Автор: Пользователь скрыл имя, 02 Мая 2011 в 15:12, доклад
Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.[1] This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art, one of the first to appear in print:
Regardless of exactly how this idea is developed, what conceptual art has enabled philosophers of art to understand is that any successful general definition or indeed principled theory of the identification of art will have to be able to locate the determining feature(s) of art amongst its non-manifest properties. It is the meaning that the artist infuses into his piece and the meaning that we as audience stand to gain from it that contains the key to its status as art (more on this in §3.4). As we shall soon see in greater detail, conceptual art considers the artwork a means by which to transmit meaning and ideas, rather than an object which can provide pleasant and satisfactory (often sensory) experiences during unlimited periods of time. Sometimes these conceptual pieces will be manipulated by humans, yet at other times not, because if art is exclusively about conveying meaning then artists stand under no obligation whatsoever to make the art object itself appear in any particular way. To use the example of Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes again, all a conceptual artist needs to do to turn a non-art object into an art object is just to somehow infuse it with meaning and present it as art.
It is fair to say that from within the project of conceptual art, the attempt to define art in a narrow sense is thoroughly misguided. For an artform that actively seeks to unsettle our assumptions about what may count as art, it seems that no such definition can be formulated (and even if it could, it would have little or no genuine explanatory power). Still, might there be some hope for a unified account of art that takes on board the philosophical lessons to be learnt from conceptual art?
A view to this effect, recently developed by David Davies and inspired by conceptual art, has it that such a definition of art can only be found if we think of art as the creative process or series of actions resulting in a material thing (‘focus of appreciation’) or object, rather than the end-product of that process (Davies 2004). It may be, then, that the most enduring lesson to be learnt from conceptual art with regards to the definition of art is not so much that a conceptual analysis of art is completely unattainable, as that we simply have been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps what we should look at is the creative and reflective process rather than the material thing.
Conceptual art's claim that art is not so much the perceivable thing that we are confronted with in galleries or museums, say, as the idea that it aims to convey, gives rise to a host of complex ontological questions. The rejection of traditional artistic media, together with the de-materialisation of the art object, forces us to reconsider what previously seemed relatively uncomplicated-seeming aspects of artistic experience, such as ‘What is it we should focus our attention on in artistic appreciation?’, ‘Is there in fact any one thing (or set of things) that we must perceive in artistic appreciation?’, and ‘Is it a necessary condition for the existence of an artwork that it have a medium?’.
In the first instance, conceptual art drives us to review the common assumption that appropriate appreciation and engagement with an artwork must involve a direct first-hand experience of that piece itself. The idea here is, to use Frank Sibley's words, that
[p]eople have to see the grace or unity of a work, hear the plaintiveness or frenzy in the music, notice the gaudiness of colour scheme, feel the power of a novel, its mood, or its uncertainty of tone. They may be struck by these qualities at once, or they may come to perceive them only after repeated viewings, hearings, or readings, and with the help of critics. But unless they do perceive them for themselves, aesthetic enjoyment, appreciation, and judgement are beyond them… the crucial thing is to see, hear, or feel. (Sibley 1965, 137).
The assumption in question thus has it, roughly, that although we can certainly gain something from looking at, for example, a postcard or poster of Leonardo da Vinci's La Gioconda, a genuine judgement about its artistic character necessitates one's own un-mediated perceptual experience of it. But if there is nothing for us to get a first-hand perceptual experience of, the traditional assumption obviously seems threatened. If there is, strictly speaking, no thing to engage with perceptually in that manner, as is the case with Walter De Maria's Vertical Earth Kilometre (1977)[6], what are we to make of the aforementioned experiential requirement? More pertinently still, how could we engage perceptually with an artwork that claims to be merely an idea?
The question that is perhaps most pressing, however, has to do with the extent to which we are to take conceptual art's claim of de-materialisation seriously. Does the de-materialisation of such art not suggest that there is not only a rejection of traditional artistic media in conceptual art, but an outright refutation of artistic media in general? One way of accommodating for the idea of media in conceptual art is with the help of a distinction outlined by Davies between physical medium and vehicular medium (Davies 2004). Interestingly, the latter is said to incorporate not only physical objects (such as paintings and sculptures, say) but also actions, events, and generally more complex entities than straightforwardly physical objects. In Davies' words, ‘[t]he product of an artist's manipulation of a vehicular medium will then be the vehicle whereby a particular artistic statement is articulated… The vehicle may, as in the case of Picasso's Guernica, be a physical object, or, as in the case of Coleridge's Kubla Kahn, a linguistic structure-type, or, as arguably in the case of Duchamp's Fountain, an action of a particular kind.’ (Davies 2004, 59). Adhering to this vehicular medium in art, may then at least equip philosophers with a notion that can deflate the concern of whether conceptual art, by rejecting physical media, denies the need for all artistic media.
