艺术
我们关注的口水艺术

罗伯特.斯密斯
2007年十二月23号
纽约时报

当下，提起滥用过时文字，这种时尚， 艺术界算得上是个极度重犯者。有群人打着学术的口号， 就好比灌从火得势。

‘参照’(reference) 和‘特权’(privilege)毫不留情的被变成动词了， 正如某人“参照近代资本主义‘(referencing late capitalism)或者某人‘特权化男性的凝视’(privileging the male gaze)。 艺术家把意识形态的潜意识’重叠‘(imbricate)到自己的图像中。有些人以为这种低俗文字可带来了新的艺术思考， 其实他们正好出卖了知识分子的那份自卑。

把‘参照’动词化－与其真的参照对比－这个现象已经形成一种风气。 自1980年，在纽约时报上就出现过295次（包括本人的6次重犯）。  今年就有42次，破了去年22次的纪录。
不过’特权‘的动词化－与其理解为特殊照顾－它还有望被抵挡住； 自1980年，在纽约时报上只出现过34次（本人只用过一次）。

还有一个实在可怕的描述，它很自负的扭曲和挤压艺术家的本职。 我说的－ 而不是参照的－正是’实践‘这个字眼， 比如杜尚的实践， 比加索的画室实践， 还有最恶俗的研究生嘴边挂着的’我的实践‘。 八十年代有艺术家把自己的作品概括为’制作‘， 但是至少它和那个时代低俗的油迹沾边。

滥用实践的原因很可能是为了公开一些陈腔滥调， 那是针对理想化或者情绪化的艺术家， 这个做法很有效，它把艺术家变成一种非常普通的权威人士。

第一， 它暗示着艺术家，律师，医生和牙医都一样需要专业执照上岗。当然也可以说很多艺术家已经感觉到执照的重要性：这就叫美术硕士。 其实艺术家根本不需要执照和证书去做作品。他们的工作描述只能说是他们在公认的范围之外的活动。

第二， 它暗示着艺术家，律师，医生和牙医都一样被训练过，他们专门解决表面问题。这使艺术创作失去紧迫感和个性， 把它的气氛变成一个是被事先策划好的。很少会有人拿艺术去解决艺术家身外的主观问题而成功。（保罗.麦卡锡把他的身上涂满番茄酱算是哪门子实践？）  如果一个艺术家能够通过作品的自身来帮助他人， 或者更广泛的去帮助社会， 这是个大好事。

最后， 实践删除了一个很凌乱的过程。它暗示艺术的过程是一种白领活动，是不用亲自动手， 是不用心的。它把艺术变成一个干净的办公室活儿， 示意着对乱七八糟状态， 对未知性， 以及对不理智的不适。它暗示所有的材料不是艺术的重点－在某个层面上材料就是艺术。

艺术家把无形的—空间， 语言， 人的互动－变成一种材料。 他们捣乱，他们把事情搞得可以触摸到的同时， 让我们大开眼界。劳伦斯.韦纳在惠特尼美术馆的展览就做得很到位， 他把意义深远的语句投上墙壁， 加上迪诺.瑟尔咖尔在玛利安.古德曼画廊的第一次展览里举行互动， 把气氛控制在少数的对话和一些刻意的姿势。  这两位艺术家与语言和空间猛的较量，把语言和空间结构化，把他们变成不可否认的艺术。

试问他们是在搞实践吗？我可不这样认为。


原文：
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/arts/design/23smit.html?ex=1356066000&en=1c15f274cf8d8b0f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss



Art
What We Talk About When We Talk About Art

By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: December 23, 2007

WHEN it comes to fashionably obtuse language, the art world is one of the leading offenders. Academic pretensions flash through like brush fire, without a drop of cold water splashed their way.

“Reference” and “privilege” are used relentlessly as verbs, as in “referencing late capitalism” or “privileging the male gaze.” Artists “imbricate” ideological subtexts into their images. Some may think such two-bit words reflect important shifts in thought about art, but they usually just betray an intellectual insecurity.

Referencing — rather than referring to — is probably here to stay. It has appeared in The New York Times 295 times since 1980 (including 6 transgressions by this writer). This year it was used 42 times, a record, nearly double last year’s 22. But privileging — instead of favoring — could still be deflected; it has been used only 34 times since 1980 in these pages (O.K., once by me).

Another lamentable creeping usage is not only pretentious, but it distorts and narrows what artists do. I refer to — rather than reference — the word practice, as in “Duchamp’s practice,” “Picasso’s studio practice” and worst of all, especially from the mouths of graduate students, “my practice.” Things were bad enough in the 1980s, when artists sometimes referred to their work as “production,” but at least that had a kind of grease-monkey grit to it.

The impetus behind practice may be to demystify the stereotype of the visionary or emotion-driven artist, and indeed it does. It turns the artist into an utterly conventional authority figure.

First off, there’s the implication that artists, like lawyers, doctors and dentists, need a license to practice. Of course it could be said that too many artists already feel the need for such a license: It’s called a master of fine arts. But artists don’t need licenses or certificates or permission to do their work. Their job description, if they have one, is to operate outside accepted limits.

Second is the implication that an artist, like a doctor, lawyer or dentist, is trained to fix some external problem. It depersonalizes the urgency of art making and gives it an aura of control, as if it is all planned out ahead of time. Art rarely succeeds when it sets out to fix anything beyond the artist’s own, subjective needs. (Does Paul McCarthy covered in ketchup constitute a “practice”? Please.) If an artist’s work helps other people to fix things within themselves or, more broadly, in society, though, so much the better.

Finally, practice sanitizes a very messy process. It suggests that art making is a kind of white-collar activity whose practitioners don’t get their hands dirty, either physically or emotionally. It converts art into a hygienic desk job and signals a basic discomfort with the physical mess as well as the unknowable, irrational side of art making. It suggests that materials are not the point of art at all — when they are, on some level, the only point.

Artists turn whatever intangibles they use — including empty space, language or human interaction — into a kind of material. They mess with things, making them newly palpable and in the process opening our eyes. This point is made eloquently in the current Lawrence Weiner exhibition at the Whitney Museum, with its cryptic phrases flung across walls, and the staged interactions in Tino Sehgal’s debut show at the Marian Goodman gallery, where the atmosphere is charged by mere talk and a few choreographed poses. Both artists have wrestled mightily with language and space, structuring them in a way that makes them undeniably art.

Are they practice-ing? I don’t think so.