http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/you-may-be-infected-already/Content?oid=12587203 Comments On: You May Be Infected Already by Jen Graves en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sun, 19 May 2013 02:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by ColumbiaCityJoe]]> Tue, 24 Apr 2012 06:39:07 -0700 The Stranger
Reviewing an exhibition can be done tastefully and respectfully. Resorting to sensationalism and negativity is a reflection on the shortcomings of the author.
Posted by Cherie L.]]> Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:31:35 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Bill Sherman]]> Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:53:17 -0800 The Stranger Regardless of how I feel about the opinions expressed in this exhibition review, I fully support passionate and interesting conversations about art and I'm glad to see this article creating those conversations.
Posted by Me123]]> Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:10:28 -0800 The Stranger
We are only just now getting this fact under some sort of loose control. Barely.

Second: I too believe historical context of art is extremely important to deconstruct. Deconstructing though is not judging or moralizing. And that's what you and Jen are indulging in a little heavily here.

There does come a point where we cease to fully appreciate context and start filtering art through the blatant egoism of our own guilt.

Gauguin, despite his many character flaws, was a product of his time AND was far more enlightened than 90% of his fellows in many important ways. He deserves credit for THAT as well. Or no? Therefore all white men pre-1968 (choose your own date) have to carry around the albatross of the crimes of their place in history.... FOREVER?

When you say "problematic" what does that mean? A moral problem? Moral "problems are purely subjective. The only moral problems that matter are problem that cause actual provable physical harms. Are you claiming that this work causes an actual harm? What harm would that be?

Gauguin causes harm, now, because he's not appropriately labeled as.... what? Some sort of historical cultural art War-Criminal?

Or is it some other type of moral problem that cuases another sort of intangible harm? If that's it... it doesn't matter. that's the kind of moralizing based in point-of-view, belief, and ideology. And best left to religion and busy body church ladies.

The onus is on you to PROVE there is a "problem (a harm)" beyond just some vague need to moralize. And then define what that problem means.

And I will then be all ears as to whet your solutions to this so-called problem will be.
Posted by tkc]]> Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:51:27 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Bill Sherman]]> Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:56:57 -0800 The Stranger Posted by druiddude]]> Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:29:56 -0800 The Stranger
But it requires a pronounced presentist purism--despite all the adulatory talk of hybrids--to see this influence as simply pernicious. Progress is piecemeal, and however objectionable Gauguin's specific actions and general tone may be to contemporary ears, his rejection of the west and celebration of the "primitive" (which is how he and his contemporaries construed the matter--to drop the word is to be ahistorical) was a major move in a history leading to the more enlightened Western attitudes vis-a-vis the rest of the world of our own time, of which Graves' review is such a shrill example.

"These issues are not historical. They are contemporary." No, exactly not. The life of a painter who died in 1903, when cultural attitudes were a world away from those of our own time, requires truly historical criticism in order to be fully and fairly understood. In contrast, Graves condemns with a reductive caricature.

Again, my objection is not to the points made in criticism of Gauguin's biography. Rather I object to the imbalanced nature of this review: all but ignoring the paintings to instead offer up a facile condemnation, with a prurient obsession with Gauguin's affairs and a cliched, anachronistic post-colonial critique of a still colonial time. And all this to the philistine end of encouraging a dismissive attitude about a major artist. Congrats, this requires "profound" ideological skill.

Graves writes, "Where Gauguin found messy impurities, other artists (and curators, and historians) have found richer options, options that challenge the contemporary viewer." Context reveals that the alternatives Graves is referring to are at work right now, and that by "challenging" she really means "agree with." I strongly suspect Raymond Boisjoly will not be eliciting such heated discussion 109 years after his death! Needless to say, providing alternatives from Gauguin's own time would make Graves's argument stronger.

About the paintings, we read that they combine "sheer gall and fruity beauty," that they are "candy-colored", that "he is gawking with a mixture of pity and desire; the women are posed as melancholics."

The formal descriptions strike me as tone-deaf and, like the entire review, intentionally demeaning. I can guess what "sheer gall" is supposed to mean from the rest of the review, but "fruity beauty" and "candy-colored" are simply a cliched and vulgar way of characterizing Gauguin's revolutionary use of color. And there is no suggestion of his flattening of form and simplification of design (except implicitly in the mention of textiles and Matisse) in pursuit of expressive intensity and symbolical analogues.

The last point, describing the illustrational content, demonstrates Graves' ideological prejudice. There is nothing wrong with art that mixes pity and desire, or that depicts women as melancholics. But Graves is entirely unsympathetic, and describes Gauguin as "gawking"--an attitude I've never seen in a Gauguin painting.

