In the Aftermath of Art: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics

185 Pages·2005·0.94 MB·English

by  Donald Preziosi

In the Aftermath of Art
DONALDPREZIOSI’SLATESTCOLLECTIONOFESSAYS,
In the Aftermath ofArt,explores multiple per-
spectives on the enduring foundational dilem-
mas ofart history,art criticism,and museology.
By juxtaposing issues and problems originally
addressed sequentially, the collection aims to
open up multiple interpretative possibilities by bringing to the surface hidden resonances in the
implications ofeach text.It presents a model ofreading,re-reading and radical re-collection inspired
bythe methods ofWalter Benjamin in his posthumously published ‘Arcades Project’.In so doing,and
in re-reading his own writings,Preziosi opens up alternatives to the paradigms ofcritical interpreta-
tion haunting the contemporary discourses on art history and visual culture.A critical commentary
bycritic,historian,and theorist Johanne Lamoureux complements the author’s own introduction,
providing a stereoscopic perspective not entirely distinct from the collection itself.
Donald Preziosireceived his Ph.D in Art History from Harvard University.He is a member of
the faculty ofthe Department ofthe History ofArt and Centre for Visual Studies at Oxford
University,and Emeritus Professor ofArt History at the University ofCalifornia,Los Angeles
(UCLA). He is the author of a dozen books on aspects of critical and cultural theory, the
historiography of art history, and museology, most recently Brain of the Earth’s Body:Art,
Museums and the Phantasms ofModernity,the 2001 Slade Lecture in the Fine Arts at Oxford
(2003),and,with Claire Farago,Grasping the World:the Idea ofthe Museum(2004).
Johanne LamoureuxisJohanne Lamoureux is Full Professor and Chair ofthe department ofArt
History and Film Studies at the Université de Montréal.From 1998 to 2003,she was also guest
curator at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec where she curated Irene F.Whittome.
Bio-Fictions (2000) and Doublures.Vêtements de l’art contemporain (2003).She is the author
ofL’art insituable.De l’in situ et autres sites(2001),a collection ofher essays on the sequels of
sitespecific art and the rhetoric ofmuseum displays.In English,her essays figure in Theater
Bestiarum (MIT), Sightlines/Réfractions (Artexte), Thinking About Exhibitions (Routledge),
Anyplace(MIT) and TheCompanion to Contemporary Art after 1945(Blackwell).
Critical Voices in Art,Theory and Culture
Edited by Saul Ostrow
Seams:Art as a Philosophical Context
Essays by Stephen Melville.Edited and introduced by Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe
Capacity:History,the World,and the Selfin Contemporary Art and Criticism
Essays by Thomas McEvilley.Commentary by G.Roger Denson
Media Research:Technology,Art,Communication
Essays by Marshall McLuhan.Edited and with a Commentary by Michel A.Moos
Literature, Media, Information Systems
Essays by Friedrich A.Kittler.Edited and introduced by John Johnston
England and its Aesthetes:Biography and Taste
Essays by John Ruskin,Walter Pater and Adrian Stokes.Commentary by David
Carrier
The Wake ofArt:Criticism,Philosophy,and the Ends ofTaste
Essays by Arthur C.Danto
Selected and with a critical introduction by Gregg Horowitz and Tom Huhn
Beauty is Nowhere:Ethical Issues in Art and Design
Edited and introduced by Richard Roth and Susan King Roth
Music/Ideology:Resisting the Aesthetic
Edited and introduced by Adam Krims,with Commentary by Henry
Klumpenhouwer
Footnotes:Six Choreographers Inscribe the Page
Essays by Douglas Dunn,Marjorie Gamso,Ishmael Houston-Jones,Kenneth
King,Yvonne Meier,and Sarah Skaggs.Text and Commentary by Elena
Alexander,and with a foreword by Jill Johnston
Difference/Indifference:Meetings on Postmodernism,Marcel Duchamp and
John Cage
Introduction and text by Moira Roth.Commentary by Jonathan D.Katz
Art History as Cultural History:Warburg's Projects
Essays by Kathryn Brush,Sir Ernst Gombrich,Peg Katritsky,Kristen
Lippincott,Dorothea McEwan,Matthew Rampley,Charlotte Schoell-Glass and
Aby Warburg.Edited by Richard Woodfield
Critical Vices:The Myths ofPostmodern Theory
Essays by Nicholas Zurbrugg,and Commentary by Warren Burt
Framing Formalism:Riegl’s Work
Essaysby Richard Woodfield
Practice:Architecture,Technique,and Representation
Essays by Stan Allen,and Commentary by Diana Agrest
Looking In:The Art ofViewing
Essays by Mieke Bal,and Commentary by Norman Bryson
Music Inside Out:Going Too Far in Musical Essays
Essays by John Rahn,and Commentary by Benjamin Boretz
Looking Back to the Future:1990–1970
Essays by Griselda Pollock,and Commentary by Penny Florence
Information Subject
Essays by Mark Poster,and Commentary by Stanley Aronowit
Art and Ventriloquism
Essays by David Goldblatt,and Commentary by Garry L.Hagberg
In the Aftermath ofArt:Ethics,Aesthetics,Politics
Essays by Donald Preziosi,and Critical Commentary by Johanne Lamoureux
Forthcoming titles:
Imagining the Present:Context,Content,and the Role ofthe Critic
Essaysby Lawrence Alloway,and Commentary by Richard Kalina
The Idealized Body:Theories and Improvement in Art and Science
Essays by Sir Francis Galton,and Commentary by Kirby Gookin
Art After Ideology
Essays by Sidney Tillim,and Commentary by Katy Siegel

