Terry Smith, 'The Provincialism Problem'
Done, and a good one. I chose to read this article because I have been trying to process a relocation out of the New York cultural network. I wanted to find something to give words and structure to what I was feeling, which was a weight of cultural condescension.
~I was growing tired of saying that my new place, Portland Maine, was vacuous culturally, because that just was not the truth. There was a vibrant culture of galleries, of cafes, of foodie restaurants and stuff. But its stuff wasn't the stuff I wanted. It wasn't 24hours and it wasn't cosmopolitan. That said, it also was too urban. If it was country, rural or the like, it would have been easier to reconcile the differences, establish a binary opposition with New York on one side and Portland on the other. But with the galleries and the cafes and the foodies it was already assimilating to the cosmopolitan ideals of New York (most specifically it is the 'cultural imperialism' that is exported from New York via 'Sex in the City,' hip-hop, et al.). There are nightclubs and swank bars and as I have said, galleries, but they were different then I what I wanted.~
I decided that was a fucked up way of looking at this new place of mine. Sure it was a little too much of the PG13 version of my former life, what with bars closing at 1 and the city emptying out for Christian holidays and no others. But it was still where I was. So I decided to examine it more thoroughly.
First, I poured myself into landscape (see my Art Monk blog corpse), as Portland Maine's galleries often display some sort of landscape based art whether they be oil paintings in a plein aire style or photography of the urban life a la every fucking photographer ever. But soon I grew tired of staring at the landscape. I don't have the disposition for that brand of peace.
Smith makes a nice argument against the kind of stuff I was to ponder next. My ideas all circulated around the bringing of art from other areas to this place for the purposes of cultural conversations. To that point, Smith argues that 'there are no ideological neutral cultural acts,' and in so saying implies that any culture brought to this place will have to meet with the criticisms of this place.
~The art object, made in another place according to different cultural standards, announces itself within a language that is specific to these phenomenological points. Said differently, The New York art objects are rooted in their New York-ness and therefore talk in a New York language of art. This language is not only announced by the art object itself, rather it is born out of a discourse acknowledged by a collective of specialists. This collective of specialists and their language is validated by the success of some aspect of their work. In this case the New York art market is the tool used to underwrite the authority of the critical system (collective of specialists and their language) within the city. The audiences have learned this language and have assimilated to the authority of the collective of specialists. They 'get' it. Its because of their proximity to it and therefore their increased interaction with it, it being art. But nevertheless, they 'get' it. Therefore, when this art object goes to another venue it becomes the 'other' on display for a community that lacks the proper language to interact with it and therefore understand it.~
This community does not lack a language of cultural interpretation, nor does it lack a collective of specialists. The two substructures are different, although in the same shape. Each has an art market left to venerate certain attributes of the community. Each has a variety of different arts education programs available at multiple degree levels. And so, the need to bring in something to elicit a cultural exchange is in fact lopsided. New York is not a venue for Portland art, but the case is true in reverse.
Perhaps this is the caveat to explore.
(Influenced by Terry Smith's 'The Provincialism Problem' and Sarah Charlesworth's 'Declaration of Dependence.")
Done, and a good one. I chose to read this article because I have been trying to process a relocation out of the New York cultural network. I wanted to find something to give words and structure to what I was feeling, which was a weight of cultural condescension.
~I was growing tired of saying that my new place, Portland Maine, was vacuous culturally, because that just was not the truth. There was a vibrant culture of galleries, of cafes, of foodie restaurants and stuff. But its stuff wasn't the stuff I wanted. It wasn't 24hours and it wasn't cosmopolitan. That said, it also was too urban. If it was country, rural or the like, it would have been easier to reconcile the differences, establish a binary opposition with New York on one side and Portland on the other. But with the galleries and the cafes and the foodies it was already assimilating to the cosmopolitan ideals of New York (most specifically it is the 'cultural imperialism' that is exported from New York via 'Sex in the City,' hip-hop, et al.). There are nightclubs and swank bars and as I have said, galleries, but they were different then I what I wanted.~
I decided that was a fucked up way of looking at this new place of mine. Sure it was a little too much of the PG13 version of my former life, what with bars closing at 1 and the city emptying out for Christian holidays and no others. But it was still where I was. So I decided to examine it more thoroughly.
First, I poured myself into landscape (see my Art Monk blog corpse), as Portland Maine's galleries often display some sort of landscape based art whether they be oil paintings in a plein aire style or photography of the urban life a la every fucking photographer ever. But soon I grew tired of staring at the landscape. I don't have the disposition for that brand of peace.
Smith makes a nice argument against the kind of stuff I was to ponder next. My ideas all circulated around the bringing of art from other areas to this place for the purposes of cultural conversations. To that point, Smith argues that 'there are no ideological neutral cultural acts,' and in so saying implies that any culture brought to this place will have to meet with the criticisms of this place.
~The art object, made in another place according to different cultural standards, announces itself within a language that is specific to these phenomenological points. Said differently, The New York art objects are rooted in their New York-ness and therefore talk in a New York language of art. This language is not only announced by the art object itself, rather it is born out of a discourse acknowledged by a collective of specialists. This collective of specialists and their language is validated by the success of some aspect of their work. In this case the New York art market is the tool used to underwrite the authority of the critical system (collective of specialists and their language) within the city. The audiences have learned this language and have assimilated to the authority of the collective of specialists. They 'get' it. Its because of their proximity to it and therefore their increased interaction with it, it being art. But nevertheless, they 'get' it. Therefore, when this art object goes to another venue it becomes the 'other' on display for a community that lacks the proper language to interact with it and therefore understand it.~
This community does not lack a language of cultural interpretation, nor does it lack a collective of specialists. The two substructures are different, although in the same shape. Each has an art market left to venerate certain attributes of the community. Each has a variety of different arts education programs available at multiple degree levels. And so, the need to bring in something to elicit a cultural exchange is in fact lopsided. New York is not a venue for Portland art, but the case is true in reverse.
Perhaps this is the caveat to explore.
(Influenced by Terry Smith's 'The Provincialism Problem' and Sarah Charlesworth's 'Declaration of Dependence.")