aesthetics

Experiments In A Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Edited by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Lisa L. Moore, Sharon Bridgforth

In June 2009, I participated in a writing workshop with Sharon Bridgforth, not knowing what to expect and not knowing what I was expected to give. I only knew that I loved music, having already pledged my undying love for jazz at a young age, and that I loved writing; but I never intended to leave with a blueprint for the foundation of how I would put pen to paper from that point on. Since then, my writing has been centered in being present in the here and now, a soulful, deep listening, improvisation (which brings together both the aforementioned), and an integrity that refuses to deviate from what makes up what is known as the jazz aesthetic. It is always a work in progress, as it should be.

According to Austin Project founder Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, the Jazz Aesthetic Manifesto “is a way to forestall the erosion of human connection by bringing to voice women of color and those white women who are able to learn the role of allies.” Jazz has always been about being in the moment, listening to oneself and to one’s surroundings, improvisation, and continuous change. Those precepts are among the few that shaped themselves into the manifesto that would become the Austin Project.

The Austin Project (tAP) was started in 2002 with a stone etching that “all women-all people-are inherently creative, are artists in their own right, and that claiming this identity can be transformative for individuals and communities.” It provides a space for women of color and their allies to write and perform in a jazz aesthetic as a strategy for social change, be they writers, performers, doctors, or social workers. It consists of collaborators Lisa L. Moore, Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Texas at Austin, and Sharon Bridgforth, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the bull-jean stories and love conjure/blues. Mentors and teachers of the women of tAP have included artistic nobility such as Laurie Carlos, Carl Hancock Rux, Virginia Grise, and Daniel Alexander Jones, to name a few.

Not often do I find it difficult to summarize the works of a collective into several hundred words; however, this is one of those times. Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic includes the works of some of the previously mentioned collaborative artists, as well as a veritable who’s who in all things to do with art, activism, and the academics. Jones wrote that in conceiving the Austin Project, she was trying to save her own life; consequently, many births seem to have taken place, for many artists have birthed a way of creating, organizing, and performing. Whether it is art, activism, or academia—being present, listening, body- centered, true to the both/and instead of the either/or all on an inclusive level all serve as the foundation with which to maintain the integrity of the jazz aesthetic. It is always a work in progress, as it should be.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, August 4th 2010

Universal Women: Filmmaking and Institutional Change in Early Hollywood

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Mark Garrett Cooper

University of Illinois Press

In Universal Women, Professor Cooper launches a multidisciplinary investigation into the mystery of why it was that Universal Film Manufacturing Company broadly supported women directors during the 1910s before abruptly reversing the policy. Drawing on philosophical, sociological, historical and structuralist interpretations of gender, culture, power, and institutions, Cooper’s study is positioned to show the interrelationship between art and the development of social norms, aesthetics, and political upheaval, and culture and epistemology in the United States.

However, readers looking for a narrative account of women director’s success and subsequent exile from Universal should look elsewhere. Cooper sets up his project by describing a confluence of events and personalities, some of which appear to be only distantly related, that played varying roles in this drama of gender. Some of these are not clearly explained, as when Professor Cooper explains the etymology of a word but does not clearly tie his explanation to the relationship he is trying to describe and defend.

His definitions and explanations take the following pattern: first, Cooper defines a word like “institution” or “organization” with an appeal to the Oxford English Dictionary. He appeals to the historical use of words to explore the concepts that fall under the definition and to point to a kind of etymological necessity: the word organization brings with it an inheritance from biology and so organizations are implicitly naturalized. Then he describes the word in its social development and practical usage. In the case of “organization” Cooper describes different sociological invocations of the word-concept.

Although in the next section, Professor Cooper describes the bi-coastal organization of Universal Film Manufacturing Company, he does not tie this historical description to the linguistic, historical and sociological discussion that preceded it. It seems that the reader is meant to intuit his purposes in such places and to develop the claims herself. I am not opposed to writing styles that foster critical thinking. But Cooper doesn’t make clear his purposes in so defining and explaining (for example). That is to say, I can look up definitions. I have access to the OED. I can read Durkheim and Weber. But I can’t get inside Cooper’s head to figure out what it is he intends by these things.

