Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists: Challenges, Practices, and Complexities [1st ed.] 9783030392321, 9783030392338

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists (Christopher Wiley, Ian Pace)....Pages 3-15
Front Matter ....Pages 17-17
The Artist Is Present: Scandal and the Academic Study of the Living Artist (Lorraine York)....Pages 19-37
From Vocational Calling to Career Construction: Late-Career Authors and Critical Self-reflection (Hywel Dix)....Pages 39-63
The Purpose of the Written Element in Composition PhDs (Christopher Leedham, Martin Scheuregger)....Pages 65-90
Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Western Art Music: Questions of Context, Realism, Evidence, Description and Analysis (Ian Pace)....Pages 91-121
When Ethnography Becomes Hagiography: Uncritical Musical Perspectives (Ian Pace)....Pages 123-148
Front Matter ....Pages 149-149
Writing Catastrophe: Howard Barker’s Theatre (Andy W. Smith)....Pages 151-172
Writing the Contemporary Ballerina: Sylvie Guillem, Misty Copeland and Lessons in Biography (Jill Brown)....Pages 173-189
Amend the Arena: On Adrian Piper’s Work (Vered Engelhard)....Pages 191-204
Writing About Contemporary Composers: Memory and Irony in The Apollonian Clockwork (Joel M. Baldwin)....Pages 205-221
Artfrom: Researching the Canon Through Publications of Art and Design (Miriam Cabell, Phoebe Stubbs)....Pages 223-237
Front Matter ....Pages 239-239
Occlusionary Tactics (Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley)....Pages 241-248
Abstracts (Richard Birchall)....Pages 249-258
MusicArt: Creating Dialogues Across the Arts (Annie Yim, in conversation with Christopher Wiley)....Pages 259-276
Back Matter ....Pages 277-281

Citation preview

Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists Challenges, Practices, and Complexities Edited by Christopher Wiley · Ian Pace

Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists

Christopher Wiley · Ian Pace Editors

Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists Challenges, Practices, and Complexities

Editors Christopher Wiley Department of Music and Media University of Surrey Guilford, Surrey, UK

Ian Pace Department of Music City, University of London London, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-39232-1 ISBN 978-3-030-39233-8  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: Vikas Kumar/EyeEm Cover design by eStudioCalamar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part I  General Introduction 1

Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists 3 Christopher Wiley and Ian Pace

Part II  Critical Perspectives 2

The Artist Is Present: Scandal and the Academic Study of the Living Artist 19 Lorraine York

3

From Vocational Calling to Career Construction: Late-Career Authors and Critical Self-reflection 39 Hywel Dix

4

The Purpose of the Written Element in Composition PhDs 65 Christopher Leedham and Martin Scheuregger

v

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CONTENTS

5

Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Western Art Music: Questions of Context, Realism, Evidence, Description and Analysis 91 Ian Pace

6

When Ethnography Becomes Hagiography: Uncritical Musical Perspectives 123 Ian Pace

Part III  Case Studies Across the Arts 7

Writing Catastrophe: Howard Barker’s Theatre 151 Andy W. Smith

8

Writing the Contemporary Ballerina: Sylvie Guillem, Misty Copeland and Lessons in Biography 173 Jill Brown

9

Amend the Arena: On Adrian Piper’s Work 191 Vered Engelhard

10 Writing About Contemporary Composers: Memory and Irony in The Apollonian Clockwork 205 Joel M. Baldwin 11 Artfrom: Researching the Canon Through Publications of Art and Design 223 Miriam Cabell and Phoebe Stubbs Part IV  Art Considered on Its Own Terms 12 Occlusionary Tactics 241 Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley

CONTENTS  

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13 Abstracts 249 Richard Birchall 14 MusicArt: Creating Dialogues Across the Arts 259 Annie Yim in conversation with Christopher Wiley Index 277

