A Few Books I’ve Been Reading Lately…and where they are leading me

My summer reading has been quite interesting this year.

It started with the requisite Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. It must say something about the way teaching effects my psyche that every year when I listen to this (I have the audiobook) I find it convicting and refreshing.

As usual, the list  has contained several mysteries. I’ve been catching up on Smith’s Ladies  No. 1 Detective Agency series, which I now find is on HBO, and I’m a little apprehensive about that. I’ve seen a few clips via HBO’s website, and they look pretty good (which doesn’t surprise me), but the books have such a wonderful slow pacing, and so little drama, I’m afraid HBO is going to lose that, and it seems that they might have judging by the clips (even the theme music is a bit hip-hoppy).

In addition I am reading several books on art + art and theology. I am doing this part because David McNutt and I are proposing a team taught art and theology class for next year, which will include both lecture and studio time. I’m really excited about this venture because, as far as I know, it is unique: there are several art and theology classes/ seminars out there, but I have not seen one that includes studio practice. Most of the participants are theologians looking in and commenting on art, but not actually getting their hands dirty. (To be fair, the artists are not usually engaging in the high level of theology presented at such a conference, myself included.) At art and theology conferences, there is always this gap. Artist and theologians get together and shake hands, maybe even pat each other on the back, but they don’t actually work together- there’s no true dialogue. I doubt David and I are capable of turning that around by ourselves, but I hope we can plant a seed.

Sorry, I digress. The point is that I have reading the following:

Siedell. God in the Gallery

Wolterstorff Art in Action

Elkins. Why Art Cannot Be Taught

At the same time, and not quite related, I read Miller’s Blue Like Jazz.

Quite the selection. I have to say Blue Like Jazz has been the most rewarding, and has helped me figure out certain things about myself, many of the questions I posed at the beginning of the summer, and helped frame many of the art and theology questions I have, as well as those posed by the other books. I highly recommend it. More on this in a later post.

Elkins makes a point in Why Art Cannot Be Taught that I find interesting. He tells art students (for whom the book is meant) that art is made for a selective art market, and not for the general public. His point is that if you are going to survive and be relevant as an artist you better figure out what the current dialogue is about and make art about that. Themes which are current, and I think he refers to most, if not all of these, are feminism, ethnicity and race relations, and existential phenomenology (I’m not sure he calls this by name, but I seemed to have this general sense. Sorry, I don’t have the book with me at the moment).

I find this statement both a bit cynical and a bit true.

It is true that artists make art for a select art market—mostly.  Students who have to sit through my art history class are really frustrated by this, but, honestly, how could it be otherwise? Name an academic discipline where the dialogue centers around the general public. Read any good science journals lately? High end literary criticism (as in, not to be found in the Sunday paper)? Have a subscription to “Psychology Today?” Me either. If you do read this stuff it is likely it is because you studied it in college and/or beyond. Why should art be burdened with being different? How could the conversation in art grow/change if it was so burdened?

The other tricky thing here is to try to difine the “general public.” Who is that, exactly?

At the same time I think most artists are looking to be relevant beyond the boundaries of the “art world.” I know Rothko was very adamant that he didn’t make art for the  artistic elite. For most of us, the highest achievement woud be to have our work collected and shown in major museums all over the world, and the patronage for those museums, although skewed towards art lovers, includes, in very large part, what one might consider the “general public.”  I think of Doris Salcedo’s recent installation Shibboleth at the Tate Modern. I’m pretty sure she wanted that work to be for everyone (even though it still fits into the dialogue one might subscribe to the contemporary art world).

Elkins also makes the point, almost as an aside, that artists have given up on the idea of transcendence.

I find this statement both a bit cynical and mostly false.

Well, maybe I should qualify that. I think most contemprary artist, would say they have given up transcendence. They have been taught to give up transcendence. They just don’t practice art is a way that is consistant with this view.

Ok, I think I have to qualify that, too. What I mean is that I think the definition I have of transcendence includes what I see happening in most contemporary art. And I think the way most people in the art world (and out) use the word “transcendence” is much to limited. I’m still working this out, but I’m interested in the fact that the root of the word “Transcend” means “to climb across,” which to me translates as something like “to bridge.” If I apply that I get something slightly different than “to rise above.” I also think it is possible to see “up” by looking “down,” if that makes any sense.

Plus, as a mentioned in an earlier post, I think a lot of contemprary artists are directly interested in the idea of beauty, which is by definition transcendent.

Anyway, this is already much longer than I intended. Let me know your your thoughts. And book recommendations.