A continuation of posts in response to a dismissal of contemporary art.
- Some contemporary artists are given a pass by McGilchrist. But predictably, there’s not a vagina among them. Maybe on the canvases and potteries. Eg: Egon Schiele, Marc Chagall, and Stanley Spencer, Picasso or Matisse, Stravinsky or Schoenberg. I suspect Hannah Höch, Dorothea Tanning or later, Joan Jonas, might fail to pass muster.
Egon Schiele (1890–1918) From Wikimedia Commons
- I’m surprised someone would write a book which draws heavily on philosophy and in which the ills of modernity, capitalism and schizophrenia are discussed at length, and yet fail to mention Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Opedipus (2021 [1972])? Perhaps it is because the Anti-Oedipus and Thousand Plateaus tomes are the epitome of what McGilchrist is railing against. Not everyone finds their work edifying. I personally prefer to read others who get straight to the point, often in more accessible ways. This is not the first time where I’ve been puzzled by their absence. Karen Barad (2017; p437) mentions Deleuze just once in Meeting the Universe Halfway and then only in the Notes to say Deleuze’s critique, “…trivialises the set of possible relationships between the real and the possible”, making it “irrelevant in this sense”; which seems damning. But Barad’s book does not focus on schizophrenia, like McGilchrist’s and Deleuze and Guattari’s. (McGilchrist mentions it seven times in the Introduction and 184 times in the main body).
- Returning again to comments about Duchamp and pissing all over culture: McGilchrist writes, “When the Stalinists replaced the cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in Moscow with a public lavatory, the left hemisphere (never subtle when it comes to metaphoric thinking) pissed on religion, as it had pissed on art when Marcel Duchamp exhibited his notorious urinal”(McGilchrist,2019; p440-1). I was interested to learn that Martin Luther was absolutely obsessed with shit and toilet in general, and referred to the Pope as an ‘ass-fart’. This was not a passing one-off insult. The toilet or lack of one play a significant role in Luther’s writing; understandably in the medieval mind as the human population increased and cities developed. This is described wonderfully in this fantastically informative essay by Ed Simon (2017) who says, “To pass over Luther’s fecal utterances in embarrassed laughter is to abandon one part of his inheritance, his gestures to an emerging but never quite delivered corpotheology”.
And the following from Simons gives Fountain even greater resonance, regardless of whether it was Duchamp or Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (2023) who conceived of the work originally;
“Degradation digs a bodily grave for a new birth; it has not only a destructive, negative aspect, but also a regenerating one… Grotesque realism knows no other level; it is the fruitful earth and the womb. It is always conceiving” (think of Luther’s comparison of himself to a turd about to be expunged, a type of fecal birth in its imagery)”
And
“His [Luther’s] language was hardly unique in early modern Europe, as a Freudian analysis might imply, rather he was part of an ongoing tradition, for this was an era awash in shit.”
McGilchrist’s (2019; (p. 314-315) Luther is a different personality altogether. He is a tragic figure whose “original impulse, towards authenticity, came from the right hemisphere, but quickly became annexed to the agenda of the left hemisphere. Not by a revolutionary inversion, but by a slippage of meaning which repays attention.”
There is no mention of calling the Pope ‘fart-ass’.
My point is not that the metaphorical left hemisphere doesn’t annex reality. I cannot say either way. But that artists are often conduits for the world’s ‘stuff’. Not all artists, but some are very good at offering themselves up in this way. And to dismiss their generosity – as McGilchrist does, but more importantly, as does the view that leads to art funding being cut and university courses closed – seems desperately mean at best. And really dangerous, otherwise. McGilchrist (2019; p441) does say, before going on to damn most contemporary art, “Here I must speak for myself, since these matters are nothing if not personal.” So, I will stop banging on about this. However, these posts may well end up in some form or another in a new zine.
There may be one more post I need to do, however. In the meantime…
I asked Claude to read my notes. It has written a wonderful Dadaist poem!
“Here (says Claude) is my attempt to transcribe the handwritten notes in the image:
“That covers the main text portions I can make out. Please let me know if you need any clarification or have additional questions!”
Modernism/Postmodernism – Divided Terrain – to it the God
Is need/felt
Inclusived Bandwagon – new awareness to carlogy loko leo Cush – denny of Shared Values
Anthing goes, describe disruption Sprees/re [Ploy through clicked thegov: Included theckered Heidegen}
Note: He[as] N[eg](can’o diff[er]ent oth[er])
→ Prowetic curved attachments to Alwo. trances(ts float)
Which devlent [Indivldullistic then ever]
What happens when we deduce to
“plexes” of so meany people
When society inveltes to caltuar
mecuses, wie culuet praisur
[Spilling, new knistlup, ent]
May no be viewed ls an
lsged [?] leavus in un as we
an [D.P. woolred → Ledgamed lamgast]
Belcyiiss (P390°)
Link this cyphuw to lead
Seeunedeeum fald [Owganism data] is Decud [D. Ovgans]
ego this Dicid
sicum uls ts Tunhle
Opgans
Tools → centricular te
Refs:
McGilchrist, I. (2019) The master and his emissary: the divided brain and the making of the Western world. New expanded edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1983) Anti-Oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Simon. E. (2017) Fecal Fridays: Martin Luther on the Toilet, Queen Mob’s Tea House. Available at: https://queenmobs.com/2017/12/fecal-fridays-martin-luther-toilet/ (Accessed: 21 April 2024).
Whiddington, R. (2023) Did Duchamp Steal Credit for ‘The Fountain’ from a Woman Artist?, Artnet News. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/duchamp-fountain-dispute-2379304 (Accessed: 21 April 2024).