Thank you for making this discussion possible!
@Kate: You know I never thought of the graffiti comparison . . . and I do identify with graffiti art; in fact, I'm reading a book on it right now. But Marden's work does not remind me of street sketches or graffiti art.
To me, creative graffiti has more heat, more intensity, more attitude and character.
I'm glad you told me how you receive the work--as "loopy and strangely restful". Excellent description.
And certainly I can acknowledge this experience. Thank you for opening up my mind.
@Anita: Thank you for sharing this. Formlessness indeed can be beautiful. As in water.
@Joey: Your response was pitch-perfect to my ears. Thank you. I agree.
You know, I'm not an art student. I never was. I studied literature and literary criticism. Literary critics do the exact same thing.
Coming from a younger generation, I would like to see a language, and a particular manner of discussing art, literature, and culture, that is not limited to a select few. I do not like the idea that only certain people can hold the meaning of an object in culture.
I understand the difference between critical judgment and non-critical judgment. I believe intelligence and the ability to articulate one's thoughts and feelings is all that is necessary to distinguish the two. To make a critical judgment, to discuss a cultural topic, one should not have to rely on the guarded terminology, references, and phrases of elite or specialized discourses. We all have our frames of reference, we all have our contexts of understanding art, literature, and culture. Why is one context privileged over another?
But I think democratic language is possible, at least within a given culture. Why should we let language be further fragmented into tiny sub discourses, and sub sub discourses. After a certain point, only two people can understand each other, and then not even that!
Art critics, literary critics, historians, scholars, are cocooned within their own vocabularies; I would like to democratize language. So everyone can talk about art, culture, and literature.
@Peter: My pleasure . . .
@Villa: I thank you for this story. I would not like to admit it but the more I looked at Marden, the more I opened up to the possibility of feeling slightly differently toward these works. But I do not want to exaggerate this; it was no great shift from my initial impression. I simply became more sympathetic to the works.
You describe something that happens a lot in life. Such as when you first meet someone who you can't stand; the next thing you know they're your best friend.
I'm open to a change of heart on anything. This happens in life, and to refuse to acknowledge change, is to be a fundamentalist. We change our ideas, our views, and our feelings constantly change. I embrace contradiction as Whitman once said.
@Jamie: Like with Editorial Joe, your response was pitch-perfect to my ears. Maybe it's a generational thing. I don't know. But I hear you!
@Mark: You're an outstanding writer. You understand art on many levels. But I'm going to have to disagree with you about the question of difficulty.
Yes, ballet is difficult, writing novels is difficult. I'm not arguing about whether what Marden does is difficult or not. Having watched the Charlie Rose interview, I'm aware of the complicated process behind Marden's paintings.
But that's like saying because a novel is a thousand pages long, and caused the author great strain to produce, then the novel itself is great.
Some of the book reviews I read in the New York Times fall into this trap. . . A critic will imply in one way or another the plot was weak or the characters were undeveloped, but because the work is "ambitious", the novel should be considered worthy of our attention.
My primary question is do Marden's works justify his fame, the MoMA exhibit, the world tour, and so on?
Could we be putting the spotlight on better artists and better art?
And if I stood in front of a Marden, would I change my heart and mind? I doubt it, I really doubt that the real thing before me would change my heart on his work. But I'm willing to yield to this argument.
I looked at scores of his works last night. I asked my heart, "Do you feel this?"
My heart said, "No, I do not feel that."
One more thing Mark, I love Pollock. I've seen the movie. I've read about Pollock and I've seen his work.
Pollock's work moves me. I am in awe of it. Marden, on the other hand, is a faint echo of Pollock, not even that. As someone remarked on Twitter, a parody of Pollock.
Anything can be done well or poorly, effectively or ineffectively. Anything can be interesting or not interesting.
Abstract expressionism or photo realism or country music. The school does not dictate the quality and (yes, here's that word again) the originality, or the challenging, daring aspects of the artwork.
But you cannot compare Pollock to Marden! I will not let you make that comparison. Two totally separate levels of creativity and mind.
Marden, in my view, does not have a unique voice.
As Jamie said, "I'm astounded that this man has spent so many years doing such unimpressive work."
@Kayin: Art critics have little power in the art world. I'm reading a book right now called, "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark"; and the power is in the hands of major museums like the MoMA, branded dealers, and branded auction houses.
When the MoMA decided to put Marden in the museum it wasn't as transparent as that. His art sales will be affected by this--there is a lot of marketing and stone cold business behind art museums, exhibitions, dealers, and collectors.
What this means is we stand to lose great art in place of branded art, art by institutional decree, art that is not really good but serves as coin in the art market.
It's complicated and ugly.
@Chip: I have nothing against Abstract Expressionism. If art makes me feel, then it doesn't matter what school or tradition it's from. Rothko, like my comments about Pollock, is in another league. Rothko and Pollock came up with the stuff that Marden only seems to be creating poor, distant imitations of.
And originality, while I agree is a difficult argument to make, is still an element that must be reckoned with. All works have sources. All works derive from something that came before; but not all works are derivative.