Notes

on

Contributors

Joel M. Baldwin  is a composer based at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, working towards a D.Phil. under the supervision of Martyn Harry and Gascia Ouzounian. He is particularly interested in the ways in which meaning can be expressed through convergences of popular music and classical music, sound and space, motion and narrative, and through combining music with visual art, film, dance and theatre. He is currently working on two highly collaborative projects: a setting of poems on mushrooms with musical material derived from the ecology of fungal mycelial networks, and a non-narrative opera exploring the limitations of language. He recently completed a piece for two dancers and film featuring mezzo-soprano Michaela Riener with Ensemble Klang, and produced a new opera for students at Oxford’s Faculty of Music based on the short story, The Beginning of an Idea by John McGahern. His research revolves around aspects of interdisciplinarity, intertext and the psychology of creation in new music theatre. Richard Birchall  read Music at the University of Cambridge and studied as a postgraduate cellist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London under Louise Hopkins. He later completed studies in Film Music composition at Goldsmiths College. He pursues a varied career as cellist, composer, arranger and orchestrator. Richard’s compositions and arrangements have been performed at the BBC Proms, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, The Purcell Room, The Sage Gateshead, and throughout the UK, and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic ix

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FM, and French and German national radio. His piece Mirrors was written for Cellophony and premiered in the Park Lane Group series at the Purcell Room in January 2011; since then he has completed various works for chamber ensembles, following commissions by the Minerva Trio, the Piatti Quartet and from individual artists. Recent works include Labyrinth for cello and chamber orchestra; Alice in Wonderland for eight cellos and narrator; Delirium for two violins; and a second string quartet, Hands. http://www.richardbirchall.co.uk/. Jill Brown trained in classical ballet at Bush Davies Schools and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She then completed a Bachelor of Arts (Distinction) at the University of Western Australia and subsequently embarked on her career in publishing. Later she completed a Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing (Distinction) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Jill has worked as an editor, commissioning editor, publisher, editorial director and writer in educational, trade and online publishing for companies that include Pearson Education, ABC Books (a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and Random House Australia. She is the author of two commercial titles on nutrition and fitness. Jill graduated from the University of Queensland with a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing in 2019. She is currently Publishing Manager for a non-profit educational publishing company in Melbourne. She is also a dance contributor to Limelight magazine. Hywel Dix is Principal Academic in English and Communication at Bournemouth University. He has published extensively on the relationship between literature, culture and political change in contemporary Britain, most notably in Postmodern Fiction and the Break-Up of Britain (Continuum, 2010), After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-Up of Britain (University of Wales Press, 2nd ed. 2013) and Multicultural Narratives: Traces and Perspectives, co-edited with Mustafa Kirca (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2018). His wider research interests include modern and contemporary literature, critical cultural theory, authorial careers and autofiction. His monograph about literary careers entitled The Late-Career Novelist was published by Bloomsbury in 2017 and an edited collection of essays on Autofiction in English was published by Palgrave in 2018.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS  

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Vered Engelhard is an artist and scholar based in New York, whose practice is centred in the performance of alternative modes of sociality arising from explorative interactions among instruments, scores and people. Their work is concerned with the political dimension of composition, expanded conceptions of ancestry and the ethical dimension of objects. As a musician they have performed in New York, Lima, Berlin and Madrid. Engelhard’s compositions have been performed in venues such as National Sawdust, Areté Gallery, the City University of New York, Columbia University and Human Impact Institute, among others. Engelhard is an active member in the New York Constellation Ensemble, the OPERA Ensemble and Siestaaa. Their writings have been published in Kunstmuzik, Columbia Law Blog, Asymptote, Brooklyn Rail, Museo de Arte de Lima and Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, among others. Engelhard has participated in residencies at Mildred’s Lane, Governors Island and the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Programme, and will be resident at The Watermill Center in the spring. They hold a B.A. in Visual Arts and Philosophy from Sarah Lawrence College, an M.A. in Art History from Columbia University and are a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. Christopher Leedham is a composer and conductor based in the UK. He read music at Magdalen College, Oxford before continuing postgraduate study in composition at the London College of Music and Media. His compositional concerns involve the perception of narrative threads in abstract musical structures and the creation of complex musical webs utilising only the simplest of musical ideas. Research into these issues formed the basis of his Ph.D. in Composition, awarded by the University of York in 2013. His works have been broadcasted and performed internationally and have been published by the University of York Music Press. He has taught at Leeds College of Music (where he was Senior Lecturer between 2015 and 2019) and at the universities of York and Lincoln. As a conductor, he has performed at venues across the country including The Forge, Camden; Capstone Theatre, Liverpool; The Engine House, Manchester; and the Edinburgh Fringe. He is co-founder of ensemble Dark Inventions, with whom he has recently released premiere recordings of new works by Judith Weir and Philip Cashian.

