Art and Ideology: CRITICAL THEORIES: The Frankfurt School/Materialist Aesthetics

In all the readings for this week; Theodor Adorno's "The Culture Industry Reconsidered, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" by Louis Althusser, and Meyer Schapiro's "The Social Bases of Art," the social and cultural instances within reality in which individuals (and artists) must function under were discussed.

Firstly in "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" Althusser revisits Marxism to bring to light the Apparatuses and class struggles that exist in all levels of reality and how our understanding of these is the key to realizing the role we play within the State Apparatus and how we can recognize the "obviousness" and "truth" of our existence. He begins by separating and defining the differences and connections between an Infrastructure and Superstructure; "the infrastructure, or economic base ([...] productive forces and the relations of production) and the superstructure, which itself contains two "levels" or "instances": the politico-legal (law and the State) and ideology ([...] religious, ethical, legal, political, etc)." The first of the two "levels" of the superstructure is that Repressive State Apparatus which entails "the Government, the Administration, the Army, the Police, the Courts, and the Prisons, etc.; the "public" sphere that "functions by violence." The second instance is what Althusser calls an Ideological State Apparatus, it is the private and institutionalized aspects of society which include (but are not limited to) the religious, educational, family, legal, political, etc. The main differences between these two apparatuses lies in singularity of the Repressive verses the plurality of the Ideological and the fact that one is in it's essence about violence while the other is concerned with ideology; "a 'Representation' of the Imaginary Relationship of Individuals to their Real Conditions of Resistance." What struck me the most in this reading was the cyclical nature of this relationship between Superstructure and Infrastructure and then again between Repressive and Ideological. The Ideological State Apparatus is what we see the proletariat as having most control over and yet is nothing more than an illusion to an allusion which the Repressive Statue Apparatus directly influnces through the control that Infrastructure or economic base (in which the ruling class holds the power to) has upon the Repressive SA and thus the Ideological SA as well. Value systems, ethics, cultural norms that we hold as individual expressions and ideals are then set not by a universal whole, but by the ruling class that currently holds power over the Repressive State and controls the economic base.

In the seemingly opposite political and social instance in Theodor Adorno's "Culture Industry Reconsidered" this idea of the power belonging to the ruling class that the "masses" are oblivious to and that all things done, even the most meaningful selfless actions, are merely a means for profit; "...they sought after profit only indirectly, over and above their autonomous essence." I believe that Adorno is speaking of the ruling class when he talks of the "culture industry" and its concern and functioning in relation to the "cultural masses." Again nothing of the individual is free from the culture industry, not even our entertainment; for this example he cites of American Film Industry as producing pictures which "take into consideration the level of eleven-year-olds...[and] in doing so they would very much like to make adults into eleven-year-olds."

So are we then being actively dumbed down to the level of children? And for what means? Is it to keep us "asleep" in an "illusion of an allusion" to what reality really is and who exactly is pulling the strings within "true" reality and to what end does this realization give us? I am intensely interested in the possibility of being free from these Apparatuses, these cultural industries, but as anyone-ever-in the course of history been completely void of a "ruling class" or at the very least their influence on individuality and reality. Is that a possibility or is it something ingrained in our nature; much like hunger, sleep, and breathing. For me this is a very scary thought and it brings me finally to the last reading "The Social Bases of Art" by Meyer Schapiro.

Throughout my reading of Schapiro I was most concerned with his most clear and important point through the paper where "he brings a social-historical form of explanation to bear on the current conditions of artistic practice." Questions of whether or not art is a true form of individuality in this "imaginary" construct of reality began to intrigue me and I wondered on what level does art fall into and can it transcend beyond the apparatuses and cultural industry to give pure autonomy. I know that in many instances that have and are occuring in the art world have a direct relationship to an economic base and are part of the Ideological State Apparatus through private institution, i.e. museum, galleries, collectors, etc., than in at least on some level art cannot be separated from this overpowering illusion and fake reality of the destruction of the individual. But, should art be completely separate from it? It appears to me that to do the most good for the individual and maybe in at least to fight back against the bourgeoisie oppressive state that art would have to function, on one level or another, within the oppressive industry, apparatuses, etc. Do I believe that some art is created particularly for the oppressive ruling class as a means to generate a similar instance that culture industry projects upon the masses, like a tool of illusion and allusion? Yes. But, can some works of art be made to combat this? Is there a photograph, painting, performance, etc. that while remaining completely aware of it's relation to the cultural industry, social base, and state apparatus can function as a means to "shake us awake" from the enslavement that we are, on so many levels, unconscious of? I'm not sure I have witnessed this possibility, but I hope others have.

