On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 8:21 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote:
> At what point does vulgarity, the crudest level of profanity and the > excited, > blurting noises of those who have no other words to call forth, become > poisionous to art? At Chicago's vaunted Stppenwolf Theater, the current > play, > The Motherfucker With The Hat, may be a good play but why does it require > the > obscene title if not to add shock at the cost of cheapening the context and > lowering the expectations of the audiences? > > The century-old fascination with high-low may be the best reflection of the > democratic spirit as a whole but it does not add to the quality, and I > mean the > reach, of art. Many eras of art have achieved stunning greatness by > admitting > the ambition, the aspiration, of reaching for more than can be grasped in > reality. It is a way of having faith in the human conditon. But our era > is > centered on so-called reality, the dismissal of hopeful aspiration and > relegating it to the bin hastily labeled 'romantic mythology'. I've had > enough > of it. I'm sick of impoverished language, of the three-hundred word > average > adult vocabulary, decorated in moments of befuddlement with a string of > vulgarities that add nothing to awareness. > > It's very hard to create something that has an emotional sting that does > not > rely on ugly, deliberately crude, wanton vulgarity. One has to get to the > mind, > the life of the mind, the imaginative center of any private universe, > where skin > and bones, bodily functions and even desires are transformed and are made > suddenly transparent by the magic elixir of creative free-play. > > Haven't we had enough of irony, the wrench that disassembles the nuts and > bolts > of reality and gives us the child's play of reducing the clock to so many > banged > up inert pieces? > > When playwrights need to put the un-word Motherfucker into their titles > they are > announcing that their little canoe of a play will float on a shallow sea. > Who > needs it? When celebrated painters portray incestuous antics, they aim to > shock and thus escape the less vivid, unshaped troubles of human life that > beg > subtle metaphors to give them presence. > > Where is the new language? Where is language that's worthy of being > celebrated? > Where is Art? > > I'm for an elegant, difficult visual art. I like to read words that somehow > bloom into bushy, scented metaphors; I like music that echoes Nature. I > like to > create shapes that expand and close in, sweep toward, nudge, and mingle > suggesting whatever you see. I think the best art alerts consciousness > to an > invisible and supremely confident presence that we can suddenly imagine as > ourselves growing beyond ourselves. > > (From recent article): - ...Who competed with each other in vulgarity and vacuousness and were treated by the art establishment with the greatest of respect. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2239504/As-prices-Damien-Hirsts-works-plummet-pity-credulous-saps-spent-fortunes-tosh.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
