Response Assignment #4
Posted by kscott on February 15, 2007
NOTE: I have sent out the readings to everyone’s email. If you did not receive it, email me, and I’ll send you a copy. A few came back as undeliverable due to “full boxes”. Kristin
DUE NEXT WEEK (February 22nd): Two page minimum response, utilizing BOTH readings (on syllabus).
Below are some questions that you may ask yourself. You are not expected to answer all of these questions – you could focus on just a few that you find most interesting. But you must incorporate BOTH essays into your response assignment. You are also free to ask and answer other questions you may have that are not listed here:
- In Croce’s essay, she says that she has not seen Bill T. Jones’s “Still/Here” and doesn’t plan to review it. According to Croce, why will she not review the dance performance? What is Joyce Carol Oates’ response to Croce’s argument?
- Croce brings up the term “victim art” within her (non)review of Jones’s dance performance. What exactly do you think Croce means by the term “victim art”? And how does Oates view the same type of art? Does Oates agree or disagree with Croce’s term “victim art” and why?
EXTRA CREDIT question (you must answer this along with one above to receive extra credit): In Croce and Oates’ essays, each argue a certain point of view in regards to what she believes consitutes art or makes it valuable as art. In what ways does each author reflect (however explicit or subtle) one of the main arguments of either Plato, Bell, Tolstoy or Winterson?
** Always, always back up your thoughts with some example, quote, or explanation.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:48 am
2.
Croce refuses to even see ‘Still/Here’ on the basis that it represents a style of art that manipulates the viewer by focusing directly on illnesses, unfair treatment, historical injustice, etc. Whether or not the term victim is being used to describe the artist or the viewer can be debated: is the viewer victimized by the blatant discussion of the artist’s pain or suffering, or is the artist merely a victim of unfortunate circumstances? It seems that it holds a double meaning and applies to both. However, Croce’s major point is that to be considered “victim art,” the art must directly involve dialogue concerned with the injury itself. In all actuality, I don’t feel she makes this very clear in her essay, and instead goes on to delineate the history of art (using it as reason that ‘Still/Here’ is “undiscussable”) and, while bashing those who define art on their own terms, defines art in her own terms.
Joyce Carol Oates’s opening paragraph is harsh: a short statement calling the idea of victim art “appalling.” She obviously disagrees with Croce, especially on the intention of the art. In that is where the problem lies: Croce believes the art is manipulating the viewer/critic and pinning him or her into having to write a generic review (one that must involve praise, else the viewer feels guilt and, basically, like an asshole) whereas Oates finds the art to be similar to that which “bears witness to human suffering,” a type always present in art. Oates believes that all art affects viewers on an emotional level; thus, denouncing a certain type of art because it brings forth a certain type of emotion (pity? sadness?) is clearly too subjective (and ridiculous) of a view.
To clarify her point (that the term “victim art” is inappropriate and unnecessary), Oates describes several different works that “depict…the oppressed” and other issues that are being dealt with. She provides Croce with a response that summarily says, “if ‘Still/Here’ is not to be viewed based on its approach to topic, what about all of these other celebrated works?” As she says, “Why should authentic experience, in art, render it ‘beyond criticism’?”
“As a dance critic, I’ve learned to avoid dancers with obvious problems–overweight dancers…, old dancers, dancers with sickled feet, or dancers with physical deformities…” — so, real people? To Croce, is the dancer someone who is tall, thin, perfectly formed, up on stage doing something that’s been done thousands of times before? She’s basically saying that anyone who recognizes their faults and chooses to emphasize them in a body of work is attempting to make a victim out of the viewer. This is an obnoxious, self-centered, without-reason claim. She’s putting herself ahead of the art and the artist, a place where she does not belong. How is she to know the intentions of the artist? I’m sure Bill T. Jones wasn’t sitting in his room trying to think of the dirtiest plot to pin his viewers into giving good reviews. From my perspective, he was probably trying to shed light on the dreary subject: “well, we might have AIDS, but at least we love to dance” or maybe something like “well, AIDS isn’t stopping us!” What are people supposed to do, suppress their problems (or, things that their entire lives revolve around, thus making them not “problems” but their normality) and write fiction to please a big-headed audience?
What is art but something that questions the status quo, the standards; something that changes with time (evolves!), with society, with the currents? Isn’t it the only outlet for expression that is open to everyone? Anyone can make art and some of the best art is made out of unnatural conditions (the slaves’ spirituals come to mind); in my opinion, art that doesn’t deal with a serious social issue (oppression, injustice, disease, history, etc.) is weak, has a boring message, is not for my tastes. Croce could have easily said, “I don’t think I’ll go see this; I’d feel like an asshole if I criticized it.” and continued on watching and critiquing boring dance.
