Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"


Ellen Stuttle

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sublime

subliminal

sublimated

Is that how you're trying to do philosophy, Altendork? "Sublime" sounds like other words, therefore it means what those words mean?

Sublime = submarine = Subway sandwiches = substitute = subordinate = substantial = subscription?

God, what a dumbass.

J

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Here's an old interview of Newbsie with his completely non-critically-thinking, zero-intellectual-standards, ol' boys club buddies at TAS:

http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/introduction-to-ayn-rand-s-ideas/2-uncategorised/5835-satisfying-the-soul-an-interview-with-michael-newberry

It includes the standard stupid smearing of Kant, but, even better, it includes knucklehead Newbsie agreeing with and taking pleasure in the interviewer's interpretation that his painting "Pursuit" represents a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear":

Navigator: I recall seeing that painting when you displayed it at the Jefferson School in 1985. I remember gasping when I looked at it, and I suspect my response is shared by most women, and probably men, who have seen the painting. What did you call on to capture the disconcerting mix of excitement and fear that the painting represents?

Newberry: This painting's concept came from an abstraction: What does the pursuit of an ultimate value feel like? What is the emotional feeling of being three yards away from the top of Everest? To be walking down the aisle for your wedding? To be two games from winning Wimbledon? What does "love at first sight" feel like? I didn't want to paint a man climbing a mountain, or a tennis player, or a wedding ceremony, or a date at a restaurant, but I did want to paint the concept of love at first sight in a less-than-conducive environment.

I am pleased you call it a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear." Accomplishing big dreams is not "a walk in the park"; doing so is scary and very exciting . . . and disconcerting.

-----

Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Is it Kant's fault that Newbsie sees accomplishment as scary and disconcerting? Did Kant cause Newbsie to advocate that view in his art?

Unfuckingbelievable.

J

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Here's an old interview of Newbsie with his completely non-critically-thinking, zero-intellectual-standards, ol' boys club buddies at TAS:

http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/introduction-to-ayn-rand-s-ideas/2-uncategorised/5835-satisfying-the-soul-an-interview-with-michael-newberry

It includes the standard stupid smearing of Kant, but, even better, it includes knucklehead Newbsie agreeing with and taking pleasure in the interviewer's interpretation that his painting "Pursuit" represents a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear":

Navigator: I recall seeing that painting when you displayed it at the Jefferson School in 1985. I remember gasping when I looked at it, and I suspect my response is shared by most women, and probably men, who have seen the painting. What did you call on to capture the disconcerting mix of excitement and fear that the painting represents?

Newberry: This painting's concept came from an abstraction: What does the pursuit of an ultimate value feel like? What is the emotional feeling of being three yards away from the top of Everest? To be walking down the aisle for your wedding? To be two games from winning Wimbledon? What does "love at first sight" feel like? I didn't want to paint a man climbing a mountain, or a tennis player, or a wedding ceremony, or a date at a restaurant, but I did want to paint the concept of love at first sight in a less-than-conducive environment.

I am pleased you call it a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear." Accomplishing big dreams is not "a walk in the park"; doing so is scary and very exciting . . . and disconcerting.

-----

Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Is it Kant's fault that Newbsie sees accomplishment as scary and disconcerting? Did Kant cause Newbsie to advocate that view in his art?

Unfuckingbelievable.

J

I am curious, Jonathan, about how old you were when you had that surgery that took out your Internet social parts?

--Dr. Frankenstein

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Here's an old interview of Newbsie with his completely non-critically-thinking, zero-intellectual-standards, ol' boys club buddies at TAS:http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/atlas-university/introduction-to-ayn-rand-s-ideas/2-uncategorised/5835-satisfying-the-soul-an-interview-with-michael-newberry

It includes the standard stupid smearing of Kant, but, even better, it includes knucklehead Newbsie agreeing with and taking pleasure in the interviewer's interpretation that his painting "Pursuit" represents a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear":

Navigator: I recall seeing that painting when you displayed it at the Jefferson School in 1985. I remember gasping when I looked at it, and I suspect my response is shared by most women, and probably men, who have seen the painting. What did you call on to capture the disconcerting mix of excitement and fear that the painting represents?

Newberry: This painting's concept came from an abstraction: What does the pursuit of an ultimate value feel like? What is the emotional feeling of being three yards away from the top of Everest? To be walking down the aisle for your wedding? To be two games from winning Wimbledon? What does "love at first sight" feel like? I didn't want to paint a man climbing a mountain, or a tennis player, or a wedding ceremony, or a date at a restaurant, but I did want to paint the concept of love at first sight in a less-than-conducive environment.

I am pleased you call it a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear." Accomplishing big dreams is not "a walk in the park"; doing so is scary and very exciting . . . and disconcerting.

