Characteristics of a Deweyan Critique
In order to identify the various components of Abramovic’s The Artist is Present critical method drawn from a Deweyan perspective, it is crucial to understand his interpretation of the aesthetic product. By demonstrating the paramount theoretical reasonings, the framework surrounding Abramovic’s masterpiece, titled the “Artist is Present,” will be intelligibly grounded. For Dewey, the piece of art, defined as a physical externality can be seen by the viewer as the equivalent of art but on the contrary, it is in fact an object, whether it be a “building, book, painting, or statue” (Dewey 3) it is a conditioning of what art is within the experience of the thing itself. The significance of a famous Picasso painting is not that it is aesthetically associated with an internal recognition of it embodying an unsupported instant, but instead is “separated from both conditions of origin and operation in experience,” (Dewey 2) making it a preconceived notion that is determined by conventional repetition of traditional values over time, but does not qualify it as true art.
To capture the essence of true art, the piece must relinquish these exterior facets that determine the preconditioned philosophy as a fixed and unchanging notion, meaning that a process of reimposition must take place. Dewey claims that this task revolves around the interwoven significance between the everyday routine and experience through art.
He writes that “restor[ing] continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings that are universally recognized to constitute experience,” ( Dewey 3). He identifies the realm of the ordinary and its “refined and intensified forms” to lay the foundation for art to be understood through medium and not object. The view that art belongs in a framed conventional sphere, like a museum, for instance, where the viewer is trained to seek out a reaction and the art is expected to provoke one, inherently disguises a downgrading of the pure value of the piece resulting in a separation of the everyday realization of aesthetic.
Dewey seeks to attain the validity of the art product “by means of a detour,” in which the viewer separates themselves from the work and subsequently centers their cognitive senses on the more complex insights of the everyday experiences that are otherwise overlooked. The detour leads to an unearthing of depthful comprehension in the everyday, Dewey uses the example of a flower in soil and how one can appreciate its color, texture, and definitive occupation of space but in order to truly see the flower in all its shades, the viewer must “find out something about the interactions with the soil, air, water, and sunlight, that condition the growth of plants” (Dewey 4). For the viewer to have a passive stance on the work, or as he calls it a simple “appreciation,” implies that there is not a “universally recognized” thread linking true aesthetic works. For Dewey, in any set of relational mediums, there is an aesthetic form that rings true for every experience and a deliberate interaction that creates a sensation that can be understood in terms of everyday life.
The classification of the art product in a library, museum, historical ruin or any other sort of confining setting does have the capacity to create a fruitful discourse about the work. However, Dewey doesn’t contend that this kind of silent observation, where audiences pour in and out, day by day, enjoying the designated comfort of a museum, is the true representation of where the artistic significance lies. He asserts that by putting the pieces on an artificial pedestal in a space that is not inherently authentic to the medium or intention of even the artist, there becomes a defect in the ability of the viewer to connect with the piece. The art cannot be fully understood without an engagement with the piece that is humanly active and able to trigger a stimulation of feeling that the average person seeks in daily nuances of satisfaction.
Dewey sees this experiential flow which is sometimes referred to as mundane that constitute survival but it is in these moments that “the sources of art in human experience will be learned by him who sees how the tense grace of the ball-player infects the onlooking crowd… the zest of the spectator in poking the wood burning on the hearth and in watching the darting flames and crumbling coals,” (Dewey 5). These activities seek the aspects of the environmental ebb and flow as well as the unconscious excitement of a stick burning and crackling in a fire that comes from undergoing a comprehensive truth of the thing being experienced. This interaction is monumental in creating an elaborated contextual aesthetic, where as Dewey writes, the viewer “does not remain a cold spectator” (Dewey 5) because in the adaptation of human activity the art product is interpreted through a complex interaction of organic manifestations within the composition and structure of the piece. For artists particularly, the resources at their disposal are exactly the ones that are a part of the public’s elements of perception and can therefore be organized but are actively changing. The work of art is distinguished through this changing movement, its past and present interdependent on the energy that it emits to the viewer.
What happens, however, when the piece of art being speculated upon is the artist, the viewer, set in a unified relation with one another? The Deweyan critique establishes that through this experience there is a harmony of intense emotional fulfillment where the honesty and vulnerability of the artist is open to the viewer. There is no limitation in form. The piece must shift through an assimilated moment, rather, “form marks a way of envisaging, of feeling and of presenting experienced matter so that it most readily and effectively becomes material for the construction of adequate experience on the part of those less gifted than the original creator,” (Dewey 213) emphasizing the contrast between an artist who has the capability of taking a unifying relation and creating a heightened awareness around it and the the ability of the viewer to transcend past the cage-like convention of societal framework and become lost in this unity.
