Sunday, April 13, 2008
Re: The Case for Anonymity
Can an artist holding an exhibition claim that they haven't titled the work in the exhibition because the work isn't worthy of being titled? The premise in choosing to make one's work public seems to be that the work is worth making public.
I don't think that titles always make work better, but they make work more communicable to the viewer and unless it is integral to the piece to not communicate that element, leaving it out seems like a sloppy omission. Think of a good title! This goes for the names of the artists in group shows, too. Why not let the viewer know what's going on?
Henry
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4 comments:
You are naturalizing the relationship between the art object (whatever it may be) and the literary object (in this instance, the title) as something legible, predetermined, and necessary.
The idea that the title makes a work more communicable to the viewer is problematic, for the reason that there is little ability to control what will be transmitted from the phrase one reads to the object or experience one sees. What is the title exactly communicating, the piece? More often than not, what is communicated is the artist's ability to conjure clever phrasing, or the vague memories of whatever it is he or she is referencing, or perhaps the curiosity of the viewer who is struck by the task of turning their experience of the work into a hermeneutic nightmare.
My biggest gripe though, is that the assertion creates a dependency on the side of the artwork for the primacy of the written word, as if to say, "Well don't worry about the visuals because after-all, the text gets to the heart of it." Often text on the wall and titles, feel like superficial justifications, or worse, tools for marketing the piece to someone who will not understand the piece visually.
-Harold
A title doesn't (can't) translate a visual piece into something legible and the work itself isn't collapsed with its designation. But a designation, which stands away from the work—in, say, a binder or on the wall— can be very useful for a viewer who wishes to engage in the work after they've left the space of viewing it.
The expectation of a title is a convention, one that can be useful or stifling (or complicating, or distracting, or crucial, or any number of adjectives). I don't think it's impossible to imagine work that would necessarily be unnamed. But if it isn't necessary, it isn't.
In general, though, I don't see the primacy of the written word as an oppressive force against whatever illegible message a work has. People exchange ideas with words and so much as a piece of art should relate to the exchanging of ideas, having a title seems to allow for that more easily. The title, or any word, doesn't say it all, or say "it" at all, but it says something, and then the viewer can say something, and then someone else can say something…
When you say, "I don't think it's impossible to imagine work that would necessarily be unnamed. But if it isn't necessary, it isn't." you are solidifying the convention you name in the beginning of that paragraph. To imagine is to depart from the norm, no?
And then, "a piece of art should relate to the exchanging of ideas"
I think this is often taken for granted, and I'm not sure what type of ideas are being exchanged. Hopefully ones that cannot also be spoken.
Also, the relationship is too economical for me, i.e. I get something and you get something. There can be room for art which uses people, vice-versa, room for giving art which asks for nothing, and a whole list of other vague relationships that don't have the ratio to reception that props up conceptual art (I have an idea which I will thus communicate to you).
I agree that the title says something, but I am skeptical of what it is saying and why it needs to be said for reasons I described in the first comment. I just don't find that generating conversation for conversation's sake is something to strive for. I do find titles oppressive for the very fact that they generate conversation (or potential for). Stop looking at the work and turn to your friend and talk about what the title means, for instance. Or look at the work now through the parameters the title asks for. Or ignore the title, or battle it. whichever, Doesn't matter.
I guess what Im saying is that more often than not I feel as though, true, "A title doesn't (can't) translate a visual piece into something legible" But that it does at times make a piece visually illegible.
I am leaving myself open for the criticism that I legitimate the primacy of text by expressing my anxieties of it, but I hope to only argue for the primacy of visuals and texts without one necessarily gaining anything from the other, because often I find that something is lost.
-Harold
It's no surprise if I'm "solidifying" the convention of titling. I'm defending that convention openly. I think it's useful—useful for me as an artist, as a viewer, and as a speaker of language interested in speaking about art. I'm free to depart from that convention, as is anyone, but doing so raises the question, why haven't you named your work? And other questions, maybe interesting ones. But I think it's worth looking at that question and if there isn't much of an answer beyond indecision, beyond wanting to uphold an ambiguous relationship that will exist anyway, then how does it benefit the work?
"Exchange" allows for a utilitarian reading of what I mean. It's not that I get-you get, it's that ideas, or thoughts, or anything that isn't translated into a form that can be received by someone else, doesn't matter much to me. Which puts a primacy not on the word, but on communication, and that doesn't necessarily mean what's being communicated is a singular, finite "meaning" or thing. Communication is messy, and open, and ecstatic.
I see the problem in a title and its potential supremacy in a work, and that to ignore it, as you said, is as much an acknowledgement of its presence as heeding it is. But I don't know if this problem is so easily escaped simply by not choosing a title. I'd say, it isn't escaped at all.
Henry
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