Visual Studies: Re-thinking Art History within an Expanded Field

Keith Moxey’s opening statement characterizes history and aesthetics as the “Scylla and Charybdis” of the historiography of art history. They were 2 sea monsters that threatened Ulysses and his sailors on opposite sides of a narrow sea channel. One would swallow the sea in a treacherous whirlpool, the other had 6 mouths with which to grab and devour whatever came within its reach. Escaping from one meant an encounter with the other. Ulysses was literally between a rock and a hard place. So in art history the pendulum has swung between the extremes of embracing aesthetics at the expense of context and vice versa. We’ve covered this terrain over the course of the semester as it has been reiterated throughout the history of art history whether we label the proponents Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Kant, Panofsky and Wolfflin, Baxandall and Greenberg, T.J. Clark and Michael Fried.

I agree with Michael Ann Holly who calls herself a historiographer and phenomenologist. She believes that it is in the confrontation between the two that something novel arises. Rethinking the relationship between aesthetics and history, their place in art history and what art history means in our current world has resulted in an expanded field, here labeled visual studies, that encompasses and tames them both.
Within this expanded field the traditional Western grand narrative of art history can no longer assume its superior position. Just as Freud and the patriarchal world he represents was encompassed by Cixous’ “bisexuality” that made it an equal to the female principle, the Western art historical canon becomes just another aesthetic community among many with its own terms of value that are intrinsic to itself but cannot be applied universally to all other aesthetic communities. I agree with Moxey that modernism set up artificial boundaries to keep its own idea of art pure. Now those boundaries have fallen and we see the power relations that guaranteed the dominance of a Western grand narrative. With this knowledge we are freed to redefine basic terms such as aesthetics and history. Holly gives the historian agency (she calls it responsibility) to define and redefine what have been identified as core concepts.

I don’t agree with Holly that research has to strip the object/artwork of its awe. I am not a part of the community of writers within contemporary visual studies to whom she refers. I can only speak from my own experience. In my four short years of researching and writing about the works of Willie Cole I’ve found each new bit of research has only increased my appreciation of his work. Every time I see Household Find hanging on the wall, I am still struck by its sheer physicality. Only now I have more than my initial visceral reaction to rely on. I can describe its formal properties, the context within which it was made, the historical, political, social and economic implications of its creation and am open to the meaning it might have for its viewers whether they ascribe to the traditional Western art historical canon or are part of another geographically and culturally distinct aesthetic community. Each layer of complexity adds immeasureably to the richness of the whole.

Art History & Visual Studies

Before starting this course, I questioned what visual studies had to do with actually interpreting and analyzing an actual art object. But now, as dicussed by MAH, I realize that art history must contain an analysis of aesthetic in relation to historical inquiries into art lead to different interpretations. These interpretations, through time, lead to rejuventation and new knowledge associated with the history of art. However, it seems important to note, according to MC, that these new choices of how to talk about art history and visual studies is the result of an institutional conditioning and education that art historians, critics, and curators have received.

Although critical theories provide new meaning or knowledge to art from different time periods, I think the conclusion by MAH hits the nail on the head. What causes us to write about art? Why do we want to become historians? Why does this matter? For me, it is an aesthetic response that initially gets me excited to know more about an artist, group of artists, etc. Although aesthetics and the associated pleasure and satisfaction received is universal, it is a driving force that triggers an initial response which then leads to a critical response through the incorporation of critical and cultural theories. We cannot escape the universality of Kant because I believe his writings from the Critique and the Power of Judgment contain the origins from which we choose to enter the industry known as art history.

However, as discussed by KM, the field of visual studies allows us to pull back the layers of art in order clearly see the discriminations we make based on aesthetics and look at art as just visual artifacts. As students and historians, I believe that art cannot provide a conclusive definition based solely on aesthetic autonomy but that historians bring to light the claims of these autonomies. In a postmodern world, it may appear that we are lost but it seems the discourse created through postmodernism makes us aware of the knowledge that has been in the shadows for a long time.

In bringing to light the claims of these aesthetic autonomies, it is vital that historians are aware of the historicities of the past in order to make the connection to the present (mentioned by MC). However, the western knowledge that has been associated with Modernism is in confilict with the analysis and interpretation of non-western art. Postcolonialism and globalization are important theories in order to make educated and valuable analyses of non-western art. This brings to light the conversation we had last week at Stanford as to how historians are cornered into being specialists in genres that related to our own social conditions.

