Can a novelist write [well] philosophically?

"Can a novelist write philosophically?" begins the essay The Philosophical Novel in the NY Times Book Section last week. It's an old question. The conflict is the long-held (hello, Plato) notion that philosophy is a dry, precise search for truth, heedless of aesthetics while novels tell stories to create illusions and explore imprecise, untrue things. It goes on to discuss philosophers who wrote well like novelists (Nietzche) and novelists who write like philosophers (David Foster Wallace), and whether either of the disciplines suffered for the mixture.

The questions are not unlike the series of lectures bound up in The Naive and Sentimental Novelist (2010) by Orham Pamuk. Pamuk's love of reading and the craft of writing is a great read, all spun around the famous concept of Schilller: naïve writers write “spontaneously, almost without thinking, not bothering to consider the intellectual or ethical consequences of their words” while the sentimental writer is “thoughtful” and “troubled” and “exceedingly aware of the poem he writes, the method and techniques he uses, the artifice involved in his endeavor.”  The sentimental poet can be called philosophical. Pamuk himself writes--and reads-- both naivelly and sentimentally at times. As a reader, he claims we all juggle the same differing mindsets, between the suspension of disbelief and the analytic understanding of what we are reading.

 Friedrich Schiller's On the Naive and Sentimental in Literature (1795) is a paper on poetic (more generally artistic) theory, in which he as the reflective sentimalisch writer rather envies Goethe, a naive writer who never doubts whether the words that stream out of him are accurate and true. Schiller's influential oppositional and psychological views have been very influential on later art history criticism and psychoanalysis. Within this dialogue is also the opposition of the Classical and the Romantic

While I imagine the Romantic poet as driven to pour out his heart unselfconsciously, ala Keats, and Wordsworth, Schiller himself felt the opposite. Classical poets like the Greeks were naive writers for whom there was no struggle to reach a natural state. Romantic writers suffered the anguish of trying to recapture their lost ideals, and doubt as to whether their words actually did. So inspired by all these connections, I'm trying to recapture the lost ideal that is my ability to focus on philosophy, and actually site down and read beyond the introduction of On the Naive and Sentimental in Literature. Surely these oppositional groups are more nuanced than they seem, and hopefully a novelist can find the teetering, tottering edge between the philosophical and the story, the naive and the sentimental.

"Why do we want these works to turn out to be by Velázquez and Michelangelo? After all, the art is the same either way."

The Wine of St. Martin’s Day, a previously ignored painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

 

"In the end we want another celebrity attribution like this one because we want to get things straight. History tries to make sense out of chaos, toward which the world inevitably inclines. Art historians create hierarchies, categories and movements; they attribute causes and effects to conjure an appearance of logic. Attributing a picture to a household deity like Bruegel or Michelangelo affirms our sense of control, our ability to get a grip on our affairs, at least for the moment. We take comfort in mooring some grimy, forgotten canvas, another example of life’s flotsam and, implicitly, of our own fate, to one of the pillars of art history." - Via the NYTimes

Maybe that's the reason; we're so excited by the discovery of a masterpiece we forget we never thought it was great before. Maybe its the thrill of discovery. But I think we could all just be a tad foolish.

Post-Minimal Museums: Reprehensible?

"After encountering so many bare walls and open spaces, after examining so many amalgams of photography, altered objects, seductive materials and conceptual puzzles awaiting deciphering, I started to feel as if it were all part of a big-box chain featuring only one brand.

The goal in organizing museum exhibitions, as in collecting, running a gallery and — to cite the most obvious example — being an artist, should be individuation and difference, finding a voice of your own. Instead we’re getting example after example of squeaky-clean, well-made, intellectually decorous takes on that unruly early ’70s mix of Conceptual, Process, Performance, installation and language-based art that is most associated with the label Post-Minimalism."

Thus Roberta Smith, in New York Times article Post Minimal to the Max, begins to delve into what she would like to see the museums of New York begin doing in their shows. Hint: the key word is differentiation. The recent shows of Gabriel Orozco at MoMA, Tino Sehgal at the Guggenhiem, and Urs Fischer at the New Museum might be zeitgeist in action rather than reprehensible, but Smith argues that focusing on one thing creates a simplified art history by that very action. She points to artists, often those whose work is hand made or seems personally driven, who might merit a show that would be more than blank walls.


