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Creational Aesthetics & the Challenge of Conceptual Art By Creational Aesthetics & The Challenge of Conceptual Art by Steven Félix-Jäger A trend in theological aesthetics is to advocate for a “creational aesthetic” when discussing the ontology and calling of the artist. In its essential form, a creational aesthetic affirms that artists honor the Creator God by creating art. In some way artists are functioning as God’s image when they make art. While this view is popular in the Christian engagement of the arts, it is uncertain if such an observation is the preeminent way of understanding the role of the artist. Can one be considered an artist if he or she is removed from the tactile process of making? In the contemporary artworld, the role of the artist in visual art has come into question with a stronger emphasis on conceptuality over against construction. Is the conceptual art movement of the 1960s, which has influenced so much of contemporary art, at odds with a creational aesthetic? I would like to address this issue first by outlining a sketch of what I have come to call “creational aesthetics.” I will draw on the work of L. Clifton Edwards to show that the Christian narrative of creation is an integral feature of theological aesthetics. I will then engage the work of Donald Brook and artists Henry Flint and Sol LeWitt to discuss the nature of conceptual art. Finally, I will return to the preliminary question concerning conceptualism’s apparent tension with creational aesthetics, and argue for an alternate way of understanding creation that makes room for conceptuality in art. My main dialogue partners in this section are theologians Jeremy Begbie and James Watkins. My thesis is that conceptual art can be incorporated into a more robust creational aesthetic that emphasizes the incarnation and redemption. Steven Félix-Jäger 2 Creational Aesthetics L. Clifton Edwards argues for a creational theology that allows us to grasp beauty and natural revelation as authoritative sources for theological reflection.1 Edwards contends that our knowledge of God is creationally mediated in the created world.2 We are creatures living in a material world, and this world is the arena in which God was ultimately made known in Jesus Christ. While Edwards admits that our experience of God is a “created subjectivity,” creation itself confines our knowledge of God while concurrently making it possible.3 Because creation is aesthetically rich and mediates a new understanding of God,4 we can know God in fresh and profound ways. This occurs by reflecting on the world’s beauty, which echoes the beauty of its Creator. Such enrichment comes from nuanced contemplation of the Creator’s handiwork, and leads one to further explore the implications that surround the doctrine of creation. Herein lies the task of what I am calling a creational aesthetic – the drawing out of principles that concern sense perceptions and the arts in relation to the doctrine of creation. Perhaps one of the clearest articulations of a creational aesthetic was put forth by Abraham Kuyper in his book Wisdom & Wonder when he wrote, “God creates in reality, people create in semblance. God created the living person in the individual of Adam, the artist creates the human image out of marble.”5 Kuyper saw human creativity as an outworking of the imago dei, and since God is the Creator, humans too can create as a fulfillment of their divine purpose. However, since God is the only one who creates ex nihilo, humans create from an already existing created substance. Francis Schaeffer writes, “God, because he is infinite, can create out of nothing by his spoken word. We, because we are finite, must create from something else that Steven Félix-Jäger 3 has already been created.”6 In a creational aesthetic, then, we must understand human creativity as a creaturely act, and as a gift from God.7 The underlying theme that “we create because God creates” is found consistently in a creational aesthetic. Watkins writes, “The desire to pattern one’s creativity after God’s creativity may actually be an attempt to participate in the creative work God is doing in the world.”8 The role of the artist may be more complex than mere imitation, but at the end of the day, the creative acts of a creature reflect those of the first Creator. So if contemplation of the created order leads to a greater understanding of God, and if creation as reproduction allows us to participate in our calling as image-bearers, then what do we make of those artworks that are neither aesthetic nor made? Is it simply the case that such conceptual art is in fact not art, and that those conceptual artists are theorists rather than artists? Avant-garde art, which values concept over percept, seems to have put creational aesthetics at a crossroads: Either one must deem conceptual art as not compatible with creational aesthetics, or one must broaden his or her understanding of creation so as to make room for conceptualism. Before exploring this issue, however, we must take a closer look at the challenge of conceptual art. The Challenge of Conceptual Art As a contrast to the creational propensity towards the physical object, conceptualism claims that art is not indebted to artifactuality, but only to ideas. Donald Brook attempts to explain the meaning of “conceptual art” by distinguishing some defining principles. First, conceptual art is “sensory mode indifferent.” By this Brook means that the concept takes precedence over the percept.9 A percept refers to an object that is perceived, and since aesthetics is a philosophy that deals with perception, conceptualism is an anti-aesthetic form of art. Steven Félix-Jäger 4 Another defining principle is that conceptual art is “sensory mode independent.” By this Brook means that conceptual art is an art of ideas rather than an art of physical objects.10 So conceptual art is indifferent to the senses as it is anti-aesthetic, but is also independent of the senses as it upholds the idea whether or not there is a physical manifestation of it. Finally, conceptual art is a restricted meta-activity.11 This is an essential quality of conceptual art because it properly appreciates the fact that conceptual art comments on the notion of art itself.12 Conceptual art thus carries the mantel of suspicion that grew from the mid-modern meta-discourse concerning the nature and reception of art.13 The conceptual art movement of the 1960s finds its roots in Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the “readymade.” Duchamp famously submitted a urinal as a readymade work of art entitled Fountain to the first exhibition of the American Society of Independent Artists in 1917.14 Duchamp submitted it under the pseudonym “R. MUTT,” in order to conceal his identity so as not to affect the piece’s deliberation. Ultimately Fountain was rejected, as the jury could not find aesthetic value in the work.15 Nevertheless, Fountain has prevailed as a pivotal example of the extent of art in the modern era. In fact, Duchamp was able to radically redefine what is meant when speaking about art. Under Duchamp art no longer needs to exhibit aesthetic value. Duchamp said as much writing, “A point which I want very much to establish is that the choice of these ‘ready-mades’ was never dictated by esthetic [sic] delectation.”16 Duchamp’s agenda was one of destruction by picking apart the concept of art. The first casualty was the idea that art had to require aesthetic value. Duchamp sought to see the word “art” as descriptive rather than evaluative. Art can be good or bad, but the status of a thing’s arthood is not contingent on its aesthetical value.17 He preferred the term “art coefficient” to describe art in its raw state, before its value is assessed.18 A readymade is a work Steven Félix-Jäger 5 of art devoid of aesthetic features, but is nevertheless art as a conceptual object. Urinals are not artworks, but Fountain is. The distinction lies in the appropriation of the object. The distinction is conceptual and intrinsic, not physical and extrinsic. The meaning of the object has changed when it was contemplated as art at an institution of art. When an object’s meaning is changed, the object’s ontology has changed from a piece of plumbing to a work of art. The idea of the readymade caused conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth to make the provocative statement, “All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually.”19 Kosuth claimed that readymades changed the nature of art from a question of morphology to a question of function.20 The change from “appearance” to “conception” marked the start of modern art and the conceptual art movement.21 American artist Henry Flynt is commonly associated with the conceptual art movement of the 1960s. This is in part due to his influential 1961 essay entitled “Essay: Concept Art.” In this essay Flynt defines “concept art” as “an art of which the material is ‘concepts,’ as the material for ex. music is sound.”22 Concept art, for Flynt, supersedes the visual sense arena, and can rather embody any form. It is not the artifactuality of concept art that distinguishes it as such, but rather the idea itself.23 Likewise conceptual art is a cerebral endeavor, and visual artifacts are unnecessary, while common, aftereffects. The difference between Flynt’s notion of concept art and conceptual art as a movement is that concept art focuses on the “artist as thinker,” whereas conceptual art is art that explores concepts over and against the object.
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