I think I have a lot more to learn about theory and I am definitely learning in my research paper how difficult it is to understand one Foucault theory. I did not choose to be an art historian because I love Foucault, Freud, Marx, or the other nutjobs who decided to write these complicated books. It really boils down to aesthetics for me..If the work does not move me visually, I have a hard time making a connection with it. But hopefully, through many sleepless nights in the future, critical theory will help to broaden my appreciation of art without my subjective hegemony of aesthetics.

A Rant on Aesthetics and History

The concept of changing art history to visual studies or visual culture is a necessary one. In today’s world I would hope that we have become aware enough to realize that there is no one concept of what art is and as a result it is necessary to study any images or objects that might be considered to be within the realm of art (even those objects whose maker does not see as being art). After all, any object has the capacity to inflict an idea or to be a result of a concept or idea relevant to a time and place. This is why I agree that the study of history cannot always be extricated from the study of an object. In fact, I don’t think it ever can – even formalism has a history. Although, Holly ends with the question about the problem of losing the wonder an object can invoke when one writes about it, and this seems a valid reason not to discuss the history of an object. This “conversation” reminded me of when a friend asked me what I could be writing so much about as an art history student. She asked, “I mean, what can you possibly have to say about art besides whether you like it or not?” This question is hilarious to me, but at the same time relates to what Holly is saying when she writes, “I sense that some of contemporary visual studies so willingly seems...to have sacrificed a sense of awe at the power of an overwhelming visual experience...in favor of the ‘political’ connections that lie beneath the surface of this or that representation.” I agree that something is lost in the act of searching for the stuff that lies beneath the aesthetic. Yet, this is one of the things that I love about art history (or visual culture): it isn’t aesthetic history. It is art history, and art history has almost always taken other things into consideration besides the art object itself...things that are dependent on their time of production as well as their time of study. At the very end Holly asks, “Does the act of writing in either art history or visual studies yearn towards a recreation of visual ‘aesthetic’ experience, even if there is little or none there to be found? Is the desire to write about a subject the first ‘aesthetic’ choice? Or does it, rather, lie in our histories?” I think it is both. But, I do think that sometimes too much desire is placed on the histories rather than on the aesthetics (I hope I am understanding her correctly here). But, what can really be done about that? The historian is doomed to think about the history no matter what – they desire to think about the history in terms of phenomenology, sociology, or whatever.

I am also drawn to Moxey’s question: “’What is to be done?’ Are there any principles according to which history is to be told, or should we recognize once and for all that history must depend on the nature of the interpreting subject? If this is indeed the case, then what is to identify history as a genre that would distinguish it from, say, fiction?” This reminded me of an essay by Hayden White called “The Fictions of Factual Representation.” He argues that discoursed of historians and “imaginative” writers overlap so that the reader cannot tell the two apart without knowing their context and the KINDS of truth they deal with. I think that this idea that there are different types of truth is along the lines of what Moxey is asking. If we were to recognize fully that history depends on the interpreting subject where does that leave us? Even if we relied on a very basic retelling of factual events – the events that are chosen become the ones that have relevance and the ones that aren’t chosen get left in the dust. So, what do we have to rely on? Would that leave us to base our truths on only what we perceive to be morality based on religion? That can be dangerous as well. Every object or historical account has to be open to be looked at and interpreted in any way that the viewer/ reader should decide. Having no ideology becomes our ideology. Yet, I don’t think this is happening. We obviously have our (individual) ideologies and our methods of interpretation based on histories and moralities. And these are all valid and we can understand where one another is “coming from.” This is where I think I agree with Moxey. He says, “The value of these [artistic] developments...lies not in replacing one type of history with another, but to complicate and relativize what we once regarded as ‘the’ story.”

Yes on Aesthetics

This article was helpful to read because it gave me a better understanding on “dialogue,” and the skill of “inviting” certain critics, philosophers, theorists, etc. in to our papers for support. So, I felt that this reading was especially informative, as well as purposeful and practical.