Clearly, conceptual art is not the first kind of art to raise pressing ontological concerns of this kind. After all, music and literary art, be it traditional or avant-garde, does not present straightforward cases either. In philosophical circles, issues to do with what constitutes, say, a novel or a musical work such as a sonata have been widely discussed for some time, since most hold it cannot be that the mere words or notes on the page that we have in mind when we think of the artwork (e.g., Davies 2001; Ingarden 1973; Wollheim 1980) Building on the suggestion that artworks such as musical pieces and literary works are best understood in terms of universals or ‘types’, one view that has been widely discussed in the last two decades or so is based on the idea that not only musical and literary artworks, but all artworks, are types. More specifically, they are to be conceived of as ‘event- or action-types’ (Currie 1988). According to this theory, the artwork is thus not the material thing itself but, rather, the way in which the artist arrived at the underlying structure shared by all instances or performances of that work.
Whilst the general approach is obviously congenial to conceptual art in virtue of taking as its starting-point something close to the very heart of the conceptual project, namely the claim that artworks are not strictly to be identified with any particular ‘focus of appreciation’ (Cf. §3.1), it might nevertheless be the case that further refinement of the approach needs to be undertaken if the view that artworks are a kind of event are to accommodate the great ontological diversity of conceptual art. In this spirit, Davies has recast this approach in terms of token events, rather than event-types. This to emphasise further the ontological significance of the particular creative process or series of actions through which an artist eventually arrives at the ‘focus of appreciation’.
Having said that, and even if there can be a kind of artistic medium broad enough for conceptual art, other difficulties beset the claims concerning the putative dematerialisation of the art object. Most obviously, one may ask, what role, if indeed any, is played by the (set of) material thing(s) that many conceptual artists undeniably do present us with? What, in other words, are we to make of the object (be it a human body or a video-recording) that is at least occasionally supposed to transmit the idea which, in turn, is said to be the genuine artwork? It seems, then, that a good philosophical explanation needs to be given as to how the material thing that is regularly presented to the audience is, in fact, relevant to the artwork itself. Is the vehicular medium constitutive of the artwork, and if so, how exactly does that square with the claim of de-materialisation?
Underlying the claim that we
need to have a direct experiential encounter with an artwork in order
to appreciate it appropriately is the fact that there are certain properties
that bear on the value of a work that can only be grasped in precisely
such an experience. The properties in question here are generally aesthetic properties
However, one of the most distinguishing features of conceptual art, setting out as it does to replace illustrative representation with semantic representation, is that it does not actually endeavour to produce beautiful pieces or even pieces with aesthetic value. Conceptual art is an art of the mind: it appeals to matters of the intellect and emphasises art's cognitive rather than aesthetic value. In the words of Timothy Binkley, traditional aesthetics is preoccupied ‘with perceptual entities’ and this ‘leads aesthetics to extol and examine the “work of art”, while averting its attention almost entirely from the myriad other aspects of that complex cultural activity we call “art” ’ (Binkley 1977, 271).
We can see now that the experiential requirement fails to have any bite with regards to conceptual artworks because the artist's aim does not involve conferring to the work of art properties that must be experienced directly in order to be grasped and fully appreciated. If there is to be any kind of requirement cast in terms of some form of direct experience for the appropriate appreciation of conceptual artworks, it will thus have to be one that allows for this general lack of aesthetic ambition. Perhaps it will be a kind of experiential requirement that focuses on a certain kind of imaginative engagement with the idea central to the artwork rather than a perceptual experience of its aesthetic properties (see Schellekens 2007)
The principal philosophical question highlighted by conceptual art in this context, then, is this: ‘Does art need to be aesthetic?’. In Binkley's opinion, and in support of conceptual art, one does not necessarily have to think of art in terms of aesthetic value –whilst a lot of ‘art has chosen to articulate in the medium of an aesthetic space’, there is ‘no a priori reason why art must confine itself to the creation of aesthetic objects. It might opt for articulation in a semantic space instead of an aesthetic one so that artistic meaning is not embodied in a physical object or event’ (Binkley 1977, 273).
However, not everyone has endorsed such a liberal view about the separation between the aesthetic and the artistic (Cf. §3.1)[7]. If art does not aim at having aesthetic value, what, one might argue, will set it apart from non-art? That is to say, if having aesthetic value is not one of the main goals of art, then to what extent can we still call it art?
