[NewMusic] no one cares

[George Cremaschi]

Mr Goodheart wrote:

> what interested me most in the Gehry quote was the dependence 
> of quality on the acceptance in the "market place;"  how much of 
> an internalized concept that is. ...that his work in some way is a 
> physicalization of radical individualism that forms the base of 
> contemporary spectacular discourse.

Of course it is: I certainly wouldn't expect a refutation of hyper-capitalism
from one of it's most spectacularly successful artists. The internalization
that you speak of is so complete in US society that most folks there can't 
even begin to grasp what the hell you're talking about. The triumph of
the "I" is complete - even if it is nearly completely an illusory concept
in actual practice. How many real individuals are there in US society?
Well, about how many there are in pretty much any society. What makes
US society so much more obnoxious than many other places is how many
people are walking around thoroughly convinced that they are 'individuals',
and therefore, somehow special.

 
> Of course, Andrew says "Fuck the marketplace," but then perhaps this  
> becomes a semantic issue? 

Perhaps, but refreshingly, Andrew seems interested in artistic practice in opposition
to mainstream culture. However, this idea is inherently at odds with:
  
>as Andrew says; you want to sound like "yourself"

Ironically, Andrew promotes this notion while also talking about playing
tabla: in classical Indian music, folks are supposed to submerse themselves 
in a rich and long historical tradition, not sound like 'themselves'. And the
American in me would certainly love to hear somebody do something 'original'
with the tabla, instead of the same old 'tradition' that I've heard a zillion times.
But this emphasis on individuality is a problem: it often creates competition and
rivalry among artists, not community. Far from being the sacred idea that
US historiography promotes, 'rugged individualism' has caused a lot of
trouble. Thus, for me, the central paradox of being a post-modern, politically
and historically aware artist: am I really just working with ideas that are 
actually the base ideas of a system and a society that I am direct opposition
to? The political side of me loathes much contemporary avant garde art as a 
meaningless bourgeoise exercise (Matthew Barney comes to mind) but the artist 
side of me loathes most political art as didactic and boring, and most folk art as
just plain boring.


> I've been wondering (again) about this, as it seems the mantra for not  
> only our scene, but in a larger sense, the for "marketplace/culture"  
> of our times - what political candidate has not said, for that matter,  
> that they were "maverick" and "outsider?" 

The selling of 'revolution' and 'outsiderness' has been a cornerstone of US 
commercial and political culture for quite some time now. The Baffler, a great 
journal from Chicago, now sadly defunct, documented this trend at length 15 years 
ago.


> Isn't  even the idea of art being an individualistic expression something  
> that arose contemporaneous with modern capitalism? 

We could quibble a bit about dates, but ultimately, yes. And we could also
say that Modernism, of which Frank Gehry is perhaps the last great exponent,
and which is the most popular and successful, economically-speaking, area of 
avant gardism, reached it's apotheosis with World War II. In a recent article
in the London Review, two quotes really stand out: "Modernism was the culture
of an age of mass death" and "Modernism was an aesthetic thanatophilia".
Gehry's a lot closer to Albert Speer than his benefactors would like to admit.
Not that I'm criticizing him: I've certainly gone out of my way to see his buildings.
What he does is fantastic. What it means, however, is another story altogether.


> Therefore, isn't it possible the notion of artistic individualism is an outgrowth of 
> an internalized concept of "marketplace?"  

I think that has been firmly established.


> How, then, does this focus on individualism shape the aesthetic possibilities?

Time to pull out the Guy Debord books......

 
> Fuck, I don't know if any of this is right, or makes any sense. It  
> just keeps peaking my interest . .

It's 'piquing' your interest . .


-George

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