The Power Rangers

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Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 Art in the Age of Cultural Deconstruction From the Marxists at the dawn of the 20 th century to the deconstructionists and post-structuralists at the close of the century, the relation of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness to art has tremendously shifted from where it stood at the symbolic death of Nietzsche. The Marxist analyses signal a movement towards viewing art as much more pervasive and inevitable than before, more than an extension or expression of Beauty and Truth. Walter Benjamin observed this firsthand as fascism consumed 1930s Germany. The advent of photography and film introduced mechanical reproduction, permitting the massification of what had previously been authentic by merit of being quite literally unique. 1 The work of art had been separated from the ritual which gives it authenticity through mechanical reproduction. The aura of the artwork was not simply taken away, it was negated from being brought into existence by the newfound method of bringing forth art. This ease of large scale reproduction now further enables the art which fascism, specifically Nazism, employs as propaganda. Susan Sontag writes of the cultural war, either real or imagined, between the intellectual, urban, and individualistic Jew against the rural and selfless 1 Wartenberg, Thomas E. "Art as Auratic: Walter Benjamin." The Nature of Art: An Anthology . Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. N. pag. Print. Pg 166

Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 Aryan, likely too busy working to embark upon a journey ascending the Ivory Tower. 2 The lack of uniqueness once again is at play here, countering the individualism inherent in the work of art created outside of the methods of mechanical reproduction. Nazism effectively wrought the culture industry as a result, celebrating uniformity and manufacturing an aestheticized political reality. Benjamin theorized on how necessary the politicization of aesthetics would be in defeating fascism, a notion that the socialist realism of the Soviet Union attempted, but failed to make a reality. Instead, the art produced by the Soviet Union from the 1930s onward is in alignment with its German counterpart, differentiated only by idealizing morality, not aesthetics. 3 Despite the military defeat of Nazism and fascism across Europe in the 1940s, its legacy lives on. In the modern liberal democracies of the West, individualism is celebrated, a necessity for the capitalist economy to perpetuate itself. As the individual seeks to assert their individuality and uniqueness, capital is both the obstacle and the solution. Yet, the individualism they seek to assert is in fact a construct of the culture industry, one which has surpassed the scope and content of Nazi Germany’s culture industry. By virtue of their ubiquity and mass appeal, film and music 2 Sontag, Susan. "Fascinating Fascism." New York Review of Books 6 Feb. 1975: 1-14. Print. Pg. 6 3 Sontag, Pg. 8

Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 intended as low art quietly glorify mediocrity and conformity while appearing to endorse the individualism necessary to promote the consumption of capital while dispelling notions of fascistic uniformity. The reality which we have become acclimated to is one that is shaped by the works of art the culture industry presents to us. The artist, however much or little facilitated by governmental or economic entities, never ceases to be responsible for the work they create precisely because of how pivotal art is to the shaping of reality. 4 Interestingly, in an age where the culture industry depends so heavily on mechanical reproduction which has stripped art of its auratic quality, the work of art is permitted to retain the “foggy mist” of its decaying aura. 5 In other words, the illusion of authenticity is allowed to exist. At this juncture, Arthur Danto looks at pop art and questions why this is art anyhow. Danto does not refute the Marxist analysis of pop art and the culture industry as much as he simply sets it aside. What Danto sees is that pop art, like all art before it, is a response to the art which preceded its creation. 6 Art must be understood in the historical and cultural context in which it has been brought into existence, a framework without which the 4 Sontag, Pg. 9 5 Wartenberg, Thomas E. "Art as Industry: Theodor Adorno." The Nature of Art: An Anthology . Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. N. pag. Print. Pg, 201 6 Wartenberg, Thomas E. "Art as Theory: Arthur Danto." The Nature of Art: An Anthology . Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. N. pag. Print. Pg 214

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Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 work of art would never have been conceived. Michel Foucault had the same concept as Danto, but applied on a significantly larger scale. For Foucault, the need to understand art contextually was expanded to an entire spectrum of subjects. 7 These concepts go directly against the modernist view of art and a result, they refute objectivity of any sort. 8 Two works of art in particular are used by Foucault to demonstrate his points. The first, Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez, exemplifies the oncoming Enlightenment and its fascination with objectivity and rationalism by way of its angles and portrayal of subject material. This foreshadows both Kantian aesthetics and British rationalism, which is pivotal in cementing Foucault as a post- modernist in opposition to the more traditional and objective modernists 9 The second is Ceci n’est pas une pipe by René Magritte, where Foucault introduces his argument on the interplay of language and art, wherein he argues against the traditionally assumed divide between words and images. Jacques Derrida joins Foucault in this topic, with Derrida providing a much sharper critique of the philosophy of art than Foucault. Derrida’s largest contribution is his willingness to break from the cycle Hegel and Heidegger have constructed. 10 Particularly, Derrida targets the logocentrism of 7 Gaut, Berys Nigel., and Dominic Lopes, The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics (London: Routledge, 2013), 3rd edition. Pg. 160 8 Gaut and Lopes, Pg. 173 9 Gaut and Lopes, Pg. 161 10 Gaut, and Lopes Pg. 174; Wartenberg, Thomas E. "Art as Deconstructable: Jacques Derrida." The Nature of Art: An Anthology . Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. N. pag. Print. Pg 279, pg. 285

Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 Western culture and the resulting willingness to presume of speech entirely as a disembodied and sign-less subject. It is external to the traditional world of art that Marina Abramović performs her work and it would be impossible to understand it without the context of the art preceding her in the 20 th century. Not only is her performance art a response to static art, but also a response to her socio-cultural reality, one of being the daughter of national heroes in Tito’s Yugoslavia. From a Kantian perspective, it would be difficult or impossible to discern beauty in her art since Kantian aesthetics were only ever truly relevant to the era in which they came about. In Abramović’s life we witness a microcosmic parallel to the development of 20 th century aesthetic philosophy. Arguably her most famous work, Rhythm 0 is emblematic of her oeuvre in that it focuses heavily on the exchange and withholding of power well as the importance of the sign. The Marxist past, represented by her family and upbringing, has given way to the future of Foucault, Danto, and Derrida. 11 This same interplay, especially the lack, of power is present in Paris is Burning . Pushed to the margins of society by gender, sexuality, race, and class, the LGBTQ community chronicled in the film are outcasts thrice removed from existing sociological groupings. The act of imitation and 11 A Hegelian view which includes Derrida as the end result; not sure if he’d approve

Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 mimicry on display at the balls is the act of “idealized imitation”. 12 The disenfranchisement they experience is combated through the ritual performance of becoming another at the physical level while remaining in the same socioeconomic placement. Thus, the gay and transgendered lives at the center of the documentary are reconstituting their aura, so to speak, seeking to regain the power which comes with social recognition. They do not desire to be the heterosexual men and women they imitate with fashion, they desire to have the power and legitimacy it brings. Similarly, in Jean Genet’s The Maids , the two maids are fixated on their lack of power in relation to Madame, their employer. Claire and Solange are constantly projecting their rage over powerlessness onto one another, engaging in rituals of abuse and imitation. Both the excess and absence of power lead to a necessity to exercise or conjure up illusions of it via ritual performativity. These tendencies towards near sadomasochism echo the modern fascination with Nazi SS regalia as sexualized, but more importantly echoes the quote of “fascism is theater”. 13 It is the fascist imagery of absolute violence and absolute inferiority being channeled here. 14 The ending of The Maids embodies the previously mentioned slant towards relativism espoused by post-modernism. With an erratic ending 12 Cazeaux, Pg. 498 13 Sontag, Pg. 13 14 Sontag, Pg. 12

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Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 sequence consisting of a protracted monologue, the denouement seems almost unreliable given the rising neuroticism displayed by the sisters. However it would be impossible to understand The Maids through the lens of objectivity, instead requiring one to read or view the play with contextual markers in place. Both Judith Butler and bell hooks are acutely aware of this problem in Paris is Burning , with hooks specifically arguing against the “white lesbian” director’s perceived ethno-cultural appropriations. 15 Butler agrees here, confirming that it is only logical that the film be constructed from the perspective of the white gaze. What Butler refutes is that Livingston has entirely created this vision of what the sub-world of 1980s gay and transsexual minorities is. 16 For Butler, Livingston has chronicled the ball because it precisely has become the focus of their lives and central to their structures of kinship and self, a direct refutation of hooks claiming that the director choose to build her story around the balls in lieu of proper family and community ties. Due to the way in which we are influenced by external factors beyond our control and firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist, it is possible to remove ourselves from our present situation and examine those influences. However, there are limitations as to what can be examined and how. Here 15 hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End, 1992. Print. Pg. 153 16 Cazeaux, Pg. 500

Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 the post-modernists have elaborated on a one of the fundamentally weak assumptions of their modernist predecessors. If one attempts to analyze the ground upon which they stand, no matter how often you shuffle your feet, at least one patch of ground will always be obscured from sight. In the same way, attempting to remove oneself from a situation to examine art, language, and other influences upon the self can only ever be partially successful.

Diego Araya Professor West Gurley PHIL 3366 1 April 2016 References Cazeaux, Clive. The Continental Aesthetics Reader (New York: Routledge, 2011), 2nd edition, with commentary by Clive Cazeaux. Gaut, Berys Nigel and Dominic Lopes. The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics (London: Routledge, 2013), 3rd edition. hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End, 1992. Print. Sontag, Susan. "Fascinating Fascism." New York Review of Books 6 Feb. 1975: 1-14. Print. Wartenberg, Thomas E. The Nature of Art: An Anthology . Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. N. pag. Print.

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