These recent exhibitions have much the same feel, and Smith's point that it is at the expense of other aesthetics and styles. Ben Wadler at Artcards describes the situation as "reminiscent of one recently put forth by the White House, attributing the success of Fox News to the simple fact that it is selling the clearest narrative for people to follow. So too in the Art world do we want clarity, and the more others are following something, the less likely will it be a waste of our time to do the same." I'm not sure exactly what the solution is, but I agree that something is wrong when Smith could write that;

"the idea of seeing a survey of contemporary painting at the Modern makes me squirm. It would look — I don’t know — too messy and emotional, too flat, too un-MoMA."

Certainly the image we have of a museum ought to be one that reflects all the art in its mission. I would enjoy it if museums presented smaller, more intimate exhibitions for two reasons. It would allow for more, different work to be seen. Big exhibitions often have a big wow! factor, but not as much depth--or perhaps I am simply too overwhelmed and distracted to appreciate the nuances. However, change could be even simpler: as Smith asks, and obviously I'm biased, but why hasn't a NY museum arranged to take on the new Chris Ofili retrospective currently in London?

Curators are under pressure to make sure their exhibitions succeed, and the exhibitions listed are certainly popular. More than that, they are good in their own right. So how do you ask a museum to change its curatorial program? Do the collective museums of New York have a duty to present a comprehensive view of art?


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New York Times Nostalgia

My parent's brought down the Sunday New York Times with them and flipping through it, especially the Arts and Leisure section, is pure joy. I read my news online here, except for the occasional local paper, and on the whole I don't think I miss anything.

I'm not even a die-hard print only kind of person, but it is a tactical pleasure to have the Arts section in my hands again. To be able to flip through it scanning the headlines. The type in neat ordered rows and the grainy color images punching it all up. I realized it is not merely the act of holding the paper instead of the computer that I like so much--I actually read differently.

I carefully pick and choose everything I read on the internet. This goes from blogs to news, so when I scan the NYT Arts section I only read what I think would be interesting after a 15 second consideration. Apparently that does not include much of what is in this Sunday edition, and perhaps to my detriment. It all looks quite interesting when I have a hard copy in front of me. Maybe if left to my own choices, it's easier to focus in rather than branch out --not a great quality for learning more about the world around me.

Or maybe this is just nostalgia run riot speaking.

Bamboozling Forger Defends his Non-Nazi(?) Honor

...by proving his forgeries were in fact his.

The story of Van Meegeren's Vermeer forgeries is legendary. The New York Times has a series of in depth articles about his life, the forgeries that pulled the wool over the eyes of the biggest collector of the day, no less than Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, and how he later had to prove that the paintings he had sold were actually forgeries to escape charges of being a Nazi collaborator (which he likely was).Van Meegeren's story is fascinating in all its details, likes how he mixed bakelite into his paintings and baked them to give them the appearance of age or the book of sentimental drawings he made Hitler.

The articles are based on two books that came out this past year, one of which, The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick, I read and would recommend. In fact, I did recommend it, and included an interesting side story to boot. Interviews with both authors were interesting, and I can't wait for part 3 to come out.

You can also gawk at how bad some of Van Meegeren's 'Vermeers' were.


Just Kidding--the last one is a real Vermeer. And it's actually coming to New York, as a loan to the Met for a Dutch painting exhibition in the fall.

On sale this Spring for what?

Let's play a game, shall we? The New York Times highlighted some quality works coming up for auction that have a newly-lowered price tag. I thought we'd play a little game to see how our own values line up with art world estimates.

Here's the game: match the artwork with its estimate.

The Prices, in no particular order:
1. 1.2 to 1.8 M; 2. 3.5 to 4.5 M; 3. 16 to 24 M; 4. 1.2 to 1.8 M; 5. 6 to 8 M; 6. 6 to 8 M

The Artworks:

A. Giacommetti's The Cat

B. Monet's Sailboat on the River Seine, Argenteuil

C. Martin Kippenberger's Untitled Self-Portrait

D. Jeff Koon's Baroque Egg With Bow (Turquoise/Magenta)

E. Tamara de Lempicka's Portrait of Madame M.

F. Alexander Calder's Untitled Wall Relief


The answers are listed below. Auction houses consider Impressionist and Modern works to be the most stable purchases. These choices certainly cover many tastes. Does a Monet now cost more than a Jeff Koons? Are any of these estimates more than guesses (16 to 24M is a wide range...)?