Which view one decides to favour on this point may well end up being an issue about definition. If one wishes to define art in terms of aesthetic experience, the question finds a clear-cut answer, namely that conceptual art simply cannot be considered a kind of art. The down-side of that position is, however, a whole set of difficult concerns to do with things, such as nature or persons, that hardly qualify as art even though they are capable of giving rise to aesthetic experiences. If one is impressed by these worries and cannot see any decisive philosophical reason to uphold such a view, there is little, if anything, to block a conception of art whereby art is not necessarily aesthetic. One may, then, think of aesthetic value as one kind of artistic value that, alongside with moral, religious, political, historical and financial value some artworks have and others do not.[8]
Now, even if it is granted that art need not be aesthetic, it is still possible to hold that conceptual art does not qualify as good art because it does not (aim to) yield aesthetic experiences. This, it should be clear, whilst still a viable position to hold in relation to the project of conceptual art in general, cannot be used to attack such art on its own grounds. Saying of, for example, Michael Craig-Martin's An Oak Tree that one cannot consider it a great work of art because it fails to give rise to a distinctively aesthetic kind of pleasure does not actually undermine the project at all. Conceptual art, as we now know, is about conveying meaning through a vehicular medium, and not to provide its audience with experiences of, say, beauty. Any attack on this fundamental feature of conceptual art targets not so much an individual piece but the artform as such.
At the most basic level of inquiry, two main queries arise about interpretation in art: (i) by what means do we interpret artworks?, and (ii) what is it to interpret artworks? In the case of conceptual art, a satisfactory answer to (i) will quite uncontroversially appeal to elements such as the narrative aids provided by artists or curators (e.g. catalogues, titles, exhibited explanations, labels, etc.); the appropriate mode of perception (i.e. looking or listening); and what we know about the artwork's and artist's background. Depending on the ontological status of the particular piece (if it is, say, a ready-made or a performance), these elements can be combined in different ways to explain our interpretative habits and practices.
In addressing (ii), however, mention will have to be made of the various mental abilities we put to use in such interpretative exercises (e.g. imagination, empathy); and precisely what the target of our interpretation is. This task is not as unproblematic as it may seem, for one may ask whether it is the object itself that should be under scrutiny, the object's properties (and, if so, which), or merely the artist's intentions? It seems unlikely that the question will find an adequate answer until the concern raised above (Cf. §3.2) has found an acceptable solution, namely ‘Is the vehicular medium a constitutive part of the conceptual artwork or not, and if so how?’.
Two further general philosophical questions about the notion of artistic interpretation take on a particularly complex dimension in relation to conceptual art. First, what information should be considered relevant in artistic interpretation? Most importantly perhaps, to what extent should the artist's intention be allowed to determine the appropriate interpretation? Views differ widely on this topic. In their article, ‘The Intentional Fallacy’, Wimsatt and Beardsley famously argue in relation to the literary arts that the only kind of evidence that is relevant to interpretation is that which is internal to the work in question. (Wimsatt & Beardsley 1946). An artist's intention or design is thus of no interpretative significance, and for that very reason, this position seems difficult to defend in the case of conceptual art. For when we are dealing with pieces such as Warhol's Brillo Boxes, where the naked eye could not even discern that it is an artwork in the first place, it seems that we need to know that Warhol intended the boxes to be viewed qua art.
Now, even if we do agree with this last point and hold that the artist's intention needs to be taken into account somehow in the interpretation of conceptual art, further questions still require our attention here. Most centrally, should the artist's intention always be considered the decisive factor in interpretation and must it always be involved? Generally speaking, there are two main strands of intentionalist positions available. On the one hand, there is one approach which holds that the artist's intention determines an artwork's meaning, and thus cannot be overlooked – or indeed superseded – in artistic interpretation (e.g., Carroll 1992). On the other hand, there is the view that the artist's intention should be used in the construction of the best possible artistic interpretation (e.g., Levinson 1992).
At least at a first glance, it may seem that conceptual art presents a stronger case for the first approach to interpretation, since the artist's intention is all we have to go by, quite literally, in works such as Robert Barry's simple statement entitled All the Things I know But of which I am Not at the Moment Thinking (1969). Nevertheless, the question cannot be settled quite so easily, for many conceptual artists make a point of putting all the interpretative onus on the spectator. How often are we not, after all, told that a specific artwork's meaning rests entirely in our hands; that ‘it means whatever it means to you’?
