Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

I. Larry Shiner’s “Art Divided” Thesis

Characteristics of the traditional “system of the arts”:

- artist=artisan, a skilled maker or practitioner

- work of art = useful product of skilled labor

- arts appreciated as integral with the rest of life

- contrast term for “art” is nature

- creativity is valued, but within limits of the purpose served.

- Art and Craft not divided; rather they mean approximately the same thing.

- Beauty (highly valued) is associated with utility: a glass saw could not be beautiful (Aquinas)

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Cast glass sculptures by Rick Beck: Jigsaw blade, augur, wing-nut. Approximate sizes range from 3’ to 6’.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

The modern system of the arts (18th C west):

- Art for Art’s sake

- Artist as visionary genius

- Unique Aesthetic attitude/experience

- Utility a negative or irrelevant trait for Art.

- Contrast terms for Art include craft, entertainment, and commerce as well as nature.

- All Art is of a kind. Music, painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, & other arts must be comparable.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Internal difficulties of the modern system

- claim of profound, universal human relevance contrasts with de facto inaccessibility and elitism.

- assumption that all art is of a kind leads to a bewildering search for the common essence of diverse practices.

- arbitrariness of art/non-art distinction.

Yet the modern system persists. It defines our thinking about the arts, and in fact its reach is now global, not merely western.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Shiner’s idea of a third system:1. Preserve the best of the modern system: value works of creative genius for their own sake.2. Arts more integrated with rest of life. Utility, profitability, popularity could have positive value. An “aesthetic of the everyday” (Yuriko Saito).3. Popular art, craftwork, entertainment, design all count as art.4. Overcome class and gender divisions inherent in the modern system.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Signs of a third system emerging?

Reading the signs: Fine Art vs. popular art and entertainment

1) Transfer of categories: battle between “art” and the commercial takes place within popular arts, while Fine Art world rejects both as “not really art”

2) Some assimilation of film, television, graphic novels, popular music into Fine Art. Tends to change the system.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Reading the signs: Craftwork

- Assimilation of craft to Fine Art - but mostly not the kind sold for modest prices at fairs. Rather the kind sold for high prices in galleries. “Fine Craft”

- An example: Fine Art furniture. The work of Tom Huang.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Tom Huang, “You Da Buddha” Meditation seat, 2001. Oak, wenge, fabric

48” x 36” x 48”

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

“Fine craft” – implications for the modern system- Assimilation of (some) craft into the Fine Art world, replicating the divisions of the modern system within the world of crafts (gallery crafts vs. “hobbies and fairs”).- Transformation of the modern system to include items for which utility or potential utility is essential, and for which the skill of an artisan is necessary.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

What to do with Albert’s Toothpicks if one has false teeth.

Ron David, 1992. Maytree, turned Japanese toothpicks.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Reading the signs: Design

- Ambiguous status: strongly influenced by (and sometimes influencing) the art of the modern system, yet quintessentially commercial.

- Assimilation and transformation noticeable, as with popular art and craft.

- Forces us to consider the transformation of the arts in connection with questions about the transformation of society.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Is a third system possible?

Short answer: not without corresponding changes in the rest of society!

- The signs show significant transformations in the modern system. As it assimilates elements of what it once excluded, it changes.

- Its fundamental dynamics, however, remain the same. They are essentially ideological (Mattick, Art in its Time, 2003).

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Ideology and the modern system of arts

- The class origins of the modern system

- Wealth, education still required for access and understanding.

- “Artistic freedom” as ideology: It depends on and legitimates what it is “free” from. If capitalist structures support wonderful art, economic freedom must mean human freedom. The example of art philanthropy.

- How “Art” divides and dismisses.

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

How might the arts help transform themselves, and society? A few thoughts:

- Art not pure ideology

- Walter Benjamin and electronic media

- Not arts alone, but all of us together.

- The example of Damali Ayo

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Damali Ayo: from her Rent-A-Negro and Panhandling for Reparations projects

“My New Black Friend”, and Heather panhandling in Connecticut

Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?Reflections on a suggestion by Larry Shiner

A Third System of the Arts?

Contact:

David Clowney

Department of Philosophy and Religion

Rowan University

Glassboro, NJ 08028

clowney@rowan.edu