Also, she states that ‘good art’ is alive and well, apparent in David and Ain Gordon’s play The Family Business. What makes this play good and Bill T. Jones’s bad is that the Gordons didn’t use real life (”no videos, testimonials, no confessions”), and instead were able to convey it through fiction. (Summarized: fiction is better at being real than real life itself.) Maybe Croce has an issue with learning that “problems” exist more frequently, and in closer proximity to herself, than she thought. It seems that she wants art that deals with the issues, but indirectly; and it can only be brutally honest if it isn’t true.
At the end, her saying the statement “Only the narcissism of the nineties could put Self in place of Spirit” in reference to ‘Still/Here’ is hilarious. Throughout the entire essay, she focuses on the way the art makes her feel, how the critic can’t perform his or her job because of some depressing emotion evoked inside of them, that she is being victimized (and isn’t that so unfair!). The petty complaints of an immobile critic should never be prioritized before the content of the art.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Holy Bitter Lady, Batman! Arlene Croce, famed dance critic, can now be compared to a bitter old woman who’s husband has just died & she has no one else to complain to. In “non-reviewing” the Bill T. Jones dance “Still/Here”, she declares that it cannot be reviewed because it is “victim art.” She goes on to define “victim art” as and art that the viewer is “forced to feel sorry for because of the way they present themselves: as dissed blacks, abused women, or disfranchised homosexuals – as performers, in short, who make out of victimhood victim art.” She starts rattling off other forms of what she defines as “victim art” such as: Schindler’s List, the “X, Y, and Z” Mapplethorppe photography exhibit, etc. (she doesn’t mention Anne Frank, I assume, because Frank did not intend for her diary to be mass produced – although she too is a victim.) This categorization of art isn’t 100% off base as long as it is used to describe the correct kind of art. We can harken back to Tolstoy’s ideas that art is not valid unless the artist had pure intentions upon its creation. Did Jones create with the intent to make money or was he giving a face to a fatal infection? I’m curious – how would Croce have labeled the recent “Women in Hip-Hop” show at the Hothouse? Those women are bringing light to a cultural/social issue that is prevalent in music – would she consider their exuberant dance & upbeat lyrical delivery “victimizing”? I didn’t feel sorry for these women, they were taking a stand, and I certainly didn’t feel “forced” in any way. Croce is mistakenly holding all of this style of art to the same harsh standard. People should not be made to merely write or speak of social issues – we are, as a culture, creatively driven and have always expressed views as such. On the other side of the fence sits Joyce Carol Oates. Oates believes that there is no such thing as “victim art” and is appalled by the very notion. She represents the opposite end of the spectrum which believes an “artist is free to express and the result is even more meaningful when it is fueled by personal experience.” This we can also agree with as long as we are keeping in mind the Tolstoy theory. An artist maybe can do no wrong, but they should definitely be held accountable if their work is transparent as Bill T. Jones’ may have been.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Jonathan Binder
I did not enjoy reading Arlene Croce’s Discussing the Undiscussable and have no plans to agree with her. I don’t know her personally, I have not read any of her other work nor have I even seen her dance. So this is more or less my first impression of Croce, and it was a bad one.
However, with Joyce Carol Oats, it was quite the opposite. This was a great example of Tolstoy’s philosophy of the relationship that exists between artists and the viewers. Again, I have not met nor do I know very much about Oats, but we made a great connection in our disagreement with Croce.
I find it very hard to take Croce’s ignorant point of view seriously. Although I disagree with the idea of “victim art,” that wasn’t my biggest discomfort with Croce’s outlook in this piece. It was more with the position she put her self in as a critic and the resulting attitude she seemed to present.
The options for a critic that she presents, give much insight to the dept of Croce as a critic:
“A critic has three options: (1) to see and review; (2) to see and not review; (3) not to see. A fourth option – to write about what one has not seen – becomes possible on strange occasions like “Still/Here,” from which one feels excluded by reason of its express intentions, which are unintelligible as theater. ”
If a critic chose to take that ridiculous fourth option, then at that point I wouldn’t consider him/her a critic anymore. It goes against the entire definition of a critique. So therefore her “nice try” of a fourth option does not apply to critics.
However, it of course applies to her words against “Still/Here.” She says that this work is “undiscussable” (which is not a word, nor is the even the further fetched “undiscussability”). She states that she cannot review someone she feels sorry for or hopeless about, which is in reality not the character or topic. Can art not be reality?
“They are the prime exhibits of a director-choreographer who has crossed the line between theater and reality— ”
I briefly see her point when only looking at dance or theater. Acting is done on the stage, but from my understanding of “Still/Here” there were dancers interpreting or expressing the movements of those who had been struck by an illness that appeared on some sort of screen. That is a beautiful concept of using art to express reality. Truth can be one of the best ways to define art, for me.
