I struggle to respond to Ranciere, because I do not have a PhD in philosophy and I have emails to reply to, But I Must.
I appreciate the ways in which Ranciere parallels art and politics as avenues for human gathering. He does this first by debasing these constructs to their most basic elements: art is sculpture, painting, dance, song and so on which are on their own craft but come together to from culture; politics is a macro-level agreement between populations and individuals that power and consent will be traded to varying degrees of equity and efficacy. In this, we can clearly see how art is more powerful than politics: art is all of its crafts and power and consent, while Cheeto-in-Charge couldn't paint a dog for his Winter White House (Bush, on the other hand, isn't bad). Both art and politics unite, but on different terms.
What art does not need that politics does is the consent of the public for it to exist. As such, art exists on its own terms. Here we arrive at a junction, whether to subscribe to modernist beliefs of the artist as singular genius responsible for bringing great artwork to the public, or in a postmodern sensibility in which art is a sum and reflection of society's parts. Power is present in each perspective, but its location varies - here Ranciere comes thru with the politicization of aesthetics.
All throughout Contemporary Art and the Politics of Aesthetics, Ranciere steeps his discussion in the art world, acknowledging its tendency to incorporate contemporary art's fancy for bringing in everyday objects into its domain. Never is it acknowledged that the politicization of art - even the dissensual forms of critical art - exist outside the domain of the museum, the art world, the bubble of people with access to museums and politics.
Ranciere views art as solely that which is created by artists for exhibitions. What of the creative choices made regularly, and unconsciously? Are they not political? To limit analysis to Raushenberg, Barney, and museum exhibitions is to say that only established artists may be political.
Ranciere states four dissensual forms of critical art: the joke, the collection, the invitation, and the mystery. This is an insightful reflection on the constitution of contemporary art. These forms exist in the bodega. He even invites this association: "Art is not made of paintings, poems, or melodies. Above all, it is made of some spatial setting, such as the theater, the monument, or the museum." It is important to recognize and interpret how a space exists in connection to time, whether the space is a palimpsest over time or is, relative to a human's life, immune to its confines. And while museums may be more timeless (because they're way richer) than a bodega, the building typology endures.
The collection is the essence of the bodega: Takis, rice, bacon egg and cheese and a cat all exist within its walls. The mystery exists in how these goods define the bodega's customers, and thus, the neighborhood: the bodega is mad ethnographic. Invitation exists to varying degrees, and yet overall one is always invited into a bodega. And finally, the joke. Here Ranciere slays. The joke is not a punchline, it is the unveiling of a secret under which we all exist but must be made aware of. Perhaps the joke of the bodega is not universal, but bodega dependent. Maybe there's no punchline, and maybe its existence is the lifting of the wool. What is certain is that their presence and adoration in urban areas is monumental, and their absence in suburban areas similarly monumental. From here, one may interpret freely.
Ultimately, however, the bodega is no less a monumental artwork than Rauschenberg's Combine paintings (which, honey, I've never heard of). It is, however, obedient to Ranciere's observation of both art and politics as vehicles for human gathering around what is common: cultural participation, political consent, and the need to understand and assign power within society.
No comments:
Post a Comment