Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 01:04:53 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: appropriation/self expression


Well, when I use the term "self-expression", I assume that "self" includes 
the shaping-of-and-being-shaped-by cultural environment, shared knowledge, 
collective identities, community ideals, etc.  I don't really see how one 
can think of "self" in separation from these things.  But if this term
is so rusted through as to be unserviceable, I will gladly abandon it;
I have absolutely no love for it.

Saul wrote:

> Instead I would propose
> that we understand the artist ( in its most resent incarnation circa
> 1960-70) as a developer of modes of expression , these constitute not only
> forms and contents but also methods and subjects.  Therefor a professional
> artist is not merely reducible to 'self" consciousness , intuition and
> conscience or self-satisfaction but also might=be thought of as being a
> professional cultural producer whose practice individually or collectively
> constitutes a form of agency. 

I didn't mean to imply any such reduction, but your proposal doesn't make
the professionalism of the artist any more palatable to me.  What I object to 
is the idea of a separate group of people who are professional developers
of expression -- irrespective of whether one prepends "self" to this. 
What is a "professional cultural producer"?  Isn't everybody a cultural
producer, and isn't every practice a form of agency such as you describe?  

> The either its mine or commodity aspect of Malgosia's statement would rob
> such production of any significance. Art after all is a cultural catagory,
> itrepresents shared knowledge  as well as embodies/ externalizes the
> collective identities and ideals of the community that embraces it.

If I gave the impression of postulating a mine/commodity dichotomy, 
I certainly didn't intend to.  I want to disclaim this loudly.  
But I find the second sentence chock full of highly questionable
stuff.  It seems to me to imply a view of the artist as a "representative",
"externalizer", "embodyer" (sorry) of communal knowledge/ideals/identities.
This is exactly the view I object to.  This is, in fact, why the term
"self-expression" _might_ be serviceable, because it curls itself up
against attempts to ascribe to the artist the role of spokesperson and
representative. 


-malgosia 


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