Author:
I’d like to point out an apparent “truth” that, in fact, seems “false,” at least as articulated by Yennaedo Balloo in last Wednesday’s Occidental Weekly:
“An ECLS class is never an easy way to fill a core requirement (stick to art classes).”
Besides wondering which art classes are being referenced here (has Balloo taken any art classes at Oxy? or asked any majors how “easy” their work is?), I’d like to know which specific art courses are “easy.” As an AHVA faculty member, I know that the department is deeply committed to creating and sustaining a challenging curriculum for all Oxy students. Although Balloo may have meant all the “arts”-including music and theater-I suspect that the focus was on the visual arts (painting, sculpture, printmaking, film and media) that are taught here at Oxy.
Perhaps what is “self evident” about Balloo’s comment is actually this: the notion that art is “easy” reflects some widespread cultural assumptions about the value of art in U.S. culture. Just so I’m perfectly clear about what I mean, let me lay out some of the “myths” (dare I quote Roland Barthes?) that you, my dear reader, may yourself harbor about Art:
– Art isn’t a “real” discipline
– Artists are undisciplined bohemians; cultural “outsiders” of the likes of, say, a crazed Van Gogh (a 19th century “myth” about the romantic artist if ever there was one)
– Art = “pure self-expression”; visual communication viewed from this perspective means that any “personal impulse” splashed onto a canvas, carved into stone, imprinted onto celluloid or incised into a copper plate IS the apex of art.
– Art is fundamentally about “taste” or “personal opinion,” and as such, cannot be analyzed, historicized, interpreted or otherwise “theorized.” (“if I like it, it’s Art”)
If one actually studies the history of art, film and video, one quickly recognizes the following:
– Visual art is visual communication.
– The visual arts are bound to conventions, just as are written and spoken languages.
– Visual artists must negotiate their relationships to the visual and cultural conventions of their own moment: this means, of course, that artists must grapple with history, culture, and ideology.
I suspect some of these counterproposals I’ve offered might sound familiar to an ECLS major like Balloo. Just imagine, for a moment, that our society considered visual communication as having equal cultural status as linguistic communication. Hopefully, dear reader, you see my point.
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