As far as Croce’s problem with this art provoking this deep, emotional impact by use of these people who have fallen victim to a disease, didn’t even register in my mind as a problem. Oats took the words right out of my head when she asked:
Doesn’t all art, especially the conventional and pleasing, have the goal of affecting an audience’s emotions?
I think Tolstoy would very much see Bill T. Jone’s “Still/Here as a beautiful work of are because of the true, honest emotion that might be able to communicate or connect with others.
Oaks also went on to say this:
“Art is a mysterious efflorescence of the human spirit that seems not to have originated in a desire to please or placate critics.”
This just articulates the point that Croce just doesn’t have the right attitude when viewing this art. It was as if she was insulted that “Still/Here” expressed a reality that may be more difficult to critique. I feel that she portrays that it isn’t worth her time, because she is scared she might actually be emotionally effected.
Let me thank Oats for jabbing Croce and summing up my response:
“Surely the critic cares for art even when it isn’t for “review.”
(Think about that Croce)
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Croce uses the term “victim art” to define a type of art that either takes advantage of either the subject or the artist itself. Oates counter points this argument with Anne Frank; whose diary depicts her struggle. The diary depicts her and her family more as people trying to survive than as victims. I think what Croce was trying to get at was the fact that many artists tend to exploit either themselves or others in their work. It is this exploitation that is the real problem. Take for example the art of Sue Williams. Her depiction of rape and molestation in her art is only tolerated because she is a woman. If a man were to create the same piece of art he would be labeled as being sexist and a misogynist pig. Weather the art is created by a man or woman it still exploits women and depicts them as a victim. I feel that all artists have been exposed to some sort of pain in their lives. It is this pain that drives us to create. By putting our pain out for the world to see, it becomes comforting to find that others have shared our pain. There is a way to tackle difficult subjects in art without resorting to exploitation. I do agree with Oates that there is no such thing as “non art”; all art must be given a chance to be seen and understood. This is especially true if you are a reviewer. If she is to take her profession seriously Croce only has option one at her disposal. It is her job to see and to review. If you don’t like a piece of art it is your duty to tell us why.
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
“A critic has three options: (1) to see and review; (2) to see and not review; (3) not to see. A fourth option-to write about what has not seen.” Croce, Discussiong the Undiscussable.
Arlene Croce has certainly put her foot down. Not only is she reviewing something that she has not seen, but she has no desire to see it. To Croce, “Still/Here” by Bill T. Jones is not what Jones calls it, dance. Still/Here is what Croce likes to call victim art. Victim art is where someone who is sick, and has no choice but to be sick, is presented in front of you on stage, merely so you can feel sorry for them, feel their pain. Croce tries to have a sense of what Jones is doing, but simply cannot. As a dance critic, Croce has seen it all. Croce and Jones are no stranger to eachother. In the past Croce has given Jones rave reviews, because she believed at that time that he had something to contribute to art, dance, and performance.
“We are all, artists and nonartists alike, survivors and curators, shoring up the art of the past, rummaging among its discards for new ideas” Croce, Discussing the Undiscussable.
In my opinion this quote goes against Croce first idea, which is how Jones form of victim art, is really not art at all. This quote is kind of saying that no matter what, we are all artists, even Jones, who might have had an idea that some didn’t like.
Joyce Carol Oates is on the other side of the line. She thinks that someone who could make up such a term as “victim art” has no sympathy for those who have no choice but to be sick.
To back up her opinion, Oates gives examples of what Croce might
consider also consider her harsh, unhuman term “victim art”. Holocaust survivors, Anne Frank, ex-slaves, and so on, are also to blame for trying to make you feel ridculously sorry for them.
Oates makes a good point in putting Croce in her place but I think that you can’t compare these two victims. I have a hard time with both
sides, and I sit in the middle with my opinion. What is the message that the people in Still/Here trying to send us? And how do they feel about what they are doing? There are many unanswered questions I believe and cannot form my opinion on whether not I think this “victim art” really exists.