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Ian Pace is Reader in Music at City, University of London, UK, and an internationally renowned pianist specialising in new music. He published a monograph on Michael Finnissy’s epic cycle The History of Photography in Sound (2013) alongside a recording of the work, and he is co-editor of the volumes Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy (1988), Critical Perspectives on Michael Finnissy (2019), Writing About Contemporary Musicians (2020) and Rethinking Contemporary Musicology (2020). He has also published articles in many journals, recorded 40 CDs and given over 300 world premieres. Martin Scheuregger is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Lincoln, where he leads the B.A. (Hons) Music programme. He was awarded the degree of Ph.D. from the University of York in 2015 for his thesis entitled ‘Conceptions of Time and Form in Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Music’. This study deliberately blurs the boundaries of composition and musical analysis, presenting both original composition and analysis of relevant works to explore four interlinked temporal themes: fragmentation, miniaturisation, brevity and organicism. This interdisciplinary approach to research continues in his current work, which combines and juxtaposes composition with analysis, and extends to his activity as a music curator, producer and director of contemporary music ensemble Dark Inventions. He has published on the music of György Kurtág and Thomas Simaku, and is currently developing a monograph on the music of British composer George Benjamin. Andy W. Smith  is a writer and researcher based in Cardiff, South Wales. He has published book chapters with Manchester University Press, Routledge and Oberon on a wide range of subjects including horror cinema, postwar British Theatre, graphic novels and TV series including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. He has contributed entries to The Encyclopedia of the Gothic and The Routledge Companion to the Gothic, and has a forthcoming book chapter on Universal horror films with Edinburgh University Press (2020). Andy is the co-editor with James Reynolds of Howard Barker’s Theatre: Wrestling with Catastrophe (Methuen Bloomsbury, 2015), which was shortlisted for the Society for Theatre Research Book of the Year 2016. He works for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education as the Head of Quality and Standards, responsible for managing the UK Quality Code for Higher Education and other sector benchmarks.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS  

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Miriam Cabell and Phoebe Stubbs Miriam Cabell is Associate Professor of Design at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. She trained in photography and the language arts, and in her practice she interrogates ‘the image’ and the different ways it is created through visual and textual grammar. Phoebe Stubbs trained as a glassmaker and now explores abstract concepts such as ‘transparency’ in language and materials. She also works as an editor and administrator in the arts, and is Project Administrator for Listening Across Disciplines II at London College of Communication. Their professional practices are integral to their understanding of the art world, from its obvious inequalities, to the methods of distributing artwork, and has led to their joint interest in art publishing and its mechanisms. They were in residence at NES in Iceland in June 2017, and at the Luminary in St Louis in July 2017. Their publishing imprint, Pink Jacket, published Suggested Reading in Spring 2018, an artist book of the work of Keith Allyn Spencer; two new visual publications, fangirl and HEY will be launched in Spring 2020, as well as a new series, fortissimo, the umbrella under which artists, writers, critics and other practitioners are invited to test ideas and theories of feminisms that begin elsewhere than dominance and oppression; instead, for example, considering and celebrating pleasure and joy as revolutionary gestures; their collective, Contributors Inc., recently had work published in Cabinet magazine and Temporary Art Review, and in March 2020 will be launching, in collaboration with The Luminary, their artist book Artfrom. Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley is a Lecturer in Dance at University of Roehampton, where she teaches postgraduate dance and choreography students. Her book Between Us: Audiences, Affect and the In-Between (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), published with her research partner Lee Miller, celebrates spaces which cause an affecting, and bodies affected. In 2015 she completed a B.Sc. in Acupuncture, and she specialises in palliative care. Her Ph.D. students explore grief narratives, empathy and affective exchange, concepts of with-ness and witness. Whalley and Miller completed the first joint practice-as-research Ph.D. to be undertaken within a UK arts discipline in 2004, and they make performance, installation, performance text and objects to international audiences.

