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| Benjamin at Tiravanija Opening © Casey Lynch 2012 |
The mass is a matrix from
which all traditional behavior toward works of art issues today in a new form. Quantity
has been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of participants
has produced a change in the mode of participation. The fact that the new mode
of participation first appeared in a disreputable form must not confuse the
spectator. Yet some people have launched spirited attacks against precisely
this superficial aspect. Among these, Duhamel has expressed himself in the most
radical manner. What he objects to most is the kind of participation which the relational
art elicits from the masses. Duhamel calls the relational art “a pastime for
helots, a diversion for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who are consumed
by their worries a spectacle which requires no concentration and presupposes no
intelligence which kindles no light in the heart and awakens no hope other than
the ridiculous one of someday becoming a ‘star’ in Los Angeles.” Clearly, this
is at bottom the same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas
art demands concentration from the spectator. That is a commonplace.
The question remains whether
it provides a platform for the analysis of the relational art. A closer look is
needed here. Distraction and concentration form polar opposites which may be
stated as follows: A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by
it. He enters into this work of an the way legend tells of the Chinese painter
when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs
the work of art. This is most obvious with regard to buildings. Architecture
has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is
consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction. The laws of its
reception are most instructive.
Buildings have been man’s
companions since primeval times. Many art forms have developed and perished. Tragedy
begins with the Greeks, is extinguished with them, and after centuries its
“rules” only are revived. The epic poem, which had its origin in the youth of
nations, expires in Europe at the end of the Renaissance. Panel painting is a
creation of the Middle Ages, and nothing guarantees its uninterrupted existence.
But the human need for shelter is lasting. Architecture has never been idle.
Its history is more ancient than that of any
other art, and its claim to being a living force has significance in every
attempt to comprehend the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are
appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception—or rather, by touch
and sight. Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive
concentration of a tourist before a famous building. On the tactile side there
is no counterpart to contemplation on the optical
side. Tactile appropriation is accomplished not so much by attention as by habit.
As regards architecture, habit determines to a large extent even optical
reception. The latter, too, occurs much less through rapt attention than by
noticing the object in incidental fashion. This mode of appropriation,
developed with reference to architecture, in certain circumstances acquires
canonical value.
For the tasks which face the
human apparatus of perception at the turning points of history cannot be solved
by optical means, that is, by contemplation, alone. They are mastered gradually
by habit, under the guidance of tactile appropriation.
The distracted person, too,
can form habits. More, the ability to master certain tasks in a state of
distraction proves that their solution has become a matter of habit.
Distraction as provided by art presents a covert control of the extent to which
new tasks have become soluble by apperception. Since, moreover, individuals are
tempted to avoid such tasks, art will tackle the most difficult and most
important ones where it is able to mobilize the masses. Today it does so in the
relational art. Reception in a state of distraction, which is increasing
noticeably in all fields of art and is symptomatic of profound changes in
apperception, finds in the relational art its true means of exercise. The relational
art with its shock effect meets this mode of reception halfway.
The relational art makes the
cult value recede into the background not only by putting the public in the
position of the critic, but also by the fact that at the relational arts this
position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded
one.
*of course, this is the final section of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction with the words "movie" and "film" replaced with "relational art." this really saved me a lot of time coming up with a good critical stance...