Through this extensive process of connection to the ordinary and everyday, Dewey continues to reestablish the seamless continuity between what he calls inherent and extrinsic meaning. The extrinsic meaning has an arbitrary mathematical value, assumed to its status by convention without a direct- if any correlation- to the thing it describes. Similar to Saussure’s developed tradition of semiotics which in part may have been influenced by Dewey’s works specifically adopts dyadic signs in which a sign has a signifier and a signified element. The relation lies in the first being the arbitrary or extrinsic meaning, and the second being the actual inherent meaning which is solidified and unchanging based on different contexts which in fact is a distinguishable aspect of the performance piece about to be critiqued.
The Critique of Abramovic:
“The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind,” explains artist, Marina Abramovic when asked what the purpose of her outlandish and sometimes controversial performance pieces are about. Born in 1946 in Yugoslavia, Abramovic’s parents were both war-heroes in WWII occupying a military style household that would have a profound impact on her extreme exploration of different elements during the course of her career. She is known for exhibitions of nudity and violence, one of her most famous works titled Rhythm 0, performed in 1974, was meant to test the limit of audience and artist. She assigned herself the role of the passive artist, with the public free to act as they pleased on her body. She had placed 72 objects on a table that anyone was allowed to pick up and use, some were harmless, like olive oil and a feather boa but others were much more dangerous like a whip, scissors, and a loaded gun. Her goal was to understand how this ordinary array of objects would be wielded, and what extremes the human subject-without any structural and societal consequences to face- would go. Would there be any barriers of will at all? Through this experience Abramovic conveyed the individual experience as exposed on a platform comprising of the collective whole which would become the main construct of her major piece explored in this paper.
From the short introduction of Abramovic’s past works in performance art, the Deweyan critique is in large a correlation to the sentiment of her work and what the senses in relation with ordinary interaction have in common with exhibitionist work. Her finale piece taking place the MoMa in New York where Abramovic sat in the museum’s atrium, sitting for three months, opening until closing, while sitting motionless and staring across a table at each visitor that sat opposite her is the real question of viewer and artist and what can be provoked in the experience, if indeed it can be called true art.
The film clip of Abramovic sitting across the table on opening day, watching new face after new face sit before her, each person feeling different emotions unique to their past experiences and perception of the artist is already fascinating to watch. The space that is being occupied between two silent bodies is a sensual and intriguing correspondence of what a stranger and the ordinary presence of awareness in unison. The focal point of the piece, however, is when Abramovic’s old lover and friend, who often participated in art pieces with her some twenty years prior came and sat across the table from her (See Exhibit 1). This was the only moment in the entire three month exhibition that Abramovic lost the composure of the performance that was being put on in order to convey an almost authentic internal contrast unique to each visitor.
As Dewey so remarkably describes the influence of the morality in an individual, even though the artist is seemingly having an experience with every stranger that sits across from her, there is a profound emotional effect when she opens her eyes to find Ulay sitting squarely in front of her after her anticipation was to follow the conventional stream of speculators who did not have a lens so deeply personal to her. Ulay and Abramovic had once referred to themselves as a “two-headed body.” Dewey writes, “the moralist knows that sense is allied with emotion, impulse and appetition. So he denounces the lust of the eye as part of the surrender of spirit to flesh” (Dewey 22) which indicates that even through the particularity and militaristic upbringing of Abramovic’s intellectual side, there is a specificity in the way that any “sense is allied with emotion.” In that, even though the performance piece itself, the tears streaming down her face and the breaking of her rules, when she reaches her hands out to hold his, is a consequent potentiality in the existence of the ordinary in a performance piece.
Artist is Present: Abramovic Herself
The initial layer of analysis from the perspective of a Deweyan critique, is most accordingly drawn from the artist herself. Marina Abramovic’s unmatched journey to distinguish the identity of the individual as seen through the eyes of the collective whole. In this way, Abramovic, sitting in the chair staring into the eyes of the confused young man, contains a profound insight into the artist’s own external materiality. The hope that an audience can be more open with the artist being the one to be engaged with is in fact a notion to be thought deeply about. By way of a Deweyan understanding , the individual factors of the piece, like the facial expression, positioning of the body, and eye level of Abramobic are all factors at play which means that the initial moment upon which the experience is triggered is true.
For Abramovic, before each new person comes to sit across from her, she closes her eyes and bows her head slightly. The moment at which she opens her eyes, there is an ordinary piece of reflection that she is extending outward to the viewer or perhaps it is a momentary peace to the viewer who seeks no real message from it. Regardless, the first glance is the impulse that is reactionary of the viewer, and Abramovic instills that in the way she reduces the humanity to a silenced almost animalistic view of the experience. The consideration that “life goes on in an environment; not merely in it but because of it, through interaction with it,” is in turn rectifying the belief that through such a process growth can occur.