-----

Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Is it Kant's fault that Newbsie sees accomplishment as scary and disconcerting? Did Kant cause Newbsie to advocate that view in his art?

Unfuckingbelievable.

J

I am curious, Jonathan, about how old you were when you had that surgery that took out your Internet social parts?

--Dr. Frankenstein

In O-land, I just follow suit.

J

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We use boxing gloves. You're a bare-knuckler.

"We"?

I'm usually pretty friendly with you, Brant. I was unfair with you, once, a while back on this thread, but I recognized my error and apologized for it. I usually treat you with the civility and friendliness that you bring to dealing with me. I return the favor. I give what I get.

everybody thinks they're kicking ass

Do they? I don't know. Do you think that Newbsie believes that he kicked ass here on the issue of the Sublime? I guess it's possible that he's that out of touch with reality.

J

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It includes the standard stupid smearing of Kant, but, even better, it includes knucklehead Newbsie agreeing with and taking pleasure in the interviewer's interpretation that his painting "Pursuit" represents a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear":

....................

I am pleased you call it a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear." Accomplishing big dreams is not "a walk in the park"; doing so is scary and very exciting . . . and disconcerting.

........................................

J

I never saw this one...why is Ron Paul stalking this woman? For her vote?

PursuitE.jpg

I don't get this one at all.

A...

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You are quite different than everybody else in your approach to these discussions, Jonathan. Newberry sure did deserve that for less than that would have let him off the hook he deserved to be on. I was just curious if you could get outside yourself to see yourself as you come across to others. I cannot fundamentally disparage you or your approach to Rand and Objectivist esthetics because I basically agree with your evaluations. There is a new book out on Rand obviously for the undergraduate trade, but it's contradicted by what's in graduate school. I suppose you've got to get her wrong before you get her right, at least for most people. As far as I know OL is part of if not the graduate matrix. Objectivism is a two-legged stool you cannot perch on; you'll fall on your face.

--Brant

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t includes the standard stupid smearing of Kant, but, even better, it includes knucklehead Newbsie agreeing with and taking pleasure in the interviewer's interpretation that his painting "Pursuit" represents a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear":

....................

I am pleased you call it a "disconcerting mix of excitement and fear." Accomplishing big dreams is not "a walk in the park"; doing so is scary and very exciting . . . and disconcerting.

........................................

J

I never saw this one...why is Ron Paul stalking this woman? For her vote?

PursuitE.jpg

I don't get this one at all.

A...

_______________________________________________

Dagny is about to get fucked by John.

--Brant

in the rr tunnel where he worked (only she's worse dressed than Dagny and he's better dressed than John and that's not a tunnel and she's not D and he's not J so "fucked" is the right word for this painting is a vulgarity)

almost all of Newberry's full figures are Objectivist kitsch or intimations of--his other work is much, much better (his "Adam and Eve" isn't kitsch)

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I never saw this one...why is Ron Paul stalking this woman?

Perhaps he just likes women who look like Mary Gross with Maggie Thatcher's hair?

I don't get this one at all.

Newbsie went to art school in the late 70s/early 80s, and that's when all of the arts professors were following the fad of being very into finding erotic symbolism everywhere, and making sure to suggest that their students included it in their art. Newbsie wrote a mini-turorial on the subject which was at one point posted on OL but which Newbsie demanded be taken down when he left in a huff a couple of years back. With the 70s peepee weewee influence, a primary element of the painting would be the open purse representing the woman's open vajayjay. Not exactly a subtle example of 70s peepee weewee symbolism.

The painting is, I think, the moment when Newbsie's new exposure to Objectivism was just kicking in influence-wise. So my view is that the painting is a mix of borrowing from Rand's art and illustrating her theories, along with the erotic-symbolism-everywhere idea that was popular at the time. I think Brant is right: it's a Rand-follower's visual take on Galt bangs Dagny. It even has the rookie Objectivist attitude of mistaking and depicting confidence as snobbish smugness. It's Dirty Dancing's Robbie Gould's interpretation of Rand's art.

J

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I was just curious if you could get outside yourself to see yourself as you come across to others.

Absolutely! I know what I'm what I'm doing.

I wonder if my opponents in these discussions could say the same? Are they capable of "getting outside of themselves"? Could they have intelligent discussions without all of the bluff and bluster? Could they stick to the topics at hand rather than posing and citing their "credentials" and their importance from having been published by their Objectivish friends? Do they see how they come across to others?

I think not. They've surrounded themselves with an echo chamber of dopey Objecti-friends who all think that they're heroic in being snarky and snide.

J

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The painting is, I think, the moment when Newbsie's new exposure to Objectivism was just kicking in influence-wise. So my view is that the painting is a mix of borrowing from Rand's art and illustrating her theories, along with the erotic-symbolism-everywhere idea that was popular at the time. I think Brant is right: it's a Rand-follower's visual take on Galt bangs Dagny. It even has the rookie Objectivist attitude of mistaking and depicting confidence as snobbish smugness. It's Dirty Dancing's Robbie Gould's interpretation of Rand's art.

