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From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Avant-garde pop?  (A question on importance)
Message-ID: <249@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 03:23:31 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.249
Posted: Wed Oct 30 03:23:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Nov-85 02:22:41 EST
Distribution: net.music
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 121

["This is pop!"]

>> [Me:] ..... I do think that "avant-garde pop" [....] is the most
>> important area of art today...

> [Marcel Simon:] Why do you think that?

Art is a form of communication.  Thus it seems to me that the importance
of a piece of art is strongly related to the number of people it can
communicate to.  Importance is different than quality, though.  A
certain work of art may communicate very powerfully to a very few
people.  In that case, for them the work of art is of high quality, but
perhaps the work of art is of little importance.  Another work of art
may reach lots of people, but it may have nothing to say or may
communicate detrimental things.  In this case, the work is important,
but bad.  Lionel Richie's (I'll give Madonna a break, for a moment)
music is so represensible because not only is it awful, but by reaching
so many people, it is polluting an incredibly important area of art.  I
wouldn't spend much breath saying that a bad unknown artist is bad,
because who cares?  On the other hand, I might spend a lot of breath on
saying that a great unknown artist is great, because I feel that their
work has the potential for being very important, even if it isn't yet.

I feel that "avant-garde pop" is the most important field of art today
because such art can reach millions of people also be of extremely high
quality.

> [Gregory Taylor:]

> In the context of his background, there's little in Eno's early work
> that was not in some way derivative: He owes the notion of systems in
> music to his teachers Schmit, Bryars, and the writings of Stafford
> Beer. He's upfront about that as well. He ripped off Terry Riley's
> two-deck tape loop system, captain Beefheart's lyrical techniques, and
> so forth. But he did good work, right? I don't think you can really
> mount a good case for any more than the fact that Eno took his sources
> and mediated them into the marketplace.....

Just because you can't isolate one specific technique or system that an
artist invented, doesn't mean that their work isn't original.  What's
ultimately important in art is what is communicated, and that is
independent of technique and mechanism.  If the sensation of
experiencing the work of an artist is very different from the sensation
of experiencing the work of other artists, then that artist has created
highly original work, even if one can't easily analyze the work to
figure out just what it is about that makes the experience very
different.

> The "cutting edge" stuff still goes to all those awful "avant-garde"
> types, though. If that doesn't satifsy you, then you could speculate
> on what Eno's strictly "formal" contributions might be....

As I just said in my preceding paragragh, I don't think that "formal"
contributions are the only important thing to consider.

>> [Fred Vermorel] maintains that "pop" is the only form of art that
>> really counts today.  Now, I certainly can't agree with that, but....

> But the Post_structuralist view says that "pop" is the only art form
> of the day because "art" is a function of the number of people you can
> reach. They've effectively decided that the real "avant-garde" are the
> ones who successfully manipulate access and image as a part of their
> art in the arena of information/public taste. By that view, Madonna
> herself is right out there on the cutting edge....

I dunno about the Post Structuralists, but Vermorel doen't say that art
is just a function of the number of people you can reach, but that the
importance of art is a function of the number of the people you can
reach.  He has good things to say about the painter David Hockney, but
says that his art is ultimately not very important because fine art
painting isn't something that reaches many people these days.  I agree
with him to a point, because this is basically what I said above, but
Vermorel also says lots of rediculous things too.  For example, he
basically says that the "avant-garde" is totally worthless, but while
doing so makes a good point or two:

	Pop is the only art which really counts today.  Our most
	progressive -- responsive, mutable, hungry and eclectic -- form.
	The taskmaster and pacemake of all the arts.  It now stands
	where painting stood in the early century, as the focus of
	problems and innovation: our leader art.

	Meanwhile the avant garde has turned itself into a display of
	fossilised passions and polemic as dignified and predictable as
	classical ballet.  And no more important.  A show to put on for
	a public of bankers, civil servants and TV producers interested
	merely in investment potential -- for securities or reputations.
	Hardly art at all, since it no longer moves, surprises or alerts
	us.  Merely mystifies, bores or impresses.  This avant garde
	boldly announces its allegiance to Eternal Values and sneers at
	hit parades.  But forgets what the old modernists knew very
	well.  That only *contigent* art interests future generations:
	art grounded in and fraught with the moment, art rooted in
	ephemera, in love with the detail and the people (not an idea)
	of history.  As Simone de Beauvoir pointed out, no one now
	bothers with Rousseau's laboured "masterpiece", "Les reveries du
	promeneur solitaire".  Or can ignore his "Confessions".

	But states and bureaucrats love dead art and fear the risk,
	excitement and danger of living art.  Just as the Soviet Union
	mounts its Bolshoi under Czarist chandeliers, the British Arts
	Council mounts a symposium on John Cage.  Yet who will remember
	John Cage in 100 years?  Or not know Kate Bush?

Personally, I tend to think that both will be remembered.  Though I
would agree that the latter is more likely.

			"I wanted to live forever
			 The way that you will too"

			 Doug Alan
			  nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)


P.S.

> I bet you even though of running out and buying the execrable "Against
> All Odds" soundtrack just because PG has "walk through the fire" on
> it, right?

Why, is it different than what's on the 12-inch single?