Crap is a load of books

[imomus]

1. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the

Comments

[imomus]

Two points. One, I think people have a tendency to define subversion too narrowly as being just a question of sex and violence and the line (and it's a legal line, positioned at the point where the average citizen would consider something "liable to corrupt and deprave" the consumer) which demarcates what can be said from what can't. When I'd rather define it as the making visible (via challenge) of the doxa, the absolute nub of contemporaneity. That is, the place we're currently at in all debates -- the consensus we've reached at any given time in any given society, on questions from what we think marriage is for to how high up the neck a collar goes. These are all things you can "transgress" against -- in other words, they all have an "Overton Window" with unacceptable positions. And a good artist ought to take a non-consensual view, or at least remind us constantly of parallel worlds where things are done differently. It is creatively valuable to defy the consensus, if only to locate more visibly where it is.

Secondly, those who focus on "shocking" content in art (and we know these are usually conservative critics on the defensive) often get blocked at level one. "This isn't shocking" becomes their sole response. Good, it isn't shocking. The artist usually agrees. So move on to the next level. So what is it? And at that point, usually, the critic slips back to the "not shocking" line, adding the argument that the artist's intention was just to shock, but that this has failed, and so the work fails. The non-shocking shockingness is something this kind of critic typically can't get past. It's like saying that something -- which we both agree is nothing -- is everything.

[imomus]

And a good artist ought to take a non-consensual view

Indeed, but is this not also the consensual view of what an artist should do? Therefore it is in the artist's interest to declare the "edginess" of whatever s/he is doing, regardless of whether it is really challenging any status quo. Hence you end up with the spectacle of a coterie of artists who are fêted by the art establishment and its satellite of collectors, and yet who are also claiming to be doing something edgy, non-establishment. But this "consensual edginess" is exactly what the artist should be avoiding. It's no surprise that art and fashion are so intertwined.

[imomus]

is this not also the consensual view of what an artist should do

See, this slippage (shocking is the new not-shocking! rebelling is conforming!) is where things get boring for me. Sure, I'm as guilty as you are in perpetuating it. But it's one enormous semantic wheelspin. It takes us nowhere.

It's worth pointing out that all the writers I mentioned in today's entries are "subversive" in the wider sense I outline above. It's not a choice between "subversive" Acker and Genet and "non-subversive" Larkin and Salinger. They're all good artists, so they all subvert. The doxa, our expectations, standards of morality, and so on. They swear, they put awkward points of view, they offend. Even dear old mild codger John Betjeman did it. "Come friendly bombs and rain on Slough." How do you think they felt about that in Slough? Isn't that an incitement to murder? Would it pass muster today? Would a muslim cleric be allowed to quote it at Heathrow Terminal 5?

[imomus]

How do you think they felt about that in Slough?

Actually, according to this rather funny web page the people of Slough are vociferously calling for their own destruction.

everyday is like sunday

[petit_paradis]

Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.
Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy
We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
Don't let anyone bomb me.

[butterflyrobert]

There's a psychic X-factor in good art that exceeds edginess and ignores the consensual/non-consensual argument altogether