3rd October 2017- Aesthetics and Anti-aesthetics Lecture (notes)

3rd October 2017
Context lecture programme- Experimentation and application

Aesthetics and Anti-aesthetics Lecture
Pure beauty vs the cult of the ugly


Historically- business of art was to investigate beauty and the visual, as well as documentation of history. under obligation to create something visually attractive or to alter the reality to seem more attractive. 
Beauty is no longer of such importance within modern society, specifically fine art. Yet arguably the visuality of our society is more prominent in beauty as the public are presented constantly with the concept of beauty as the media and consumerism designs it ot be. The google  example o beauty- white woman age 18-25, the cultural conditioning of this in line with consumerism and white western power ideals. This however is not the aesthetic beauty that art values now. 
The concepts and placement of aesthetics has seemingly swapped over time;
Historically= artistic aesthetics and beauty
Modern=social notion of media aesthetics and cultural ideal, artistic notion of anti-art and freedom

Classical philosophy and aesthetics
e.g plato

'Kalon'= approximate equivalent to the english term beauty but also ; ethical approbation (as a compliment to the individuals goodness)
This sees fine art as something higher than others and higher than the everyday. This can still be seen today in many concepts so far fetched that the viewer is forced to not be in reach of the works themes and ideas. 

Within the same concept;
Regimes and totalitarian authorities use beauty very often to mock others who were not the exact ideal. This can be seen across history in areas such as the Nazi regime and the punishment people faced for not being aesthetically the same. 
This can be seen in  Arno breker's work 'die wehrmacht'

This makes many people nervous of the beauty within the ideal and also willing to strive for that beauty. This ironic position is due to the innate desire to be part of the strongest group, if you are being told that those people are in some way superior you would be willing to strive to be as they are. This is the same as direct and peripheral advertising used in modern day, although we are aware it is fake, we still desire to fit in with these mega brands that create these tribes intend.

Dismantling Aesthetics and beauty

Immanuel Kant

Critique of Judgment, 1780

Aesthetic judgments have 4 features. They are:

• disinterested (something gives pleasure because it is deemed beautiful,

not the other way around)

• universal (I expect others to agree with me)

• necessary (and a product of the mind)

• a judgment about beauty produces objects that are ‘purposive without purpose’

- they look as though they have a reason behind them but they don’t

Judgments lead to taste

GFW Hegel

Lectures on Aesthetics, 1835

Art has a purpose and is an expression of progress (‘teleology’)

Art expresses the spirit of a culture or age

Ideas about beauty are not intuitive but rational

These above concepts are of great interest as they address the historical progression of beauty and the social movement that entails. This idea of time within these theory is vital as both the concepts were developed in a very early societal stage. The idea of 'teleology' would work well within my own work as I argued frequently that art has a responsibility to progress historically and play a main role in change.

‘Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure.’

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757

Nature is another source of beauty. Historically nature was very often misunderstood as the grandeur of the natural world was inhuman. The once unexplored spaces are now believed to be more understood and the beautiful things have more understanding surrounding them. This knowledge reduces the anxieties of its presence. Anxieties are still present when something is overwhelming or misunderstood- can be seen in the Tate in the turbine hall. Space and size is used extensively- for example in Mirostaw Balka's work 'How it is' 2009 the scale of the shipping container makes the viewer feel a forced emotion as they enter. They are reduced to a capitalist product inside the great black space.

When practicality is concerned, aesthetics serve a very valuable purpose as the most beautiful things are often the most fertile or ripe. Such as fruit, the aesthetic of them is an indicator of the condition. Similarly in humans, they are often the most beautiful at their most fertile period.

Art will not age as humans will.

Avant garde, Dada and surrealists flipping the binary narrative of the beautiful and the non beautiful. Using the opposite to make people realise the object of the work. Used in radical work often to shake society in a narrow grasp. Although information is available, the shock aspects is needed for realisation.

Dada- Anti-art

Culture and cultural expression bankrupt in the face of global conflict

Battle of somme 1916 and Hugo Ball at the cabaret voltaire 1916

The artwork mocking the ridiculous societal position. Arguably disrespectful to the individuals at the government's disposal. The after and during trauma reaction is vital in historical documentation, it can show clearly how cultures are conditioned to believe what aesthetics are acceptable.  After trauma many return to classical aesthetics to regain beauty and sanity yet this always progresses to radical political and expressionist art.

Aesthetics and politics

‘All efforts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point. That one point is war ’

Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’

“By directing you to art with the cry ‘Art to the People’ they wish to seduce you into believing in a common possession that they share with your oppressors, for the love of which you should cease the most just struggle the world has ever known. They once again wish to use the ‘spiritual’ to make you submissive and instill in you the awareness of your own smallness in relation to the wondrous works of the human spirit. A swindle! The vilest betrayal! […]  Workers […] continually create the surplus value that allows the exploiters to hang their walls with this ‘aesthetic’ luxury.”

George Grosz and John Heartfield, The Art Scab, 1920

The above quote referencing the luxury of the aesthetic is something my work can relate to greatly.

The notion that art for art's sake is reason for ignorance to other more pressing issues ludicrous and the

Dada group allowed visualisation of this as the work they produced mocked this culture of luxury

and reminded many of the governing issues the country faced.