What does Momus mean by formalism

Are you talking about Art Deco? If so, aren't you confusing it with Art Nouveau / Jugendstil?

momus momus momus

Does saying his name three times mean he'll appear?

I agree in some way that the foregrounding of form over content (my definition of Formalism) might be a sign of decadence in culture. The communists used to accuse the art of the west of 'decadent Formalism'. Extreme Formalism often gets called Mannerism, and is a sign that a society is going to the dogs, according to conservatives.

All art has formal properties but (I can't seem to make this point enough) not all art is Formalist. The difference is that Formalism proposes its formal methodology as its main content, whereas other art uses form as a vehicle for content (opinions, stories, jokes, gossip, views, politics, personality...).

Formalist art isn't normally illustrative or narrative, and tends not to refer to any sort of world beyond the one it creates by means of purely formal attributes like colour or sound, or techniques like editing or sampling. Formalist art is often 'empty', zen-influenced, repetitive or minimalist, because emptying art of stories, jokes, opinions and worldviews is a good way of making people focus on form- as-content.

Formalist art tends to reject language, at least insofar as language is used representationally. A Formalist canvas is probably entitled 'Untitled' to show how much the artist wishes to avoid any sort of reference to the world through language, for fear we will see his painting as a picture 'of' something. Formalist pop music artists like Autechre (or my favourites, Dymaxion and Scratch Pet Land) abandon lyrics and use mangled and meaningless titles for much the same reason. For instance, SPL's 'Solo Soli iiiii' album has tracks called 'ki.,er', 'd..,' and 'n no'.

[Goes back into his bottle]

plump idm-nerd girls plump idm-nerd girls plump idm-nerd girls

If we go by Momus's description (which is clear enough for even a dunderhead like me to understand), the ultimate in Formalist music would, like Zen, be only silence, just as a blank canvas might be the last word in painting. Or is the other way 'round--a painting so thick with paint it's black, a musical composition so dense it has become nothing but white noise? But it seems no one could ever achieve either total blankness or blackness, so we're left with an infinite variety of grays to discriminate amongst. Suddenly I'm feeling very Japanese today.

The accusation of formalism = decadence doesn't - or at least, shouldn't - be a barrier to its use, as it if anything a symptom of the society's decadence (an intellectual overripeness?) rather than a primary cause. Communists would hardly be satisfied by just a revolution in art. So let Momus have his fun.

Formalism is like if an alien was viewing earth's art and couldnt understand what everything was suposed to MEAN and could only appreciate the sensory values. So its like art through the alien's eyes.

I like that alien music description! But why, and how, do we "understand" music?

The ultimate in formalist art wouldn't be a blank canvas, but a canvas painted white, like an early Rauschenberg. Just like the ultimate in a formalist recording wouldn't be a blank tape but a recording of silence.

The opposite to formalist art would probably be something like Erased De Kooning Drawing, also by Rauschenberg - which although it's pretty much a "blank" piece, relies on it's title for it's meaning (it does exactly what it says on the tin), so I guess the opposite to formalist music would be a deleted copy of a (fairly significant) recording.

I think...

i think the blank ideas more than celebrating the form treat it as a frivolity. perhaps as a critical excercise it draws one's attention to the presence of form, but shies from any presentation of the possibilities of form. which is why a short dash on a canvas or the most minimal of music can be so striking. as formalist art isn't a presentatoin of a medium but the application of it.

"The ultimate in formalist art wouldn't be a blank canvas, but a canvas painted white, like an early Rauschenberg. Just like the ultimate in a formalist recording wouldn't be a blank tape but a recording of silence."

Hmm perhaps. On that topic I remember reading in a book that Stockhausen wanted to construct a machine that would combat any and all sound waves in the area with inverse signals, thereby cancelling them out....

The point of the white canvas as shown by Rauschenberg etc is that it isn't a blank canvas at all, the canvas is full of action. There's a constant play of light/shadow across the canvas which picks out/hides the texture of the paint/brushwork. The painting doesn't refer to some event taking place elsewhere, as with a 'representational' painting, the event takes place on the canvas itself. Obviously, this event takes place on all paintings, just most of the time we choose to ignore it and sometimes we get annoyed with it.

But this is a minimalist idea, rather than a formalist one. Formalism, to my mind, is kind of minimalism's younger, cooler brother. It's kind of like minimalism but it drinks Sunny Delight. It's Minimalism on roller-skates.

well i didn't know the detail of Rauschenberg idea but i think my point still stands - that such a text doesan't really use the possibilities of a medium, only suggests them. and though i find such positive nihilism quite appealing, i like content. sound, image, moves me. i like the idea of not taking on any particular structure, but as the Pitchfork review of Scratch Pet Land suggests, the vaguest, faintest melody or shape enriches a text immesurably.

i really hate sunny delight. it's disgusing. it's like diluted acid and sugar.

that stockhausen idea is great, purely because in scientific terms it's impossible, as you can't anticipate waves, the inevitable reaction from an action needs response time. and while to hear a deadly silent wortld would be cool for the imagined nostalgic misreadings of what was once present, the only possible machine might be able to response moments after, so you could listen to the whole world in glitch.

Art no longer becomes a vessel ,iy becomes a thing unto itself. It is a well dressed snake eating its own tail. Decorative formalism has its place and often great works can be created from them ( The Importance of being Earenst,Tinoretto drawings). We appreciate the cleanness, the aristocratic gelding ( pun intended) . However the lack of content makes everything hermetic, we die for lack oxygen. We cannot last. As well it often becomes excessive and lapses into camp,pastiche and self parody.

man, that 'saying something three times' thing, what a fuckin scam.

ethan ethan ethan

i told you hanley, it's bullshit, you cu- oh.

I was listening to the most recent Nas record, and I realized that in a few lines he captures the significance of form:

"No idea's original/ There's nothing new under the sun/ It's never what you do/ But how it's done."