This is a
portrait of the painter Mark Rothko in his New York studio, circa 1953, taken by Henry
Elkan.
I do not know much about Rothko personally or politically, but I do like his paintings. That probably makes me the median visitor to nearly any museum that shows his work! In any case, I picked up a copy of his The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art (Yale UP, 2004) and have been dipping into it over the past several days. One passage I discovered strikes me as telling:
"Art is not only a form of action, it is a form of social action. For art is a type of communication, and when it enters the environment it produces its effects just as any other form of action does.
It might be said that its use as a form of action is dependent upon the numbers which it effects. ... Needless to say this sort of measure will lead one to the most absurd conclusions. ... How far a single impulse can extend in its effect is unpredictable. One minute stimulus can be more far-reaching, can effect the course of society more significantly in a single minute than a thousand other stimuli - whose effect is more obvious - might over a hundred years."
This view resonates in two ways. Most obviously it seems correct to think about art generally and photography in particular in terms of its effects, its consequences, whether those be intimate or expansive. Second, it also seems right not to prejudge what those effects might be. Here I am reminded of the argument Rebecca Solnit makes in her Hope in the Dark (Nation Books, 2004) regarding the unforeseeable effects political or artistic interventions might have across time and distance. This is something about which I've posted before [here] in discussing some remarks Alfredo Jaar made about the consequences his work may or may not have had. The perspective that Rothko and Solnit seem to share counsels patience and hope (not naive optimism) in the face of seeming failure and irrelevance. I must say it is a view I find difficult to fully embrace. But it is one I would like to find persuasive. So, I leave you with one striking example of Rothko's social action.
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PS: Added 10/4/06. Lest you misunderstand, Rothko was writing in the early 1940s (this ms. was "lost" for many years) and makes the statements I note in the context of a defense of artists who might be accused of "escapism." He is defending artistic freedom not suggesting that we should endorse didactic criteria for assessing artists or their work. His point is simply that no matter how "abstract" or "personal" artistic work might appear, it is still social action insofar as it is an intervention in the world that potentially has effects.
So, how then, does this square with my criticism of Nikki Lee in my post yesterday? Well, it seems to me that she is using common preoccupations with social identity as no more than a ruse to present herself in a sort of exhibitionist way; in effect she is saying "look at me!", "look at the things I can do!", "aren't I clever!?!" In the end, I really don't find that sort of self-absorption terribly interesting, especially since she is displaying her cleverness by making it seem as though she is concerned about something else. Without the pretense she is probably not especially clever or interesting. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the trend seems to be toward more explicit preoccupation with Nikki rather than with the broader issues she is exploiting.
Labels: Alfredo Jaar, Nikki Lee, Rebecca Solnit, Rothko
