A Man Looking at A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, A Review — Part 4
4. Hustvedt’s grayness of the truth. Her analysis of the works of personalities like Kiefer, Picasso, Heidegger, Mapplethorpe and Almodovar. My reflections on Hustvedt’s arguments and on the purpose of the different arts and photography.
Anselm Keifer
When talking about artist Anselm Keifer’s work, Hustvedt addresses gray, where she said, ‘The truth is always gray,’ (Hustvedt, p. 36) to which I agree 100%. This is why I can’t believe that Heidegger is a true Nazi or that the protagonist in my book is nothing more than an observer. I think that he is fixated on the female as an object, but in the sense that he is a victim of the lack of one of Maslow’s needs. He dwells in self-actualization but does not have sex. There is ambiguity in this state. It isn’t healthy. It is stunted, strained, and absurd. The American is inundated in a puritanical world. As a Capitalistic slave, he belabors hopelessly as a cog in an unwanted wheel that turns unattractively unless and until he can dismiss himself. But, no one can. It is a perfect enslavement. As a consumer, he circulates in a web of unachievable self-esteem. His worth is measured by his consumptive capacity. He is measured in terms of his financial worth. He serves as a provider, who only wants to conquer, not so much to rule and keep. He doesn’t want more than the object he desires. He doesn’t want to pull away the veil that reveals her humanity, her hopes, and desires, which speak of self-sacrifice.
Hustvedt calls Robert Musil “the great Viennese author,” (Hustvedt, p. 36). Having read his book to which she refers: The Man Without Qualities, I understand her opinion. I loved this book, beautifully written but nothing like Being and Time; Musil’s is a book about existence along the narrow scope of one man’s view vs. Being, which is to be in the world as it is as all men’s and women’s, insects’, animals’, etc., perspectives and activities. One puts you linguistically into reality, while the other narrates one person’s view. My book does the same as Musil’s, however as a limited view, one sexual, where I cannot remember such a going off in Musil’s whole treatise. In fact, I do not remember Musil’s protagonist even considering sex. Lucky him. Does he intellectualize it? Does he fetishize it in some manner that I could not perceive? Instead, like Proust, he is more interested in the crafting of reality, while Proust hints at unrequited love.
Hustvedt said that, “Musil’s books were banned by the Nazis,” (Hustvedt, p. 37) I can’t understand this, except in terms of the definition of Romanticism if the Nazi’s weren’t; where Musil is certainly individualist, inspired, and subjective. I guess the Nazis wanted group mentality and submission to militaristic hordes. Inherently, however, a book like Musil’s is probably read by very few people and thus why would the Nazis be afraid of it, except that like Capital and conservatives hate for it, it is not something you would have to read to fear.
In terms of my books, I doubt the Nazis would even care, except as Trump cronies might in using it against me as a puritanical bust. I see them plowing through it and giggling with a group, militaristic male mentality, then like the famous scandalized Evangelical profit waving the books at me and screaming: “SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!”
Hustvedt said that Musil’s books were banned by the Nazis. I wonder if they would ban mine? I talk about unrequited love and if Nazis were in power; I would probably be talking about them. Musil seemed to write like Proust less the sexual references. It has been awhile. I will have to go back and check.
Hustvedt’s comments on artist Kiefer’s “gray zone” as “definition breaks down, and ordinary language become inadequate, little more than syllables of pure nonsense” in that she assumes a limited ability to converse about “another mode of expression is required, one that can hold painful contradictions and agonizing ambiguities.”
Kiefer’s work is rudimentary and highly representative of the actual dwellings and landscape of the Holocaust. There is nothing particularly creative other than the filter of the media. None seem to actually capture the horror. Moreover, they are simple depictions of the place. A true artist is capable of making you feel the holocaust as an event in time. Perhaps, his art is testimony to the absence today of anything like what actually happened. I think there are cross-manifestations in the Congolese and Hutu and Tutsi massacres.