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Croce kicks off her essay by stating the fact that she has never seen Bill T. Jones’s “Still/Here,” and never really plans to. Her reason; the performance is beyond all criticism because in Croce’s opinion, you’re not allowed to combine live dancers with real-life videos of the terminally ill. It could force the audience to feel sorry for the performers, which makes “Still/Here” an illegitimate piece, falling into the category of victim art. Croce gives victim art a negative spin right off the bat, saying “it has a deadly power over the human conscience”, and that she cannot review something she feels sorry for. She rubbed me wrong when she said this, and the fact that her feeling something is a bad thing when reviewing art makes me imagine her as a robot or something. Croce complains that she is being forced to feel sorry for “Dissed blacks, abused women, and disfranchised homosexuals,” which I guess is painful when you’re elite like she is, but I think it’s a little absurd of her to not critique something based solely on the content of a piece. Her reasoning says that because of the depressing human element of the work, she can’t look at it objectively. Yet seeing as how she and Jones’ have clashed in the past, I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Croce knows how much power a well-known critic can have, and saw “Still/here” as the perfect excuse to let her soapbox lose. Come on now Arlene…when it comes to victim art she is being way too harsh. Oates brings up a handful of examples that proves victim art can be good art, mentioning names like Kathe Kollwitz, Edvard Munch, Dorothea Lange and even good ol’ Anne Frank. Maybe it was the provocative/raciness of Jones that Croce didn’t like and felt should be put in his place? Either way, she should have at least seen the production. What if she went to sleep for five years and woke up to a world where every production somehow incorporated mixed media and real life sob stories? Would she stop being a critic? Of course not, because a good critic should review art, in whatever form it may be, with the thought in mind that times are changing. What she thought was good 20 years ago might not apply now. She reminds me of photographers I’ve known in the past who refuse to acknowledge the potential advantages of digital photography. Instead they stick to the old ways of shooting and developing, which is fine, because it’s their problem that they’ll never know about the possibilities available with digital photography. But a critic’s opinion is different than a normal civilian’s. The critic has a responsibility to inform and direct the people they know will read their review, which depending on the where the review is published can mean a lot. Thousands of people read the LA or New York Times, therefore a critic must understand that they’re not at a coffee table talking with their elite colleagues around a platter of rare cheese and silver toothpicks, they’re talking to the masses, which means the potential results of their review should be carefully thought out and weighed, making sure to leave out any personal baggage that could detour a prospective audience. Basically, think about people other than yourself. What if an old woman with cancer, maybe she was a former dancer, read the review for Jones’s performance and decided not to go. Or her friend read it and told her not to go. Either way, Croce could be the reason she didn’t go, when in reality she could have gone and had a great experience. She could have gone and had a bad experience too, but it would be for her to decide, not the critic. The unfortunate thing about theater is that once it begins to show everything is set in stone. What if Croce and Jones went out and had coffee? They could have agreed to disagree and written a two sided review together!
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:09 pm
It seems like everything we read always comes back to Plato’s writing somehow. Oates confronts Croce’s statement about ‘power of the human conscience.’ It’s just like Plato when he said art was dangerous because of the power and control that it has over people. Oates seems to interpret Croce’s quote as her being revolted over art that can overpower emotion, but to me that sounds like the best type of art. Art and politics are very similar because they can both influence/persuade and I think it’s funny that they are so much a like while the past artist we read, Clive Bell, said to separate art and politics. Maybe the best way to sum it up is when in the movie Ghostbusters, Egon says, ‘don’t cross the streams’, referring to the streams that emit out of their pseudo-guns. What would you call all the religious art from the renaissance? Aren’t all those paintings of Jesus used as sympathetic ways to believe in the ‘right’ religion? And if Croce was a critic during those times I bet she’d have said the same thing, ‘this kind of art can’t be reviewed’, but six hundred years later those works are being critiqued. Oates brings up a similar reference when referring to Anne Frank’s Diary.
If we follow Tolstoy’s argument about art; if the artist can have a feeling and relate that feeling to a viewer, then the feeling is successfully communicated and that is art. So It’s not about dying, it’s about the feelings, the struggle, the pain. If the dancers are able to communicate those feelings to the audience then, at lease to Tolstoy, it’s art.
I think Croce herself says it best when she uses the term, ‘victim art’. She calls art that makes you feel sorry for someone, ‘victim art.’ She says it’s manipulative because you have no choice but to feel sorry for it. You’re responding to it out of sympathy. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people that see Still/Here and get no emotional response from it. Maybe, they don’t understand it, or they just don’t feel any kind of connection to it, like is the case with a lot of art. The fact of the matter is we see two critics with polar opposite views on a piece of art, so the decision on whether it’s art or not just depends on the viewer. When ‘Discussing the Undiscussable ‘ is read, you say to your self, ‘yeah, she’s got a point’, then when you read Oates’s rebuttal, you say ‘wait a minute, Oates is making a lot of sense here.’ So it’s all up to the viewer. But going back to the beginning of this paragraph, Croce says it best when she calls it victim art. The bottom line is that it’s art.
