Art, Agency and the Continued Assault on Authorship

215 Pages·2022·16.435 MB·English

by  Simon Blond

Art, Agency and the Continued Assault
on Authorship
This book presents a counter-history to the relentless critique of the humanist subject
and authorial agency that has taken place over the past fifty years.
It is both an interrogation of that critique and the tracing of an alternative narrative
from Romanticism to the twenty-first century which celebrates the agency of the art-
ist as a powerful contribution to the wellbeing of the community. It does so through
arguments based on philosophical aesthetics and cultural theory interspersed with
case histories of particular artists. It also engages with a second issue that cannot be
separated from the first. This is the question of what the role and purpose of art is in
society. This has become particularly important since the 1990s because of the “so-
cial turn” in art in which it is claimed that the only valid role for art was one that had
explicit social consequences. This book argues that a political role for art is valuable,
but not the only one that can be envisaged nor indeed is it the most obvious or most
important. Art has other social roles both as a means to engender empathy and com-
munity, and to re-enchant a world bereft of meaning and reduced to material values.
The book will appeal to practising artists as well as scholars working in art history,
philosophy, aesthetics, and curatorial studies.
Simon Blond is Lecturer in the History and Theory of Art at Curtin University, Perth,
Australia.
Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies
This series is our home for innovative research in the fields of art and visual studies.
It includes monographs and targeted edited collections that provide new insights into
visual culture and art practice, theory, and research.
Visual Culture and the Forensic
Culture, Memory, Ethics
David Houston Jones
Posthuman and Nonhuman Entanglements in Contemporary Art and the Body
Justyna Stępień
Race, Gender, and Identity in American Equine Art
1832 to the Present
Jessica Dallow
Where is Art?
Space, Time, and Location in Contemporary Art
Edited by Simone Douglas, Adam Geczy, and Sean Lowry
Counterfactualism in the Fine Arts
Elke Reinhuber
Art-Based Research in the Context of a Global Pandemic
Edited by Usva Seregina and Astrid Van den Bossche
Cultural Approaches to Disgust and the Visceral
Edited by Max Ryynänen, Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen
Art, Agency and the Continued Assault on Authorship
Simon Blond
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Advances-in-Art-and-Visual-Studies/book-series/RAVS
Art, Agency and the Continued
Assault on Authorship
Simon Blond
Cover image: Suzanne Lacy, Annice Jacoby and Chris Johnson, The Roof is on
Fire, 1993–1994, from the Oakland Projects, 1991–2001; performance, 4 June
1994, City Centre West Garage, Oakland, San Francisco; courtesy Suzanne
Lacy; photo by Alfredo Sosa.
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Simon Blond
The right of Simon Blond to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-64363-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-64372-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-12419-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003124191
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
For Alfiah and Bethia

Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
The Four Questions 1
1 The Emergence of the Romantic Subject 3
1.1 Subjectivity and the Enlightenment 3
1.2 Rousseau’s Reconceptualization of the Subject 4
1.2.1 The Two Types of Self Love 5
1.2.2 The Importance of Childhood 6
1.2.3 The Conditions for Authenticity 7
1.3 Francisco Goya 1746–1828 8
1.3.1 The Cabinet Pictures 9
1.3.2 Los Caprichos 11
1.3.3 The Disasters of War 15
1.3.4 The “Black Paintings” 16
1.4 Kant’s Subjectification of Aesthetic Judgement 20
1.4.1 Disinterestedness and Subjective Universality 21
1.4.2 Genius, Spirit, and Exemplary Originality 22
1.4.3 Later Misappropriations and Criticisms of Kant’s Critique 25
2 Art and Subjectivity in Post-Kantian Germany 30
2.1 The German Romantics and Idealists 30
2.1.1 The Counter-Enlightenment 31
2.1.2 Romantic Metaphysics 32
2.1.3 The Singularity of the Subject 35
2.1.4 The Communality of the Subject 38
2.2 Hegel’s Aesthetics 40
2.3 Nietzsche’s Quest for Meaning 42
2.4 Conclusion 51
viii Contents
3 The Battle for Modernism 52
3.1 Secularization, Disenchantment, and Spirituality 52
3.2 The Avant-Gardes of Modernism 54
3.2.1 The Aesthetic Avant-Garde 55
3.2.2 Aestheticism and the Autonomy of Art 57
3.2.3 Authenticity and Originality 61
3.2.4 The Freudian Subject 63
3.2.5 Primitivism and Spontaneity 64
3.2.6 Commodification and Kitsch 67
3.3 The Case of Die Brücke 68
3.4 The Anti-aesthetic Avant-Garde 73
3.4.1 Duchamp’s Style 73
3.4.2 The Readymade 76
3.4.3 Duchamp’s Indifference 79
4 The Critique of Autonomy and the Disavowal of Agency 82
4.1 Greenberg’s Autonomy 82
4.2 The Critique of Autonomous Art 84
4.3 The Re-enchantment of Society 88
4.4 Andy Warhol: The Man Who Became His Own Artwork 92
4.4.1 The Search for Originality 92
4.4.2 The Repudiation of Personal Style 93
4.4.3 The Factory and the Apparent Dispersal of Agency 99
4.4.4 Warhol’s “Dispersal of Agency” 100
4.4.5 Self-Negation and the Performance of Indifference 103
4.4.6 Warhol’s Pursuit and Manipulation of Celebrity 106
5 Appropriation and the Critique of Originality 110
5.1 Creativity Ex-Nihilo 110
5.2 The Uniqueness of the Subject and Personal Style 114
5.2.1 The Lacanian Subject 115
5.2.2 The Repudiation of Personal Style 119
5.2.3 S ingularity of the Subject Guarantees Singularity
of the Object 122
5.3 The Age of the Copy 124
5.3.1 Sherrie Levine 125
5.3.2 Elaine Sturtevant: From a Discourse of Copy to a Discourse
of Energy 127
5.4 Frederick Jameson: Everything New Has Already Been Done 133
6 Social Art Practices Part 1: Production 136
6.1 Social Art Practices 136
6.2 Critique of the Sole Author 138
6.2.1 The Theological Argument 139
6.2.2 Singularity or Solidarity? 140
Contents ix
6.2.3 The Intrinsic Inter-subjectivity of the Subject: Jung,
Winnacott, Buber, and Levinas 143
6.3 Models of Collaboration 148
6.3.1 Collaboration between Equals 149
6.3.2 C ollaboration between Artists Who Are Each Assigned a
Different Role 151
6.3.3 Collaboration with the Public under a Lead Artist 154
7 Social Art Practices Part II: The Art Object and the
Ideology of Reception 158
7.1 The Art Object 158
7.1.1 The Continuing Critique of Autonomy 158
7.1.2 Commodification Anxiety 160
7.1.3 Benjamin’s Auratic Object 162
7.1.4 The Afterlife of the Object 163
7.2 Reception: The Problem of Evaluation 164
7.2.1 Evaluation Based on Social Effect 165
7.2.2 Contemplative Enjoyment as Negation of Critique 168
7.2.3 The Assumption of Passive Spectatorship 170
7.2.4 Critique of the Institution 172
7.2.5 A New Public for Art 173
7.3 Reception in a Monumental Time Frame 174
7.4 Democratic Evaluation as a Category Error 175
7.5 The Exclusion of Democratic Art Practices 176
Conclusion 179
Cited Sources 181
Index 195