Re: <nettime> Pollock, Art History and Cold War [was: Wikileaks is old hat]

[Goran Maric <goranmaric58@hotmail.com>]

I find America to be a country of tremendous paradoxes, on one side we
have harsh capitalism with its goal of enslaving, while on the other
side we have explosion of people movments in all areas, reflecting
itself in art, as well. But when I say people art, I do not reffer
to, (forgive me on the bad term) high art. There is this constant
biomorphis of high and "low" While living in a socialist country I
grew up on cartoons and comics, from the US, but also european school
was quite a strong one, and we had a strong school of comics art, as
well. Yet I found that I had to go through bitterly fights here in
the US in protecting these so called, "low" arts against "high" arts
during my art education. Maybe I was just in wrong places at wrong
times???

But on the other hand, I was watching an interview with guys from     
"Doors," when they were asked to compare the European listeners,      
youngsters to American young listeners. The response was that         
young American, and we talk here about 1968-70 do not want to be      
discussing, to be bugged, about politics too much. This I see as the  
product of the American political regime I was trying to be critical  
of while arguing about J. Pollock and AB Art. Europe in this regard   
was somewhat in between two fires, hard core american capitalism, and 
on the other side a socialism/communism knocking in its door all the  
time. The European leftist movment has been always strong and more    
powerful than in the US. And again it was reflected through other     
aspect of everyday experience.                                        

Though I do agree quite a lot with Adorno especially in his
description of the US cultural machinery utilized by the either
government through its financial oligarchy, I disagree on quite many
aspects with him as well. He was way too much elitistic. I think he
didn't want to or couldn't see the potential in democratic nature
of plurality in art. In that regard the best arguments were going
between him and Benjamin. We still can find people who believe that
cinematography is not art. And seeing majority of cinematography,
especially the most popular cinematography in the US one could
somewhat agree with this postulate. This similar problem was taking
place in China literature about 300 - 400 years ago. But to conclude,
the Entertainment is not art in itself. It is like soda and chips,
fast food and pizza. Fast shock of sense with not lasting effects, and
too much exposure will cause real damage, - in regard to culture -
stupendifying of population, or making people ignorant to the outside
inputs. What sometimes I can see in the arts, especially here in the
US, is the lack of a sharp edge of an uncompromised argument.

best,
gORAN

> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 06:05:12 +0100
> From: keith@thememorybank.co.uk
> To: nettime-l@kein.org
> Subject: Re: <nettime> Pollock,	Art History and Cold War [was: Wikileaks is old hat]
> 
> 
> Like Michael, I know what I like when it comes to art, but not always
> why. But this exchange provides me with an unexpected opportunity to
> post a reflection on the history of art and role of the ruling powers
> in shaping public taste.


 

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org