"It is not then, the violation that makes avant-garde art (or really, any transgression) so seductive, but the idea that new ways are being experimented with and found--better ways."
But of course, the violation is exactly what makes the avant-garde "seductive," at least to most people. Certainly Aliza Shvarts, the Yale student whom we talked about earlier, fell prey to this notion, this idea that the violation of taboo makes not only for provocative but good art. She probably should have spent her undergraduate years drawing and painting nudes, perfecting the fundamentals of art. Which brings into question Jason's statement about the Princeton students wanting to photograph nudes. I don't know enough about photography to know whether photographing nudes is a fundamental step, but I am worried by undergraduate students who want to immediately break the rules. Learn the rules first, then break them if you have a reason.
I do think it is a mistake to say that the new ways are always "better ways." I attended what can only be described as an avant-garde poetry reading a few weeks ago at Myopic books in Chicago. The main poet was accomplished—he had held a Stegner fellowship—but his poetry wasn't that great. Clever at times. And he broke a lot of rules. But cleverness doesn't last. And it doesn't rewrite the rules. It illicits a grin here, a wide eye there. Nothing more.
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the same goes from music. Schoenberg couldn't have fathered 12-tone without the fundamental understanding of musical harmony and of scales and keys.
I've been misunderstood.
Of course we must know aesthetic rules before consciously (but not necessarily legitimately) breaking them. Take a second look:
"It is not then, the violation that makes avant-garde art (or really, any transgression) so seductive, but the IDEA that new ways are being experimented with and found--better ways."
Emphasis on "idea." What I was saying was that the breaking of laws - aesthetic or social - is not done for the sake of "violation" itself, but instead under the auspices of the thought that the violation isn't really a violation at all in a different, "better" sphere or "way of being." Any brainless klutz with a piano or a camera or a gun can start a "new" movement. But she is always motivated by the ascension -- which is really what transgression is -- an attempt to call a bad ladder good -- even if everyone tells you're confused and wrong.
It's the avant-gardists (at least traditionally) who are always setting up these delicate ladders, and also abandoning them as soon as mass culture climbs aboard and restructures them for its weight. That's not to say artists are infallible - they often are, as the case with the Yalie.
But let's not pretend transgression isn't enjoyable for good reason. A human cannot be motivated to do wrong for wrong's sake. There is always pleasure in it. And pleasure means there must be good buried there. I'm simply pointing it out. That doesn't make the whole transgression good (a diamond buried in a rubbish heap doesn't transform the heap, does it?). But it does say something about the idea of "transgression." It is not an absolute wrong. I wonder if there are any.
As far as Schoenberg specifically goes, I can hand you a dozen listeners who despise atonal music for every savant who does. Does that make Schoenberg a transgressor? Yes. A bad composer? No. The ladder is simply to fragile, intricate -- it demands too much devotion for the average listener to commit herself to. For those who do the work, though -- who really hear it -- what they find once they've climbed those heights is very, very breathtaking.
That's why I have so much trouble recommending books, as I'm sure you might. Why would I want to recommend someone Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"? To me, it's a revelation. To someone else, it's a broken leg.
Recall Duchamp's "In Advance of a Broken Arm." I think a look at Dada might help understand what I'm trying to say.
JMH
This is the first time I've heard Dada prescribed as a clarifying agent.
i almost peed my pants at david's comment...
why does the 'brainless klutz' and the 'average listener' have to be a woman?
Dada is the best example of the avant-garde form tortured by its own status of legitimacy. Is this a problem?
I've stopped assuming that every third person is a "he." It's the 21st century; something's got to change.
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