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Christopher Wiley is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Surrey, UK. He is the author of many book chapters and articles on musical biography and life writing appearing in journals including The Musical Quarterly, Music & Letters and Comparative Criticism. He is the co-editor of forthcoming volumes including Writing about Contemporary Musicians (Routledge, 2020), Transnational Perspectives on Artists’ Lives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Women’s Suffrage in Word, Image, Music and Drama (Routledge, 2021) and The Routledge Companion to Autoethnography and Self-Reflexivity in Music Studies (Routledge, 2021), as well as a recent guest-edited double issue of the Journal of Musicological Research (2019). He is currently preparing a monograph on the earliest volumes of the ‘Master Musicians’ biographical series (1899–1906). Annie Yim is a concert pianist and founder of MusicArt, an initiative to create original artist-led performance projects. Known for her wide-ranging solo and chamber music repertoire that encompasses canonic works and new music, she has broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and national radios in Canada and Portugal. From London to Berlin and Salzburg, her performances with artists and art spaces have been featured in New York’s T Magazine, Artnet and Gramophone. She is a founding member of the Minerva Piano Trio. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, she studied piano at the University of British Columbia. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree and completed her performance-based research on Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and City, University of London. Lorraine York, F.R.S.C. is Distinguished University Professor and Senator William McMaster Chair in Canadian Literature and Culture in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is the author of Literary Celebrity in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2007), Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity (University of Toronto Press, 2013) and Celebrity Cultures in Canada, co-edited with Katja Lee (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016). Reluctant Celebrity, which examines public displays of celebrity reluctance as forms of privilege intertwined with race, gender and sexuality, appeared in 2018 from Palgrave Macmillan, as did Ethics and Affects in the Fiction of Alice Munro, co-edited with Amelia DeFalco.

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5 Fig. 4.6 Fig. 10.1 Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2 Fig. 12.3 Fig. 12.4 Fig. 12.5 Fig. 12.6

Only a low level of success is ever achieved Early break-out is consolidated by a high level of subsequent success Subsequent work struggles to live up to early successes The career is slowly and gradually developed The overall career trajectory experiences a ‘peak’ The overall career trajectory experiences an inverted peak Comparison of perceived benefits to self and examiners (Respondents were asked to give these elements a ‘star’ rating between 0 and 10) Content of written element Types of commentary Timing of writing Model of late-stage reflexivity Influencing factors on the written element Ironic music example of a pigeon cooing (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 52) 1 February 2019, 10:23 1 February 2019, 10:22 1 February 2019, 10:19 1 February 2019, 10:44 1 February 2019, 10:46 1 February 2019, 10:20

43 44 44 45 45 46 72 74 75 80 81 85 214 242 243 244 245 246 247

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 14.1 Annie Yim, Richard Birchall and Christopher Le Brun (left to right) at the gallery of Katrin Bellinger at Colnaghi, October 2015. Two of Le Brun’s works in the exhibition hang on the wall behind; Cloud is the painting on the right (Photo credit: Franek Strzeszewski, © MusicArt, 2015) 261

PART I

General Introduction

CHAPTER 1

Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists Christopher Wiley and Ian Pace