Hustvedt said that, “Reenactment implies identification, a memorial repetition that brings the past into the spaces of the present,” (Hustvedt, p. 35). To this I say that as an artist, one would hope that the work of an artist was to constitute a reenactment. I want to know what it was like to be a member of the death camps if the Holocaust is at issue. Art communicates the emotion of the artist, who communicates the message he is receiving. I am of the opinion that Kiefer’s presence on the artistic landscape is due to his representations of the forms of the Holocaust and that he may appeal to the basic idea of the Holocaust and Jews have supported him. But, in terms of art, I am little impressed. You can do the actual communication architecturally, as I have done with a proposal for The Capitalism Museum, which includes small rooms, where people have to crouch to enter and remain. They are no larger than the width of a single bed and chest of drawers beneath a small shaft leading up from the basement to a skylight, one of many along a long, low cement wall (See: https://savioni.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/museum-of-capitalism-proposal-by-mario-savioni/). The medium is the message, according to McLuhan, which of course is not that he meant this interpretation of his statement, but here I am saying that with art, you have to choose the correct means to communicate the message of hopelessness and horrible confrontation with self-perceived superiority. I think what Kiefer is missing is the clarity and austerity in the German personality, where a clean line, not a muddy puddle, speaks of the horror, the seeming discipline of a people, who were willing to dispose of a people with religious differentiation.
I agree with her that, “The metamorphoses of memory and imagination may leave permanent marks on us,” (Hustvedt, p. 35) because if the current actions of the Jews is any indication, the abused abuse. I perceive an inherent mistrust by Jews of any perceived enemy. Their settlements continue to force the Palestinians out of the West Bank. They can’t even see that they are, in effect, behaving much like the Nazis. Maybe they have learned that might makes right. But, if history is any indication, this posture only lasts for a short time and the destruction left in its wake inevitably leads to what the Jews have become; nature will seek an equilibrium.
I must be one of Hustvedt’s dismissers of Keifer’s work. She talked of the “thick[ness of] intentional meanings,” (Hustvedt, p. 36). The only thickness I see is that of paint to extend the filter of the obvious. There is controversy apparently of what his meanings are.
Hustvedt said, “Films and photographs exist as documentary records, but these cannot make art,” (Hustvedt, p.37). How silly. Has she never seen a Jean-Luc-Godard film or one by Andrei Tarkovski? Has she never seen a photograph by Robert Bechtle? She dismisses the art of filmmaking and fine art and editorial photography. I think this is her problem. She is not aware that while she criticizes art she remains stiff and I bet in her condemnation of fantasizing men (assuming she is hetero) that she suppresses her own sexual passions.
Pombo i Sallés disagrees with the above. She said that she doesn’t think “Hustvedt really dismisses the aforementioned arts. She is just being critical of how an excess of objectification harms the human being, especially women. I believe, like you, those arts are a means to capture ephemeral beauty, and beauty is what the artist, male or female, admires and, therefore, wants to capture and achieve catharsis. The problem of our current times is where do we set the border of human respect between excessive objectification and the right amount necessary for any artist, lover, etc.? And that applies not just to women, but to all human beings. As for ‘she suppresses her own sexual passions’… that is just your interpretation but, yes, some of us, women, do that. It is due to: A) Puritanism and other fanatic interpretations of other world religions, which is a way for a male dominated system to control women thus banning them from experiencing sexual pleasure, B) the fear of losing control over ourselves and being abused by a man and, finally, C) it is the fear of getting pregnant and having children.* I admit B and C have too often crippled my sexual desire. If I had your angioplasty would I die immediately because of having no sex drive?”
Hustvedt said, “Richter’s series Atlas, includes pictures from death camps, which Richter himself said were unprintable,” (Hustvedt, p. 37–38). I understand that like child porn, the images are, in effect, recreating the crime. And yet, unlike child porn, there is a sobriety and lesson for people, who don’t believe. They might need to see, but then you have to wonder if they even have the capacity to accept or imagine that people are so cruel to each other or that gang mentality is apparent?