Art as Sign: Semiotics/Structuralism

In the excepts from Myth Today, "From Work to Text," "The Photographic Image," and "The Third Meaning," by Roland Barthes I found that what I thought to be his main concern is what differentiates one type of artistic expression from another.

In "From Work to Text" it is literature that confounds (or delights) him and how one would begin to categorize a work of literature from that of a Text; "...an irreductible [...] plural," one that "can be only in it's difference (which does not mean its individuality), its reading is semelfactive [...] and nevertheless woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages [...], antecedent or contemporary, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony."

In "The Photographic Image" Barthes is most interested in the photographic "paradox" or how no image can be merely object, objective, or analogon; but is always faced with a connoted message that the viewer (or society) brings to a photograph that "communicates what it thinks of it." At first he seems to struggle with the idea that a photograph, its very nature, is a message without a code, an image with only denotation. He uses the press photograph as an example to illustrate this idea and touches upon the three aspects which make up a press photograph; the emission (staff of newspaper), a channel of transmission (the newspaper), and its point of reception (the public who reads the paper). But, further on in "The Photographic Message" Barthes begins to question his idea that a photograph consists solely of a denoted message; "In front of a photograph, the feeling of "denotation" [...] is so great that the description of a photograph is literally impossible; to describe consists precisely in joining to the denoted message a relay or second-order message derived from a code which is that of languae and constituting in relation to the photographic analog, however much care one takes to be exact, a connotation..." So therefore, although the photographic image seems to be created specifically to carry only a denoted message even it cannot get away from the connotation, or what the viewer brings to the image.

"The Third Meaning" goes on use the artistic practice of film (specifically in some of the still frames of S. M. Eisenstein) to illustrate another way of classifying and categorizing the image and its practice. The stills are divided into two levels: informational and symbolic which give way to a "third" meaning, the obtuse. Like the punctum from Barthes Camera Lucida, the third meaning is an aspect of the image that gives way to an inexplicable devastation, an infinity of language, an emotion or relevance that is specific and autonomous for each viewer; an experience that cannot be expressed in words, but is merely felt.

In everything that Barthes talks about, whether it is the excerpts from Myth Today to Camera Lucida Barthes struggles with the elusive trait which breaths life into imagery and is essentially completely dependent on the subjectivity of the individual viewer. It is something which separates reality from life, what describes artistic invention and yet it is inevitably undefinable because its poignancy is dependent on the individual; for one image may contain a punctum or an obtuse meaning to one person and yet be completely absent to another. Perhaps artistic practice exists only in the notion of its absolute wraith-like quality; like smoke curling it is something beautiful to watch but impossible to truly touch.

Modern: Blurring Boundaries/Bauhaus Machinic Design Utopia

Art as ritual

Within the readings this week I found that I was most attracted to the idea that photography was an active participant, if not the sole reason, for the shift in definition and framework for the idea of "pure art." This was first touched upon by Rancierre in his "The Future of the Image;" "To resemble was long taken to be the peculiarity of art, while an infinite number of spectacles and forms of imitation were proscribed from it. In our day, not to resemble is taken for the imperative of art, while photographs, videos, and displays of objects similar to everyday ones have taken the place of abstract canvases in galleries and museums." I believe that here Rancierre was making the bold statement that photography actually changed the very essence, meaning, and framework of what art had become.

Art as ornament

Before works of art were made to resemble reality, to mimic it as an attempt to capture the very essance of reality, but with the birth of
photography this exploration was made obsolute by the photographs ability to reproduce and resemble reality in an almost perfect sense. Therefore art was forced into a metamorphosis of sorts to keep its relevance intact; paintings became more abstract, focusing on themes and ideas that could not be seen, but thought and spoken...the very notion of conceptual art seems to have stemmed from the invention of photography itself.

Art as resemblance

Osip Brik furthers this idea of photography as the revolutionary keystone of contemporary art in his essay "Painting verses Photography." Brik even ventures so far in "From Picture to Calico-Print" as to suggest an irrelevance for "easel-painting" within the shadow of photography's ability to produce accurate depictions of reality, utilizing it's advantages of "precision, speed, [and] cheapness." Paintings must then be created for a purpose other than "delighting the eye" and existing purely as aesthetic objects to be viewed and appreciated for only by their physical resemblances to reality. To survive painting had to become actively aware of the word happening around it, to the present concerns and political issues, etc. and address them through their media. Only by this exploration and invitation for the viewer to become actively involved in a thought process that went beyond merely looking could painting take it's authority back.

Photography as superior resemblance

This transformation was not mutually exclusive. There are only so many ways to reproduce an accurate copy of an object, person, place, etc before everything is reproduced and the reproductions of reality themselves begin to deteriorate the thing itself, it's "aura;" as Walter Benjamin refers to it in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Photography had to then take the same step forward as painting did, into a realm of the conceptual, to emphasize the sayable as much as the visible.