Croce discusses the changing climate in art starting after the sixties and I see her point. Art has evolved into this ‘anything is art’ dogma, and it hasn’t helped since the internet. Now anyone can put something they created on the web and call them selves an artist. Tradition has broken down when it comes to art being produced and art being taught. Which leave a person wondering, if there was, for example musicians being taught using traditional lessons instead of just figuring things out by listening to records in their basement, would we have more/better musicians? Another example is I remember hearing about a very smart scientist who died a few years ago. He was a proponent of smoking marijuana and did so regularly. People wonder if he could have been able to benefit society more greatly than he already had if he didn’t alter his thinking by getting high all the time. So what basically happens is there is lack of traditional structured teaching and because of that, artists that have potential fall through the cracks, people that shouldn’t (try to) be artists somehow get past security, but then you also get amazing artists that teach themselves and make crazy, excitingly new art. It’s life, it’s survival of the fittest when it comes to art and just like Oates mentions, it’s survival of the fittest for critics also. Adapt with the changing climate or die. Croce believes that the sixties were ‘the twilight of American modern dance’, the sun set and never returned. If that’s true, then we’ve been left in an ice age of art, so Croce better put on a coat like everyone else or she’s not going to make it.
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:18 pm
It’s hard not to get completely emotionally strung out on Croce’s position on not reviewing Bill T. Jones’s “Still/Here” (as made obvious by already heated entries of attack). Instead I would like to offer a solution for Croce in what I myself see as a better way of going about a non-review, review.
….Are we really reviewing reviews? Next I’m going to review Maurice Berger’s review of Croce’s review…
Croce clearly goes into this all with a strong position on what she has predetermined and coined as “Victim Art.” All reviewers have bias and that is not my quandary with Croce—that’s merely suggesting she has a pulse. My problem is that she as a professional reviewer said she would not review the work yet would suggest her audience not go patron the performance for them selves. A review is not simply opinion but a recommendation based on your audience. Croce should not be so assumptive to apply her reservations on her audience. On top of that, Joyce Carol Oates points out Croce’s bias of not only “Victim Art,” but of Bill T. Jones himself, (“When I blasted an early work of his with the phrase ‘fevered swamps,’ he retaliated by using the phrase as the title of a piece,” Ms. Croce complained.”). As a reviewer, or maybe even just a viewer, perhaps one should note his or her own biases at the forefront of the process.
In light of Croce’s avid distain for the subject material (and even the artist), my first suggestion of discourse would be to instead, in open letter form, admit to your audience your inability to either recommend or to not recommend such a piece. Sure, share why and explain your position, yet maintain that you, because of your beliefs cannot attend an actual performance. Those who can be convinced by such a confessional will as well refrain from attending—those who don’t will seek out another’s review or patron a performance and decided for them selves.
A Second discourse—if one is so convinced their bias to be an accurate one—is to obviously view the performance and prove how right you are by using the actual facts to back up such passionate claims. Croce is so passionate about her position that I am most certain if she did happen to attend a performance that she could prove to her self that she was right—then maybe I myself would be a little more prone to agree with her.
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:39 pm
This is difficult. I don’t have any clearly formed views on this reading, maybe they will come later. The first striking thing about Arlene Croce’s essay is that the first paragraph is littered with phrases like “I suppose” and “if I understand”. She is using these phrases to set up her essay by describing something she has never seen. She claims that she is not going to review “Still/Here”, but in effect ends up reviewing it. Although she later claims that in theory, she would see anything once. Bill T. Jones is apparently an exception.
This is rather curious. An essay about a dance performance, which the author has not seen, and which claims that it is not a review of said performance. hmm…something is off here. Croce is so thoroughly disgusted by the idea of “Still/Here” she feels the need to explain.
The thought that she could have kept quiet makes one realize that this is not simply about “Still/Here”, but about the state of art at large, and about the relationship between the artist and the critic. Croce has been outraged for a long time, perhaps even for decades and this is her chance to let everyone know. Croce charts what she thinks to be complete degeneration of art through several decades starting with the sixties. I think that her main complain is that “we have… created an art with no power of transcendence, no way of assuring us that the grandeur of the individual spirit is more worth celebrating than the political clout of the group.”
Her complaint is that if in art anything goes how is one to critique it? if u were to watch a videotape of a Bosnian woman talking of how she has been raped repeatedly by Serbian soldiers, how could you begin to “critique” it? if you saw this in a documentary on the brutality of war it would be one thing, but I believe that Croce’s problem is that these are the kinds of things we are now seeing in art galleries and in theaters. In her own words “If an artist paints a picture in his own blood, what does it matter if I think it’s not a very good picture?” She calls this “victim art” and claims that all it does is parade pain in front of the viewer forcing them to feel hopeless and sorry. Croce admits that “Still/Here” “may be of value in some wholly other sphere of action..” but she cannot accept it as theater and therefore, cannot review it.
