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Against Art and Culture
Offering a negative definition of art in relation to the concept of culture, this book establishes the concept of ‘art/culture’ to describe the unity of these two fields around named-labour, idealised creative subjectivity and surplus signification. Contending a conceptual and social reality of a combined ‘art/culture’ , this book demonstrates that the failure to appreciate the dynamic totality of art and culture by its purported negators is due to almost all existing critiques of art and culture being defences of a ‘true’ art or culture against ‘inauthentic’ manifestations, and art thus ultimately restricting creativity to the service of the bourgeois commodity regime. While the evidence that art/culture enables commodification has long been available, the deduction that art/culture itself is fundamentally of the world of commodification has failed to gain traction. By applying a nuanced analysis of both commodification and the larger systems of ideological power, the book considers how the ‘surplus’ of art/culture is used to legitimate the bourgeois status quo rather than unravel it. It also examines possibilities for a post-art/culture world based on both existing practices that challenge art/culture identity as well as speculations on the integration of play and aesthetics into general social life. An out-and-out negation of art and culture, this book offers a unique contribution to the cultural critique landscape.
- GenresArt
296 pages, Hardcover
Published January 24, 2018
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October 13, 2022
Apart from being brilliant, this book is also very funny.
Dee adopts a character so that he can propound an extreme position. His description of himself as an anhedonic depressive is delivered comedically. It may be true, but it’s exaggerated like the personality of a stand-up.
When he says that;
"The motivation [for writing this book] was not simply pathological negativity, nor was it the poisonous jealousy of the pathetic non-creative, nor a general suspicion of pleasure."
He actually describes the voice of the book very well. I was a bit disappointed when he came slightly out of role in the conclusion.
Despite the laughs, I kept thinking, while reading, of the Larkin line “Books are a load of crap”. Disillusionment and disenchantment are inevitable for all, but particularly for those who were sucked into the art/culture fantasy from an early age.
I thought too of Rachel Cusk and her description of her sudden sense, in middle age, that culture was a lie. An old and dangerously decrepit structure.
Cusk defines culture as pretty-much everything man-made.
Dee’s conflation of high-art and popular culture into art/culture is also quite all-encompassing. However, it excludes quite a lot too. Pornography, propaganda and sport are not inside art/culture. To be honest, I’m still digesting the book and I’m not entirely sure I understood the parameters of art/culture. Pornography is excluded because of its relationship to mimesis? Propaganda is excluded because of its relationship to rationality? I probably need to go back and read more closely.
I also found it hard to get my head around the Hegelian non-existent irrationality that is at the heart of the pseudo-spiritual, mystical bullshit we find in art/culture.
Despite not entirely getting all the book, there was plenty that got me really excited. Masochistically excited, it has to be said. I’m an artist and art teacher. I also indulge in plenty of the pseudo-spiritual, mystical stuff, so Dee’s book was a hard read in parts.
But what I really loved was his description of the cognitive dissonance involved in so much of the art/culture experience.
I was talking to an artist friend the other day and he told me that he’d never been able to get anything out of Rothko’s paintings. He expressed this as a shameful confession, as if he was admitting to a terrible personal shortcoming. He was saying that he looked at the paintings really hard, but he hadn’t managed to experience anything remotely spiritual or tragic. Even worse, if he was honest, he found them boring. The problem here isn’t with my friend’s sensibility. Or even with the paintings which are mute objects. Dee is brilliant at talking about these experiences, how art over-promises and under-delivers. I haven’t read anywhere else the experience of looking at art described so honestly. He massively deflates our expectations. I found this so refreshing. I personally still enjoy Rothko, but my ‘enjoyment’ comes way below my enjoyment of a packet of hob-nobs and a nice cup of tea.
This deflation also applies to the process of making art and being an artist. Having read the book, I felt thoroughly brought down a peg or two. I’m wary of any description I give of what I’m doing when I make art. Everything sounds overly grand and silly.
This brings me to what I thought was most fantastic about the book. I haven’t read anywhere else such an accurate description of the nullity of culture at the moment. Everywhere I look, in art education, in art more broadly, I see something run down and finished. This possibly sounds bleak, but I still enjoy making art and looking at art. In fact, Dee's book has made me more excited about the art-making process.
Dee’s argument is like an invitation to kick a dead man to death, but what’s most interesting isn’t the invitation to violence, it’s the description of the corpse.
I found this book thrilling, funny and hard to read.
I thoroughly recommend it
Dee adopts a character so that he can propound an extreme position. His description of himself as an anhedonic depressive is delivered comedically. It may be true, but it’s exaggerated like the personality of a stand-up.
When he says that;
"The motivation [for writing this book] was not simply pathological negativity, nor was it the poisonous jealousy of the pathetic non-creative, nor a general suspicion of pleasure."
He actually describes the voice of the book very well. I was a bit disappointed when he came slightly out of role in the conclusion.
Despite the laughs, I kept thinking, while reading, of the Larkin line “Books are a load of crap”. Disillusionment and disenchantment are inevitable for all, but particularly for those who were sucked into the art/culture fantasy from an early age.
I thought too of Rachel Cusk and her description of her sudden sense, in middle age, that culture was a lie. An old and dangerously decrepit structure.
Cusk defines culture as pretty-much everything man-made.
Dee’s conflation of high-art and popular culture into art/culture is also quite all-encompassing. However, it excludes quite a lot too. Pornography, propaganda and sport are not inside art/culture. To be honest, I’m still digesting the book and I’m not entirely sure I understood the parameters of art/culture. Pornography is excluded because of its relationship to mimesis? Propaganda is excluded because of its relationship to rationality? I probably need to go back and read more closely.
I also found it hard to get my head around the Hegelian non-existent irrationality that is at the heart of the pseudo-spiritual, mystical bullshit we find in art/culture.
Despite not entirely getting all the book, there was plenty that got me really excited. Masochistically excited, it has to be said. I’m an artist and art teacher. I also indulge in plenty of the pseudo-spiritual, mystical stuff, so Dee’s book was a hard read in parts.
But what I really loved was his description of the cognitive dissonance involved in so much of the art/culture experience.
I was talking to an artist friend the other day and he told me that he’d never been able to get anything out of Rothko’s paintings. He expressed this as a shameful confession, as if he was admitting to a terrible personal shortcoming. He was saying that he looked at the paintings really hard, but he hadn’t managed to experience anything remotely spiritual or tragic. Even worse, if he was honest, he found them boring. The problem here isn’t with my friend’s sensibility. Or even with the paintings which are mute objects. Dee is brilliant at talking about these experiences, how art over-promises and under-delivers. I haven’t read anywhere else the experience of looking at art described so honestly. He massively deflates our expectations. I found this so refreshing. I personally still enjoy Rothko, but my ‘enjoyment’ comes way below my enjoyment of a packet of hob-nobs and a nice cup of tea.
This deflation also applies to the process of making art and being an artist. Having read the book, I felt thoroughly brought down a peg or two. I’m wary of any description I give of what I’m doing when I make art. Everything sounds overly grand and silly.
This brings me to what I thought was most fantastic about the book. I haven’t read anywhere else such an accurate description of the nullity of culture at the moment. Everywhere I look, in art education, in art more broadly, I see something run down and finished. This possibly sounds bleak, but I still enjoy making art and looking at art. In fact, Dee's book has made me more excited about the art-making process.
Dee’s argument is like an invitation to kick a dead man to death, but what’s most interesting isn’t the invitation to violence, it’s the description of the corpse.
I found this book thrilling, funny and hard to read.
I thoroughly recommend it
Displaying 1 of 1 review