Oranbeg NET 06: Art as theory

Nydia Blas Williams Chris Moffett

Rose Marie Cromwell

Lizz Thabet Jay Gould

Mitch Patrick

Josh Brilliant Jacob Riddle

Art  as  theory:  curators’  a/er-­‐word    

We  hope  that  you  have  enjoyed  issue  06  of  Oranbeg  NET.  Broadly  speaking,  we  can  find  two  ways  in  which  art  and  theory  have  operated  together.  On  the  one  hand,  art  has  been  used  in  order  to  illustrate  and,  in  turn,  produce  theory  by  being  either  read  as  or  made  in  response  to  text.  On  the  other  hand,  art  itself  has  been  called  upon  by  theorists  or  made  by  arEsts  as  theory,  mobilized  to  do  what  text  cannot.  The  former  we  refer  to  as  art  and  theory,  and  the  laGer  we  call  art  as  theory.    Art  and/as  theory;  art  and/as  theory  

   Louis  Althusser  (1971/2001)  reads  the  painEngs  of  Leonardo  Cremonini  in  order  to  flesh  out  a  concepEon  of  social  relaEons  (including  relaEons  of  producEon),  subjecEvity,  and  knowledge.  Althusser  remarks  on  how  Cremonini  does  not  paint  things  themselves,  but  rather  the  rela.ons  between  things.  Similarly,  the  subjects  that  Cremonini  paints  are  de-­‐formed,  or  deprived  of  determinate  form.  This  changes  the  relaEonship  between  the  viewer  and  the  artwork  away  from  a  process  of  consumpEon:  ‘his  painEng  denies  the  spectator  the  compliciEes  of  communion  in  the  complacent  breaking  of  the  humanist  bread’  (p.  164).  The  image  is  not  readily  decoded  through  dominant  (i.e.,  humanist)  frameworks.  Paradoxically,  however,  through  this  very  denial  of  idenEficaEon  and  self-­‐recogniEon  the  viewer  is  able  to  gain  knowledge  about  themselves  and  the  social  and  economic  relaEons  by  and  through  which  they  are  interpellated.  Cremonini’s  painEngs  of  abstracEon  thereby  not  only  shiZ  Althusser’s  theory  of  the  subject  and  its  relaEonship  to  the  mode  of  producEon  to  an  aestheEc  register,  but  actually  intensify  this  theory  by  demonstraEng  how  deeply  the  realm  of  the  aestheEc  is  consEtuted  by  ideology,  unable  to  uncover  an  essence  or  origin  of  the  human;  it  is—just  like  epistemology  or  poliEcs—constrained  by  its  own  internal  structure,  confined  to  its  own  level  of  the  social  totality.    For  a  case  in  which  art  has  been  made  in  response  to—and,  arguably,  in  an  effort  to  further  develop—theory,  we  turn  to  the  structural/materialist  film  movement,  a  type  of  formalism-­‐in-­‐movement,  associated  with  such  arEsts  like  Malcolm  Le  Grice,  Peter  Gidal,  and  The  Valsukas.  Taking  place  throughout  the  1960s  and  into  the  early  1970s,    

structural/materialist  film  (and,  later,  video)  moved  away  from  realism  and  narraEve,  seeking  instead  to  explore  and  demysEfy  the  mediaEon  of  the  art  tool;  it  was  a  retreat  into  the  medium  itself,  an  aGempt  to  create  a  record  instead  of  a  representa.on.  In  so  doing,  it  effected  a  change  in  the  relaEonship  between  the  art  object  and  its  subject,  ‘forc[ing]  the  spectator  into  a  confrontaEon  with  the  cinemaEc  image’  (Meigh-­‐Andrews,  2006,  p.  77).  The  structuralist  emphasis  on  and  rendering  visible  of  the  process  and  rela.ons  that  consEtute  any  situaEon  and  subjecEvity  was  at  once  taken  up,  performed,  and  advanced  in  this  body  of  work.      We  recognize  a  paradigmaEc  example  of  art  as  theory  in  the  work  of  Jean-­‐François  Lyotard.  We  think  that  his  uElizaEon  of  art  as  theory  is  best  exhibited  in  his  book  Discourse,  figure  (1971/2011).  The  theory  itself  that  this  book  arEculates  would  not  be  possible  without  art  and,  in  parEcular,  the  drawings  of  Paul  Klee.  In  this  work,  Lyotard  is  aGempEng  to  think  through  the  relaEonship  between  discourse—as  that  which  can  be  represented  through  concepts—and  the  figural—as  that  which  resists  subsumpEon  into  any  system  of  representaEon.  The  inclusion  of  Klee’s  drawings  in  the  book  enable  Lyotard  and  the  reader—or,  more  appropriately,  viewer—to  bear  witness  to  the  unrepresentable  that  is  the  figural.  Klee’s  lines  do  the  work  that  Lyotard’s  words  admiGedly  cannot.  While  Lyotard  does,  of  course,  write  text  about  Klee  and  his  lines,  he  does  not  ‘read’  them;  the  art  itself  theorizes,  operaEng  as  an  independent  mode  of  thought.  These  are  some  of  the  ways  we  have  been  conceptualizing  this  relaEonship.  We  think  the  images  contained  in  this  exhibiEon  employ  these  and  more.        References:    Althusser,  L.  (1971/2001).  Cremonini,  painter  of  the  abstract,  in  B.  Brewste(trans),  Lenin  and  philosophy  and  other  essays.  New  York:  Monthly  Review  Press  Lyotard,  J-­‐F.  (1971/2011).  Discourse,  figure  (trans.  by  A.  Hudek  and  M.  Lydon).  Minneapolis  and  London:  University  of  Minnesota  Press.  Meigh-­‐Andrews,  C  (2006).  A  history  of  video  art:  the  development  of  form  and  func.on.  Oxford  and  New  York:  Berg  

Nydia Blas Williams!Chris Moffett!

Chris Moffett!

Lizz Thabet!

Rose Marie Cromwell!Rose Marie Cromwell!

Nydia Blas Williams!Nydia Blas Williams!

Lizz Thabet!

Lizz Thabet!Jay Gould!

Jay Gould!

Mitch Patrick!Mitch Patrick!

Josh Brilliant!

Jacob Riddle! Jacob Riddle!

Curators: Sarah Pfohl, Central Michigan University Derek R. Ford, Syracuse University