Rise Above

I’d really like to see (or hear) a conversation between Gude and Duncum comparing and contrasting their respective systems of seven.  I remember being bowled over by Gude’s Postmodern Principles the first time I read them and I’ve referred back to them a number of times since, so I couldn’t help but wonder as I read Duncum’s introductory paragraph just what it was that compelled him to contrast them with a system of his own.  I kind of hate to admit it, but it actually put me into a bit of a defensive mindset initially.  I suppose I’m as fond of a useful and sympathetic ideology as the next guy…

In any case, on closer inspection, I don’t think that it’s Duncum’s intention to create a competing ideology.  Though necessarily, by the logic of his own argument, that’s exactly what he must be doing: all artifacts are engaged in a power struggle for the attention of an audience.  However, I choose to exercise my share in the power struggle (“Power is equally exercised when viewers interpret images,” he tells us) and to think of their works in collaboration rather than opposition.  So there.

Sorry to be cheeky about it but Duncum’s article was a bit of déjà vu for me.  The first five principles that he offers were straight out of the critical theory branch of the college English curriculum (which , in turn, I believe have their origin in the writings of the French historian, Michel Foucault).  The last two principles were new but they didn’t quite fit with those first five either.  The first five principles offered constructs by which to examine the relationship of an image to its audience; these last two examine  the relationship between an image and another phenomena (be it sound, word, or another image).  But these quibbles aside, what Duncum offers is an idea-based alternative to Gude’s technique-based elements.  The funny thing is that I never realized how formal/technique-based Gude’s approach was until I read Duncum’s offering and I think that’s because Gude has a tendency to tie the discovery of her postmodern techniques to the circumstances (changes in culture, technology, etc) that made them useful so that the artistic ends/ideas are hard to separate from the means/technique.  Duncum teases out the psychological constructs, disentangling the postmodern mindsets from the postmodern methods.

But all of this begs the question: how are our students to use these constructs in their art making.  As a student of literature, I wound up getting pretty frustrated with the poststructuralist critical discourse: all that reading between the lines leads one to suspect equivocation everywhere.   Examining the war of ideologies potentially frees us from inadvertently indoctrinating students with our own preferred artistic ideologies, but isn’t there more to teach about art than how to be a conscientious soldier in the war of ideals?  It’s hard to attach an ideology to Rothko’s paintings, or even to Jeff Koons’s Bunny for that matter and I like to think that’s because they operate above the fray, far from the shouting and persuasion.  Duncum’s principles are useful ways of seeing and knowing visual culture, but ultimately, it may only be through the act of creation that we rise above the power struggle.

Watercolors in Moscow by Erró, 1975

I'm throwing in this link to Dirty Projector's "Rise Above" for a few reasons: first, the last sentence of my post brought it to mind; second, I think it pairs in a quirky way with this piece of art; third, it's a postmodern pop song--the band decided to try to recreate an album called Damaged by Black Flag that they hadn't heard in nearly 15 years (talk about appropriation and recontextualization!).  Here are the lyrics:

sJealous cowards try to control
They distort what we say
Try to stop what we do
When they can't do it themselves

We are tired of your abuse
Try to stop us, but it's no use

Society's arms think they're smart
I find satisfaction in what they're lacking 'cause
We are born with a chance
And I'm gonna have my chance

Rise above