I really thought that this dialogue tied in great with our conversations at the Cantor last week in the African Art gallery. How do you understand artifacts that are characteristic and representative of certain cultures when they are displayed in a typical art museum? Moxey addresses the monotonous of “cultural” art or artifact exhibitions at the Louvre and its attempt to display “art” from different countries and cultures. Artifacts, like we saw at the Cantor, are displayed behind glass, denying objects of their original, purposeful and specific values. Moxey writes that the art in the Louvre “were reduced to sameness by means of an exhibition policy that implied that they were somehow equivalent to each other.” (86) He does however note that the Louvre was and still is primarily dedicated to western European art, and their attempts to include more “global” art pieces and artifacts may be a new direction for not only the Louvre, but for many major art museums. With globalization, I find it particularly interesting that major museums such as the Louvre, are finding what seems to be a constant pressure to equally represent and display art from different cultures, countries, and genres. However, because older, more famous museums may be better known for displaying specific kinds of art, from say western Europe like the Louvre, they are suddenly faced with the challenge to “globalize.” This challenge causes haste, monotony, and incomplete representations of attempts to display cultural and global art that many museums are criticized for.

I was also really intrigued by the question, “What does aesthetics still mean for art history today?” I think aesthetics are still important for art history because they provide a basis in which to begin looking at art. Aesthetics can help to provide an artist’s intentions or response to an issue, or can serve as examples and models of how to execute techniques. From aesthetics, from the examination of the formal qualities and characteristics of a piece of art, narratives can form and from theses narratives theories can be applied. (This is one of the aspects I am hoping to touch upon in my paper- first, the act of looking at art, the formulation of a narrative in the mind, and then the mind’s ability to connect what it sees with the narrative derived from the work of art, and then ultimately, a piece of art’s ability to convey certain ideologies.) I do not think that art history or visual studies can transcend into a totally new discipline without recognition and taking into consideration, not just aesthetics, but the “old” art history all together. Art history is a discipline that stems from the past and that should not be forgotten. Cheetham says, “We must instill the sense that the past was different, but that our access to it, our writing of it, posits a connection to the present.” (83) It is the changes and interpretations from past ways of looking at art that has allowed present art historians to formulate theories and posit new ways of conceiving art today. So, yes on aesthetics.

Visual Studies vs Art History

Art is has entered the post-epistemology stage. Transversing from the so labeled name of Art History and moving to a future of Visual Studies. Pondering questions such as: how might visual studies rethink what we thought we already knew? The keywords to note, and one we just discussed; globalization, visual studies, practices of teaching and research, historiography, cosmopolitanism, aesthetic communities. MC, says that, yes art history is broad, but still limited, and definable. The visual arts/visual culture challenges the traditional modes of assessing the aesthetics. The comment he made about the nature of the 'decision' and how one comes to one's research, made me think about the validity of some of these authors we've been reading. I think it's our programmed Art Historical voice in all of us. Though we should have an open approach to such ideas, abstract writing, calls for abstract thinking/assessing.

MAH, arises the question, do we take the art out of history, or the history out of the art? Why, remove anything, can't they be happily married? I mean, if art could be/is sometimes, called timeless, should we not just appreciate it for the pure aesthetics, and does knowing the 'history' of a work completely change our perspective on the art? From a more contemporary standpoint, we think of some of the famous artists who we have became so enamored with their life profile; they should be in PEOPLE magazine. That could be an example of 'taking the art out of history.'

This one little liners get me, such as 'history must depend on the nature of the interpreting subject.' This makes me think that if art were timeless, every person would view a piece of art in a completely different time, in the context of their contemporary times. Ok, yes this seems obvious, but I want to know what happens when you x-out the interpreting, another impossible notion, is it the same as the saying goes, "If a tree falls in the forest, an no one's around, does it make a sound?" Well, is art, Art if there are no interpreters?

The 'value of value.' Who places the high status on something to enforce the idea of value? Responsible, are they not the historians we have came to praise for their defining of aesthetic value. When MAH, digressed about the past interfering with the present, this makes me think of how we are constantly comparing to what is the art of the moment to the art that has been done. This may be the reason we feel the need to change the title 'Art History' to 'Visual Arts', one is a field of study, the other an intellectual attitude. Saying that we need to move on, forward, and not just dwell in the past, with this past artist, and their artworks. I think we're trying to re-glamoritize art history, be a little avant-garde, it's good.