Here is the central question posed by David Stubbs in his Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko but Don’t Get Stockhausen: ‘Why has avant-garde music failed to attain the audience, the cachet, the legitimacy of its visual equivalent?’ (p. 1). This question opens onto a veritable conceptual delta; it opens questions of the interconnections between art forms and their histories, of the phenomenological experiences of viewing and of listening, of the role and reception of avant-garde visual art and music within the wider culture, of the function of the avant-garde in relation to mainstream culture, of the role of cultural institutions within capitalist societies, of the commodification of the avant-garde, of the machinations of the culture industry, of the impact of technologies on modes of reception and experience, of the status and legitimacy of visual art and of music, of a possible critique of the legitimating forces at play, of modernism and the postmodern, of the frameworks within which art and music are presented…
Instead, Stubbs moves around a serious engagement of any of the vital issues demanded by his question by presenting ‘a history, albeit a potted and highly subjective one, of twentieth century music set in its social and aesthetic context and in parallel with the development in the arts.’ (p. 2). Stubbs is best when writing about musicians and artists; his anecdotal mode is quite enjoyable, which helps explain, perhaps, why Stubbs’ text is really a long blog posting published in physical format. Yet, Stubbs’ evasion of the constellation opened by his question indelibly marks his text and moves it away from the heart of the matter. His text does not generate the critical and theoretical energy and focus demanded by an engagement in these issues.
In his response to Stubbs’ text, Douglas Boyce articulates the central problems of the book around four poles: a reductive historical perspective that emphasizes the cult of personality, a problematic treatment of avant-gardes in practice, avoidance of issues of musical production, and a framing of artistic expression that oversimplifies actual musical experience. Douglas’s text beautifully sets the stage for an expanded discussion and really gets at the problematic crux of Stubbs’ work and at how it is symptomatic of much discourse about the arts. What is left out and unsaid, what is glossed over, what is left unengaged and unanalyzed in Fear of Music is of keen interest precisely because this work is a symptom of an approach to thinking about the arts that tends to emphasize market success and the exceptional individual at the expense of the lived experience of art, of alternative modes of artistic engagement and reception, of the collective, collaborative, relational aspects of actual artistic practice and theorization, of the very reasons why we care about art and music—an approach to thinking about art and the arts that is incapable of generating or revealing pathways extending into a future.
Taking up Douglas’s framework, I will flesh out some of these ideas in an attempt to problematize further Stubbs’ text. My text rumbles through the following:
- Stubbs’ appeal to the ‘general public’ as legitimating function and as calculus for determining artistic success—the ‘getting’ of Rothko.
- Stubbs’ lack of theorizing the avant-garde, several significant conflations, and how his treatment of the ‘avant-garde’ / ‘experimentalism’ veils, if not sanitizes, the political.
- Stubbs’ skirting around important differences in the phenomenological experience of art and of music—namely, time and the privileging of visual presence over acoustic penetration.
the general public
Stubbs’ method in unfolding his rather discursive ‘history’ of 20th century music and its ‘visual equivalents’ is incongruous with the challenge posed by his question. Stubbs points to a packed Tate Modern and frequent newspaper headlines announcing the incredible sums of cash flowing though the art market—signifying a general enthusiasm on behalf of a general public towards modernist and contemporary visual art and a clear desire to attain ‘cachet’ and status through ownership on behalf of certain elites—and equates it with general artistic success. This is the ‘getting’ of Rothko. The subtitle of Stubbs piece Why People Get Rothko but Don’t Get Stockhausen intimates that the ‘getting’ is meant as reaching an understanding (comprehend, being hip to), yet behind Stubbs’ lack of a theoretical treatment of the concept of the ‘general public’is revealed that this ‘getting’ of visual art and ‘not getting’ of adventurous music are, in fact, being used literally—‘getting’ as in obtaining, procuring, owning, purchasing. Within this perspective, art and music are to be consumed. Market success is what determines and legitimates artistic value and what validates certain forms of reception and relationships to artistic practice.
Stubbs’ anecdotal approach addresses relationships between and stresses the common ground shard by musicians and artists working at and around the same time. This is something of an inside cultural view (production side), yet Stubbs frames the question in terms of an external market view (reception side), which focuses on the consumption levels of a general public. And the two are not brought together in a theoretical context. Framing this situation in terms of a ‘general public’ requires a larger cultural critique—a critique of mass culture and its production of reception, the transformations of perception brought forth by new technologies, globalized capital and the arts, transitions toward and away from the postmodern, a critique of power within the culture industry and the art world…. In a moment of lucidity and hope, Stubbs writes that, ‘this, then, was one of the salvations of the music of the avant-garde—it could not be co-opted. It was, indeed remains, useless, in the most sublimely useful sense of that word.’ (p. 41). But this is the extent of the opening; nothing further is pursued. What is co-optation? How does it function and to what purpose? What is it about the musical avant-garde that resists co-optation?
