civilized ku # 112 ~ it was the wife's idea

Waiting for my pedicure ~ Montreal, CA • click to embiggen

cicilized ku # 109 -111 ~ the primacy of individual experience

The primacy of individual experience • click to embiggenOur weekend in Montreal was very swell. A good time was had by all. Other than the exploding-nail-polish-bottle incident, everything else could not have been better.

I managed to make lots of pictures. The urban landscape is much to my liking, picture-making wise. There are so many architectural forms / shapes and , on a sunny day, so many additional forms / shapes created by the interplay of light and shadow. On the surface of things, illustrative-wise, there is much to explore.

Add to that the element of humankind and their cultural, social, and affective accouterments, as far as I am concerned you have a target-rich environment that's hard to ignore.

That said, I must admit that, as I was picture-making this past weekend, these words from John Rosenthal were on my mind:

No matter how brilliantly Science has understood the mechanics of the material world, it is a remarkably ineffective tool for deciphering the mysteries of human misery. Even with thousands of "experts" telling us what's wrong, and measuring it, self-knowledge is on the decline. In America, the most technologically advanced country on earth, one has to be oblivious not to hear a din of sorrow and private disappointment just below the gabble of our TV’s and the hum of our personal computers. Where is the expertise that can explain us to ourselves? The scientific method is inadequate for such revelations. No matter how many developmental models we formulate to explain why and when we do things, no matter how extensive the revealed neurochemical connections, psycho-biology must always collaborate with human freedom - the curse of dealing with a creature for whom visual symbols, art and language, are a defining characteristic. Such a collaboration entails nothing less than a deeper respect for the singularity of our lives, a recognition of those immensely specific contingencies that belong only to our own individual experience. In other words, the business of art - the inner gaze, and those strategies for sharpening its clarity. Who else but the artist, insisting upon the primacy of individual experience, can reclaim the private territory ceded to experts - to those well-meaning and well-socialized professionals who created the idea of normal people just when the corporations needed them.

In part, these words were on my mind because of a comment made on man & nature # 69 by Michael Sullivan; "... As we are in the ugly throes of the "baroque era" of image making there is little it seems left except imitation, outrageous manipulation and tiresome self indulgence ..." (emphasis, mine) - a statement with which I can only partially agree because it seems to be somewhat dismissive of Rosenthal's idea of "the artist, insisting upon the primacy of individual experience".

Michael goes on to state that "... the best of any work comes from outside the pale of technical machination and from some place deeper ...", which is a statement / idea with which I am able to whole-heartedly agree.

Regarding the aforementioned statements, what I am wondering about is whether or not "self-indulgence" is an integral part of getting to "some deeper place". Is an artist, most of whom are dwelling upon the primacy of his/her individual experience (AKA, the inner gaze) for the very genesis of his/her art, being self-indulgent? Can good art be made if one is not essentially self-indulgent in its making?

And, even if you cede to the fact that artists are self-indulgent individuals, is that character trait mitigated if their intents are good? Do the ends justify the means - that is, is self-indulgence a "tolerable" thing if the ends to which it is directed - reclaiming and validating the private territory which has been ceded to the experts - is a good and noble cause?

I ask these question - hoping for comments - because I do believe artists are self-indulgent, at least in as much as their art is concerned - myself included. None other than another Au Sable Fork-ian artist, Rockwell Kent, expressed it well with the titles of both of his autobiographical books -

It's me, O Lord, and, This Is My Own

IMO, Michael Sullivan has it wrong when he paints with too broad of a brush made of dismissive self-indulgence bristles when he tries to cast aspersions upon most of the art (with an emphasis on photography) that is being made today.

IMO, much of the Art that is being made today - especially photography - is highly self-indulgent and rightly / justifiably so. Artists who use photography seem to be prominent amongst the very few who are "raging against the machine" of consumerist conformity that dominates our culture and society.

If more than a little "self-indulgence" fuels those fires then I say, "Let self-indulgence rule"