The opportunity for resistance is a part of the human psyche and so remains when Abramovic sits across from any one person. However, whether it be the security guarding her at the MoMa, or the truth in the painstaking wait that each audience member has endured to be able to sit across from her, is in fact the a distinguished regulation of her art product. Dewey continues, “No creature lives merely under its skin’ its subcutaneous organ are means of connection with what lies beyond its bodily frame, and to which, in order to live, it must adjust itself, by accommodation and defense but also by conquest. At every moment, it must draw upon something in its surroundings to satisfy its needs” (Dewey 13) when looking back at the extrinsic meaning of the art, there is the firm notion that “order is not imposed from without but is made out of the relations of harmonious interactions that energies bear to one another” (Dewey 14) which Abramovic guides seamlessly in her three month interaction with the public. In the moment of cultivation where Abramovic is caught between being the performance artist and the one being experimented on, the rhythm and flow of the literal everyday interactions shifts into a moment where her emotion upon seeing Ulay takes her cognition to the edge of limitation, and tears roll down her cheeks. This notion proves that the tension of the human achieved significance is undoubtedly within the experience of the force giving the medium to be understood.
The Viewer: An Implication of the Ordinary Experience
Abramovic’s emotion in fact signifies that there is a moment of pause with the actual performance aspect of her piece and is thus resolved by an outpouring of tears that she and Ulay reflect on while the experience is taking place in the past, present and conditional moment. For Abramovic’s intake there is a necessary feeling of being in the very interaction of presentation and not perturbing a greater state of mind. In speaking about the inherent meaning of a work, “the being fully alive, the future is not ominous but a promise it surrounds the present as a halo. It consists of possibilities that are felt as a possession of what is now and here” (Dewey 18) for with this concept of being fully alive there comes an expansion or loosening of one’s limits and what can be foreseen with the mind and harmonized with the unknown. Abramovic’s task has never been to pursue experiences that she finds provoking or particularly interesting but instead the things she is most afraid of, in order to create the sensation of being pushed to an unfulfilled resolute place.
As Dewey also elaborates, through imperialism and nationalism, art has become separate from the reality of everyday life but he contends that his “ purpose, however, is not to engage in an economic interpretation of the history of the arts, much less to argue that economic conditions are either invariably or directly relevant to perception and enjoyment” (Dewey 10) which in fact is a part of Abramovic’s production, although the piece itself is very minimalistic there is a certain view of the materialist world that is developed through the nature of the piece simply because of where it is being held and the fact that as Dewey mentioned previously, it is “downgraded” to the truth of the spiritual flow, and instead resort to the separation of a truly authentic viewing of Abramovic asserting such behavior in a coffee shop by chance in a non-theatre like fashion. Therefore, although Abramovic fights the general norms of “a disturbed society” in order to demand that the ordinary be accepted at the level of language and depthful comparison, this cannot fully be constructed due to the intensification of the experience in MoMa, with hundreds of people viewing the intimacy of the encounter with one person on one. However, the unanticipated moment with Ulay, where the conventional construction of even such an outward resistance to the materialist and extrinsic idea of the art is in fact proved by the very thing that broke the rules, which was Abramovic’s tears and need to touch hands with Ulay.
Critique of Myself
Through the analysis of Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present, I adopted the view of a Deweyan critic in order to better understand the madness and apparent genius that is her performance art. Mainly focusing on the intended criteria that is developed over the course of Dewey’s writing, it became increasingly more difficult to withhold a criteria of evaluating the piece in that it was so unlike anything that Dewey would have imagined in his writings. Through this critique, there was a significant relation to Aletta Norval’s “Writing a name in the Sky’: Critically Reading Ranciere on Democracy,” there lies a similar tension between the possibility of a violent outburst and a division that can undermine what it means to have a sound civil state. The correspondence of Abramovic’s almost unidentified need to grasp the unscathed sense of the human interaction is relative to the unearthing of a system that is actually faulted with gaps and disintegrations. For Abramovic, the ideological difference between her success and other performance artists is that her intelligence with her craft and the determination with which she attempts it is exhilarating to imagine or encounter. The relation to Norval’s piece is in fact a sense of resisting and reconfiguring where the barriers of the performance lie, and where the audience becomes a jeering mob or a bubble of support to the individual artist.
When a stranger sat across from Marina Abramovic, it in turn related to the consummation of what connection would be made between them. Similarly, in Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” he finds a problematic between the way the human modes of perception are negatively influenced by the ever-growing impact of the media, which Dewey also emphasizes but was not touched on extensively in the critique. The relation of Dewey’s assertion that the everyday life is where a true aesthetic experience lies is distinctly mirrored by Benjamin’s belief that the public’s perception of artworks within photography are puppeted by economics within the society. Through these mirrored analyses of Abramovic’s interwoven performance but also structured and vastly emotional portrayal of the artist at the mercy of the public.
Ultimately, there is undoubtedly a deep connection between the cultural and natural experience of the viewer and artist. Whether it is Abramovic’s intention or not, the space is endured on the basis of a prolonged and substantial interaction with the almost unkempt and dangerous surroundings- the audience. When one participant features a more provoking internalization of the productive and consumptive aspect, the gears of the performance shift ever so slightly into less of a performance and more into what Dewey would call a true aesthetic moment or an experience of art.
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