Reading Cooper’s book is a bit like watching someone’s film depicting a movie being made: it is interesting to see all the “extras” around the set–the camera crew, the lighting, the onlookers, the caterers, the director and producers and the landscape behind the backdrops and facades–but it is difficult to follow the plot of the movie being made.

The book is directed toward an academic audience; readers should be advised to plant their pinkies in the endnotes for quick reference. It will be most intelligible to those trained in film studies or who are such avid consumers of early Hollywood films and trivia that the characters are familiar–I had a hard time keeping track of names. The study is an interesting one, stressing the role that Universal played in interpreting and then enforcing what it means to be gendered as a man or as a woman. It would be interesting to see a slightly more narrative treatment of the subject–even a narrative that made clear the difficulties of narrative for such a diffuse phenomenon as the shifting meanings of gender–in order to appeal to more non-specialists.

Written by: kristina grob, July 6th 2010

A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Arts, Politics, and Daily Life

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Mira Schor

Duke University Press

A Decade of Negative Thinking is a collection of essays on feminism, paintings, and feminist art history. As a teacher of graduate students, Schor’s experience provides us with practical and theoretical background to an artist’s commitment to contemporary art.

The main theme of the study encompasses the ideas and images from Schor’s earlier life that were significant in influencing her artistic direction. The underlying theme explores the ways in which the past is perceived either consciously or subconsciously by people, and how easily it is to be misguided when forming our current views and opinions because of the undue influence of past styles. The artist writes as a New Yorker because she considers this city to be the center of the world art market, and an inspiring place from which to observe contemporary art and culture.

In part one, "She Said, She Said: Feminist Debates, 1971-2009," Schor describes debates on feminism and feminist art in a number of symposia, art magazine forums, and conferences over the years. Initially, as one of the chapter titles states, "The –ism Did Not Dare Speak Its Name" refers to the many academic –isms theories such as modernism, postmodernism, feminism, and post-structuralism. But later in “Generation 2.5,” the focus is on a community of women artists who had ideals about the feminist art movement, and who followed their direction during difficult times. They challenged the notion of a canon in art production and the cult of celebrity in contemporary culture.

In part two, "Painting," Schor analyzes the production of art history from a feminist perspective. She concentrates on the works of Alica Neel, an abstract painter who created Two Girls. Spanish Harlem (1959), Dore Ashton (1952), and Self Portrait (1980). She also considers works by Lisa Yuskavage and Myron Stout.

In part three, "Trite Tropes," Schor presents her views on common themes in art that are popular among college students and practitioners of the avant garde academy. Schor claims that art education is inadequate or even non-existent. She also asserts that practical visual contact by students with the artists themselves would help to clarify some misconceptions on art. As the writer explains, “negative thinking may indicate more of a programmatic belief in modernist ideas of resistance via that methodology of negative dialectics than is actually in play.”

Schor would like to see art works discussed and analyzed even if that analysis may be negative from the point of view of the art market. She clearly believes in the power of art despite all odds. This hope can empower our thinking and our actions. Schor vigorously researched her topic and included visual images of paintings in her book, which contributed to the visual pleasure of her narrative. I found her essays engaging and appealing, mostly because of Schor’s anecdotes and the choice of her personal stories; however, I needed a few breaks in the reading of her theoretical background, as some of the essays require extreme concentration on the part of the reader.

Overall, Schor, who is also a painter and writer, creates a very witty, brave, carefully designed, in-depth study on the question of politics and aesthetics in the contemporary world.