I think her essay is a bit discomforting because it’s so politically incorrect, but she speaks of things that perhaps need to be discussed.
unlike Plato, she wants to see that imitation of life. to her, art is not reality. thus she complains that “Still/Here” “crossed the line between theater and reality”.
Oates seems to be talking of something else entirely, at least at first. in the first paragraph she claims that the term “victim art” could only be invented by “ a sensibility unwilling to attribute full humanity to persons who have suffered, injury, illness, or injustice..” but it seems to me that there is a difference between denying someone full humanity and saying that their art is bad, or possibly not art at all. and I don’t think that croce is saying that because a “human being has been “victimized” …[it] reduce[s] his or her humanity”. I think what she is saying is that merely parading this victimization does not make it art.
oates also brings up the human spirit. she also thinks that it is art’s job to uplift it. But she obviously does not agree with croce that “Still/Here” is “victim art”. She points out that throughout history many works that have since been canonized, were considered to be “non art”, and that it is ludicrous for Croce to claim that of Jones’s work simply because it challenges her own view of what art should be.
it is not clear to me if Oates has been to see the perfomance either. perhaps all this could be cleared up if the just went.
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:48 pm
When I first heard about Arlene Croce’s article last week in class, I was appalled. It astounded and disgusted me that someone could be so harshly critical of Bill T. Jones, a man who lost his lover to AIDS, a man who faced a similar death, a man who reached out to other terminally ill people and tried to utilize the arts as a means of release, expression, immortality. After reading the article, I realized why Croce reacted the way she did to Jones’ “victim art.” It was because of people like me, those willing to be caught up in the plight of these ill people. Essentially, I was the reason for her critical remarks towards victim art as a whole. A sympathetic public, who looks not necessarily at the form and aesthetics of an art form, but at the people involved and their personal tragedies. I realized then, victim art is untouchable by criticism.
How can you possibly tell someone, especially a terminally ill person, that their art, in this case “Still/Here,” sucks when it is unmistakably about the horrible things they have lived through, their personal losses, or their impending death? In essence you are telling a dying person that they themselves suck because it is the very essence of their being that is being expressed within their motions. And who really has the right to critique another person in that way? The “victim artist” has removed themselves from any sort of judgment on the quality of their artwork because of the subject matter and their personal circumstance. Croce says, “By working dying people into his act, Jones is putting himself beyond the reach of criticism.” She goes on to say that instead of presenting themselves to the viewers as artists, these people have now become victims and martyrs. She claims these artists strike out with the intention of causing a visceral, emotion reaction through their current state of health/well being.
However, Croce has prematurely described a performance as not being art. By taking it upon herself to criticize a performance that she has not even attended, she sets herself up for alienating her readership (as is obvious by the many negative reactions of the class). She fails to give her personal definition of art in general, so it is difficult for the reader to apply her criticism to her theories. There is nothing for the reader to examine and say, “Oh, I suppose by Arlene Croce’s definition of art, this would not fit in.” Instead, she blatantly states that a certain type of performance is not art, without even justifying her own beliefs about art as a whole. She denies the reader any sort of rebuttal utilizing her own theories.
Throughout this piece, and our class discussion, I was questioning what her point was exactly. Why did she write this “review” without seeing the work? If her intention was to academically and artistically evaluate a work of art (or not as the case may be), she falls short because she has nothing to base her opinions on other than the idea behind the performance, and her other ideas about what this performance should or should not be. Although many other blogs suggest she is telling her readers not to see this performance, I did not get that impression. Certainly, her extremely negative tone towards Jones’ piece would imply that she is critiquing it for the masses, but I feel that she is critiquing this entire “type” of art for society. It is not only this piece that she has beef with, but all art that is based upon “victims.”
I agree with Oates that Croce is very shortsighted in her arguments. Oates provides ample rebuttal examples of all types of what academics have considered high art, that could also be described as victim art. The Diary of Anne Frank, Night by Elie Wiesel, and the poetry of Emily Dickinson are all excellent examples of work that has been critiqued hundreds of times, despite the fact that the writers were all victims of some sort. Because, as someone mentioned in class today, we are a nation of victims. We all bring our experiences, tragic though they may be, to our artwork. It’s unavoidable. Just because the victim experiences brought to Bill T. Jones’ work is blatantly visible does not make it any less of an art form.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I think Croce reflects some of Bell’s ideas in her article. To her, victim art is not seen as art at all. She would not even review it as an artwork. Instead, she claims that it is unreviewable because she cannot view it with an objective eye. Bell, also thought the objective (and most importantly the aesthetic) eye was the most important way to view a particular work of art. His claim was, “theories not based on broad and deep aesthetic experience are worthless.” I think Croce would argue that she could not focus her attention on the aesthetic experience, because too many emotional factors would cloud her judgment. She would not feel comfortable writing about the aesthetic qualities of the performance, because so much is tied into the emotional.
