http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/25/pope.christmas.reut/index.html

(ps Vijay, they are a secret.)

>From: "Vijay Pattisapu" <lexicontrol@gmail.com>
>Reply-To: "Vijay Pattisapu" <lexicontrol@gmail.com>
>To: Rhizome <list@rhizome.org>
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Baudrillard: Contemporary Art is Worthless
>Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 01:56:01 -0600
>
>:-)
>
>http://felix.openflows.com/html/baudrillard.html
>
>"Two situations, both critical and insoluble. One is the total
>worthlessness
>of contemporary art. The other is the impotence of the political class in
>front of Le Pen [popular French neo-fascist politician]. The two situations
>are exchangeable, and their solutions are transferable. Indeed, the
>inability to offer any political alternative to Le Pen is displaced to the
>cultural terrain, to the domain where a Holy Cultural Alliance prevails.
>Conversely, the problematization of contemporary art can only come from a
>reactionary, irrational, or even fascist mode of thinking." [1]
>
>Consternation spread through the cultural community roughly a year ago when
>Jean Baudrillard proclaimed contemporary art to be utterly worthless.
>Considered a major cultural critic by many artists and theorists the
>denunciation came as a slap in the face. Having written prefaces for
>catalogues of visual art shows, and having exhibited his own photographic
>work, Baudrillard's condemnation appeared full of unexpected
>contradictions.
>Was this a rude awakening or simply rude?
>
>Primarily it was a radical delegitimatization of his own position as a
>cultural critic. If indeed Baudrillard has accepted this consequence one
>possible motive for his new stand is that it will realign him with what he
>considers a credible position: this time within the French political scene
>where he claims the only effective player to be Le Pen. Is he still being
>taken seriously? A notable exclusion from Catherine David's "Documenta"
>book
>is Jean Baudrillard, although almost all influential theorists since 1945
>have been included. Was this in recognition of the fact that there is no
>substance to his discourse anymore? Was it the exclusion from the French
>intellectual circle that moved him to such a hefty reaction? "The
>Precession
>of the Simulacra" remains impressive, if somewhat exaggerated (did it
>really
>take him that long to discover the remote control?).
>
>Over the years he has developed the emphasis of his thoughts layer by
>layer,
>and we sadly suspect that Baudrillard may have fallen victim to his own
>theories and is no longer able to differentiate between discourse and
>artistic creativity, as he claims one can no longer differentiate between
>the illusion and the real. The concept of complete simulation is, after
>all,
>such a seductive one. Having exhausted his 'excessive theory' he has
>arrived
>at a point where even the most stubborn modernist will begin to understand
>his point that theory, or, as the less radical would say, at least his
>theory, has become 'just' poetry. But what irony, the imagined pure play
>isn't, after all, that easy and sitting in the sandbox is no fun at all.
>
>Suddenly Baudrillard finds himself in a most distasteful position: he has
>become an artist. Even worse, an artist still spear-heading the glorious
>progress (or fatal demise, if you prefer) of culture, an avant-gardist
>denouncing the avant-garde (which is, in itself, quite a passe cliche).
>Poor
>Jean sits in the hand-crafted dead-end where any further rhetoric will only
>make things worse. Here, at last, his claim can be taken seriously. Having
>become an artist, a poet, he realized that his own doings, burning his
>baroque verbal pyrotechniques, will not save him, no, they are utterly
>worthless as a way out of his dilemma. What options does he have? Cry for
>help! As the true avant-gardist he cannot have the faintest faith in his
>peers since he, leading the way, was formerly where they still are.
>Well-meant understanding - get out of my way! Serious analysis - he did
>that
>in the seventies, when socialism was still, as we would say today, the next
>big thing. Despising his peers because they remind him of his former sins,
>he turns full circle: Please, you sturdy fascists, he begs, show me some
>reality! Still the old megaloman he demonstrates that what is good for him
>will be even better for France: the political system has to be saved just
>as
>he himself must be. We can happily take it as a sign of this very
>megalomania that the rest of the world, seen from Parisian heights, is so
>utterly backward that we don't even deem mention. When he claims that the
>problematization of contemporary art can only come from the 'reactionary
>…
>even fascist mode of thinking' there can be little doubt as to what he
>meant
>with the 'melancholy for societies without power that gave rise to fascism'
>that overdose of a powerful referential in a society which cannot terminate
>its mourning [2].
>
>Could that be a self-description? Not of course the mourning, himself being
>a cool thinker, but the image of the melancholy of a powerless theory that
>gives rise to the yearning for power seems particularly fitting. When all
>books do is turn in circles, a solid boot-in-the-face will strike through
>all the epistemological vagaries and clean out the ontological despair. A
>true hero of the simulacrum he has realized this consequence. He wants out
>of what elsewhere he referred to as 'the ecstasy of communication' a place
>of 'the cold universe: ecstasy, obscenity, fascination, communication …
>hazard, chance and vertigo.' [3] It is here that 'passion disappears' which
>would explain the remote place that Baudrillard now finds himself in. We
>must assume a heavily burdened conscience, cracking under the drag weight
>of
>miles and miles of opaque theory, to appreciate such a ridiculous claim
>that
>the situation of contemporary art (see Baudrillard's poetry) can only be
>renewed by Le Pen: we can almost hear the tenured professor begging:
>passion, one last time in my life I want passion.
>
>But discourse has a nasty tendency to develop its own dynamics and spiral
>around its own arguments, to become separated from the reality of
>production
>or creation which it claims as its subject. Instead of worrying about the
>defection of a great cultural theorist we should dispense with him quietly
>and wave goodbye to granddad. There is life behind the TV screen, and to
>understand this life, today, art is still one of the best ways to go. -
>
>
>
>Corinna Ghaznavi - Felix Stalder
>
>
>
>–
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