Written by: Anna Hamling, May 15th 2010

The Decoration of Houses (The Original 1897 Edition)

admin — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:34:00 +0000

By Edith Wharton, Ogden Codman

Rizzoli Press

Amidst today’s seemingly endless supply of domestic guides and treatises on interior decoration, Edith Wharton might be surprised that her The Decoration of Houses (co-authored with architect Ogden Codman, Jr.) would still be as relevant and necessary as it is a century after its first publication. Long before “simplicity” and “classic” became catchwords for branding, Wharton took a public stand against the bland, trite excesses of Victorian décor in America. Favoring the considered, informed and complex processes of design rooted in architectural principles, her graceful humility was matched only by her assertive plea against the contemporary dominance of thoughtless, conspicuous consumption visible in New York society. As she determinately decreed: “According to the creed of the modern manufacturer, you have only to combine certain ‘good’ to obtain a certain style.”

Often associated with the frivolity connected to historical descriptions of femininity, this volume might be a surprise for those who prefer to view Wharton as a New York literary powerhouse. While her 40 books in 40 years (many of which were devoted to travels through European residences and gardens) are a testament to the force of her pen, it’s the themes of beauty, pleasure, societal indulgence, cultural education and cosmopolitanism in America’s modernity that make her analysis, and eventual ruling on the importance of design and space, a necessary extension of her literary thought. As she aptly begins her historical and aesthetic analysis, “Rooms may be decorated in two ways: by a superficial application of ornament totally dependent of structure, or by means of those architectural features which are part of the organism of every house, inside as well as out.” And it’s through these sixteen chapters that reflect on everything from the front door to the dining room to bric-a-brac that she offers readers a glimpse at the historic function of furnishings, as well as her claims about taste, beauty and the impact of residential design.

The Italian, French and British capacity for decorating in accord with the Grecian edict of “wise moderation,” so admired by Wharton, is illustrated by black and white plates. The illustrations also reveal that the author’s penchant for “classic” beauty wasn’t about recreating kitschy historic facades or stoic sparseness. Rather, a considered pleasure seems to be her goal as she concludes, “There is no absolute perfection, there is no communicable ideal; but much that is empiric, much that is confused and extravagant, will give way before the application of principles based on common sense and regulated by the laws of harmony and proportion.” True to her appreciation for sincerity in the application of decorative principles, readers can see the realization of her rules if they visit the Mount, a 113-acre Lenox estate designed by Wharton in 1902.

Recreated by Rizzoli using photographs of the original 1897 pressing, the only change made by the publishers in this edition is the use of the original interior dust jacket as the model for the printed design that now covers the book. But I don’t think Wharton would mind, as she truly believed that design was about the external reflection and illumination of what’s on the inside.

Written by: Joanne Molina, July 11th 2007

Figures of Resistance: Essays in Feminist Theory

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:40:00 +0000

By Teresa de Lauretis, Patricia White

University of Illinois Press

Figures of Resistance is a collection of essays, including previously unpublished lectures and essays, by the absolutely brilliant, feminist thinker Teresa de Lauretis. The texts in this collection span from the concept of feminist aesthetics (or deaesthetics) in film as well as the notion of the narrative, and lesbianism. This collection is perfect for both those already familiar with de Lauretis’s work and those unfamiliar.

Patricia White, the editor of the book, has organized de Laurestis’s texts beautifully. The collection is broken down into three sections: “Representations” which includes essays on cinema, literature and theory with a focus on self-representation in contrast to the medium; “Readings,” in which each text is focusing on a very specific subject for analysis (ranging from a short passage in a novel to a film); and “Epistemologies,” which focuses on ways of knowing and formulates figures of feminist consciousness. Also, each section the text is arranged chronologically, which gives the reader a chance to develop their own thoughts along with Teresa de Lauretis.

This collection is a rare and exciting opportunity to encapsulate the work of a critic and thinker at the top of her game. Figures of Resistance is a must have for any one with interest in feminist film theory, feminism, film and aestheics.

Written by: Jen May, July 3rd 2007