Call for Papers: Special Issue of Culture, Theory and Critique

ART MATTERS: Philosophy, Art History and Art’s Material Presence

The aim of this special issue of Culture, Theory and Critique scheduled for April 2016 publication is to rethink the relationship between art history, on the one hand, and the development of a materialist philosophy of art on the other. There are three points that will provide the issue with its points of orientation. 

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3. This idea of the specificity of the work of art plays out not only in time but also within the work of art itself. Indeed, the third point that we wish to address concerns the particular ways that works stage themselves as art, the ways in which the work of art is always a stage on which art’s works is played out. Art rarely, if ever, evinces the caricature of realism in which the work is taken to be no more than the immediate presence internally of that which is present externally, a position that can be defined as the Parrhasius myth. If this mythic structure were followed – and it is a structure that continues to haunt accounts of presentation – it would be as though internality were externality’s immediate presence. To the extent that this structure is not applicable – and its non-applicability can be taken as axiomatic – what works of art inscribe within themselves as part of their being as art is the way their presence is originally mediated. This is to say, then, that the process of mediation is part of the way the work stages itself as art. This process – art’s self-staging – is an important trope in the development of any philosophical encounter with the work of art. What is more, the latter, which is to say the presence of the work as originally mediated, means that any account of art’s work will demand recourse to art’s material presence. Or to put this another way, the impossibility of immediacy necessarily provides an opening towards a materialist philosophy of art.

Your latest "guff" is certainly a little dense & jargon heavy, but it's perfectly grammatical and certainly understandable. It's essentially a critique of philosophers writing about art without talking about art objects or art history.

That's the first Guffwatch that I've really struggled to understand. They've all been preposterous and dreadfully written, but I've usually been able to understand what they're getting at fairly readily. I don't see Matt's point from Twitter at all; it seems to presuppose a critique rather than offer one, and it seems to be about philosophy and art history coming together rather than philosophy learning one-sidedly from art history. Anyway, I've had a go at translating, as best I can. I've had to translate rather freely, because I can't re-arrange the individual sentences to make sense:

"What makes something a work of art? Art doesn't just try to imitate reality perfectly. You don't judge a picture of grapes by its ability to trick a bird into thinking they're real. So let's assume that's not the case. Works of art present themselves not as representations of something external (or at least not only as that); they present themselves as works of art. A painted portrait doesn't just claim to represent an individual; it also draws attention to itself as a work of art, a skilful re-creation of a likeness within an artistic tradition. This question of how a work of art establishes itself as art is important for any philosophy of art. Because a work of art is never a direct copy of reality, we have to consider how it establishes itself as art, assessing it within an artistic context rather than judging it against the external reality it's trying to represent. That question can't be answered abstractly, as a purely philsophical problem. That opens the door to a materialist philosophy of art that engages with actual works of art rather than just using art to illustrate more abstract thinking." 

Or it might mean something else entirely. Perhaps we could ask the authors when you've had a few more contributions?

Could you induce your native guide (excellent, I must say) to clarify the following for me and/or your readership (?). The original states;

"Because a work of art is never a direct copy of reality, we have to consider how it establishes itself as art, assessing it within an artistic context rather than judging it against the external reality it's trying to represent."

But why can't a work of art just remain an indirect copy of reality without 'establishing itself as art' when it already self-evidently is - a work of art, that is, otherwise it wouldn't be self-evidently obvious that is was an indirect copy of reality.

In the guff, perhaps the work of art means work of creating art Versus a work of art which is a sculpture. Still unintelligible.