Embodied Meanings, Isotypes, and Aesthetical Ideas

Abstract

>The translator into Hungarian of several of my writings on art theory recently sent me a catalog of the work of a young artist from her country, Ágnes Eperjesi.1 The translator—Eszter Babarczy—is a gifted critic in her own right, and I cannot do better than quote from her letter, which explains why she felt I would be especially interested in Eperjesi's art. She thought your ideas about transfiguration and the commonplace applied to her work, and she took inspiration from your essays. Hers is a remarkable and long journey from experimental photography to an absolutely unique venture of collecting wrappings of household products, and taking the humble sign language of ordinary household chores, and recreating them as objects of beauty and irony. The products, like dishwashers and vacuum cleaners—or underwear—were in all likelihood intended for export to countries anywhere in the world, which implies that they will fit into forms of life that must be much the same the world over. So the images must themselves belong to the sign language of globalism, necessarily universal in that they have to be legible to consumers who cannot be counted on to have a common language. The signs show what the consumers need to know about the products they have purchased—which side of a pair of underpants is front and which side is back, for example. In many, though not, all cases, they are pictograms or even isotypes—an acronym for “International System of Typographic Picture Education”—signs of a kind initially invented in 1936 by the Logical Positivist, Otto Neurath, who may have been influenced by Wittgenstein's so‐called picture theory of language. Neurath anticipated globalism in saying: “The visual method becomes the basis for a common cultural life and a common cultural relationship.”2 Just consider their international use in giving traffic directions to drivers who may or may not be able to read the language of the country in which they are traveling, or in guiding us through foreign airports. Isotypes are among the rare practical and positive contributions made by modern philosophy to the common life of humankind. When these pictograms are recycled—or transfigured—into works of art, their implied universality is elevated to a portrait of the society in which the products are to be used. I would not altogether follow Babarszy in calling Eperjesi's works beautiful and, in truth, I am somewhat at a loss to describe them aesthetically. But I can appreciate that in transfiguring the isotype into an artwork, an interesting reversal of Walter Benjamin's famous distinction has taken place: the art of mechanical reproduction has acquired, through transfiguration, an aura, and in virtue of that the images may acquire an aesthetic interest they heretofore lacked. At least, as art, we look at them as critics, and notice their aesthetic qualities, such as they are. Just knowing that an object is intended as a piece of fine art may trigger the sense that it must be beautiful. Or better, we use this standard term of aesthetic commendation in connection with them that we would hardly use in characterizing the pictograms on which they are based. The term ‘beautiful’ may simply be a compliment paid to art as art, without really being descriptive of the art at all. The goal of trans‐cultural communication may mean that features that imply ethnic differences will be erased—the persons are depicted neither as white nor black nor red nor yellow—leaving figures that are abstractly human, which in a way look quite “modern.” But is “looks modern” an aesthetic characterization or a stylistic one? Modernist design strove for a kind of simplification through its distaste for ornament, and this led to stylization in modernist pictography. This does not explain why the isotypical pictograms are stylized as they are, which comes, rather, from globalist imperatives—so “looks modern” is façon de parler. But in any case, the pictogram has undergone some sort of aesthetic transformation in the course of its artistic transfiguration, however we finally describe it. Eperjesi's aesthetic enhancement of workaday images is as distinctive as Andy Warhol's transformations of Polaroids into portraits. As to Eszter Bararcszy's description of the work as “ironic,” that is true—but it is due more to Eperjesi's titles—or perhaps they are captions—than to the images themselves: the covers of The New Yorker Magazine have titles, the cartoons have captions. Either way, the titles/captions express thoughts that the images alone do not. Eperjesi has often selected her images with the intention of using them to convey how women in contemporary Hungary regard themselves, and how they think about the housework for which the product designated by the image is intended to be used—usually by women as a matter of course. One of her images shows a man, a woman, and a child on bicycles. It is difficult to determine what product it stands for, though I would guess that it belongs to what we might think of as the secret life of women. The image could show a woman living a full active life, thanks to the product in question. Whatever