meaning. It forms the fixed arena for groups’ interaction prescribed in the building program by determining the logic of circulation, the actions and their specific duration.[2]

Frankl categorizes the concept of architectural “purposive intention” by observing its variation within four chronological phases historically significant in the emergence and development of architectural building programs. He attempts to exemplify throughout the cultural changes happening within these four phases, the cultural history and significance of the “purposive intention;” in order to discern the most important bridges connecting the dead spatial forms with contemporary patterns of life and to show that these patterns are different in each phase. He explains the significance of the cultural characteristics of each phase in the shaping of the building program of secular and religious architecture, and the influence of ideologies and belief in the emergence of divergent attitudes towards the conception of architectural space and styles. According to Frankl, the type of decorative elements in secular buildings, as well as their organization of space and forms has developed accordingly to the specific cultural influences of each phase. And it is exemplified in secular and religious architecture by the distinct and sometime contrasting interactions between the sacred, the patron, and the individual, making secular buildings into places of distinguished social activities, shaped and directed by the two overlapping functional networks. 

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[1] In situations when the program is hard to understand because of cultural or historic circumstances-buildings typical of other cultures or used for functions different from those for which they were originally planned.

[2] The two networks determining the "purpose" of the building are generated by the sequence of spaces made up of centerlines and points and in the position and arrangements of furnishing and presence or absence of decorations.

I was meaning to post this earlier: Die Anstalt

This is just a fun share. 

Die Anstalt - Psychiatrie fur misshandelte Kuscheltiere translated is The Asylum: Psychiatric Clinic for Abused Cuddly Toys. 

This is a flash game, where the player uses various therapeutic methods to resolve each stuffed animals' aliment.  When we started the class discussing Freud and Gestalt, it reminded me of this.  Enjoy! 

PS
Gotta love that awesome photograph of Freud watching over you as you try to help your patients.

Abstraction and Empathy, Worringer, Notes

Life is organic existence and aesthetic enjoyment applied by the two concepts of naturalism and style. Thus, art is objectified enjoyment.

Thus, "a great deal of mischief is wrought with the group of letters that spell 'art'." (30)  Art is innate and it is taken for granted. Empathy and style are the primary factors in the process that gives birth to art.  There are many cross-sections which have to be combined before we can arrive at the notion of what created human artistic creativity.

We seek rest from unclarity, and the more highly evolved we are the greater pains we experience. Space is the enemy of the abstract.

Aesthetic enjoyment is self-enjoyment. This is art, and art is created by three factors: utilitarian purpose, raw material, and techniques. Art is the history of ability, and activity is life.

Art is used to 'satisfy a deep psychic need',  created out of impulse and imitation of that need.

Space is the enemy, and man freed himself from the fear of extended space by habituation and reflection (16).  We develop to push back our fear of being lost in the universe.

There is vast confusion of the world universe, and we try to individualize and center ourselves in it.

The ego is the greatest work of art.

"Can two aesthetic experiences exist within the same coexist within the same artwork?'

Guggenheim inspired by Worringer for its 2009 exhibition, "Abstraction and Empathy"

Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square, n.d. Oil over pencil on cardboard, 33.3 x 29.9 cm. Deutsche Bank Collection