THE INDEPENDENT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER FOR ART IN EASTERN IOWA
IOWA CITY ARTS REVIEW NOVEMBER 29, 2012
WEEKLY CALENDAR ONGOING EVENTS Midwest Matrix Exhibition, selections from the Iowa Print Group Collection at Art Building West | November 26 – December 2 Taraleh Streeter, BFA in Photography exhibition in the 3rd floor gallery at Art Building West | November 26 – December 2 Midwest Matrix Exhibition, work by graduate and undergraduate students in Printing at the Drewelowe and Ark Galleries | November 26 – December 2 Black Angel work by Heidi Bartlett at the Porch Gallery | November 27 – December 1 Heidi Van Wieren “I Dream In Delft” at the Douglas & Linda Paul Gallery, Englert Theater | through January 8 Ty Smith and Ken Dubin present “Fish Nor Fowl” at the Times Club at Prairie Lights | through November 30 Gretchen Caracas, Paintings, at the Hudson River Gallery | November 16 – December 29 Arden Hendrie, graduate student in Painting and Drawing presents “Steps” at the Kendall Gallery in the IMU | November 5 - November 30 with a closing reception Friday, November 30, 5-7 pm Jill Kambs’ exhibition “Falling Action” is at Paper Nest | through December 5 UIMA “Napoléon and the Art of Propaganda,” Old Capitol Museum & the Black Box Theater, IMU | through January 29, 2013
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 29 Dance Department, The School of Music, and Department of Theatre Arts, “Collaborative Performance” at Space Place Theatre | 8:00 pm Department of Theatre Arts, “Memoire – A UI Theatre Gallery Production” in Theatre B in the University of Iowa Theatre Building | 8:00 pm
EDITION 1 VOLUME 4
CRITIC EVENT PICKS Midwest Matrix Symposium, Art Building West
Charlie Beye, Reading, Prairie Lights
and Studio Arts | Exhibitions ongoing with
Bookstore | Thursday at 7:00 pm
events Saturday and Sunday
Charles Beye will be here to read from
This Midwest Matrix Symposium is a
My Husband and My Wives, A Gay Man’s
collection of events including film screenings,
Odyssey. A memoir of a man looking back
panel discussions, lectures and exhibitions
over eight decades at the complications of
featuring printmaking work from current
discovering at puberty his attraction to other
professors and students as well as alumni.
men. A wonderfully original, challenging, life-
The Symposium is a tribute to universities in
and love-affirming account that could only
the Midwestern United States that from the
have been written by the unconventional man
mid-1940s to mid-1950s formed a nucleus
who lived through it all. “It’s Beye’s charming
of new Master of Fine Arts printmaking
raconteur voice, and his refusal to bend
programs, and an acknowledgement of the
anecdotes into the expected ‘lessons’ that
individual artist-professors whose work and
really make this memoir such a knockout.
that of their students contributed to the now
Beye’s story is a complex, poignant addition
celebrated post-war printmaking revival in
to the sexual canon.” — Maureen Corrigan,
America.
NPR.
Charlie Beye, Reading, Prairie Lights
SATURDAY DECEMBER 2
Bookstore | 7:00 pm Jazz Guitar Ensemble at the University Capitol
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 30 University of Iowa School of Music Students
Centre Recital Hall | 1:00 pm “Memoire – A UI Theatre Gallery Production”
are featured in “A Little Lunch Music” at
in Theatre B in the University of Iowa Theatre
2780 of the University Capitol Centre in the
Building | 2:00 pm
Old Capitol Mall | 12:00 pm Chamber Orchestra and String Orchestra at the Soundscape Trio at the Mill Restaurant
Riverside Recital Hall | 3:00 pm
| 5:30 pm José Gobbo Trio at the University Capitol Centre Viola Studio Recital at the University Capitol Centre Recital Hall | 6:00 pm
Recital Hall | 3:00 pm
MONDAY DECEMBER 3
“Collaborative Performance” at Space Place Theatre | 8:00 pm
University Band and Concert Band at the Second Floor Ballroom in the Iowa Memorial Union
“Memoire – A UI Theatre Gallery Production”
| 7:30 pm
in Theatre B in the University of Iowa Theatre Building | 8:00 pm
Robin Hemley and Mieke Erkens, Reading, Prairie Lights Bookstore | 7:00 pm
SATURDAY DECEMBER 1
TUESDAY DECEMBER 4
“Collaborative Performance” at Space Place Theatre | 8:00 pm
Clarinet Studio Recital at the University Capitol Centre Recital Hall | 5:00 pm
“Memoire – A UI Theatre Gallery Production” in Theatre B in the University of Iowa Theatre
Jazz Repertory Ensemble at the Riverside Recital
Building | 8:00 pm
Hall | 7:30 pm
Ink Lit, Reading, Prairie Lights Bookstore
Robin Hemley and Mieke Erkens, Reading,
| 5:00 pm
Prairie Lights Bookstore | 7:00 pm
IOWACITYARTSREVIEW.COM
us to reconsider our own connection to the continuity of the capitalist system, situating us in the present moment, which is neither fixed nor static.
