I have been reading this book art an enemy of the people by roger taylor. I really liked it when I first read it because, although for a long time I’d felt that the idea of art was suspicious and evil, it gave a scope and framework i hadnt put my finger on to a lot of things that had been bothering me. I also really liked it because i thought it was funny to imagine it was the other roger taylor who wrote it, on breaks during the recording of we will rock you, and i told a few people this and they believed me, and told other people.
There’s lots going on in the book, a lot of charming faults and fusty signs of its time, and some of the best sentences in the english language, like when he says “the general life and vitality of the Beatles phenomenon disappeared during the entanglement with ‘high culture’, though some of it has returned with Wings”
One of his contentions is that the social process of awarding things the art label is discriminatory against most people in society. The word art and the activities it refers to have changed their meaning countless times but by looking at the lived historical processes of its development, he alleges that the idea, in its current version, originated in the 17th century, as a response from the European aristocracy to justify the waning power structure. Art becomes associated with spiritual fulfilment through a certain set of activities specific to people of the ruling class, and the legacy of this is adopted by the industrialised middle classes who rise up in the following centuries, to compensate for the exploitation of the social base upon which their new material security depends.
By way of example, are there comparable definitions of art, in the way it develops in these european circles, in china or india or anywhere else of the same period. Or even in europe a few hundred years before? The umbrella term of art groups together far fewer activities than in the ancient world for instance, where it might have been used for any activity with a set of rules instead, geometry, music, architecture, grammar etc. The word is referring to very different things by this point. This makes ideas like “cave art” seem absurd. cave paintings is specific enough, but how could anyone contend that they constitute art in a way that georgian high society could lay claim to?
So basically art, rather than an enduring, timeless, essential, universal facet of human experience is a culturally specific product of the 17th century european aristocracy. Which we all know of course. But even if the net of acceptable art activity is widened to include things like hockey and uk drill, the ideology of art, the art/non art binary is not avoided.
The word alone is a placeholder for something valuable, the art of cooking, lionel messi: when football becomes art etc. the point of bringing this up is not to discourage people from making things that often get lumped in as “art”, its to talk about ways to resist the damaging effect of accepting the ideology of art as a general, self justifying, signifier of value and good taste. Being specific about our experience of activities formerly known as art without genuflecting to the reductive, erroneous framing of them as “art” which will only suck the life out of all we hold dear.
Its not to completely dismiss things that you might call the art experience, moments of aesthetic epiphany or whatever, its about refusing to let the concept of art take the credit for that.
and most of you probably don’t worry about whether things you enjoy spending your life doing qualify as art. most people probably understand pretty well that lots of certified art activities and institutions are aligned with rich and powerful people, and function to preserve elite interests that “most people” dont have time for. Knowledge of it is still a way to flex power. Broadly people don’t give a shit about the ideology of art and have known all this since they were six, but that won’t mean you avoid its more oblique effects.
Theres a long section at the end of the book where he looks at the development of jazz, and the changing nature of its mediation through the concept of art by different groups of people. This happens in many different ways in various places and isnt reduced to a systematic formula, but often takes place where jazz is approved of by people commited in various ways to the concept of art. One instance might be where young european intellectuals in the 20s and 30s demarcate between what they see as “real jazz” and commercial dance band ballroom jazz lite. Cafe oto members of their day, individuals who would have been against commercial popularism, but open to what “challenging” expressions of “really living”, where really living is taken as romantic creativity in the face of authentic suffering. This view is not something that comes from guys in new orleans jazz bands but is an alluring image to identify with and so plenty of “real” musicians build on the mythology despite the misunderstandings on which its based.
The effect of welcoming aspects of jazz into the ideology of art doesn’t leave it untouched. You get jazz musicians trying to integrate their music into the tradition of art, alongside the decline of popular support which shifts to whatever new music comes that excites in similar ways as jazz had previously. And this general process takes place again and again. Jeff mills at the white cube etc.
One related discussion which I imagine has endlessly reoccured here would be to do with rockism/poptimism. Or what people talk about when autechre get brought up. But I don’t know how often the total concept of art gets held to account in these conversations. It seems to me it really has a lot to do with the way we might identify with or against certain things, tunes for instance that seem too “arty” or too “poppy”. people who hate photek vs people who hate piano house.
The music people like best here is mainly made by people who are not middle class and not white, and broadly seems like a lot of the people here are sort of middle class and sort of white. So as well as liking that music because its great, it is a way of saying, look right i don’t want to be associated with these aspects of middle classness and whiteness that seem restrictive and alien to me.
And so if by association i instinctually and habitually tend to reject things because of their apparently “intelligent” or “progressive” pretentions i might reproduce the art/non art binary which undermines some of the reasons i might have gravitated to ragga jungle or whatever.
obviosuly were all destined to reproduce our own alientaiton yeah yeah yeah so falling for art is not that big a deal, its inevitable, but we can have our cake and eat it here, by resisting the concept of art. we don’t need a badge of success. but then again whats so bad about a badge of success?
