I caught a link on We Make Money Not Art to this Artworld Salon article that contemplated the criticism of an increasingly professionalized art world. The article questions, “What’s wrong with professionalization?” after citing examples of back-handed comments towards the MFA and PhD in the arts. The questions it raises are: does “professionalization” make artists less creative and provocative, more generic and safe? Is successful art the creation of safe, professionalized art? why should provocative art necessitate a lack of financial or institutional security?
Power needs culture
from Terry Eagleton’s new book: Reason, Faith and Revolution (Yale: 2009) p. 150
“Culture is what beds power down, interweaving it with our lived experience and thus tightening its grip upon us. An authority which fails to do this will loom up as too abstract and aloof, and thus fail to secure its citizens’ unqualified allegiance. If power is to win loyalty, it must transform itself into culture”
Eagleton is talking about culture with a small “c” here — norms and lived experience — but I think it also works in a way for big “C ” culture too: i.e. Art. Power has to find a way to translate itself into representation and communication if it is going to become part of a generalized way of seeing which then makes power normal, natural, inevitable and invisible. Does this holds true for counter-power as well?
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Tom Robbins on success
“plans are one thing and fate another. when they coincide, success results. yet, success musn’t be considered the absolute. it is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. success can eliminate as many options as failure.”
-Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
(thanks Liz Filardi)
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Oldenberg on the genre ‘art’
Claes Oldenburg, 1961 “Documents from the Store” reprinted in Art in Theory: 1900-2000. ed. Harrison and Wood pp. 743-747
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James Balog, art and journalism
Listening to James Balog I realized there is another point on our spectrum; journalism. At another point is the “political expressionist” and then, somewhere else, is the political artist (which maybe we need a more descriptive name).
Balog brings back reports, takes photos, and shows images of climate change. Most of the affect on power is a non-direct effect of displaying the images and the support of the work.
Steve D., we should talk about mapping this out because I think these distinctions could really help explain.
In The Arctic, A Time-Lapse View Of Climate Change : NPR
Fresh Air from WHYY, March 18, 2009 · Intent on documenting the effects of climate change, nature photographer James Balog ventured into ice-bound regions with 26 time-lapse cameras, which he programmed to shoot a frame every daylight hour for three years. The resulting images — which make up Balog’s “Extreme Ice Survey” project — show ice sheets and glaciers breaking apart and disappearing. Balog calls the melting of glaciers “the most visible, tangible manifestations of climate change on the planet today.” In The Arctic, A Time-Lapse View Of Climate Change : NPR
Motherwell and Rosenberg
Robert Motherwell and Harold Rosenberg “The Question of What wWill Emerge is Left Open” 1947 reprinted in Art in Theory: 1900-2000. ed. Harrison and Wood pp. 659
This is really interesting Read More
Camus
Albert Camus “Creation and Revolution” from The Rebel. 1953 reprinted in Art in Theory: 1900-2000. ed. Harrison and Wood pp. 626-629
Mid 40s American Avant Garde
Mark Rothko “Statement”. 1947 reprinted in Art in Theory: 1900-2000. ed. Harrison and Wood pp. 573
With two others Read More
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Picasso Speaks
Pablo Picasso 1935 “Conversation with Picasso” trans. Barr. reprinted in Art in Theory: 1900-2000. ed. Harrison and Wood pp. 507-510 Read More
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Welcome! An Introduction…
“How to Win” is a work in progress by Stephen Duncombe, an academic, and Steve Lambert, an artist. We are both long-time political activists and both of us believe that using art and culture to transform the world is a good idea. But we are both haunted by the same question: How do we gauge the success of our projects? Hell, how do we even think about success when our goal is utopia?
This site is a place to explore this and related questions. It is an evolving repository for our research. While far from a finished product, we’re offering it as an open window into our process.
On this site you can find interviews (coming soon) we’ve conducted with artists and activists, examples we’ve found of how others gauge success from the world of art, activism, advertising, and social marketing.