Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Archive

 

Volume 17 Number 2, August 2016

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The scope of this short book is broad, interdisciplinary, and ambitious. It analyses the ways in which art might be theorised in a globalised world, within an academic environment which broadly ascribes to the truth of the idea that no singular narrative or theoretical position can adequately explain the complexity of socio-cultural, economic, and political interactions. Canclini introduces the reader to theories of art from a range of disciplines which have attempted to understand what art is and how it should be studied, acknowledging that these theories priviledge ideas and understandings from the West. He points out that the different focus and questions asked about art and processes of creation across disciplines in turn lead to different ideas and descriptions of what art is, and how it should/could be theorised.  

 

Art beyond itself: Anthropology for a society without a story line argues that the concepts used to understand art are themselves hybridised. They have travelled across discipline, histories, and geographical divisions, and they are far from settled. Therefore, to consider how concepts about art have been created and influenced, Canclini also draws upon a variety of examples from across different academic disciplines. Events in modern world history and their relationship to the creation of dominant grand narratives in academic are also explored as these ideas have also effected how art has been conceptualised.

 

This book argues that the impacts of globalisation have complicated and muddied any attempts at universal theories of art rooted in a particular territory, culture, or disciplinary perspective. Theories located within particular disciplines often struggle to respond to the complexity of interactions and influences on art in a globalised world. Canclini argues that there is a need to conceptualise and explore art in a fundamentally transdisciplinary way, as no singular narrative can be without "conflicts or gaps" (2014:183). Broader frame works are needed for "reading the new global relationships of interdependence" (2014:183). Canclini advocates understanding art as a "place of imminence – the place where we can catch sight of things that are just at the point of occurring" (Canclini, 2014: xiii). It is through this emergent, imaginative, and suggestive pointing towards new possibilities that art finds its strength and distinctiveness. Canclini argues that:

 

An aesthetic of imminence, [involves] being aware that art isn’t autonomous, knows that the possibility of being open to new things, catching them or letting them get away, is linked to practices that don’t take place in a vacuum, operating instead in the midst of unequal conditions that artists share with nonartists. By valuing imminence, the aesthetic disposition de-fatalizes the conventional structures of language, the habits of professions, the canon of what is legitimate. But it doesn’t magically eliminate them. It is merely our training for recovering our ability to speak and do, getting out of preset frameworks (2014: 185).

 

Canclini does not advocate an understanding of art as creating pathways for social harmony or integration. He argues that the "task of art is not to give society a [singular] narrative," or to account for its increasing diversity (2014: 185). However, he does see artists as having a role in "creating symbols and reimagining disagreements" (2014:185), and in this way inevitably contributing to the creation of wider socio-cultural narratives. For Canclini, art exists in response to and as a consequence of unresolved, contingent social tensions (2014: 21). Rather than offering "new self-sufficient totalities" artists help us to "make society" by thoughtfully and imaginatively "recomposing structures, interactions, and experiences" (2014: 184). Canclini therefore argues that the study of art should not confine itself to aesthetic concerns, but must also deal with how art functions and is used.

 

Canclini (2014: 77) offers case studies exploring various art works which he argues are responses to the continuous transnational exchanges, flows and tensions found in an increasingly globalised world. These case studies are some of the most readable and engaging parts of the book. The examples Canclini presents are art works which seek to "generate dialogical spaces where new forms of understanding and interdependence [can] open up." Rather than celebrating the boundaries and distinctiveness of particular cultural or artistic forms, they focus on considering the ever emerging links between different cultural forms, and on inventing "cognitive openings or networks" (2014: 77).  

 

Canclini argues that we lack universally valid theories to explain both art and the forces of globalisation which continue to impact its creation and distribution. He acknowledges that there is "no protected art world, and there are no theories that can encompass all of its diversity today" (2014: 178). Although he questions whether universally applicable theories are possible, ultimately there seems to be some contradiction in his theoretical positioning. Canclini values but does not seem to be content with understandings of art which are located solely in the ethnographic detail that can be found within a particular geographical and socio-cultural moment. He is looking for understandings which could be generalised. Canclini declares that he is interested in "discovering a coherent rationality beyond the loss of meganarratives" (2014:184). Language which is in itself may be revealing of his own ideational grounding in Western scholarship, and adherence to notions of what is and is not rational as a dominant framework.

 

The broad interdisciplinary scope of the theoretical arguments within this short book covers huge amounts of ideational terrain in relatively few paragraphs, and these arguments sometimes felt a little too brief and lacking in fullness. This approach is perhaps linked to assumptions about the postgraduate readership of this book, and I think that it would be a challenging text for an undergraduate audience. I found some of Canclini's theoretical arguments complex and contradictory, and was left feeling unsure about his theoretical positionality and intentions. At many points in the book Canclini (persuasively) negates the possibility of any singular theory being able to encompass art in the contemporary world: but he seems to be simultaneously in search of a theory or approach to thinking about art which is inclusive, reflective, and flexible enough to contain this overwhelming diversity. For me, these contradictions detracted from the readability (and therefore from the accessibility) of this book.