J

That's devastating: "... depicting confidence as snobbish smugness." When it comes to Rand, that's on the other side of the galaxy. If true it'd mean Newberry read AS like a Classic Comic book.

--Brant

Objectivism has severe problems, but I never realized it was trolls on Objectivism (and Randism)--now I see several other kinds that have been there from day one ("I see dead people")

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I have to get in a wicked comment.

If you look at the two people in the painting above, change the hair a bit, they look like Barbara and Nathaniel Branden.

Ah... hell...

I shouldn't have written that.

What are Barbara and Nathaniel doing in that situation?!!

Now the inner voice that runs in my head all the time is going apeshit.

I'll never see that damn painting the same anymore.

:)

Michael

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That's devastating: "... depicting confidence as snobbish smugness." When it comes to Rand, that's on the other side of the galaxy. If true it'd mean Newberry read AS like a Classic Comic book.

He Read Kant like a comic book, so why not Rand? He has a very cartoonish vision of many things, including his own "credentials" and importance.

J

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I have to get in a wicked comment.

If you look at the two people in the painting above, change the hair a bit, they look like Barbara and Nathaniel Branden.

Ah... hell...

I shouldn't have written that.

What are Barbara and Nathaniel doing in that situation?!!

Now the inner voice that runs in my head all the time is going apeshit.

I'll never see that damn painting the same anymore.

:smile:

Michael

Don't worry. It's only a personal problem.

--Brant

not mine (heh, heh)

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I'm focused on the freakish anatomy: their long thighs, especially her right, his extremely short calves, her tiny left hand. She does seem as if she read the novel and knows what's coming, but he strikes me more as " Was that a quarter?"

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I'm focused on the freakish anatomy: their long thighs, especially her right, his extremely short calves, her tiny left hand. She does seem as if she read the novel and knows what's coming, but he strikes me more as " Was that a quarter?"

Good point on the hand, I missed why it looked so awkward to my eyes.

Also, the knees do not line up evenly.

A...

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A note on "the sublime"

I have a book by Herbert Grabes, published as part of a "Postmodern Studies" series and titled, in its 2008 English translation:

Making Strange: Beauty, Sublimity, and the (Post)Modern 'Third Aesthetic'

(The original was published in 2004 as Einführung in die Literatur und Kunst der Moderne und Postmoderne: Die Ästhetik des Fremden.)

Grabes' thesis is "[t]he necessity to postulate a third, independent aesthetic of the strange as a complement to the aesthetics of the beautiful and the sublime" (pg. 133).

Contra "those who see [Postmodernism] as an alternative to Modernism," Grabes holds the view that Postmodernism is "a radical later phase of Modernism" (pg. 125) and that both Modernism and Postmodernism are best categorized as exhibiting an aesthetic of the strange which he positions between the aesthetic of the beautiful and that of the sublime.

He subdivides the proposed "aesthetic of the strange" into three types of encounter with the Other - the unsettling, the incomprehensible, and the uncanny. He sees these subcategories as a continuum with "the strikingly beautiful" as one extreme terminus and "the overwhelmingly sublime" as the other.

A chart of the proposed categorization can be seen here.

(Preliminarily, I think his idea makes sense. Also that Rand's fiction is a good candidate for his category "the unsettling.")

In explaining his thesis, Grabes writes (pg. 136), "a clear and unequivocal theoretical system is required which acts as a point of reference, and since the conception of the aesthetic of the beautiful and that of the sublime in Kant's Critique of Judgement has proved itself to be the most influential," he'll use that as his basis for discussing theoretical foundations.

He continues:

Making Strange

pg. 136

[bold emphasis added]

This also seems to be particularly suitable because more recent attempts to interpret Modernist and Postmodern aesthetics as versions of the sublime are based - with some reference to Burke - for the most part on Kant.

The statement indicates that Newberry isn't alone in extending Kant's views on the sublime to interpretation of Postmodern aesthetics.

Alerted by that hint, I went Googling and found that a number of postmodernist philosophers have discussed postmodern visual art and literature as displaying "the sublime." See for instance this glossary item from the University of Chicago for some information (starting about two-thirds through the entry) about Jameson's, Lyotard's, and Zizek's respective takes on "the sublime."

There are also discussions of modernism in relation to "the sublime" - for instance, an essay billed as a "landmark essay" which was published in 1948, "The Sublime Is Now" by American abstract expressionist painter Barnett Newman.

From the listing of topics in the sidebar, you can see that the compilers of the Tate's website take seriously the idea of a connection between "the sublime" and both modernist and contemporary art.

Ellen

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