Week 3 posts

Art

The Stuckists are an anti-postmodernity movement. They propose instead Remodernity, to reapply the principles of Modern Art, highlighting spirituality rather than formalism.  They do not believe that a urinal is art. They feel that art has taken a wrong turn when it abandoned a dedication to human issues and want to bring some form of God back into art. While I may not agree with all of their principles, I concur that art has taken a wrong turn somewhere. Damien Hirst’s art is a good example of what I think is wrong. A shark in formaldehyde is a wonderful example of natural process but is not art. And his dot paintings, of which there are thousands, mostly made by assistants, are nothing to me more than interesting wallpaper. Perhaps Martha Stewart could put them in her home decorating line. Yet he makes millions of dollars on what he puts forth as art. I do not begrudge Damien Hirst the money but I prefer art that has a soul, some of the spirit of the artist in it. If Hirst’s art expresses his spirit, then he must be at heart a cynical smart ass, from what I can see.

http://www.stuckism.com/stuckistmanifesto.html#manifest

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/arts/design/damien-hirsts-spot-paintings-at-gagosian-in-eight-cities.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Thinking

I can’t cite an online reference, but to quote from Francis Collins’ book The Language of God,  “For those who argue that materialism should be favored over theism, because materialism is simpler and more intuitive, these new concepts [6 flavors of quarks, each of which has three colors, rather than simply neutrons and protons, are the particles of existence] present a major challenge….Today Occam’s Razor [that the simplest explanation is usually the best] appears to have been relegated to the Dumpster….” The explanations that work the best are mathematical and thus are not available to the understanding of most of us. Thus many people turn to a Higher Being and say that he is the reason things are so. For Nietsche’s Übermensch, explanation would not be necessary as he will just embrace the particles as the way things are and will not need a resolution of why they are that way. I think this is grossly simplified but is the way I currently understand this concept. For the Übermensch, it is not having it all make sense that makes life worth living. It is what it is and one revels in that without sense or reward.

Social change – 2 posts related to Lee Mun Wah’s presentation

The questions that Lee Mun Wah poses are key for us to confront why we don’t talk more about race. I think of myself as not racist but I think in all honesty we all have biases that are hard to admit to, especially to people of another race. By this time of my life I would like to think that my prejudices have less to do with race than with other factors, e.g. I can’t understand the fashion for having one’s pants hanging so low that you have to use one hand to keep them from sliding around your ankles. I dislike this style whether it is a white or person of color wearing it. Perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in this regard was when, in art history class, I referred to some figures in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights as Negroes. I did this after some thought, thinking that the figures were meant to be of the Negroid race. (Why I didn’t just say black figures, since that is what color they were, I don’t know. I definitely overthought this.)  Another student in the class gave me a daggers look when I said this and after class she came up to me and said that she was very uncomfortable with my use of the word Negroes. I apologized and said that if we had been talking about something current I never would have used that word and that I appreciated her speaking to me about how she felt. Later on in the semester we saw each other in the library and joked about the papers we were writing. No hard feelings because she spoke up when the issue first arose. Talking does help.

http://www.stirfryseminars.com/letsgetreal/

News: Oui, je parle français. Wanna make something of it?
On last night’s All Things Considered there was a discussion about how speaking another language fluently ahs become a liability for political candidates. As if it is an issue at all. Kennedy obviously didn’t speak German when he announced, “I am a jelly doughnut” (“ Ich bin ein Berliner.”) but everyone appreciated his willingness to try, as did the Italians we met this summer in our travels. When we tried to ask for things in Italian we invariably got complemented, not that we spoke good Italian but that we cared enough to try. NPR let out that Obama speaks Indonesian. Don’t spread that around – who knows what the wackos will make of it?

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=146062632&m=146062627