There’s lots going on in the book, a lot of charming faults and fusty signs of its time, and some of the best sentences in the english language, like when he says “the general life and vitality of the Beatles phenomenon disappeared during the entanglement with ‘high culture’, though some of it has returned with Wings”
One of his contentions is that the social process of awarding things the art label is discriminatory against most people in society. The word art and the activities it refers to have changed their meaning countless times but by looking at the lived historical processes of its development, he alleges that the idea, in its current version, originated in the 17th century, as a response from the European aristocracy to justify the waning power structure. Art becomes associated with spiritual fulfilment through a certain set of activities specific to people of the ruling class, and the legacy of this is adopted by the industrialised middle classes who rise up in the following centuries, to compensate for the exploitation of the social base upon which their new material security depends.
By way of example, are there comparable definitions of art, in the way it develops in these european circles, in china or india or anywhere else of the same period. Or even in europe a few hundred years before? The umbrella term of art groups together far fewer activities than in the ancient world for instance, where it might have been used for any activity with a set of rules instead, geometry, music, architecture, grammar etc. The word is referring to very different things by this point. This makes ideas like “cave art” seem absurd. cave paintings is specific enough, but how could anyone contend that they constitute art in a way that georgian high society could lay claim to?
So basically art, rather than an enduring, timeless, essential, universal facet of human experience is a culturally specific product of the 17th century european aristocracy. Which we all know of course. But even if the net of acceptable art activity is widened to include things like hockey and uk drill, the ideology of art, the art/non art binary is not avoided.
The word alone is a placeholder for something valuable, the art of cooking, lionel messi: when football becomes art etc. the point of bringing this up is not to discourage people from making things that often get lumped in as “art”, its to talk about ways to resist the damaging effect of accepting the ideology of art as a general, self justifying, signifier of value and good taste. Being specific about our experience of activities formerly known as art without genuflecting to the reductive, erroneous framing of them as “art” which will only suck the life out of all we hold dear.
Its not to completely dismiss things that you might call the art experience, moments of aesthetic epiphany or whatever, its about refusing to let the concept of art take the credit for that.
and most of you probably don’t worry about whether things you enjoy spending your life doing qualify as art. most people probably understand pretty well that lots of certified art activities and institutions are aligned with rich and powerful people, and function to preserve elite interests that “most people” dont have time for. Knowledge of it is still a way to flex power. Broadly people don’t give a shit about the ideology of art and have known all this since they were six, but that won’t mean you avoid its more oblique effects.
Theres a long section at the end of the book where he looks at the development of jazz, and the changing nature of its mediation through the concept of art by different groups of people. This happens in many different ways in various places and isnt reduced to a systematic formula, but often takes place where jazz is approved of by people commited in various ways to the concept of art. One instance might be where young european intellectuals in the 20s and 30s demarcate between what they see as “real jazz” and commercial dance band ballroom jazz lite. Cafe oto members of their day, individuals who would have been against commercial popularism, but open to what “challenging” expressions of “really living”, where really living is taken as romantic creativity in the face of authentic suffering. This view is not something that comes from guys in new orleans jazz bands but is an alluring image to identify with and so plenty of “real” musicians build on the mythology despite the misunderstandings on which its based.
The effect of welcoming aspects of jazz into the ideology of art doesn’t leave it untouched. You get jazz musicians trying to integrate their music into the tradition of art, alongside the decline of popular support which shifts to whatever new music comes that excites in similar ways as jazz had previously. And this general process takes place again and again. Jeff mills at the white cube etc.
One related discussion which I imagine has endlessly reoccured here would be to do with rockism/poptimism. Or what people talk about when autechre get brought up. But I don’t know how often the total concept of art gets held to account in these conversations. It seems to me it really has a lot to do with the way we might identify with or against certain things, tunes for instance that seem too “arty” or too “poppy”. people who hate photek vs people who hate piano house.
The music people like best here is mainly made by people who are not middle class and not white, and broadly seems like a lot of the people here are sort of middle class and sort of white. So as well as liking that music because its great, it is a way of saying, look right i don’t want to be associated with these aspects of middle classness and whiteness that seem restrictive and alien to me.
And so if by association i instinctually and habitually tend to reject things because of their apparently “intelligent” or “progressive” pretentions i might reproduce the art/non art binary which undermines some of the reasons i might have gravitated to ragga jungle or whatever.
obviosuly were all destined to reproduce our own alientaiton yeah yeah yeah so falling for art is not that big a deal, its inevitable, but we can have our cake and eat it here, by resisting the concept of art. we don’t need a badge of success. but then again whats so bad about a badge of success?