Art as concept

According to the writings of Walter Benjamin and Adolf Loos art was not just confined to resemblances and reproduction, but was utilized in ritual and ornament. It is not the function of ornament in art that interested me, but the idea of art used for the purposes of ritual and how we have moved beyond ritual in present times into the power of exhibition. For me, creating art as a means for ritual practice is in direct relation to the conceptual goals of artists today. In ritual the work of art is transcended from it's physical presence into a spiritual essence, much like the present political artwork that involves the viewer in a journey of awareness and reform. Photography too had it's hand in challenging the notion of transcendence in art. Before photography, it was ritual that granted works of art the ability to transcend themselves while ornament and resemblance were still rooted in aesthetic. In this post-photography contemporary world the process and idea of "look, see!" became more relevant and therefore created a need for exhibition, where transcendent art is no longer made for the private or select few of a cult, but for a larger "mass" of people.

Art as Experiance

In our first week of Contemporary Photography Seminar: Theory, Criticism, and Practice we were given five readings, with the overarching idea of Art as Experience. Our readings consisted of Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, "The Future of the Image" by Jacques Rancierre, excerpts from The Practice of Everyday Life by Mihel de Certeau, Allan Kaprow's writings from Assemblages, Environments, and Happenings, and "How to Provide an Artistic Service: An Introduction" by Andrea Fraser.


Within these readings I found a common thread pertaining to what is necessary to create a work of art and what role photography specifically takes within the world of art. Each reading underlined a need for our experience, an engagement, and our active participation with a work to art as active creator and as a viewer to decipher what it means to create a work of art. There must be a conscious intention in what we create as well as a need to investigate, as a spectator, the image and come to discover an "Other" (as Rancierre discusses) that speaks in volumes greater than what we can physically see. Photography is an excellent example of how this works because it is, at it's birth, arguably a direct depiction of reality and must therefore transcend what we understand and know of the subject (person, place, thing, time, culture, society, race, etc.) into an "Other." "Photography became an art by placing its particular techniques in the service of this dual poetics, by making the face of anonymous people speak twice over--as silent witness of a condition inscribed directly on their features, their clothes, their life setting; and as possessors of a secret we shall never know [..]" (Rancierre, 15) A photograph, made for the purposes of art, must then move beyond what we can see on the flat service of a piece of photographic paper into the unseen and to the implications that we place upon it by actively viewing the image.

For my own example I have selected an image, The Necklace, 1999, from Alessandra Sanguinetti's body of work "The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams." Utilizing Roland Barthe's method of looking at photographs in his book Camera Lucida, in accordance with my previous ideas of how an artistic photograph is made, I must first come to grips with what is physically in the image, it's "reality," the studium or appreciation to the objects, people, place, etc. present within the photograph. This is a photograph of two young girls, roughly around the same age, who share a relationship of some sort, whether that be of sisterhood or of friendship. They appear to be of a particular ethnicity (Hispanic) from a particular geographical area (South America), and have parents of a similar economic class (Working). I can also continue to journey into the photograph by studying the quality of light (late afternoon/ early evening) which gives the image a specific frame in time. What they wear (the plastic jewelry, the patterns on their dresses, etc.) and their physical features let us know that this photograph takes place in contemporary time. Their gestures and interaction would lead us to believe that an intimate moment is being shared, either through conversation or through "play-acting" or "dress-up." At this level of scuntity the photograph is interesting and engaging as many photographs are because of their ability to capture time and encapsulate a moment that has past and can never be lived through again. But, it is the punctum; the sting, wound, little hole that leaves its permanent bruise and impression upon the viewer and allows an image to transcend itself into the "Other" (that which is outside of reality). The punctum is a detail that is essentially subjective, it can be different for every different person who is actively viewing an image, but the affect is the same. The punctum for me is as the title suggests, the necklace. I can feel the texture of those particular beads around my neck, between my fingers, and instantly I am transported into a stillness, a moment and memory where an emotion I cannot place bubbles to the top of my consciousness like pure ecstasy. I begin to understand the weight of the gesture that is given from one sister in the photograph (in blue) to the other (in red). It is pure love, affection and consequently full of self-loathing, envy, jealousy, and resentment. The photograph no longer belongs to Alessandra Sanguinetti, nor to Guille and Belinda; but it that instant it is transported into the Other, the non-reality, into the stillness where it no longer exists, but represents an internal narrative. In this way I take from The Necklace, 1999 as much as it gives to me and I have come upon an entirely new image that I did not see when I first looked.