Hustvedt said that, “Kiefer has memories as in an heir to the crimes of his parents,” (Hustvedt, p. 38). As I contemplate the title of the section (“A Woman Looking At Men Looking At Women”) within which this statement exists, I wonder its relevance. Is she talking about her father committing crimes against women? If so, what is she saying? She does say, “Parents,” which make them both guilty, but then what crimes are specific to men and women Nazis? In terms of my book, I guess you could say that as a Nazi, I might be afforded certain freedoms to take advantage of women, who I might not otherwise get to lord over if it were not for such a dictatorship? The question would always be about infatuation. Could I live with myself if I took advantage of women?
Hustvedt said that Mapplethorpe’s classical images make no attempt at movement, (Hustvedt, p. 40). I hardly think that this was the point. The point was still life and classical portrayals and yet content that was controversial, at least to the general public. It has been said, perhaps by Hustvedt, that his art was so convulsive to conservatives that they thought he was undermining civilization itself. He wasn’t even a man “looking at women,” although he depicted several women. He was gay. The import was not sexual for him, I would think. She might have complained that he, as a gay man, made certain negative statements about women.
She confirms my supposition: “Unlike painting, someone needs to make an effort to capture a living person in motion,” (Hustvedt, p. 40). She says the “Still lives in the works are still, lifeless,” (Hustvedt, p. 40). People do capture people in motion, take sports photographers, for example, and as a photographer, I am well aware of the technology and application of the technology, if I want motion to make a point, I simply include it. It is not denied. Artists don’t think that way. We use media and techniques to illustrate the eloquence of ideas. Back to her theme, (Women Looking at Men…) is she saying that women have to be rendered in motion to justify their inclusion in photographs? Is she watching men take photographs of women and want the women in those photographs to be moving? To imply movement, images have to be blurred, this implies greater impersonalization, which I might assert is Hustvedt’s point? Does she want personalization and less objectification? I find in the stills of women by Richard Learoyd that while they are naked or not, we get a sense of their depth and breadth and our own triviality. Perhaps, as a man this is the case. Maybe women have some other experience.
Mapplethorpe, Hustvedt said, strove to create perfection, (Hustvedt, p. 40). She says there is a Mapplethorpe fantasy or at least she questions the work in the context of a fantasy, (Hustvedt, p. 40). She says that the formal aesthetic removes the viewer from overt sexual content. Greek culture was openly homoerotic. Mapplethorpe alludes to this homoerotic conventionality. Erotic images carry the threat of arousal and went underground after the Greeks, (Hustvedt, p. 41)
Hustvedt said that, “The history of art is full of women lying around naked for erotic consumption by men. Those women are mostly unthreatening, aren’t they? Hustvedt said this, but she had just said that erotic images, in general, pose the threat of arousal, so the arousal is shared by both genders and I would assume if arousal is the threat, then everyone is threatened, (Hustvedt, p. 41).
Pombo i Sallés said to the above that “Everyone is threatened, but we, women, are the most threatened because of the A, B and C I have explained before.* If we have felt and feel the most threatened, do not be surprised that we tend to give, instead, much more importance to the intellectual side of a man or of any person, to their good-heartedness than to their physical and sexual attractiveness. I think this is even more relevant to educated women like me and to great female writers like Hustvedt. Our level of awareness is just higher than in more simple and less educated women.”
Hustvedt questions Mark Stevens’ dissection of a body into eroticized parts, and then asks aren’t many sexual fantasies reductive, machine-like, and often faceless? Hustvedt says this about stories from Sade to The Story of O.