TRUTH AND THE SOVERIEGNTY OF SUBJECTIVITY
“Enlightenment can only happen by selfliberation of individuals who are capable of thinking for themselves despite established authorities.” Quotations are taken from Immanuel Kant, “What is enlightenment,” The Philosophy of Kant, ed. Karl J. Friedrich (New York: Modern Library, 1977), 55.
WRITTEN BY ANDREA FERRIGNO
A slightly and intentionally rhizomatic response to Brian Prugh’s article about whether an artist can be wrong. I would first like to argue that Kenneth’s Goldsmith’s New York City project, Captital, is a contribution to knowledge. Goldsmith is researching New York City’s history, gleaning texts and arranging them in a structure similar to of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, arguably one of the first post-structuralist works. I appreciate his ironic twist on Benjamin’s enterprise. He may not be contributing to logo-centric knowledge, where ideas of truth and falsity are subject only to and factual accountability, however he is working directly with gleaned information that is true in itself. The way that he presents his texts holds a great amount of truth about the way we move through information in this age, gleaning, trying to organize and understand it as best we can. Goldsmith’s approach is capable and in dialogue with a paraliteral inquiry and knowledge of one’s experience. The work, presented as an effort of aesthetic pedagogy, juxtaposes vernaculars of current times and places with those of times lost, exposing the rift between. Is this exposure in the spirit of poststructuralism literary theory not a contribution to thought?
* How can an artist make a claim of truth? Should an artist make a claim of truth? I don’t believe an artist can make a claim of truth and offer it up as such, without being didactic, imposing on the public. An artistic claim to truth is an authoritative action that is counter-productive to the efforts of dislodging people from falsity or dogma. Goldsmith may be attempting to give the public an aesthetic education, but it is an education where history and his activity are the authorities, instead of himself. When theory turns into praxis we are in a bit of a dilemma. Goldsmith is offering a theory. He is pointing out what we perhaps already know: that history is not, and cannot be, passed down in a truly objective manner—that our sense of historical continuity is false and problematic. Any criticism, valid or not, that Kenneth Goldsmith is not up to anything new, would probably not phase but rather please
Goldsmith, who defines himself as an uncreative writer and who doesn’t think anyone needs to write anything new. The spirit of Goldsmith’s work is rather to prime the public with a liberating action, revealing the discontinuity of our history and of our knowledge of that history. This is an effort, the same as Walter Benjamin’s effort, to free us from one of the last remaining gestalts of our history, capitalism, one that has yet to be eclipsed since Benjamin’s time.
*
BRIAN PRUGH RESPONDS: Andrea Ferrigno and I are planning to meet at Joe’s on Wednesday night, December 5, at 10 pm to continue our discussion of issues of truth in art. Anyone interested in taking part in the conversation is welcome to join us. These are the questions that I will be bringing with me to the discussion: 1. Can something be a contribution to knowledge or thought, can it hold truth, if it cannot also be false? 2. Can a work be true without being didactic? 3. What is the aim of art? What is the point of our artistic activity? (Is it to dislodge people from falsity or dogma? Or are there other answers?)
“The public can only achieve enlightenment slowly.” – Immanuel Kant How can we make a claim, more importantly a public claim, about the truth of our subjective endeavors? The ethical, through politics, is aimed at the public; its target, first and foremost, is the masses. The aesthetic, on the other hand, is aimed at the individual. We move forward with the hope only of tilling the soil.
4. Is there such a thing as subjective truth? That is, is there truth that can only be known subjectively? And could such a thing be called truth?
Goldsmith’s Capital reveals a striving for freedom, a striving for his own understanding of history, and in so doing it asks us to question ours. Goldsmith is engaged with the flux, engaged with the flux as one who might consider themselves agnostic to be, as one who believes that truth isn’t something that can be neatly packaged, as one who believes in multiple truths, at least in that there are truths that cannot be objectively resolved.
6. Is an accurate judgment of another’s subjective experience the last thing that we can hope to find? Or is it the first thing we should look for in art?
The artist can lay the pieces out but it is not the job of the artist to put the pieces together. It may take juxtapositions of all sorts of ‘weirdness’ before anything fruitful will emerge and when it does it most likely won’t be something that one can point to and label as “truth.” Internalized truth can be found, but it is an internalization that will and should remain within the sovereignty of subjectivity. The last thing we can hope to find is an accurate judgment of another’s subjective experience. What Prugh seems to be calling for is a more activist approach to art. I would rather have faith that the truth will reveal itself. Any attempt to force a truth into art is outside of the artistic endeavor. This may be a goal on the horizon of ethics, especially ethics through political action, of which many starts have failed. Kenneth Goldsmith does not offer a teleological model for art, rather he calls
5. Does our ability to confirm, objectively resolve, or label things as true affect their truth?
FERRIGNO ASKS: 1. Is there more than one answer? (I would argue YES!) Could it be to open up new territory to explore? To reveal continuity of thought with other disciplines? A merger of internal and external realities? 2. Can art be seen as a navigational tool, to helps use move more freely? How do we value freedom in art, freewill in art? 3. If so, it possibility to talk about subjective internalized truth, objectively? Is subjectivity something that needs reclaimed? What is our subjective experience of freedom and how does this relate to other concepts or forms of freedom? 4. What about arts ability to turn us inward questioning and evaluating our own subjective experience?
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co-creators: Brian Prugh and Heidi Wiren Bartlett and a special thanks to David Dunlap