its rhetorical aim, Eperjesi captions it this way: “My new boyfriend gets along fine with my daughter. I hope it's not just a show for now” (Figure 1). This is interesting because the woman is evidently a single mother, looking for a new relationship. The irony derives from the implication that while women in contemporary society have been greatly liberated, they remain in a disadvantageous position in relationship to men, as much so in Hungary as in America or western Europe. They are the ones left to do the housework, and to hope that men are not just out to exploit them sexually. Ágenes Eperjesi. The irony goes well beyond the power of isotypes. The three figures could, after all, just represent a family. Interestingly, most of the women are in Western clothing, which has become fairly isotypical: I imagine that the isotype on the door of women's' toilets, shown with a short flaring skirt, would be recognized in airports everywhere in the world, even by women who wear burkhas. In any case, the titles/captions have to be translated, as the artist has done, from Hungarian into the language of the country in which they are to be shown—English, for example, in the catalog I saw. English itself is not, for all it ubiquity, isotypical. Even if it were universally used, as Latin once was, there would be a distinction between pictures and words, which means that while isotypes may validate the picture theory of language, they do so in ways having nothing to do with natural languages as spoken or written. The semantics of sentences in a natural language differ from the semantic of a sentence used pictorially, as in a quotation. But even quotations have to be translated. Tempting as it is to dwell on the artistic semantics of Eperjesi's pictures, my immediate purpose in using her work has to do with its extreme contemporaneity, and to the way it illustrates the pluralistic structure that has increasingly come to define the production of contemporary art, especially since the 1960s when artists first began to explore the possibility of using vernacular imagery. I have already touched on the question of their indeterminate aesthetic qualities, but I want ultimately to discuss this with reference to the problems that artistic pluralism has raised for aesthetic theory, and especially for Kantian aesthetic theory, which more or less dominated discussion until the decade when pluralism became a driving force in art. I understand “Kantian” to mean the view that artistic excellence is one with aesthetic excellence, which is understood to be a matter of pleasure and value distinct from the pleasure of sensual gratification, and internally connected with an ideal of disinterested contemplation. It concerns what the classical aestheticians designated “taste,” and the main features of the theory are laid out in the section of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment titled “The Analytic of Taste,” which served as the great empowering text for aesthetic theory in modern times, especially, at least in America, in the critical thought and practice of Clement Greenberg. Immanuel Kant's initial interest was in natural beauty, which it was easy enough to relate to the visual arts, understood—the decorative arts apart, which were appraised in terms of “free beauty”—either as accurate representations of natural beauty, or else as beautified representations of natural objects that in reality fell short of beauty. For what would be the point of making pictures of aesthetically repellent or deficient motifs? Greenberg had no such interest, as far as I can tell, and his chief focus was on abstract painting, which could be treated in terms of “free” beauty. This had the advantage for him that he could treat even representationalist art as if abstract, and hence subject to formalist analysis. That is to say, he appreciated painting in terms of what we might call the aesthetics of medium, since painterly excellence is determined by what pertains to properties essential to that medium, namely, in Greenberg's view, relationships between flat forms, irrespective of what the forms may signify. Aesthetic value is what these forms convey to visual perception, in which all concepts are put out of play. Kant of the pleasure taken in an object of any For the alone with he or she may put for the in The of the artist was to from painting not the The was the production of beauty for The of Greenberg's modernist aesthetics on so‐called art in the was is is how pluralism have at all when the had all the power and in the at least so far as contemporary visual art was But for that an I am to the aesthetic began to way in the and became just when Greenberg his most in his The implied by in in the catalog for the at the of was to the between art and would have spoken of the between art and reality so far as were In artistic that the of giving to art out of of had become the it was was not when in the but the kind of aesthetic by the making for what one may think of as a pluralism of aesthetic for a aesthetic that is the of the kind of aesthetic excellence Kant and Greenberg took for It is the aesthetics of and as in he the and in which the