A static image of a person is performed for the sake of achieving the utmost clarity of the detail of the object. A dissection, perhaps, for the objectifying man is an attempt to deconstruct what as a whole might be so powerful to persuade. Also, he can examine the parts in a kind of dehumanizing way to therefore abort his general interpretation? What does any of it matter, when I for one will admit the attractiveness of a woman, who might present the right kind of lines? But, we all know it is more than that. Even for a woman adorned in cosmetics and garb, some layering to complement a disguise or a mask, she leaves reality and withdraws. How do we capture the object of beauty and such power lest we stop all action to get an idea about what it is we are staring? Even Jeanette Winterson in her book Art Objects suggests standing before a work for a couple of hours to thus respectfully grant it enough attention to attempt to understand and respond to what nuances one would assume a work of art in a gallery or museum would imply. I tell you, as a man, that a woman poses deep mystery even though she is almost like a man in the sense we are of the same species, one of us is male and one is female. But, so much is told to a man through his senses when looking. I cannot speak for women, but for men, a woman is more magic than the greatest work of art, and thus I question Hustvedt’s ignorance or inability to appreciate that. Notwithstanding, women have a right not to be stared at. They know when they are being considered even if that person’s eyes are looking in the opposite direction. It is a sense. Thus, in this moment, I don’t even dare look at the woman I saw for a moment leaving the restroom as I ordered my tea and followed her svelte form in dark yoga pants and brown T as she made a right into the back of the cafe. But, I did go back there to sit and I have stolen a few glances but only after I felt she looked at me and I didn’t look back. I feel having looked at her, she could feel my passion. The point now is how are we ever going to get together? I don’t need to look anymore. She is doing what any great art work does; she creates catharsis.
Hustvedt determines that she is looking at an image, where the fantasy is one of control and then further clarifies that the photographer is the master of the image and participates in the submission of the subject, (Hustvedt, p. 42). But I say that he is not a master of an inanimate thing and he/she does not participate in the submission of the subject. An image is a thing, unless it exists as a tool in revenge porn, for example, but the image should not be seen as submitting anyone, unless, for example, it represented a person, who might influence the subject, directly or indirectly, or it was used as a general image to represent women as a whole. I would imagine however that the subject would want to present the best representation of their self, but, and yes where a master photographer is concerned, there is a point being made that should hold as artistic. This is where photography as art is validated, but for Hustvedt to basically dismiss all attempts is ridiculous. Anyone can produce a great work. The task is not reserved to masters. I have taken all still art photography classes at a major university and had a one-man “master’s equivalent” show and I know that many images were accidental and by my eye, I am able to recognize them. As a street photographer, as well, I have come upon visual events that I knew were metaphorical/visually important and therefore strove to capture them.
Hustvedt, more specifically, addresses Mapplethorpe: “If pornography is a vehicle for orgasm, then Mapplethorpe does not want to make a pornographic image,” (Hustvedt, p. 42). Pornography is a means to arouse, but Mapplethorpe is probably not interested in this. And yes, for him, although because I am not gay and not aroused by naked men and their penises, I cannot confirm that his activities are not arousing for him and those who are also gay, and so on. As an artist, and as Hustvedt proposes, “He wanted to show subversive content in a weirdly heroic form,” which to me is Hustvedt’s hang up, in thinking that it was weird “and [he] introduces irony, [whereas] Achilles [is shown] as a sex slave, [where] what was once seedy is reinvented through aesthetic form.”
To the above, Pombo i Sallés said, “[Hustvedt and I were] both reasoning in different ways, which is fine. I am well aware of how penis size is of vital importance to you, men, and even to many women. Not to me, for sure. I am interested in a man’s mind, in his good-heartedness, in his spirituality and in his intellect. Patriarchy has educated us to place too much value on penises. I think this is what Hustvedt is trying to express here and not that she considers, according to your words that “A penis is no more than a baseball bat to her.” Haha, I like how you have expressed this. It made me laugh. I have just told my husband Sergi about this sentence and he says it is a great metaphor.”
