The New School

 

Visual and Cultural Studies

Notes -- Session 4

 

 

Prelude: Diane Arbus

 

What does it mean to approach an image or object visually?

Cf. Judith Butler's literary/critical approach to Gillian Wearing's.

 

Fundamental Questions

What constitutes a visual culture?
How is it constructed?

These are the "macro" questions. Be sure not to lose sight of them as you immerse yourself in the details of the material.

 

Background to Greenberg's Modernism

 

Kant

beauty and aesthetic judgment

disinterestedness

purposiveness without purpose

universality and intersubjective validity

aesthetic pleasure vs pleasure of the senses

the aesthetic is a refuge and source of freedom

 

Bell & Fry -- Formalism

significant form

representation

subjective nature of aesthetic judgment

 

Greenberg Again

Cf. modernism in

1. literature (e.g. Apollinaire, Joyce, Beckett)
2. film (e.g. Eisenstein, Vertov, Fellini, Godard)
3. music (e.g. Schönberg, Webern, Berg, Boulez)

 

Modernism and Postmodernism

 

Barbara Kruger

recycling of images

stylistic link to Russian Constructivism

art < --- > advertising (Diesel, CK, etc.)

 

Carl Andre

Questions raised fall into three categories:

1.    identity (What is it? Is it a work of art? What are the criteria?)

2.    meaning (What is it about? What does it express? [connotation, 42f])

3.    value (What value, if any, does it have? Intrinsic? Extrinsic? How is its value determined?)

 

Remember the Components of a Discourse: Rules, Statements, Subjects, and Practices

 

Also keep in mind other factors affecting the nature of a visual culture, e.g. patronage & economic conditions.

 

 

Manet

depiction (denotation) and representation (connotation) [27]

formal (Zola, Bell, Greenberg) and narrative (Buchon, Butler) analysis [28f]

 

Malevich

depiction abandoned