Thank you so much guys for sharing with me your thoughts. My intentions are not to dominate the conversation with my views. I write these articles to engage others, to find out what other people think, and then through a conversation I like to come to a place where we can share our ideas.
Lethe
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I like the idea you bring up -- that really the ability to criticize or comment on art belongs to anyone with intelligence and the ability to articulate one's thoughts and feelings -- but one notion gives me pause.
As you know I am right now taking my first dip into E.H. Gombrich's wonderful _The Story of Art_ -- and I am at a halt already at the very beginning. There is an Inuit dance mask (plate No. 28 if you have the book) that I just can't get past. I stare at it, into its empty eyes; I get that jump in the stomach you speak of. And I am almost powerless to tease out why. It has arrested me. I consider myself a moderately articulate person, but I'm stymied to verbalize my reaction beyond that except were I to provide a list of symptoms.
I'll try anyway, here, though. Sometimes art, when it reaches one, kind of short circuits the language centers altogether, doesn't it? Feelings churn, associations bubble up, and no words will come. I'm reminding myself now of Emily Dickenson's criteria for how she knew poetry when she saw it. But yeah, like that.
Is it possible -- and I'm just playing with this idea here -- that some people might just be a little better at putting these reactions into words than others? Of course, there are LOTS more who have found a way to fake this ability, and those are the ones we justly find annoying.
But Gombrich, Warburg, Schama, John Canaday and all those other wonderful writers who made HORIZON magazine such a must in the 60s -- these are the kind of writers that can make, say, a kid in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming (to use an extremely personal example) hungry to see and know more about their subject.
They are rare, though. But all the more to be cherished for all that.
I think I've strayed from the point somewhat, but you get the idea. Maybe.
Do you?
Kate,
100% I get what you're saying. Which is why I gravitate towards good journalism. Good journalism is that bridge between people and topics.
Journalism articulates meaning into a way most people can grasp--it is not specialized, it is generalized.
We need more generalists, in my opinion.
Your first point is also a good one. About art short circuiting language. Sometimes articulation fails us . . . no matter how learned we are, we can not explain certain feelings.
You can even make the argument that the purpose of art is to short circuit language, to get beyond the conceptual level of language . . .
Good writers make readers hungry . . . I like that also.
Lethe
It occurs to me this morning that it is to writers like Gombrich et al that we owe the ability even to be having this discussion; certainly on my end.
I probably learned 95% of what I "know" about art from my mother's collection of HORIZON magazines from the 60s. I still have them now (and am working on a long-term project indexing their contents, since I can find no evidence that such an index is widely available). They are very much a product of that post-war, G.I. Bill era when some of the more democratically minded among the academic elite took that broader view, that the arts and humanities could and should be for everyone, and did something about it.
Were it not for that spirit - which threatens to die again in this age and probably would if it weren't for the internet and sites like this blog and some of the others you've been highlighting - I would fear a backsliding into jargony-babble and the re-mystification of art. Certainly art mostly makes the news in this day and age via how much a collector has paid at auction for a particular object, or when thieves knock over, e.g., the Isabella Stewart Gardner (the theft I always think of because it happened on my birthday).
On a further, wonderful note on writers who demystify without minimizing or debunking art - one of the most illuminating recent works in my opinion is Philip Ball's _Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color_, a scientific history of artists' pigments and media and what had to be done to make and distribute them. If you or your readers have yet to dive into this wonderful book, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is worth it for the story of Indian Yellow alone.
I probably didn't make myself clear. Regardless of what I like and don't like, it is more difficult with some artists (maybe even some types of art, like a lot of abstract painting) to get a handle on what they are doing from a photo. Scale and often texture and the actual colors of the work don't come through in a photo. You're looking at a photo, not a painting. The best photos are a bit like a Chinese whisper compared to the real thing. The Marden photos do look boring, but one might have a different reaction in person. I respond very enthusiastically to artists I like even if I've only seen photos, but for some (say a color field painter, a "minimalist" or an abstract painter like Marden whose work seems to be bland) I prefer to hold judgement until I can see it in the flesh. It's only fair.
The economy of art is a whole other discussion!
Mark,
You're right. I've learned a lot from this whole Marden thing; and one of the things I've learned is not to launch a critique until I've seen the work in person.
I now realize that it can also go the other way; jpegs of an artist's work can look really good on the screen or in print, but in person, it seems only mediocre.
For this reason, sometimes I think certain artists on the Web are at a disadvantage.
But I want to be more careful next time with my judgments.
On Twitter, I got an several interesting DMs in response to my article from @kmsoehnlein:
"I read both your articles on Marden. I was interested because I had a complicated reaction to his work when I saw it at SF MoMa."
"Marden's work struck me as both superficial and able to evoke a reaction that seemed to be deeply emotional. Seeing it in person is different than looking at jpegs. Of course."
"I suppose what I'm saying is that seeing the work in person evoked a paradoxical reaction. Paradox is appealing. Thus...Marden."
Perhaps this is a better judgment. I suppose I'll have to see the work myself.
Thank you, Mark. And I honor your perspective on art and your amazing contributions to Escape into Life.
Kate, we think too much alike. I sent you the Moleskine book today for our exchange.
Cheers, Lethe
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