work applied as it was used by to an object of use in connection with which and are in or as by what once as is the aesthetic of by and there is question that a for it can be and even by and to young with themselves through a of Kant's main was to what one might call a pluralism of by which I mean the common and somewhat view that beauty is in the of the and that differences in are to differences in Kant to show that beauty is and to be the same for all. This was a kind of aesthetic view that so‐called were simply aesthetically in their was the for the of Western in what to be Greenberg was that his critical practice was by Kant's Critique of Aesthetic which he often the on art. In truth, the of might have in the the remarkable of Greenberg's critical could be taken to have a of on Kant's abstract which a from a of painting hardly in his own of Kant's to Greenberg's which to aesthetic that in the New there was Kant's that of beauty are and that they are universally that they are in no sense Greenberg of beauty. interest was in what he in art, which that his could not be to the aesthetics of which would of course have been of interest to In Greenberg that in art can be neither nor by or alone in this the so to of Greenberg's view is that is what is Greenberg Kant for how it was to be or in of aesthetic not think one had to know of the kind that art concerns itself with in to be or about art. he that had the possibility of of art that we or art has nothing to do with once that though he about art, he would be able to out the or three in a They need not be by the by which themselves such but that was because they were by that had to do with aesthetic as he understood was to say, in front of a piece of art, beyond an But that in no sense that one was as Greenberg's in philosophy would have having come to the view that aesthetic is That it was, on the is by Greenberg's way of his and them when the work to be was in front of the as if a the had to to by way of was what aesthetic Greenberg's was through his in artistic in at a when there was on the of to abstract art as This would have art on the New at the New and at the New the to on abstract art, because they have not taken the to of it. enough to be able to the from the in abstract art, no one has the to be on this were who to with Greenberg on could I have been using for Greenberg was the New to in the that made The of his of had about it the of a It him as well as great power in the Greenberg and, more Kant was in their to that there is a of aesthetic qualities, that to be recognized when of language touched on the of aesthetics at about the same that Greenberg dominated critical in I have in an of much it is to be we could for a while about the beautiful and to the and the this in his in his for as this out the that we to use the of ordinary language some interesting were made by such as who to that aesthetic were not It would have been interesting to out if this was the for aesthetic as a for if not, what if there are. not in Greenberg's was But aesthetics took a in the decade to the philosophy of art, I am to say, with my “The which was by and to a by the work of and especially of the became the of art, and that has more or less been the for the philosophy of art was interesting was how a aesthetics in that as as the aesthetic in artistic production and in the increasingly art world, in the and but in and finally everywhere that art was to the The artists that were and the and the in work aesthetics was of since the of art had to with the and the in which aesthetic were at there was a question of aesthetics had really to do with art at all. This was a that from the it had that aesthetic pleasure was what art was all I was fairly about the of aesthetics for art. In my main work in the philosophy of art, The of the I with what I thought of as for a of art is about and hence and that an its which is what art I this by calling works of art In my The of I more or less that aesthetics is than had been and if there were not a namely, that to be a work of art, has to have some aesthetic not beauty, say, not I the that art need have any aesthetic at all. I a distinction between and beauty, and, by between and when stands for any aesthetic that may is what I by beauty. The beauty of an is when it to the I several of this from contemporary art, for the and in In a I thought a was the use that made of beauty in painting the of as beautiful in which like a from the The beauty of was like the beauty of and the of the painting was that for the who must the of this by their the beauty is not in a work of art it which means that it in Kant's “free and In my was to from the aesthetic of and an aesthetics of It is at this point that one might that the distinction the of aesthetic to which and the ordinary language aestheticians in the us consider once In is a had just the that the work was When first the of in it was a for was so and and made so much he was to It was simply a world from my it was like a that In a from that on was the of a made of and from a Kantian to an as when he applied as his for the that they have the of aesthetic that they neither pleasure nor to the They were