donald
preziosi
in the
aftermath
of art
ethics, aesthetics,
politics
critical
commentary
johanne
lamoureux
First published 2006
by Routledge
2Park Square,Milton Park,Abingdon,Oxon,OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave,New York,NY10016
Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group
©2006 Donald Preziosi
Typeset in Minion by Taylor & Francis Books
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd,Padstow,Cornwall
All rights reserved.No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic,mechanical,or other means,now known or here-
after invented,including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage
or retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library ofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data
Preziosi,Donald,1941-
In the aftermath ofart :ethics,aesthetics,politics / Donald Preziosi ;
critical commentary,Johanne Lamoureux.
p.cm.-- (Critical voices in art,theory and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-36230-X (hardback :alk.paper) -- ISBN 0-415-36231-8
(pbk.:alk.paper) 1. Art--Historiography.2. Art museums--Philosophy.
I.Lamoureux,Johanne.II.Title.III.Series.
N7480.P74 2005
707.2'2--dc22
2005028276
ISBN10:0-415-36230–X (hbk)
ISBN10:0-415-36231-8 (pbk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-36230-6 (hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-36231-3 (pbk)
Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division ofT&F Informa plc.
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface viii
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: Subjects, objects
and object lessons 1
1. La vi(ll)e en rose: reading
Jameson mapping space 7
2. The question of art history 29
3. Collecting/museums 55
4. The art of Art History 69
5. The crystalline veil and the
phallomorphic imaginary 95
6. Romulus, Rebus, and the gaze
of Victoria 115
7. Seeing through art history:
showing scars of legibility by
Johanne Lamoureux 131
Index 155
Series Editor’s Preface
THOUGHITAPPEARSFIRSTINTHISVOLUME,
the Introduction is actually the third
introduction to this collection of
texts by Donald Preziosi. Johanne
Lamoureux was asked to write a criti-
cal commentary to accompany the essays that were originally to constitute this edi-
tion in Chapter 7. The second introduction is Preziosi’s own, in which he explains
how this volume has conceptually changed since he was first asked in 1998 to partic-
ipate in the Critical Voices Series. As for my own introduction, as Editor of this series
it is my task now to try to give a brief account of how his work reflects the philosoph-
ical crisis and self-critical resurrection of the practice of Art History.
Since its inception in the mid eighteenth century, art historians have been claiming
that their primary goal is to be objective investigators and observers. Their texts were to
illuminate with insightful analysis the nature of art by elucidating its content, context,
and influence. Insights into genealogy, iconography, the artist’s life and psychopatholo-
gyas well as the socio-political conditions under which the artwork came to be produced
became essential components of such accounts. The countering view has been that Art
History like all histories is an ideological illusion, an imagined entity used to create a
sense of logic and purpose where there is none. In other words by imposing a hierarchy
of social values historians give order to what might otherwise be arbitrary, discontinu-
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE {IX}
ous cultural products. The central problem, regardless of which perspective one upholds,
is that in writing such accounts inevitably what one proposes creates the illusion that
what is being presented is merely a recounting, or recollecting of the facts that make up
our past. As such, history makes what is being presented appear as if it were objective and
neutral, and is true and therefore unavoidable. Consequently, the faithful argued among
themselves as to what the best methodology to achieve their objectives might be.
Explicitly the purpose of such debates, of course, is to produce an ever more truthful
chronicle of Art’s progress; implicitly they constitute a form of validation.
While there is always someone in such circumstances committed to exposing the
fraudulent or denouncing the institutional, in bringing low the old gods, they tend
to hang their hopes on new messiahs offering a counter methodology that is sup-
posed to be truer, or more accurate. In the case of recent art historical practices this
was the New Art History and its project was to reintegrate art into the social and
political. However, it was just a new faith that left the terms and practices embed-
ded in the old faith in place. Its failing was that. Art historians found that, even if
they focused on art’s political or social function rather than its aesthetic one, in
order to dismantle art’s erratic, fetishistic and cultist models. Yet, by arguing against
such a model of art, they also found themselves arguing against their own role as
mediators and interpreters of art’s history. As such the practices of art history,
unless they could re-orientate themselves, appeared destined to be a fetter on those
critical practices intent on reordering culture in its entirety. Theory appeared as if
it could dissolve the problematic heterogeneity that under the reign of modernism
had stymied the historians’ attempts to define a practice that could establish with
competency its hegemony over art.
While how best to tickle the required data from mute objects has often been
defined and redefined, more often than not self-reflexivity has seldom been an issue.
Then came the ‘End Days’ of the late 1980s, which were marked by the doctrine that
Modernism’s own institutional and instrumental logic had become a fetter on its own
self-reflective analysis and as such could no longer be sustained. With the rise of mass
media, the collapse of cold war ideologies, the failure of the Modernists’ project and
the emergence of Postmodernism, we came to believe that we were on our way to
achieving a state of self-determination and self-definition after almost two and a half
centuries of consistently testing and reforming our systems of taxonomy and reason.
It was proposed that History had come to its end, at least in the Hegelian sense, which
meant that the record of necessity was no longer necessary because we had self-reflex-
ively gained ascendancy over language and thought.