These sales begin today at the big auction houses, so if you have disposable income in the range of 1M plus, maybe you should check out these newly-minted bargains. For the rest of us, I've got my thinking cap on for how we might get a little art on the walls. Cheers!

Answers: 1 & 4 at 1.2 to 1.8M are B and F, 2 at 3.5 to 4.5M is C, 3 at 16 to 24M is A, 5 & 6 at 6 to 8M are D and E.

*See the addendum for auction results. (May 7)

And the Pulitzer goes to...

Holland Cotter of The New York Times for Criticism.

The Pulitzer prize announced the winners yesterday and Cotter was distinguished "for his wide ranging reviews of art, from Manhattan to China, marked by acute observation, luminous writing and dramatic storytelling." He was competing against Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who I am not familiar with, and Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe "for his fresh, accessible and energetic reviews on the New England art scene, creating for readers a sense of discovery even as he provides discerning analysis."

I'd lean toward Smee over Cotter on mostly everything. Smee is a real joy to read, and his work has been truly "fresh" and "energetic."

Ah well. Cotter can enter the illustrious annals of Roger Ebert for Criticism, along with Robert Frost (four times) for Poetry; Eugene O'Neill (four times) and August Wilson (twice) for Drama; and William Faulkner (twice), Norman Mailer (twice), and John Updike (twice) for Fiction.

Did you know you had to enter to win the Pulitzer? To be considered, people must go to the Pulitzer's website and print out and submit a form along with a $50 entrance fee. Then the winner gets a cash prize of $10,000. For such a prestigious competition, it seems a little grubby.

Do you think Holland Cotter sat at his desk anxiously filling out the form last year, or do you think he has applied every year for the past 10? What about John Updike? And maybe it wasn't fair of Robert Frost to keep nominating himself; 4 Pulitzers should be enough for anybody.

I'm assuming these individuals are motivated by the glory, rather than the money, especiallly as $10,000 is going to make or break any of them. Still, what makes you wake up one morning and think 'Today I must apply for the Pulitzer. I am the top critic/playwright/_____ this year. Where's that $50 check?"

What I mean to say is, perhaps a selections committee would be more dignified.

Shameless Plug: Salon to Biennial

Another new book I would love to have. And I would buy this work, but it's rather expensive ($90 from Phaidon Press). However, I think its both interesting and deserving of a good plug. Roberta Smith of the New York Times already did so in its Holiday Gift Guide section on art books, so perhaps my two cents are unnecessary. Or perhaps they are.

Entitled Salon to Biennial, examining exhibition history of modern art, Roberta Smith describes it as such:

"One of the most interesting books of the season takes a nothing-but-the-facts bead on a subject of increasing art historical study: the exhibitions that have introduced most modern art to the public. Thick and very orange, Salon to Biennial — Exhibitions That Made Art History, Volume I: 1863-1959 is a marvel of information, organization and design. Largely the work of Bruce Altshuler, an independent scholar, in collaboration with Phaidon’s editors, it combines engaging analysis with myriad details to create in-depth portraits of exhibitions that are known, but not well."

However, I would like to correct the New York Times, as this book has been written by Elizabeth Zechella, an editor at Phaidon Press. Elizabeth, who is a friend from home, worked very hard to research and put together this lovely volume over the past 2 1/2 years. She is young and unaccredited. This is apparently the reason why she will not be credited on this book (although Phaidon recognized Altshuler's limited role in the project and he himself felt Elizabeth's name should be on the cover).

A shamelessly, self-interested plug of a great book for you artsy readers, and slight correction to the New York Times. Happy Monday.

Correction from Elizabeth Zechella: Bruce Altshuler did in fact write the intro essay, chapter intros, and was instrumental in the conception of the book. I was the editor of the book, researching, compiling, and making the selections of what was to be included. There was a team of people who contributed to this book in one way or another, including outside scholars, and a bevy of in-house and freelance help.