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Entry: Shvarts epilogue
Something else for us to wonder about:
Liberty requires responsibility. You see this very explicitly with children who are appropriately raised. The art department is now going to undergo scrutiny that it did not before, because it has demonstrated a lack of sufficient responsiblity in that it did not tell Shvarts that her project was unacceptable. Whether this was because her advisers wanted to appear hip, or because they were confused as to the extent of their authority over the students, or because they actually thought her project was just fine, makes no difference here. So I wonder if Shvarts thought about the fact that her shock art could very well result in censorship of her fellow students that they would not have had otherwise.
Shock art, IMO, shares this with civil disobedience: there will be consequences that the artist should anticipate and probably won't like, and that should be considered part of the whole picture. You can't do these things and then whine about the outcome. If the consequences aren't worth the statement you're making, then perhaps you reconsider your actions.
Also, I wonder how much her fellow art students signed on to what the publicity about Shvarts's project has done to their Yale art degree.
Posted by Laura(southernxyl) at April 22, 2008 10:35 AM
If someone starts out with the idea of being "transgressive," he is unlikely to create great art...or great anything else. Stravinsky did not create "Rites of Spring" with the intention of starting a near-riot. Galileo did not develop his theory of planetary motion with the intention of offending the Church hierarchy. They pursued their ideas of beauty and truth where these ideas took them, and if people were offended, so be it. Very different from setting up "transgression" as the primary objective of the work.
Related: See "Art, Discomfort, and Dehumanization" at my blog.
Posted by david foster at April 23, 2008 6:00 AM
"fuckwittage"?! This is a new one for me. Maybe too long since I took a decent English course. Is this a creation of our esteemed hostess/commentator/moderator? Or a word in common circulation? Is it perhaps a misspelling of the common technical term "fuckwattage"?
Posted by Mike at April 24, 2008 10:35 AM
Helen Fielding gets credit for fuckwittage. It's a good, handy, usable word.
Posted by Erin O'Connor at April 24, 2008 11:01 AM
OK, that dictionary, that is not the one I usually keep handy. Sounds like kind of a loaded definition. Applies to women only in rare cases huh? Hah! But maybe it's girl-talk for "mindfucking", which does seem like more of a male pastime.
By the way, I don't know who Bridget Jones is. Is this part of my mis-education? Anyhow I will have to look her up. I mean, look her up on the internet.
Hey is this getting too highbrow for this blog?
Used first in Bridget Jones' Diary, it has now become a synonym for the mindgames men play when dating. It can also be applied to women in rare cases.
It can be preceded by "emotional" to make it about manipulating emotions or just plain "fuckwittage"
Girl 1: Oh Dan said he loved me but he's not ready for a relationship
Girl 2: That's just emotional fuckwittage. Get out of the relationship!
Posted by Mike at April 24, 2008 11:24 AM
OK, now I got it, I may be slow on the uptake, but I work at being slightly couth. Bridget Jones the character in the Helen Fielding novel or whatever it is she writes. (Doesn't she have a brother named Henry or something?) Not the real-life actress Bridget Jones.
Posted by Mike at April 24, 2008 11:30 AM
Fendrich is wrong: edgy art can't be *sanctioned* by institutions, but it can originate there as much as anywhere. But then, edginess is just part of "the degrading slavery of being a child of one's age" anyway.
Posted by Clem Malmborg at May 1, 2008 9:25 PM