The Age of Reason

So... this is difficult. My research into dramaturgy has led me to the

eighteenth century, the 'Age of Enlightenment'. I am reading Diderot, Rosseau and a 1960s' Time/Life book that has lots of pictures of men in wigs. It might be a coincidence, but the legacy of that era seems to be turning up in the debates on YouTube. 

I call them debates, but that's generous. 

To reduce it down to a caricature, one group are progressive liberals, who support a variety of interest groups (including feminists, anti-racists and LGBTQI activists). Their opposition is a broad spectrum of conservatives and right-wing video-bloggers, who reject what they see as a 'social justice crusade'. In this conflict, there are arguments about the shape society ought to take, and the notion of 'Western Civilisation' is a hot topic. 

They accuse each other of racism quite a bit. 

Esoteric as it might seem (or, an attempt to claim that my research is relevant to everything, ever), the legacy of the Enlightenment

looms large in the discussion. Some conservatives even refer to themselves as 'classic liberals', harking back to Adam Smith. A recent article in The Telegraph claims that students at The School of African and Oriental Studies wanted to kick Kant off the curriculum. My own fatuous introduction to The Dialectic of Enlightenment addresses a text that might lurk behind much of the progressive agenda, since it attacks philosophy's bias towards oppression.

Interestingly, both sides of the discussion feature many atheists. It's almost as if this is a debate about how a post-religious society might move towards building a society based not on divine law but rational thought. If they'd all stop shouting, mind.

Much of my reading into the eighteenth century offers a similar scenario: following on from the success of the scientific method, many philosophers wanted to shift the state from its alliance with religion - a task most urgent in France, where the Vatican was in cahoots with the monarchy - and encourage, to paraphrase Kant, the species to grow up and stop using God as a father-figure.

The Enlightenment vision was not as simply rational as its

supporters might suggest: while it did place reason at the centre of its discourse, it manifested in different ways across Europe. Although some thinkers, like Voltaire or Diderot, advocated anti-clerical or atheistic positions, others, like my hero Lessing, maintained an interest in applying reason not to destroy theology but adapting religious belief. However, the shared concerned with the importance of reason over blind faith and tradition, as well as a politically motivated application of reason could be interpreted as marking a decisive change in the focus and function of philosophy. 

Both sides in the YouTube/Social Media war appear to be following certain Enlightenment principles: the conservative bloc aims to establish Western Civilisation as the product of reason and science, while the progressives are advancing the critique of society that evolved in the run-up to the French revolutions. The former emphasise the conclusions of the philosophers, the latter, the spirit.

Interchange Junctions (2)

Interchange Junctions

5 Howick Place, London
10 May - 21 June 2014
Open Day Saturday 17 May 11am - 5pm

Chapter the second

in which the author explores notions of colonialism

indulges in some more churnalism and pseudo-academic debate

asks questions about the nature of artistic quarters 

and ponders the function of critique within art

Interchange Junctions follows on from Yinka Shonibare’s newly commissioned permanent Wind Sculpture, just off Howick Place, which has become an integral part of Victoria’s identity as a vibrant new cultural quarter. Wind Sculpture is a site specific response to the history of the area and continues Shonibare’s focus on themes of colonialism, trade, and race, employing the artist’s signature use of batik Dutch wax fabric designs which have become synonymous with African identity.

Colonialism is one of those few things that I accept as a priori a Bad Thing (along with racism, alcoholism and curries with no vegetables). There is an argument that colonialism is a more complex mesh of influences, generating dynamic cultural hybrids, and I would assign Wind Chime to this tradition. It looks as if it has been Photoshopped into this scene, all jolly colours and imitating a swaying fabric against the stolidity and sternness of the buildings. 

Yet it is intrusive - not entirely unpleasantly so - but an alien presence in the urban space it inhabits. A reminder of colonialism's unwelcome presence, perforce. 

And I worry about this 'Victoria's identity as a vibrant new cultural quarter.' Often, this means gentrification of a once dismal area, given new life by artists who make use of the cheap rents, being followed by the commodification of the area into somewhere the artists can no longer afford to inhabit. Perhaps that is just Glasgow.

Are these the questions that Yinka Shonibare wants to ask? Is this what the patrons were hoping for? The piece works as a cheery interjection, nonetheless...

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Interchange Junctions (1)

Interchange Junctions

5 Howick Place, London
10 May - 21 June 2014
Open Day Saturday 17 May 11am - 5pm

Chapter the first

in which the author freeforms somewhat on a press release,

indulges in some churnalism and pseudo-academic debate

asks questions about the nature of artistic patronage

and ponders the function of capital against religion

Allow me to begin, dear reader, with details from an electronic epistle that I have but recently received. It promises an exhibition of aesthetic splendour that nevertheless flirts like a coquette with many most abstract and portentous ideals.

HS Projects are delighted to present Interchange Junctions, a group exhibition of internationally established and emerging artists examining ideas of colonialism, post colonialism, slavery, cultural exchange and trade. The exhibition examines contested cultural and political histories which carry special resonance at Howick Place, named after Viscount Howick - later 2nd Earl Grey - one of the main architects of the Reform Act 1832, Catholic emancipation and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

It is well that such a man should be remembered in our architecture, for The Great Reform Act is part of the architecture that supports the British notion of democratic freedoms - and the non-partisan espousal of both freedom for slaves and enfranchisement for Catholics represents a sharp diversion from the anti-slavery efforts of others, which would often equate popery with enslavement. The words of Lord Shaftesbury spring to mind, in which he names them as 'sisters.'

Yet this next paragraph did draw my attention.

The exhibition has been made possible by Invesco Real Estate (IRE), the global real estate investment manager and new asset manager of 5 Howick Place and Terrace Hill, the joint developer behind the landmark building with Doughty Hanson.

Yet while I do not subscribe to a Marxist idealism that art should be kept free of the stain of capitalist lucre, nor that art is merely an expression of the economic context, I admit a slight pang at so direct an association of commerce with creativity.

This is mere hypocrisy on my part: do I not often thrill at those Renaissance paintings, funded by the aristocrats or the church, which would have arguably been better spent on those compassionate works enjoined by Christ? And the more contemporary debate of governmental funding for the fine arts: how many hospitals could have been built with that money?

I am silent on these matters, and my pang at the commercial here is merely knee-jerk sentimentality, a romantic ideal that art may be formed without financial constraint or direction. And the pride of those companies in announcing their support is a reminder, a clarion call, to address the process of capitalist manipulation of aesthetics, the commodification of art into an object of price rather than worth. It is oddly more honest that the pieta that hides the patronage of a church or monastic order in its elegant form.