Pombo i Sallés again: ‘“”But, why would anyone elect to be with a man, who did not give them an orgasm?” The answer is very simple, Mario, for fear of A, B and C.’*
Hustvedt says that the “Inability to get what you want is exciting,” (Hustvedt, p. 42). I think it is depressing, the opposite of exciting, more like flaccid-inducing, or frustrating. Yes, undressing can be fun to watch or sense in granting the person their privacy, or not. Who remembers that part? For Hustvedt “Penises are so ordinary [emphasis hers], (Hustvedt, p. 42)” I will tell you that vaginas are not ordinary! She takes a sexual element and finds no sex in it. A penis is no more than a baseball bat to her. Then she goes on to say that, “Penises in Greek art were of modest size,” (Hustvedt, p. 43) which implies that there is nothing amazing in that. Then she says: “Greeks, however abhorred by what was suggested as monstrous,” (Hustvedt, p. 43) which means that the Greeks were abhorred not by the penises but by the suggestion that they were monstrous, which, in effect agrees with her statement that no they weren’t monstrous, they were ordinary. As a man, I am comforted that their penises were “of modest size,” whatever that means? I have no idea what Hustvedt’s penis experiences are, but she has seen Mapplethorpe’s models, who by my account are rather large and so I guess that in relationship to the Mapplethorpe models, yes the Greek penises are modest. Modesty is a weird word in reference to penises. No penis seeks to be modest. It wants to be recognized and seen as powerful. As a modest man, I often cringe at the hot spring, given the long dongs that seem to imply, given my own proportional growth, that they must become trunked extravaganzas when erect. Still, I have heard my greatest lover say that I was “perfect.” I think it came as a surprise to her. Another lover said that she had a man, who was larger, but it hurt. Who wants to hurt the one they love? No one complained to me of not having an orgasm, but maybe they were shy? But, why would anyone elect to be with a man, who did not give them an orgasm?
While Hustvedt complements Gustave Courbet’s painting “Origin of the World” for its depiction of a woman with her legs open as beautiful, erotic, and ordinary, (Hustvedt, p. 43). She says that, “There is no dream in Mapplethorpe of the maternal,” (Hustvedt, p. 43). What the hell? So now everything has to be drawn through a maternal sieve? Yes, Almodovar breaks down thresholds and his characters are idiosyncratic, and his movies are personal plays with gender differences and mixes, whereas he has hermaphroditic sensibilities. Still, Mapplethorpe made us aware of the beauty of man and better still, black men, by making white males face what had been in the prejudicial vernacular as a fear of black men’s penises, which were frightfully believed to be huge and satisfying and thus seen as a threat. And sure enough Mapplethorpe presented some grand and perfect specimens to prove the point. All those fears were true. Black men have among them big penises and even if they aren’t all well-endowed, a couple of examples were enough to make the point.
Hustvedt does admit that Mapplethorpe “Scared the daylights out of conservatives in a way that Almodovar does not. Mapplethorpe was seen as a threat to societal order, family values, heterosexual marriage…,” (Hustvedt, p. 43).
Hustvedt said that Almodovar’s work is about proliferation vs. Mapplethorpe’s (reduction and simplification), (Hustvedt, p. 43). I don’t think that way about Mapplethorpe. His ideas are profound in that they corner a prejudice and by exposing it, it works it’s way into the hearts and minds of viewers’, as art affects an intolerance of prejudice. The density and complexity of Almodovar could be that he is a filmmaker and a film deals with time and a number of ideas being presented in the movie. Mapplethorpe’s is emblematic of a deep set misalignment with the truth. Both are perfect artists insofar as art is concerned. I don’t know why she is putting one down and lifting the other. She has the audacity to say that, “Photographers point as voyeurs look[ing] at real people and things, what appear… is an imaginary reality, produc[tive] of not what is there, but of their dreams, fantasies, and wishes,” (Hustvedt, p. 45). In advancing that all photographers portray real life as their dreams, fantasies, and wishes, she is dismissing her own involvement with reality. She effectively dismisses the artistic effect. Does she not know that art is an emotional communication, as Tolstoy said? I am not sure where she is going with this. She does admit that Almodovar and Mapplethorpe deal with the ‘drama of seeing,’ but it is not dramatic to see but to symbolically apply or reference the meaning in a view.
Pombo i Sallés said, “I know too little about Mapplethorpe, Almodóvar and Wenders to give you an opinion on this part of your essay. I have just seen some Mapplethorpe works on the Internet and I like them very much. I loved a film with Pina Bausch dancing in an exhibition dedicated to her legacy in Germany and also took part in a dance workshop where we learnt some of her techniques.”
