This week we read two conversations from our text book, “Conversations before the end of time” by Suzi Gablik. We also had a presentation from a photographer named Terri Warpinski this week in class. The first conversation in the book was with Richard Shusterman who is an associate professor of philosophy at Temple University. This professor feels that “we need to infuse our criticism of art with a wider awareness of its social role” (249). He believes in the experience of developing art and what that gives the artist. He wants to expand the roles of the galleries so that they show that “aesthetic experience clearly exceeds the limits of fine art and its objects” (250). I completely think that his ideas of how we should address this are correct, but it would take a lot of funding to incorporate more in the galleries, wouldn’t it? And then he went on to explain why the people who are in the galleries are such snobs! He said “Someone who can look at a landscape in a disinterested and disembodied way in terms of formal properties alone, and in terms of its sensual and emotional satisfactions, rather than in terms of what it means for one’s life practically, is someone who doesn’t have to worry about her needs and who can demonstrate great intellectual control” (252). This is exactly right and I have never realized this before! Someone who doesn’t normally think about the practicality of things is a great art gallery critic. But that’s horrible! Isn’t it? I think it is. Just because they come from a higher standard way of living, does that give them the right to be the critics? Maybe it does because they have more education… But what about the practical side of things? Why can’t someone who isn’t as fortunate critic it? Do you think they might feel intimidated because they know they shouldn’t be doing it? Or because they don’t have as much knowledge about the world as a student might. Then he addressed Aristotle’s view of “what you do affects who you are.” Or is it, who you are affects what you do? Well this made me immediately think about the movie Across the Universe when Max invites Jude over for Thanksgiving. What was interesting, was Jude’s response to the conversation. “Surely it’s not what you do, but how you do it.” And this is all the new way of thinking, which our next conversationalist addresses.
“In 1994, Carol Becker was appointed the dean and vice-president for academic affairs of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, having been a former chair of the graduate division before that” (355). The most interesting idea that Becker noticed about her students was that they have accepted that they won’t all be “art stars.” She says, “As modernists, when we were growing up, there was always the feeling that one was ever moving toward perfecting oneself, to greater and greater levels. Or that one was always trying to transcend the philosophical system that one came out of, to move to the next thing. These students don’t frame their life with that sense of movement or progress. They live much more in a moment-to-moment way that isn’t necessarily based on progression. It may not be going anywhere, and they can live with that” (377). Isn’t that how Max is depicted? He wants to figure out more about the world before he can find out what he wants to do and how he wants to develop himself. And that is exactly what Becker is talking about. She wants to include their academics as “ideas” that frame their school. These “ideas” would always be changing but they would always be thinking about the ideas that would be framing their art. That makes sense, because they would learn more. They would understand more about the world and their opinions of it and who they wanted to be would come from that. Another interesting idea was when they talked about moving out of the physical plane. I thought it was funny, I guess because I’m younger and I don’t see it as a threat at all, I see it as a good thing, a helpful thing. Becker said that she didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Well I think we know when to stop, and how much to preserve. Too much of one thing, is never good. Ever. Just because we like to have easier ways to access information doesn’t mean we want the whole world to be screens… They then asked if we even wanted these changes, like we didn’t have a say in it. Well guess what? We wouldn’t make the changes if we didn’t want them! They also say that technology is moving so fast that it’s hard to keep up… My answer to that is, no offense, but maybe they should pay closer attention to it if they don’t want to be scared of it. It’s really not that hard to get a hang of. Anyway, this brings me to our guest speaker: Terri Warpinski.
Warpinski started off painting when she was a little girl, taught by her grandmother because her parents were both teachers. Little did she know, she would grow up to become a teacher just like her parents! She has been teaching since 1982 and mostly, takes black and white photographs. Her work is really beautiful because she adds her own colors and makes her own marks over her photographs. This is really special because she adds her own “language” to her pictures which, to me, makes them more special. She talked about “chance favoring only prepared mind.” Which deals with the idea I addressed before with having a good knowledge base so that it can helps an artist, or an individual, grow. She believes that art should incorporate humans and their relationship with nature, which goes along with the ideas that the conversationalists had. They, too, believe that art should deal with social and political issues. Art needs to be a broader spectrum, and I agree with them. She included the way she felt about her art saying, “my work needs to be meaningful, it needs to help me learn things about the world.” This statement was perfect in recognizing that the world is always changing and your views of it should always be changing as well. She continued this by saying that art guides her intellectual pursuits, it lets her make more multimedia pieces. This shows that the world will always be further developing and everything is a recreation of something else. Nothing is ever new, and I guess that technology could be an enabler for that. But that doesn’t matter because there needs to be continuity, so that we can all be connected. We need to continue to celebrate the beautiful and genius of the past and try and learn from it so we can incorporate it into our lives today. Then we can continue to evolve and better the future.
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