Monday, September 29, 2008
Death of Art
Since the 60's, the question of "what is art," has come up. "What is poetry," "painting," "the novel," and many other "what is" questions have arise. Then a rash of declarations that painting was dead, along with tons of other humanities obituaries were written. I think these events show a time of crisis in the arts. This means that the arts are ready to emerge into something new. However, in order to emerge into something else, do we assume that the arts must fall/step back in order to leap forward. Or has this leap been prevented through redefining terms like "painting?" Does redefining terms resuscitate theses ideas from their dead state of being? Or is redefining terms is the fall/step back before the great leap? The great leap being the realization of the interconnectedness of all the arts and the degrade of separation of disciplines.
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2 comments:
To take a spiral dynamics perspective on what seems to be happening right now, we may be on the cusp of moving into an integrationist society, like toward the beginning of the 20th century, we moved into an egalitarianist society in many places (ranging from soviet-style communism to welfare statism), and into the classical liberal society after the Renaissance (moving from the authoritative period prior). But those were all little jumps -- this one, if it is coming, is going to be a major jump. The end of the world? In a real sense, yes. The Mayans and many others have predicted the end of the world in 2012. I'm beginning to think more and more that they are correct. The end of the world, though, simply means a major transformation of the world into something truly new. A social jump from first to second tier would certainly qualify. The art of such a level, I would suggest, would be integrationist, like the dominant (in social power, not numbers) psychology and new society. If I am right, I do hope that I am both part of the cause of the end of the world, and part of the new world as well.
Another way of saying this is that I agree to some extent with your last statement/question. However, one cannot be interdisciplinary without the continuing existence of the disciplines. I have come more and more to realize, for example, that my play "Reflections" is actually something akin to an opera. It needs music, and in many places it needs to be sung. Of course, I'm no composer, and I don't have the reputation as a poet to get one to compose the music the work needs -- or have a venue to have it properly produced -- but I hope that that day comes.
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