Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!think!mit-eddie!nessus 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?