I’m perfectly fine with a broad definition of art . I don’t think there is much point in denouncing someone like Jeff Koons or Tracy Emin as non artists. No they’re bad artists who exalt banality and mediocrity.On Adorno , I’d be careful. My memory of him is hazy but I remember my past impression was that he was actually rather incoheren…
I’m perfectly fine with a broad definition of art . I don’t think there is much point in denouncing someone like Jeff Koons or Tracy Emin as non artists. No they’re bad artists who exalt banality and mediocrity.On Adorno , I’d be careful. My memory of him is hazy but I remember my past impression was that he was actually rather incoherent. Even with what you cite, we’re supposed to think Schoenberg is THE exemplary modern artist because his art was “ autonomous “ but is he actually listenable? Great art can emerge within and from an existing tradition. I have the sense that Adorno thought art was supposed to challenge in some sense the status quo. He was far too sophisticated to be an advocate of agitprop but you get a sense he was what my film history professors called Brechtian . Art must be actively taken in a manner which aims for demystification. In this process the non passive observers consciousnesses is raised and his sense of the cultural contradictions
of capitalism raised.Ok that’s nice but it’s actually rather fanciful.Art comes out of any number of things and has varied effects and functions. Adorno like most Marxists is trying to create an ideology of art. Not necessary or even healthy!
"Even with what you cite, we’re supposed to think Schoenberg is THE exemplary modern artist because his art was “ autonomous “ but is he actually listenable?"
Testimony from a non-musician: I've listened to him often enough and found something interesting in his music, even enjoyed some of it, even among his thorniest serial pieces (the 3rd and 4th quartets, for example). However, I consider him highly overrated and have to be in the mood for any of it. (For the first six months or so after my ear cracked his code, as it were, when I was 22 or so, I listened to him compulsively. Then I simply stopped. Of the big three in his line, I might add, Berg is better and more listenable, though Webern I find worse.) Serialism can have subtle effects once a sense of tonal center has been dissolved, but usually, especially among his academic epigones, there's not much else on offer. In any case, there's so much else in 20th century classical music that I prefer to seek out, and in a more comprehensive view I think Kyle Gann has it right--serialism is a limited technique, not a fundamental revolution in music: https://www.kylegann.com/PC050320-Once-More-into-12-tone.html
I’m perfectly fine with a broad definition of art . I don’t think there is much point in denouncing someone like Jeff Koons or Tracy Emin as non artists. No they’re bad artists who exalt banality and mediocrity.On Adorno , I’d be careful. My memory of him is hazy but I remember my past impression was that he was actually rather incoherent. Even with what you cite, we’re supposed to think Schoenberg is THE exemplary modern artist because his art was “ autonomous “ but is he actually listenable? Great art can emerge within and from an existing tradition. I have the sense that Adorno thought art was supposed to challenge in some sense the status quo. He was far too sophisticated to be an advocate of agitprop but you get a sense he was what my film history professors called Brechtian . Art must be actively taken in a manner which aims for demystification. In this process the non passive observers consciousnesses is raised and his sense of the cultural contradictions
of capitalism raised.Ok that’s nice but it’s actually rather fanciful.Art comes out of any number of things and has varied effects and functions. Adorno like most Marxists is trying to create an ideology of art. Not necessary or even healthy!
"Even with what you cite, we’re supposed to think Schoenberg is THE exemplary modern artist because his art was “ autonomous “ but is he actually listenable?"
Testimony from a non-musician: I've listened to him often enough and found something interesting in his music, even enjoyed some of it, even among his thorniest serial pieces (the 3rd and 4th quartets, for example). However, I consider him highly overrated and have to be in the mood for any of it. (For the first six months or so after my ear cracked his code, as it were, when I was 22 or so, I listened to him compulsively. Then I simply stopped. Of the big three in his line, I might add, Berg is better and more listenable, though Webern I find worse.) Serialism can have subtle effects once a sense of tonal center has been dissolved, but usually, especially among his academic epigones, there's not much else on offer. In any case, there's so much else in 20th century classical music that I prefer to seek out, and in a more comprehensive view I think Kyle Gann has it right--serialism is a limited technique, not a fundamental revolution in music: https://www.kylegann.com/PC050320-Once-More-into-12-tone.html
Serialism is the ACDC of classical music.
When you've heard one track you've heard them all.