Art as Performance (New Directions in Aesthetics)

292 Pages·2004·0.74 MB·English

by  Dave Davies

Art as Performance
DAVID DAVIES

Art as Performance
New Directions in Aesthetics
Series editors: Dominic McIver Lopes, University of British Columbia,
and Berys Gaut, University of St Andrews
Blackwell’s New Directions in Aesthetics series highlights ambitious
single- and multiple-author books that confront the most intriguing and
pressing problems in aesthetics and the philosophy of art today. Each book
is written in a way that advances understanding of the subject at hand and
is accessible to upper-undergraduate and graduate students.
1 Robert SteckerInterpretation and Construction: Art, Speech, and the
Law
2 David Davies Art as Performance
Art as Performance
DAVID DAVIES
© 2004 by David Davies
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
The right of David Davies to be identified as the Author of this Work has been
asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the
UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of
the publisher.
First published 2004 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davies, David, 1949–
Art as performance / David Davies.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4051-1666-8 (alk. paper) ISBN 1-4051-1667-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Aesthetics. 2. Art—Philosophy. I. Title.
BH39.D38 2004
111¢.85—dc21
2003011349
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Set in 10/12.5pt Galliard
by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom
by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
For further information on
Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:
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To the memory of my father

Contents
Preface ix
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Challenges to Aesthetic Empiricism 1
1.2 Methodological Interlude: The “Pragmatic Constraint”
on the Ontology of Art 16
2 Aesthetic Empiricism and the Philosophy
of Art 25
2.1 Aesthetic Empiricism 25
2.2 Indirect Arguments Against Aesthetic Empiricism 28
2.3 Direct Arguments Against Aesthetic Empiricism 38
2.4 Drawing Ontological Conclusions from
the Counter-Empiricist Arguments 42
3 The Fine Structure of the Focus of
Appreciation 50
3.1 The Structure of the Focus of Appreciation 50
3.2 Performance and Appreciation 60
3.3 Ontology After Empiricism 74
4 The Artwork as Performance:
An Argument from Artistic Intentions 80
4.1 Overview 80
4.2 The Bearing of Provenance on Work and Focus 81
4.3 Artistic Intentions and the Ontology of Art 84
4.4 Conclusions 100
viii Contents
5 Provenance, Modality, and the Identity of
the Artwork 103
5.1 Preliminaries 103
5.2 The Work-Relativity of Modality 105
5.3 A Strategy for Accommodating the Work-Relativity
of Modality 114
5.4 Appendix: A Defense of the “Modality Principle” 120
6 Artwork, Action, and Performance 127
6.1 The “Action-Type Hypothesis” 127
6.2 Assessing the ATH 131
6.3 Currie and his Critics 140
7 Art as Performance 146
7.1 Elaborating the Performance Theory 146
7.2 Structure and Focus 148
7.3 Heuristics and the Individuation of Artworks 151
7.4 Work-Constitution and Modality on
the Performance Theory 158
7.5 Performances, Actions, and Doings 167
8 Revisionism and Modernism Revisited 177
8.1 Revisionism Revisited 177
8.2 Performance and the Challenge of the Modern 189
8.3 More on Forgeries 200
9 Performance as Art 206
9.1 Performance as Art 206
9.2 Performed Works and Work-Performances 210
9.3 Work-Performances and Performance-Works 219
9.4 Performance-Works and Improvisation 225
10 Defining “Art” as Performance, and the
Values of Art 236
10.1 Notes Toward a Definition of “Art” 236
10.2 The Values of Art 253
10.3 Conclusions: The Case Against Contextualism 262
References 266
Index 273