Some may argue that Bell went on to say that the starting point for all aesthetic experience is an emotional experience, and therefore, Croce would not have agreed with him. I think Croce realizes the import of emotion in art; she simply feels her emotion would not be based on the art itself, but on the imminent idea of dying people creating the art.
Oates’ ideas most closely resemble Tolstoy’s. She feels that “all art, especially the conventional and pleasing, have the goal of affecting an audience’s emotions” no matter if the art was created by “victims” or not. I think Tolstoy would have supported this thesis, because his idea of art was that it is a communicator of emotion between man. He said, “it is upon this capacity of man to receive another man’s expression of feeling and experience those feelings himself that the activity of art is based.” I don’t think it would have mattered to Tolstoy that a work of art was created by a terminally ill person, and in this, implicitly commands a viewer’s emotions. To him it would have been enough that those emotions were commanded. It is a reciprocation of feeling, no matter what medium it is expressed by.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
It seems to me that Croce’s true intention with her essay was to play devil’s advocate. I feel she knew that her argument was insane and illogical as most of the other students in this class have easily pointed out.
When a critic reviews a piece of art they are creating a chain of communication. They review the art and then other people respond. If a critic were to always write what everyone else was expecting the chain of communication would be smaller and their would be less dialogue between critic, artist, and reader. Less information would be expressed and there would be less understanding between people. The critic must also realize that in this culture of “sound-bites” that we live in where people’s attention span is getting smaller and smaller you need to be bold and loud to get people’s attention. You have to say audacious and provocative things to get people listening and to be responsive. A political analogy to this idea would be when David Bowie said that the best thing for Western democratic countries would be a strict, fascist government that would stir up the liberals and create real, dramatic change.
Croce should have said that the critic has actually five options with the fifth option being- seeing the work and deliberately writing something you know is false.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
“I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, I wanna grow up and be a critic.” – Richard Pryor
April 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am
A thought that entered my mind whilst reading EVERYTHING in front of (above?) me was merely this: “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” – in turn, I not only appreciate that phrase but a variation which says: “Those who REgret the past are doomed to repeat it.
In context to myself I try to do neither to the greatest extent that of which I can – I regret that in which I have not done.
Other than that, I have read entertainment system manuals that are more invigorating than 68.3% of the reviews above mine, but then again I am arrogant…and good for it.
My non/review of a non/review:
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To defend Croce:
We forget that (for the most part) it is easier to either hide from or turn a blind eye to something as opposed to doing something that we do not necessarily want to do and from an em/pathetic level, I feel that could be exactly what Croce did. But what she thought and what she wrote are not necessarily one in the same – the simple (abstract) mathematics behind her vocation dictate her behavior on a level that we (may) have neglected to take into account: not that she is a critic, but a dance critic. Now, just by sheer deductive properties, Croce was born in 1934 and did not start working for The New Yorker until 1973, at the age of 39 which is plenty of time to have learned a great deal about what she is talking about. Croce grew up in a different world that none of us will ever know and remembers a world that we could never remember, but she retains values of these eras. Now HIV/AIDS did not become the epidemic that we (my classmates and myself) know it to be today (mainly because none of us were in existence) and Croce knew of it when it was known as “GRID” and the art community was severely a/effected second only to the devastation it inflicted on the homosexual community therein which I will be willing to bet dollars-to-donuts that not only did she have strong ties to both of those communities by proxy, but that she may have lost more friends/acquaintances/associates than any of us [students] will ever have. Jones’ “Still/Here” was not something that she necessarily needed to see because she LIVED it?
And I c/would be RONG, so much so in fact that I would have to misspell the word, to assume that a dance critic would have be a dancer. Croce confessed to being a “dance illiterate” who has “never formally studied dance, never taken a music lesson, never performed on any stage.” …Who is the victim now? – like I once said the last person I want to speak with about “art” is with an “artist”…the same applies for other branches; as to the truthfulness of the latter portion of my assumption in Croce’s defense? Well, my guess is as good as yours…
Although I am surprised that no one [the students] pulled the “race card” on this…maybe that is what is “undiscussable” even though we like to think of ourselves being “color-blind” (if you’ll forgive the mis/usage).
As a side note, dancers are notoriously known for not being fond of performance art mainly due to the fact that I believe that body movement has the ability to tell a story and to a dancer, a performance art piece appears to them as nothing more than a OCD-suffering, Parkinson’s-riddled, early Jerry Lewis acting out Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and impersonating William Shatner as the Danish prince.
Maybe we should just say that a bad critic will give a bad critique about bad art, whereas a good critic could give a good critique about good art, and a great critic would give a great critique about great art whether or not any of them saw any of it at all.