Stubbs’ anecdotal approach addresses relationships between and stresses the common ground shard by musicians and artists working at and around the same time. This is something of an inside cultural view (production side), yet Stubbs frames the question in terms of an external market view (reception side), which focuses on the consumption levels of a general public. And the two are not brought together in a theoretical context. Framing this situation in terms of a ‘general public’ requires a larger cultural critique—a critique of mass culture and its production of reception, the transformations of perception brought forth by new technologies, globalized capital and the arts, transitions toward and away from the postmodern, a critique of power within the culture industry and the art world…. In a moment of lucidity and hope, Stubbs writes that, ‘this, then, was one of the salvations of the music of the avant-garde—it could not be co-opted. It was, indeed remains, useless, in the most sublimely useful sense of that word.’ (p. 41). But this is the extent of the opening; nothing further is pursued. What is co-optation? How does it function and to what purpose? What is it about the musical avant-garde that resists co-optation?
In a discussion of free improvisation (of the English variety), Stubbs, again, walks away from pursuing a theoretical line opened, when he writes:
Improv is perhaps the least privileged of the contemporary cultures. Its inherently evanescent and anti-commercial nature has a great deal to do with this, while the obdurate characters it attracts are hardly more likely to be models of consumer friendliness…And yet, far from being destroyed by internal conflict, free Improv continues on its bloody-minded course to nowhere in particular, forever making something out of absolutely nothing. (p. 73)
Here is yet another example, in which Stubbs points out but does not pursue the fact that anti-commercial music—in this case, musical that unfolds within an anarchical context--is so entirely marginalized. He refuses to consider that this might very well be one of the main sources of the power of this music. We cannot go much further without theorizing the avant-garde.
the avant-garde
the avant-garde
Stubbs offers no theory of the avant-garde, which leaves his ‘analysis’ dangling from surface categories. With a more developed theory of the avant-garde, such as Peter Burger’s in his Theory of the Avant-Garde (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 4; University of Minnesota Press; 1984.), we could see that much of the music and art that Stubbs considers ‘avant-garde’ is not necessarily avant-garde in the sense of a project of reintegrating art into life (Burger sees Dada and Surrealism as quintessential avant-gardes); it is simply difficult and challenging art. Finer distinctions need to be made. Similarly, he conflates the musical ‘avant-garde’ and experimental music (and uses these two terms interchangeably). There are major aesthetic, conceptual, and historical differences between the two; Cage and Boulez have different projects. Douglas points out that Stubbs conflates musique concrete and electronische musik and does not investigate the actual aesthetic debate between the two camps. Similarly, Stubbs employs the avant-garde and the experimental as terms simply denoting a category of challenging music without exploring the differences and their ramifications.
This conflation of the avant-garde and experimentalism points to a larger problem in Stubbs’ text: without access to a theory of the avant-garde, Stubbs' use of this term is relegated to a category among others—a category that can be nicely measured by ticket sales and recording downloads. Once the avant-garde is co-opted—absorbed into mainstream culture (Abstract Expressionist bed sheets and the like), is it really still the avant-garde? For Stubbs, the avant-garde is sublimely useless, yet praxis and critique and the re-integration of art into everyday life are at the heart of the avant-garde. And ‘useless’ in relation to what, a utilitarian calculus? Does not the very critical power of the avant-garde derive from its marginal position? The co-optation of the avant-garde by the cultural industry sanitizes the political and the critical—a sort of sublimation. The shiny side of the avant-garde is consumed, while the critical aspects are effaced. The avant-garde is drained of its revolutionary thrust. What are the significant differences between avant-garde movements in the visual arts and the musical avant-garde? What are their resistances? Is there something about visual art that facilitates co-optation? Is there something unique to music that resists the assimilation of its avant-garde into mainstream culture? Is an avant-garde even possible in today’s cultural landscape?
phenomenology of the eye and the ear
This conflation of the avant-garde and experimentalism points to a larger problem in Stubbs’ text: without access to a theory of the avant-garde, Stubbs' use of this term is relegated to a category among others—a category that can be nicely measured by ticket sales and recording downloads. Once the avant-garde is co-opted—absorbed into mainstream culture (Abstract Expressionist bed sheets and the like), is it really still the avant-garde? For Stubbs, the avant-garde is sublimely useless, yet praxis and critique and the re-integration of art into everyday life are at the heart of the avant-garde. And ‘useless’ in relation to what, a utilitarian calculus? Does not the very critical power of the avant-garde derive from its marginal position? The co-optation of the avant-garde by the cultural industry sanitizes the political and the critical—a sort of sublimation. The shiny side of the avant-garde is consumed, while the critical aspects are effaced. The avant-garde is drained of its revolutionary thrust. What are the significant differences between avant-garde movements in the visual arts and the musical avant-garde? What are their resistances? Is there something about visual art that facilitates co-optation? Is there something unique to music that resists the assimilation of its avant-garde into mainstream culture? Is an avant-garde even possible in today’s cultural landscape?