This leads us to the second question that is especially pertinent for a kind of art that sets out to convey an idea or meaning, namely whether there can be more than one correct or appropriate interpretation of an artwork. Again, several theories present themselves as eligible candidates in relation to this problem. One suggestion has centred around the idea that there can be a multiplicity of appropriate or correct divergent interpretations of one and the same artwork which cannot be reduced to one underlying interpretation or ranked in relation to each other (e.g., Margolis 1991; Goldman 1990). In opposition to this view, however, another approach has it that there is in fact always a single best interpretation which is better than any other (e.g., Beardsley 1970). The aim of artistic interpretation is, then, in Matthew Kieran's words, ‘restricted to discovering the one true meaning of an artwork.’ (Kieran 1996, 239). Whilst conceptual art certainly seems to rest on something like the interpretative openness of the first view, it is not obvious how a kind of art that claims to be an idea, can in reality accommodate for such indeterminacy. After all, one might wonder, how many interpretations can one idea really allow for?
There are good reasons to believe that of all the philosophical questions conceptual art gives rise to, interpretation is the most problematic from an internal point of view. The conundrum can be put in the following terms. If the conceptual work is the idea, it seems highly likely that artistic interpretation will be an act of grasping that idea (which is conceded by the artist to the artwork considered as such). In other words, if we take conceptual art's de-materialisation claim seriously, we are left with a notion of interpretation which is relatively constrained to the artist's intention and to the claim that that intention determines the appropriate or correct interpretation for that particular work.
Having said that, we are often encouraged by conceptual artists to take the interpretative exercise into our own hands, so to speak, and not be shy to use features about ourselves and our own lives as interpretive tools. We are, in other words, asked to combine the idea of art as idea with the claim that we can, as spectators, convey an entirely new and fresh interpretation onto an artwork that is nothing but an idea which, by definition, needs to be about or concerned with something. So, if the idea is the art, then how can my idiosyncratic interpretation of that idea be anywhere near valid? It seems, then that in order to be coherent, conceptual art must give up either the claim that the actual artwork is nothing other than the idea, or the claim that the interpretative onus lies on the viewer.
In seeking to convey a semantic representation through a vehicular medium, conceptual art primarily aims to have cognitive – rather than aesthetic – value. By cognitive value, what is meant is simply the value an artwork may have in virtue of enhancing or increasing our knowledge and understanding of some topic, notion or event. Interestingly, conceptual art seems to assume that the aesthetic detracts from or divests art of its possible cognitive value in such a way as to render the two kinds of value close to mutually exclusive (Schellekens 2007).
The attempt to separate the aesthetic from the cognitive is far from a recent investigative endeavour in philosophical circles. In the very first section of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgement a clear-cut distinction is outlined between aesthetic and cognitive (or ‘logical’) judgements. However, few artistic movements have pressed these questions about the division between aesthetic value on the one hand, and cognitive value on the other, as scrupulously and explicitly as conceptual art. In fact, conceptual art makes things very difficult for itself by holding that the only kind of artistic value that is entirely legitimate is cognitive value.
Clearly, conceptual art is not the only kind of art that may have cognitive value – many other artforms aim to have cognitive value in addition to aesthetic value – and most of us would agree that part of why we find art rewarding is precisely because it often yields understanding and knowledge. That is to say, we read novels, look at paintings and listen to music not only because of the pleasure it may afford, but also because it tends to make us richer human beings. Art is not merely about decoration – more often than not it actually adds something to our life which cannot simply be captured in terms of enjoying looking at something pretty or liking listening to something melodious. In general, art can shed light on our experiences in a particularly insightful and interesting way.
Uncontroversial as this claim may seem, some philosophers have denied that art should either have or seek to have cognitive value. Most famously perhaps, expressivists such as Clive Bell and Roger Fry held that art should only seek to express and arouse emotions (Bell 1914; Fry 1920). More recently, James Young has defended a view whereby avant-garde art like conceptual art cannot yield any significant knowledge or understanding (Young 2001, 77).
Young's argument focuses on the notion of exemplification which he locates at the heart of the only kind of semantic representation and cognitive value that can be ascribed to artworks such as conceptual ones. Exemplification is a form of reference to properties by means of a sample (or exemplar). An exemplar ‘stands for some property by [non-metaphorically, literally] possessing the property’ (Young 2001, 72). In the case of conceptual art, a work then exemplifies an idea or concept. So, for example, Tom Marioni's The Act of Drinking Beer with One's Friends is the Highest Form of Art (1970)[9] – a piece involving the artist and his friends drinking beer together – is an exemplar of the idea at the heart of the work, namely that drinking beer with one's friends is the highest art-form of all. This is the work's statement. However, as Young points out, it doesn't follow from the fact that something expresses a statement or has meaning that it has significant cognitive value. In an nutshell, Young's claim is thus that all things considered, the kind of statements that works like conceptual artworks can make are simply truisms – the kind of cognitive value that art such as conceptual art can yield is so trivial that it barely, if at all, deserves the name.