Dood, Where's My Philosopher?

I've spent an afternoon reading anthropology texts and lecture notes for a 3 page critical annotation and an additional 3 page critical commentary. I'm not quite sure what that is either, but I am writing my way through it, making some interesting connections between Ethnographies of the Particular and Horkheimer and Adorno's The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. Ethnographies of the Particular is a term that refers to a push for ethnography to examine individuals within culture and the power dynamic between individual agency and society. It comes from a holistic approach to anthropology, and my professor has written an interesting, yet overly idealistic article that I get to write said 3 page critical annotation on.

As usual, I immediately picked up Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment to contrast with the article. I seem to have some form of self-reflexive schadenfreude and insist on trying to make those Frankfurt Philosophers relevant to everything I'm learning. Sometimes it's a stretch, but, surprisingly, most of the time they fit perfectly.

The main problem with re-reading Horkheimer and Adorno (the first time in about 1 year), is that it systematically enlightens me to the bullshit of capitalism and reminds me that I really have no choices in life and I'm going to have to take the hard route to any form of meaningful happiness. Then I re-read this passage and had to stop:

Like it's counterpart, avante-garde art, the entertainment industry determines its own language, down to its very syntax and vocabulary, by the use of anathema. The constant pressure to produce new effects (which must conform to the old pattern) serves merely as another rule to increase the power of conventions when any single effect threatens to slip through the net. Every detail is so stamped with sameness that nothing can appear that is not marked at birth, or does not meet with approval at first sight

Adorno, T. et al. 'The Culture Industry' p. 128
Cumming J. Dialectic of Enlightenment
UK: Verso, 1979 ISBN: 0860917134

Oh the pressure! This puts a lot of responsibility on an artist to determine their purpose and position within the Culture Industry. If art is to be the 'hammer that shapes' rather than the 'mirror that simply reflects' (Trotsky), then it can not function as simply serving the convention. I know through my studies of Art History, there have been periods of art making that have thoroughly, while abeit, unsuccessfully, attempting to subvert, change or openly challenge the convention. Through a historical analysis, I don't think now is one of those times.

We are in a lull of artists simply re-affirming the anathema already established by art critics, the demands of the art market and the pervasiveness of mass culture. I thought to myself, "this simply can not be true! I am making a reductionist generalisation!". I immediately jumped on to the MOMA website to see what is currently playing at the established establishment.

Comic Abstraction: Image Breaking, Image Making

Wow. It even says in the exhibition description that this is a played out concept simply with a twist.

I am making a demand that we, as the current artists, need better philosophers. We can't simply keep on going back to Adorno, Horkheimer, Trotsky, Marcuse, etc. for the gas to light our fire. Do contemporary philosophers even make any demands on art? Or has the convention of conceptual art outlived itself and philosophers are now focusing on bigger fish? The internet, mass media, sociology and other disciplines have pretty much put themselves in the forefront of social importance. Art: you have officially put yourself on the backburner.

As Stephen Colbert would say, "Art, I'm putting you on notice!"