To make "what would Gauguin not do?" into a mantra may make for a fair contemporary moral formula, but at the expense of flattening cultural history and shying away from quite good painting.
Posted by thoughtsfromberlin.tumblr.com]]> Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:30:42 -0800 The Stranger Posted by zag83]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:27:22 -0800 The Stranger Posted by socrates1974]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:16:46 -0800 The Stranger
However, the central theme of infection in this review goes too far. Gauguin wasn't like his contemporaries Leopold II in the Congo, or even Roosevelt in the Philippines. He adopted a new community, and lived by their laws.

I certainly would question a retrospective of Jackson Pollock's work that focused overly on his alcoholism and tried him posthumously for manslaughter in the drunk driving death of Edith Metzger. His work still warrants our admiration for the pioneering spirit he wielded, and so does Gauguin's.

Posted by druiddude]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:27:14 -0800 The Stranger http://youtu.be/KzrRspKIJaQ

Mmmmmm! lick lick lick! Yummy!
Posted by slade]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:43:36 -0800 The Stranger So huge an ignorance we are forced into the denial
Yes even prejudice is a shelter from human ignorance as a whole

He sounds like a starving artist from Chicago, a cover for every form of deeply disturbed deviate on the face of thee earth Art is a therapy shelter that we are compeled to judge from every value and perspective until we the artist must scream in vengeance "Shut up bayatch".
The reflection is a unique flavor and our tasted buds are slaves to familiarity.
Posted by slade]]> Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:40:06 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Retro and Obvious]]> Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:43:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Jen Graves]]> Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:39:38 -0800 The Stranger Posted by porchedge]]> Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:47:52 -0800 The Stranger
I rather think you're right when you say that an artist that agonizes over the 'morality' of their work is going to generally produce very boring art. To play devil's advocate, though, a lot of great, important art was produced with a moral, didactic agenda.

Also, no one accused you of willful ignorance of history; you're completely right when you say that enthusiasts of the 'Primitive' were the precursors of those, generally, left-wing advocates. Hell, many of them were involved with the left-wing politics of the time, and were even nascently anti-colonial. This doesn't somehow nullify the problems with Gauguin and other Primitivists, though. It really doesn't hurt to acknowledge that many of the views we hold today evolved from other, rather unsavory forms, put forth by rather unsavory (if well meaning) people. Gauguin certainly meant well, he did take stands that got him in trouble with French colonial authorities, but for all the reasons that have been mentioned already, he is problematic.
Posted by samktg]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:52:39 -0800 The Stranger
The Academics

They prostitute everything,
by wasting energy in circumlocution.
They explain it all, they monologue
like well-oiled machines,
and slobber over everything with metaphysical drivel.

I'd like to see them in the southern ocean
on a night of real wind, with their heads
cold cast, smelling
the vast solitude of the world
without moon,
without possible explanation

smoking in the terror of abandonment.
Posted by Bill Sherman]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:31:09 -0800 The Stranger
The Academics

They prostitute everything,
by wasting time in circumlocution.
They explain it all, they monologue
like well-oiled machines,
and slobber over everything with metaphysical drivel

I'd like to see them in the southern ocean
on a night of real wind, with their heads
cold cast, smelling
the vast solitude of the world
without moon,
without possible explanation

smoking in the terror of abandonment.
Posted by Bill Sherman]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:12:44 -0800 The Stranger
I think there is a fair amount of evidence that for an artist, spending an inordinate amount of time agonizing over the 'morality' of your art is a pretty good formula for producing boring, mono-dimensional, didactic crap.

Actually I am getting more peeved by the tone of this review as this discussion goes on. What is the reverse term for anachronistic? Whatever it is that is what is going on here. If anything, enthusiasts for the 'primitive' and those who were rebels against western civilization, like Gauguin for instance, were precursors to those (generally leftists) today who are advocates for the oppressed multitudes of the developing world. Who is it that is being willfully ignorant of history here?
Posted by Rhizome]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:27:16 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sparkydive]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:37:37 -0800 The Stranger Posted by lovefromiowa]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:20:36 -0800 The Stranger haha! you must be kidding.
Posted by phuckyouseattledouchebags]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:50:02 -0800 The Stranger
Damn dictation software.

Posted by Louisep]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:28:29 -0800 The Stranger
To quote a commenter on Ann Althouse's blog, you mean.

I'll never understand conservatives. Tell the truth about somebody and everybody loses their shit.

Do porchedge, TortoiseTurtle, northwest mystic, MN_Mark, or Ficino know the first thing about the islands in the South Pacific? Or Gaugin? Or even care one way or another? All I can see is a lot of whining about a review that takes history seriously, and treats art as having real moral content.
Posted by StPaulite]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:20:41 -0800 The Stranger