Or maybe we should all just agree to disagree…
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We love the victim. We love being the victim (albeit subconsciously, ergo our id loves being the victim). America loves a victim and god (little “g”) knows we love AmeriKKKa; praise the lord and pass the ammunition!
To answer the question: Croce brings up the term “victim art” within her (non)review of Jones’s dance performance. What exactly do you think Croce means by the term “victim art”? And how does Oates view the same type of art? Does Oates agree or disagree with Croce’s term “victim art” and why?
VICTIM: noun; 1 : a living being sacrificed to a deity or in the performance of a religious rite; 2 : one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent : as A (1) : one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditions (2) : one that is subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment B : one that is tricked or duped
At the mere utterance of the term “victim art” my mind is flooded with various images of the work of Arthur Fellig (aka Weegee), Kevin Carter, and Eddie Adams. I have chosen photographers works as opposed to the culprit of videotape because of its ability to freeze/distort a various moment in time, to make it larger/smaller than it is, and for its ability to stay with us longer (god bless STM).
One of the things that Weegee is know for are his images of crime scenes – the image: literal victim def.#2A(1). Where Carter is best known for taking the picture of the Sudanese boy dying of starvation under the watchful eye of a vulture (Carter committed suicide a year later) – the image: economical/environmental victim def.#2A(2), the aftermath: thermodynamics of the human condition def.#2A(1). Adams on the other hand, is known for the infamous photo of an execution from the Vietnam war – the image: def.#2 BUT we (Americans) fulfilled #2B due to the polluted Western mentality that has taught us that the antagonist is usually holding the gun.
However, the moment the slightest notion of the word victim comes up we are immediately pushed into “pity” mode (as it were), i.e. we would almost/unknowingly feel sorry for them and not necessarily out of our own volition. We would try our damnedest to sympathize and understand, yet we would fall short of both for we will neither understand (nor even begin to comprehend) nor even sympathize in the slightest due to our association (or lack thereof) with the atrocity in question…sometimes the undertow of schadenfreude pulls so strongly and quickly that we do not have the time to take the deep breath of humanity before being dragged down to the cold murky depth(s) of our solipsistic existences.
“I can’t review someone I feel sorry for or hopeless about,” says Croce and I for one agree, not just with her assessment but with her acknowledgment of available choices and her fortitude to veer off the beaten path.
One would almost feel conned (if not actually conned) into writing/reviewing/critiquing something that was either a) against either their values and/or better judgment or b) emotionally draining to the extent therein which the element of helplessness clouded whatever little objective view we think we possess. If you do not want to see something then choose not to see it, and if you choose not to see it and then choose to write about it it better be backed up six ways past Sunday, i.e. enough to change the paradigm; with all the factors that go into this I am surprised that no one [student] decided to think about what existed before they were their parent’s wet dream, let alone find out what was going on in the world prior to their momentous inception.
Croce also mentioned something to the extent of watching someone die. Which I dis/agreed with, but only on a syntax and contextual level, i.e. we are all “dying” (some at highly accelerated rates than others), we are just usually [consciously] unaware of it. I however, agree with Sylvia Plath who said, “Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call.”
What has been coined a “the unholy trinity of postmodern art”: racism, sexism, and HIV/AIDS, a priori sociological issues (when posed in questions can only be answered rhetorically), have become more than apparent in art within the last two decades; in some ways they have destroyed art whereas in other ways they have resuscitated what was once viewed as “dead” and it did both by becoming more compellingly complicated (for the right and wrong reasons know only by the viewer), breeding philistinism and über-elite classicism therefore ceasing to be “‘art’ for ‘art’s’ sake” and taking it in the incorrect intellectual direction, e.g. the “art” and it’s “sheep” that of which make one feel stupid/ignorant.
I believe that Oates dis/agrees (at least on some level) with Croce and I dis/agree with both of them. I think/feel/know that the critic is just as important to the art as the art is to the critic – not necessarily in order to *objectively* relay information but because they are viewers/participants as well. Oates believes that Croce changed the “‘art’ of the critique”, which is in itself an art form (shocker[!/?]) by saying, “Criticism is itself an art form, and like all art forms it must evolve, or atrophy and die. There can be, despite the conservative battle cry of ‘standards,’ no criticism for all time, nor even for much time. Ms. Croce’s cri du coeur may be a landmark admission of the bankruptcy of the old critical vocabulary, confronted with ever-new and evolving forms of art.”
Historically speaking, “art” and “music” have been the first over the horizon of change although “music” usually jumped first, and all the while the critic was there, moving in step and time, while the triad occasionally steps on the other’s foot.
And in the words of Dennis Miller, “That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.”
We are all searching for closure, how we go about finding and achieving it is our own concern and ours alone.