[lit-ideas] A Thoughtful Thinker
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Anthro-L <ANTHRO-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 17:29:02 +0900
Oddly enough (I had some time on my hands reinstalling Windows XP to
run under Parallels on my Intel Mac mini), I picked up my copy of Kirk
Varnedoe, _Pictures of Nothing:Abstract Art Since Pollock_ (bought
after Ruth's and my visit to the Phillips Collection in Washington,
D.C., where we were blown away by the Rothko Room). Anyway, on page
8, the author proclaims,
"What we want to do is cut through the gas and grab the ideas that
flow out of and drive us back toward such confusing, gritting
particulars of experience, rather than the ideas that constantly and
confidently blend such things into soupy generalities."
The reference is to the stripes in Frank Stella's "The Marriage of
Reason and Squalor," often cited as an example of the "mechanical
exactitude" of Stella's art. On closer examination (the book provides
a closeup), they force us to "think again about the beautiful,
delicate breathing space in these stripes, the incredible feathered
edge of the touch of the picture, and the dark, espresso ground." The
close-up reveals that the stripes are highly irregular, made up of
white and dark spots where the brush did or did not touch the canvas.
I think of how often what we call theories "constantly and confidently
blend such things into soupy generalities." I recall Levi-Strauss'
image for structuralist analysis, stars forming in the center of a
galaxy whose primordial soup fades into infinity. I wonder what our
lives, our politics, our theories would be like if we took this image
seriously in our journeys in search of knowledge.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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