Art Lies, Volume 66, Summer 2010 Page: 18
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to the ethnographic museum weren't required to source new material,
merely turning on the television would do. But the situations were par-
allel in that what was generally considered intellectually vacant territory
seemed to offer a new way forward for art, both in terms of its look and its
content.
I'm not sure that it matters very much what type of illiteracy-what
type of stupidity-an artist turns to. Both can and have opened up produc-
tive experimentation that may never have been achieved otherwise. (Recall
Musil's difficulty distinguishing stupidity from progress.) My ambivalence
derives from the fact that stupidity can move art in any number of direc-
tions. From the standpoint of reception, I might prefer first-order stupid-
ity because it inclines art toward intuitive exploration. Someone else might
prefer second-order stupidity because, in the hands of a Jenny Holzer or
a Keren Cytter, it can seem to bring to light carefully honed truths-nug-
gets of wisdom that just might validate cliche as a legitimate cultural prod-
uct. Both orders have produced markedly generative effects; nevertheless,
it seems apparent that second-order stupidity has been the richer source
for some time now. The discovery of an artist like James Castle, for exam-
ple, reminds us just how vital the images (and, in his case, books) of a
first-order illiterate can be. But as an artistic strategy, turning to first-order
illiteracy seems as played out as the second-order is popular.
Why has stupidity, having shifted guises from unintentional brilliance
to consensual mediocrity, continued to maintain a hold on artists? One
reason might be that both orders of stupidity share an aspect of resis-
tance to indoctrination. For some, stupidity may be most easily understood
as the inversion of an accepted moral utilitarianism. "...'It is stupid to do
what is bad,' while 'good' is taken without further ado to be identical with
'useful and agreeable,' " explains Nietzsche, parodying a pervasive view. An
equally likely reason for stupidity's longevity would seem to be its propen-
sity to be interpreted in multiple, undetermined ways. Making something
that is stupid-or, in the case of a museum or gallery, showing something
that is stupid-invites a viewer to seek out a critique. (One assumes that
stupidity encountered in art is not to be taken at face value but, rather, has
been employed to illuminate something.) At the same time, the incapacity
and diminution of achievement associated with stupidity make the pros-
pect of a pointed critique originating in such art especially dim. This lack
of precision may read at first as a flaw, but the open-endedness turns out
to be a cunning strategy. The stupidly ambiguous image lies in wait for its
zealous interpreter. By failing to have a point, the artist passively trans-
forms the viewer into an ally, a fellow traveler on the road to the work's
successful communication of a message. Encountering such a work, one
might be inclined to wonder if artists today have become too stupid to
offer a straightforward critique; but the better question might be, have art-
ists become too smart to limit their works' interpretation?Try to make a summary statement about stupidity and you'll really
see it start to "switch and regroup." Doubt and desperation set in as the
struggle for a broad theory makes the author appear increasingly brut-
ish and simple minded. Such are the occupational hazards that intellectu-
als from Musil to Ronell have faced when they have taken on the subject.
To paraphrase the former, it's no wonder wise men prefer to write about
wisdom. If the authors who write on stupidity don't come across as inso-
lent, they'll probably seem dim-witted or incapable of cogent synthesis.
But, as I have suggested, artists and critics of the past hundred years have
had a keen ability to know stupidity when they have seen it, and to accept
that good aesthetic experiences can seem to come out of their opposite.
Consider one final quotation: "I don't know if you're like me...but
I love the type of painting that intelligent people find stupid." This was
Ardengo Soffici's opening credo in an article published in 1910. Back then,
not just any imbecility would suit a critic's tastes. It couldn't be too com-
plicated, or too sure of itself. It had to seem ingenuous. Despite the pre-
ponderance of stupidity in art today, despite its prevalence as an artistic
strategy, it seems to me that we may have lost some of Soffici's confidence
in stupidity's merits. Even more, we seem to have lost his discernment. In
stupidity's typically paradoxical way, knowing more of it may not make us
any more knowing of it.
Works referenced:
H. S. C. "A Painting by le Douanier Rousseau Admitted to the Louvre." Art News 24
(November 7, 1925): 1, 3.
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. "In Praise of Illiteracy." Translated by Michael Lipson.
Grand Street 5, No. 4 (Summer 1986): 88-96.
Musil, Robert. "On Stupidity." In Precision and Soul. Edited and translated by Burton
Pike and David S. Luft. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New
York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Ronell, Avital. Stupidity. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
Soffici, Ardengo. "Le Peintre Henry Rousseau." Mercure de France (October 16, 1910):
748-755.18 ART LIES NO. 66
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Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 66, Summer 2010, periodical, 2010; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228031/m1/20/?q=%22Puleo%2C+Risa%22: accessed June 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .