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Conclusion
Supporters of Mapplethorpe feel that the artist was the victim of the
combined forces of homophobia and conservatism; this is certainly true,
but that does not mean that the "defenses" of Mapplethorpe constitute a
true championing of his art. The trial formalists clearly could not deal
with the homosexual content, which it acknowledged only as "disturbing"
or "troubled," or as a product of Mapplethorpe's interest in "Homo erotic
art." But it was precisely—and perhaps sadly—this loss that saved the day,
for exploiting the numerous fissures in its own theories, the formalist
defense could cleverly avoid and disguise its own biases. Its very strength
of looking at bodies from the neutered perspective of a scientific professionalism
helped the jurors see that one could be dispassionate in the face of nudity.
It could operate on its conservative authority in the museum field and
on its tattered but still potent history.
The prosecution's argument—despite the bigotry that might have fueled
it—was aiming for an unedited philosophical resolution. It was highly suspicious
of the museum
in a way that put liberal defenders of the museum to shame. The jury was
obviously unable to philosophize on the photographs themselves, and though
they made the right legal decision, it was one of default. But if the jury
was reticent to philosophize directly in front of the photographs, this
call for immediacy, even when done in defense of Mapplethorpe, turned out
to be no saving grace. Danto, in his well-intentioned attempt to remind
us of the power of the images, fell back into an early formalist revivalism
replete with all its male biases, arrogance, and subjectivism. Is the vivid
"experience" of an artwork the functional center of a transcendent, intersubjective
"liberal" truth based on national values, or is it merely a dubious fiction
in a narcissistic discourse? Is the search for immediacy an immunity against
dangerous conservative abstractions, or a disease itself? Is it a protection
against alienation in the bourgeois world, or is it a representation of
that alienation? And finally, is the celebration of the human significance
of art not circularly constructed in the performance of philosophy in support
of art-capitalism?
But is it art? The numerous circularities, reversals, paradoxes, and
artificial demands by conservatives and liberals that we de-aestheticize
art on the one hand, or as Danto suggests, that we hyper-aestheticize
art on the other—that we become a cynic in the cause of truth, or a naive
in the cause of cynicism—leaves little room for deciding if there is a
"truth" to Mapplethorpe's art. All we know is that museum professionals,
art investors, and liberal theorists "know" that it is art. But as all
these domains touch, in one way or the other, whether through the space
of the museum, the professionalism of art analysis, or the experientialism
of twentieth-century aesthetic theories, there is no outside position—except
that of time itself, perhaps—that will answer the question.
Mark Jarzombek |