phenomenology of the eye and the ear
In his conclusion, Stubbs touches on issues central to his question when he writes:
Perhaps modern art, not even at its most harrowing, has the capacity to traumatize, the way music has. It’s a truism but true nonetheless—we can close our eyes but we cannot close our ears…It (visual art) can be contained within a field of vision, is static, can be approached and, after perhaps a few minutes of sober rumination, walked away from. (p. 114).
Finally, here we are. Do visual art and music work on us differently? What are the phenomenological differences between the eye (viewing) and the ear (listening)? How do these differences shape modes of aesthetic reception? In a larger cultural framework, do we privilege the eye over the ear? Are we more adept visually than we are aurally? Yet again, Stubbs does not explore what is fundamental to the issue at hand. I will limit my comments at this time, since I will explore this idea of the privileging of visual presence over acoustic penetration in a future posting here.
In Stubbs’ discussion of conceptual art, he brings together the public’s ‘getting’ of this art with the relative popularity of the museum. In other words, is it really the case that masses of persons go to the New Tate because contemporary art is palatable, grasped, and celebrated, or is it rather a question of the experience of the museum itself? (As opposed to the rather rigidified codes of the concert hall?). With Stubbs ‘analysis,’ we simply cannot tell one way or the other.
Time is at the core of the question of the differences between visual art and music and their respective phenomenological experiences. Listening requires time; one must give oneself over to duration; a commitment is involved, whereas, one can close one’s eyes or walk away from a painting. Obvious as this may be, this is particularly significant with respect to contemporary modes of consumption and reception, to the multi-tasking attention span, and with respect to a globalized culture whose temporality can be characterized by a succession of present moments. It is conceivable that one can experience (and concentrate) on dozens of works by dozens of artists within one hour ‘spent’ in a museum or gallery, whereas, one might only listen to one or two works by one or two composers in a one hour period during a concert. One typically has to wait at least until intermission to split. Does music require a different form of commitment than most visual art? Again, Stubbs offers hardly a paragraph concerning the challenges of time and commitment with respect to experiencing music (challenges at the core of his problematic), and this paragraph is on page 114 of a 135-page book. Again, I will limit my comments because the question of temporality will also be taken up in a future Bigmouths posting.
In short, Fear of Music poses a fascinating question and sets out an evasive, inadequate response. Hopefully, our discussion can open territory avoided and closed off by Stubbs’ text and can propose some different ways of thinking about these issues—perspectives that might help us move artistic practice and reception into a future.
In Stubbs’ discussion of conceptual art, he brings together the public’s ‘getting’ of this art with the relative popularity of the museum. In other words, is it really the case that masses of persons go to the New Tate because contemporary art is palatable, grasped, and celebrated, or is it rather a question of the experience of the museum itself? (As opposed to the rather rigidified codes of the concert hall?). With Stubbs ‘analysis,’ we simply cannot tell one way or the other.
Time is at the core of the question of the differences between visual art and music and their respective phenomenological experiences. Listening requires time; one must give oneself over to duration; a commitment is involved, whereas, one can close one’s eyes or walk away from a painting. Obvious as this may be, this is particularly significant with respect to contemporary modes of consumption and reception, to the multi-tasking attention span, and with respect to a globalized culture whose temporality can be characterized by a succession of present moments. It is conceivable that one can experience (and concentrate) on dozens of works by dozens of artists within one hour ‘spent’ in a museum or gallery, whereas, one might only listen to one or two works by one or two composers in a one hour period during a concert. One typically has to wait at least until intermission to split. Does music require a different form of commitment than most visual art? Again, Stubbs offers hardly a paragraph concerning the challenges of time and commitment with respect to experiencing music (challenges at the core of his problematic), and this paragraph is on page 114 of a 135-page book. Again, I will limit my comments because the question of temporality will also be taken up in a future Bigmouths posting.
In short, Fear of Music poses a fascinating question and sets out an evasive, inadequate response. Hopefully, our discussion can open territory avoided and closed off by Stubbs’ text and can propose some different ways of thinking about these issues—perspectives that might help us move artistic practice and reception into a future.