High Church

 

Expressionism / Paul Klee/ Ad Parnassum

I have some favorite rants.  One of my favorite ranters is Caitlyn Johnstone.  This is a snippet from one of her recent pieces.

“Look at her, just staring at her phone like a zombie,” the middle-aged woman said in a loud stage whisper which was clearly intended to be heard.

“She’s sitting in an art museum, right in front of a genuine Monet, and she’s staring at her phone,” said her husband, not even bothering to whisper.

“Guarantee you if someone had shown Monet an iPhone while he was painting that piece of shit he woulda dropped his brush and forgotten all about it,” said the girl without looking up. [1]

I have been pondering the cell phone and it’s brood sister the internet for a long time now.  I can’t really see it lasting, but damnme if it isn’t going to stir shit up while it is here.  

The reason that this piece kinda worked for me is that things are being judged now out of their historical context.  This is a very dangerous and very enlightening thing to do.  I kind of rail against the judgement of individuals out of their historical context, but I think that judging the products of art and science outside of their historical context is fair game.

The culture is currently in a huge experiment with interconnectivity.  Consider if you will the milieu occurring in the above example.  Middle-aged folks coming to worship at a physical museum and submerging themselves in art.  Kind of a high-church moment.  I can imagine that the woman passing judgement would use the stage whisper described to speak to her husband of her take on the theology being expressed by the Monet in question.  This is not so much to inform her husband that she took a couple of art appreciation courses at the state college, but instead it is a assertion of status.  That she is a paying member of the high church of culture.

The young woman with the snarky reply was not of the high church.  But if you consider the scene closely, I would make a bet that while she was in front of the Monet in question(I am imagining this one), she had already snapped a picture and sent it to her friends with a discussion thread going strong.   The friends might well have used the picture as a seed for a back and forth about the impressionists in general.

The medium is the massage.  The actual museum itself is as real a social construct as the internet.  It is a place where art can be seen and ideas can be exchanged.  It is itself an artifact of the past.  The internet is our attempt at the true democratization of ideas.  

I am reminded of the European reformation.  I think that the dead hands of the old guard arbiters of fashion and taste are being challenged.  Folks whose self-image and status feel challenged by such things.  

Too bad for them.

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[1]  and as you who stop by and visit know, my love for the impressionists is pretty damn deep seated.