Comments on: Sol LeWitt and the Soul of Creative and Intellectual Work http://www.dancohen.org/2008/12/07/sol-lewitt-and-the-soul-of-creative-and-intellectual-work/ Covering the intersection of digital technology and research, teaching, and learning in the humanities, including search, data mining, website development and design, and programming. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:12:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Holly Moir http://www.dancohen.org/2008/12/07/sol-lewitt-and-the-soul-of-creative-and-intellectual-work/comment-page-1/#comment-2897 Holly Moir Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:05:56 +0000 http://www.dancohen.org/?p=498#comment-2897 Well put! I agree with your points about the MASS MoCA site, and I also can't wait for the Sol LeWitt retrospective. I read that the exhibit will be spread across a dozen reclaimed industrial buildings, which were abandoned and converted to art spaces. I love this idea of reclaiming abandoned spaces, both at MoCA and closer to home at the Lorton Workhouse, which has been converted to an arts center from a prison that was closed in the 1990s. I like this idea both for the aesthetics of the exhibition space and also because it allows us to re-use buildings in a manner that is more responsible regarding conservation and waste issues. Speaking of unnecessary waste, it is unfortunate that all year Americans and residents of other developed countries generate massive amounts of waste, yet especially at this time of year with the holidays upon us, I find myself questioning both our national identity and personal identities. What is it about Americans that so many of us feel so entitled to so many material goods and possessions? Why do otherwise sane individuals associate the holidays with an orgy of spending and expect an inordinate number of gifts, rather than, for example, helping the less fortunate? It seems products are increasingly associated both with individual and group identity, and this worries me in large part because my dissertation will concern Consumerism, but also because we have a crisis of misplaced values in which goods, rather than symbolizing a quality, have increasingly come to replace those qualities. Thus good parenting is replaced by buying children piles of "educational" toys, and feelings of community are fostered, not by helping our neighbors with yardwork and other chores, but by competing over which house can display the most holiday lights and the most impressive holiday display, complete with life-size neon Santa and reindeer. So forgive me if I sound like a grinch; it's not that I have a problem with goods per se, just the scale on which goods are valued, and what they have come to replace in the larger culture and popular consciousness. In this holiday season, I feel that calls for greater humanity and less greed should not go unheeded. Anyway, this brings me back to my larger point about your blog. You are exactly correct to write about the "fetishization of the object rather than its underlying ideas, a nostalgia that improperly finds authenticity in packaging," and this relates to LeWitt, vintage vinyl, physical books, and Consumerism generally. Thank you for being a voice of reason and remarking so articulately that "The soul of soul isn’t in the vinyl; it’s in the talent and creativity of its makers. The soul of books isn’t in their format; it’s in the ideas of their authors." This is true for any cultural product: the concepts and ideals expressed are what we should value, not the material goods themselves. Thank you for sounding a note of restraint in this holiday season, and also for helping me realize that if I continue to contest the current levels of Consumerism, I should try to get used to e-books and the like, as they have the potential to move the culture away from this unhealthy obsession with objects, and toward a more meaningful relationship with the ideas behind the goods. Holly Well put! I agree with your points about the MASS MoCA site, and I also can’t wait for the Sol LeWitt retrospective. I read that the exhibit will be spread across a dozen reclaimed industrial buildings, which were abandoned and converted to art spaces. I love this idea of reclaiming abandoned spaces, both at MoCA and closer to home at the Lorton Workhouse, which has been converted to an arts center from a prison that was closed in the 1990s. I like this idea both for the aesthetics of the exhibition space and also because it allows us to re-use buildings in a manner that is more responsible regarding conservation and waste issues.

Speaking of unnecessary waste, it is unfortunate that all year Americans and residents of other developed countries generate massive amounts of waste, yet especially at this time of year with the holidays upon us, I find myself questioning both our national identity and personal identities. What is it about Americans that so many of us feel so entitled to so many material goods and possessions? Why do otherwise sane individuals associate the holidays with an orgy of spending and expect an inordinate number of gifts, rather than, for example, helping the less fortunate? It seems products are increasingly associated both with individual and group identity, and this worries me in large part because my dissertation will concern Consumerism, but also because we have a crisis of misplaced values in which goods, rather than symbolizing a quality, have increasingly come to replace those qualities. Thus good parenting is replaced by buying children piles of “educational” toys, and feelings of community are fostered, not by helping our neighbors with yardwork and other chores, but by competing over which house can display the most holiday lights and the most impressive holiday display, complete with life-size neon Santa and reindeer. So forgive me if I sound like a grinch; it’s not that I have a problem with goods per se, just the scale on which goods are valued, and what they have come to replace in the larger culture and popular consciousness. In this holiday season, I feel that calls for greater humanity and less greed should not go unheeded.

Anyway, this brings me back to my larger point about your blog. You are exactly correct to write about the “fetishization of the object rather than its underlying ideas, a nostalgia that improperly finds authenticity in packaging,” and this relates to LeWitt, vintage vinyl, physical books, and Consumerism generally. Thank you for being a voice of reason and remarking so articulately that “The soul of soul isn’t in the vinyl; it’s in the talent and creativity of its makers. The soul of books isn’t in their format; it’s in the ideas of their authors.” This is true for any cultural product: the concepts and ideals expressed are what we should value, not the material goods themselves. Thank you for sounding a note of restraint in this holiday season, and also for helping me realize that if I continue to contest the current levels of Consumerism, I should try to get used to e-books and the like, as they have the potential to move the culture away from this unhealthy obsession with objects, and toward a more meaningful relationship with the ideas behind the goods.

Holly

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