Octavio Paz: "Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature" Part 003

There is not critical power stronger than that of an academic who crosses borders of artistic criticism at his or her own will. I don't have a problem with Octavio Paz' examination of Pablo Picasso, and I admit readily that most of what he says is dead-on. The only polemic I can bring up is Octavio Paz' constant use of that which contradicts itself in his criticism; sentences say one thing and before they end, they express the complete opposite. At the center of this constant contradiction is Picasso--is there anything more to say about this artist beyond saying his name? Paz' writing narrows down the rebellion of Picasso's art, the non-conformity of every inch of the artist's life, personal and public. Paz' is at once comfortable and ill at ease with Picasso (wow, now I am starting to sound like Paz). Octavio Paz' essay runs along the same lines of Norman Mailer's biography of Pablo Picasso--there's much metaphoric and analogical language to sink a ship and enough contradiction to raise it again from the depths. Paz states that, "The paradox of Picasso, as a historical phenomenon, lies in the fact that is the representative figure of a society that detests representation." Any examination of the chronology of Picasso's work exhibits enough evidence to debunk Paz' statement. Picasso did not represent, Picasso shaped, he led, he transfigured what society held as representative. He led and dictated the idiom of that representation; society be damned if it did not accord to Picasso's view of the world. Critics have labeled each and every one of Picasso's "periods," and even that signification did not make amends between the Catalonian and the rest of the art world. For example, Picasso embraced the brutality of the bullring in his art, producing even what some experts call "menial" advertising copy posters for bull fighting events. I think this harsh criticism (a criticism which also ignores the fact that those "menial" ad posters sell for thousands if not millions of dollars), and this view of Picasso's so-called "menial" work is based on today's incapability to understand the bull fighting tradition. Bull fighting, as explained by Hemingway, the self-declared first aficionado of the sport, is a representation of the ultimate combat between beast and human, perhaps Picasso's struggle against the art world. Having its roots on the great Roman games at the Colosseum, bull fighting represents not only brutality but also a sort of reverent art, a dignified moment for a man to face his ultimate fears and by the ice cold nerve of his own courage, either win or lose the battle. How does this apply to Picasso? In this case I do agree with Octavio Paz. He describes the connection as follows: Picasso, being the essential lone/rebellious artist, comes to embody the bullfighter calling out to his cuadrilla to leave him alone with the beast; the moment has come for him to individually kill or be killed. In this case, art is the beast, and Picasso its tamer. Paz states that "Like all art of this century [the 20th], though with greater ferocity, Picasso's is shot through with an immense negation. He himself once said: 'In order to make, one must make against." We live with the understanding that producing art that rebels against representation is a rebellion against plurality and an attempt at a hermetic singularity; that is to say, to go against the current by leaving behind any sort of influence, to embark in the most pure of all originality that defies the criticism of the day, is not only sacrilegious, but in most cases artistic suicide. Picasso was the first to break the dependence of art on criticism. I am not sure this is Picasso--I mean the interpretation, but Paz' takes it a step further and I begin to understand: "Our art has been and is critical; by this I mean that in the greater works of our day--novels, paintings, poems or musical compositions--criticism is inseparable from creation. I correct myself: criticism is creative. Criticism of criticism, criticism of form, criticism of the human figure and of the visible reality in painting and sculpture. In Marcel Duchamp, Picasso's opposite pole, the negation of our century is expressed as a criticism of passion and its phantoms." We know the visible world by labels, and by labels alone we interpret and criticize. This was the academic tumult of the post World War II era--perhaps what this particular American manifestation brought about. Academics became specialized, concentrated on one of a million forms in order narrow down their critical eye and create by "destroying" the singularity of meaning. Art became feminist, or anti-feminist, Marxist or even Imperialist. These specialized critics narrowed down on what they thought was Picasso's Achilles' heel; the period that propelled Picasso into the "modern" idea of art appreciation. The critics seized Cubism not because it was simple to "break down" into criticism, but because the Blue and the Pink periods of Picasso's artistic representation were difficult to narrow down, to entrap and "abuse." But with Cubism Picasso also had his coup d'etat--as if saying to the so-called interpreters to kiss his royal ass. In the late 1950s, when asked by critics what Picasso and his contemporaries spoke about in their days-long tertulias, he responded that the topic of most interest was where to get cheap turpentine. The critics were outraged. How dare the artist trick us like this! Picasso went to his grave undefeated, a master of his time and his art still speaks of that unanimity.

This is my last entry on "Convergences: Essay on Art and Literature." There's much more to discuss about Octavio Paz' vision of the literal, the lines of meaning and translation, among other themes, but the volume is thick in substance and I don't want to turn this blog into a tribute (however well deserved) to Octavio Paz. I think these entries are enough.

Octavio Paz: "Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature" Part 002

In all written word, there appears to be some sort of level that I can only equate to prophesy. This is the case with Octavio Paz' essay on "The Verbal Contract" and how it affects societies. Mind you here is an Octavio Paz writing in the late 1970s, rabid with theories about how technology influences language. I am a true believer in the after-life, and, if it is as Borges once stated (I have always imagined that Paradise is a kind of library), there has got to be a very confused Octavio Paz trying to reconcile his theories to the "conflict" that our new technology has affected on language. The technology Paz writes about in the essay is essentially television. Television came around in the late 40s and early 50s, but it really took nearly 25 or 30 years for scholars to take a good and critical look at it. Even in the early 1980s, Neil Postman was perhaps the only one looking at it from an academic perspective. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Postman problematizes the epidemic of "educational" television shows and the effect on children who are brought up to believe learning has to be fun, and, even worse than that, educators that embraced (and continue to embrace) the idea that it is imperative to present lessons that are "entertaining and engaging." In this sense, Paz and Postman could have agreed. There's a basic level of rudimentary learning that is not fun, or entertaining, and it is a fundamental part of learning during our earliest years. Many researchers now see the parallel of the argument for "fun" in the classroom with the decline of subjects such as science and mathematics. At any rate, the technology that I wish Octavio Paz had had access to in his time, of course, is the Internet. He states that: "Media, as their name indicates, are not languages. With great brilliance but faulty logic, Marshall McLuhan once tried to demonstrate that the relationship between messages and media was similar in type to that between sound and meaning within language: each medium has a corresponding type of discourse, just as each morpheme and each word emit a meaning or set of meanings.... To a certain degree, the communications media are neutral; no convention predetermines that certain signs will be transmitted and other not. So to speak of the languages of television or films is to use a metaphor: television transmit language, but in and of itself it is not language. It is possible, of course, to say--once again, as figure of speech or metaphor--that there is a grammar, a morphology, and a syntax of television, but not a semantics. Television does not broadcast meanings; it broadcasts signs that convey meaning." I have not reason to disagree, and I strongly believe that his theory becomes even stronger when applied to the Internet, or wireless communications in general. The idea that there are "no semantics" to technology transmitting meaning takes on a life of its own when applied exclusively to text messaging. There, I believe Octavio Paz might have come straight to a dead end; that is to say, text messaging, over the course of just a few short years, has, in fact, developed its own semantics. In this case, symbols do convey the meaning behind the message without having to separate the meaning from the symbol. Various reports about the usage of text messaging by young people conclude that most prefer text messaging to e-mail, and even consider e-mail a thing of the past. I remember the first time--I think it was late 1980s--when I encountered the lexicon of the new technology. I was minding my own business in a chat room (having connected to a local free access Net at the blazing speed of 1200 bauds) when someone made a comment after something I typed. I meant my statement to be humorous, and one of the other people in the chat room typed in "LOL." Well, my interpretation of that was "Loser Online," and you can imagine how I responded. Of course, I was put in my place and realized, even back then, that the technology in this case was molding meaning and that the semiotic convention was evolving too fast to date. Text messaging has its own set of abbreviation meanings that (in my opinion) do convey specific content of semiotic information. Perhaps this is extending the argument, but I am incline to believe that some of the text messaging abbreviated language even crosses cultural boundaries, and, if it is as Octavio Paz states that "Culture is... in the totality of things, institutions, ideas and images that a given society uses, because it has either invented them or inherited them or borrowed them from other cultures. A culture is above all a totality of things..." then there's much to say about the transmission of language and meaning today. Octavio Paz is correct in arguing this premise, and, to his credit, arguing it even beyond his times: if language dictates the development of a culture, and it cannot be transmitted by media in a world dependent almost entirely of media, how then, do we continue to expand knowledge, language, meanings? Perhaps William Gibson's assertion in "Neuromancer," where he coined the term cyberspace, explaining in a rather illogical way that "there's no there there," could have put Octavio Paz in his place. If there's no there, then there's no language or meaning, and whatever is flying around in that space that is not space is not transmittable or meaningful.

I am reminded of the anti-trust case against Microsoft back in the late 1990s. One of the Senators bringing down the heat on Bill Gates asked the present audience to raise their hands if they primarily a Mac based system; only a few hands went up. When he asked to see how many used a Windows based computer, 90% or more of the audience raised their hands. "You see, Mr. Gates," the Senator blared confidently, "that is a monopoly." I sort of disagree with this method of conclusion/logic, but I do have to think of the importance of the Operating System language. If Windows, in all of its mutated versions, is used broadly throughout the world, say, in Kenya, Thailand, Vietnam, England, Belarus, Romania, and South Korea, the design and interface of the system has, by virtue of its plurality, become a language of sorts, meanings, and even semiotics. While the usage of Macs is on the increase, Windows as a media transmitting meaning through its interface language still dominates. Imagine that, Bill Gates turns over Octavio Paz' theories... techno geek against Nobel Prize winner... who to believe?