from the of of they were aesthetic from the that was to in the when aesthetic became an aesthetic to the of the and itself a matter of the way had been for one might say, an aesthetic of of the kind out of which Ágnes Eperjesi her art. It is not easy to describe this but it is easy enough to and it is due to the of itself due to the of making the images easy to read and to understand everywhere in the to a an recognized aesthetic in the images of the that Andy used in his first in in the of on They were the kind of that were on in for and like of the It is the aesthetics of by the need to the that would to the product But that aesthetic gets to be to the works made of as the aesthetics of images gets to be to the work Ágnes Eperjesi on of work show their and from this is not the of The of this is that the to the question of aesthetics into the of pluralism is and It is if we are of the aesthetic of and disinterested contemplation. It is if we are of the way in which aesthetic qualities, of them to as by Kant and are to the of works of art as In the of pluralism has to the of aesthetic far far than aesthetics was able to I would say, that of these aesthetic is as as Kant beauty is in the of the but in the way in which sense are in the of the just as they are. in in the he but this in no sense it from as and and all qualities, not in but in the The is the same with beauty and virtue and This however no more from the reality of the than from that of the were to in the would or be less or is a in the and of to all these the objects of art and and to have the on life and taken the matter to this I must some to view on works of art a in a section of the the of the that he his of The Kant of is not the Kant of Kantian which is on the of I it to to show how my are to his in this section of his the of which shows how Kant was the in that the of was from that alone was not the when it to of products of which we that they at least in as beautiful art, they are without we nothing to in them on the of he means of the and this he goes on to say, no than the of It is of Kant that he will a kind of in to for a when the one might say, is really is as it an that has been in the way it was used by it to what is to is is that he has that is to sense and we a through the than a or a or a Kant as an one of the which we are to that Kant is as a sort of the when in the its does that often one by The in the of ones life and without through the image of a beautiful This is a quite commonplace use of and has nothing to do with as Kant to it “The is one through as in irony or in that the in this Kant's is about the course of a as a way of about the course of a It is a beautiful which need have nothing to do with the beauty of the The just after from the visual is as an in its and as a as a with The power of is made through the that is not than can be a being of must have The image us more than is all alone the of power that an to the to itself a of representations that more thought than can be in a determined by It is in regard to the of that Kant of and of as from the of and as in reference to the of the This was much in the in the when he his In for example, a of for the of of which he was at the must have to the of an namely, that there are no in It in from this that we cannot the practice of painting on the of or on any of text with a to the of the to in full without and to use means for them from the that shows them the way to this or that of text a from the that his work to the of his work, but it a about art. art a and is not that can be ideas have nothing much to do with the aesthetics of and they are what is from Greenberg's who of in his of in art. In a which has to natural and beauty, has to do with art, which in was in the in of what were felt to be of classical beauty. is of that in his one these are hardly of ideal beauty. the of but I to for this work, in the de he for a to and is taken to be the of there is no using painting for of a to and to be in any Greenberg would have this as having nothing essential to do with art at all. was a term of critical in Greenberg's and in formalist own view is that the relationship of aesthetics to art was and The of pluralism has nothing in this But the theory of art as the of it how aesthetic can to the of the work that This I am is what when he at the of his on why artistic beauty is to natural beauty. It is because natural beauty is Kant could have since for him natural beauty is a of and us the sense that the world is not to for has a kind of as the has recently in his natural beauty, as in the of the was an to this kind of But its in works is to their beauty as art. One can that without for a that itself is in the of and The works of Andy I of convey they have as aesthetic what belongs to through their They convey the of the and the that for a will be and that and will finally come Ágnes Eperjesi in the in which products are are of the society in which products are used. They are or better, as her a picture of what like a in her may in be the of a of a woman with a in a while gets into my I can of my (Figure even image of a woman with a is into a of and a on for the of Ágenes Eperjesi.