Researching and writing on contemporary art and artists take many forms: the scholar meticulously developing a journal article, book chapter or research monograph over many months or years; the journalist penning a review or opinion-piece, often working to a strict deadline; the writer affiliated with a specific arts institution or event, preparing a programme note, theatre booklet or exhibition handbook; the aficionado typing a personal blog entry, producing a fanzine or even just documenting a spontaneous insight via social media. In respect of art created, and artists who have lived, close to the present time, all such writers—and many more besides—may have developed a close relationship with their subject matter, with which they might have a myriad range of wider personal connections, some of which may affect their access to documents, interviews and other sources for their research. How can such authors engage with the C. Wiley (*)  Department of Music and Media, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK e-mail: [email protected] I. Pace  Department of Music, City, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_1

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art and the artist, yet maintain a respectable level of critical distance when researching and writing about them and their work? This volume has its origins in recurrent dialogues between the two editors and others concerning the need for rigorous critical thinking about the very nature of researching and writing about contemporary artists and their output, as manifested in different types of discourse. In a multidisciplinary scholarly field, this topic is very far from being exhausted, though some piecemeal aspects have, of course, received significant previous coverage in the literature. Several general volumes on writing about art consist primarily of student-facing guidance rather than scholarly critique of real-life practices (for example, Krüger 2008; Herbert 2012; Williams 2014; Barnet 2015), but there are a number of edited anthologies in which biographers reflect more generally upon their experiences in writing the lives of their subjects, such as Jeffrey Meyers’s The Craft of Literary Biography (1985) and John Batchelor’s The Art of Literary Biography (1995), some of whose contributors happen to have been writing on modern figures and/or those with whom the authors had personal connections. A range of other volumes (for example, Herndon and McLeod 1979; Hatcher 1985; Morphy and Perkins 2006) consider the subject from an anthropological perspective, frequently downplaying both art and artists in favour of wider cultural questions, but sometimes with material relevant to the issues of this volume (see Ian Pace’s chapters for more on this subject). Journals such as Performance Research have carried articles documenting areas such as artistic practices and processes in relation to individual case studies of, as distinct from self-reflexively contemplating acts of researching and writing on, contemporary art and/or artists; similar engagement can be found in leading book-length studies of practice as research (for example, Allegue et al. 2009; Smith and Dean 2009; Freeman 2010; Nelson 2013). Many trade periodicals offer examples of writing on contemporary art, as distinct from the critical modes of writing under scrutiny in the current volume, which therefore raise a different set of, nonetheless pertinent, questions. This collection, conversely, is characterised by two distinctive features. First, the emphasis is placed on specifically on contemporary artists and their outputs, and the issues that are uniquely raised by researching and writing about living or recently deceased figures, as distinct from those whose lives have taken place further from the present. Second, it brings together discourse on personages across the disciplines of music,

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literature, dance, theatre, the visual arts and more, in order to give sharper focus to issues shared across the arts as well offering opportunities for dialogue between different artistic fields (involving differing numbers of individuals in the creative process, some very much focused on a single creator, others in which a range of people contribute) on the theory and practice of research. In these respects, the anthology aims to fill a valuable gap in scholarship by subjecting the theory and practice of writing about contemporary art and artists across the disciplines to sustained critical scrutiny from a range of different artistic viewpoints, discussing issues of writing about recent developments in the arts in order to raise the visibility of this area of scholarly enquiry. The scope of the volume concerns figures active in the contemporary arts, understood to incorporate those living or recently deceased artists who have produced innovative, distinctive or otherwise leading work within the last c. 30 years. Coverage ranges from performers and performance artists, through dancers and choreographers, to composers, visual artists, literary authors and more, in addition to artists writing about their own creative practices and corresponding output, and those with whom individual authors have worked. It focuses upon the act of writing and the strategies, ideologies and assumptions contained therein, as well as the boundaries of what constitutes ‘writing’ about contemporary artists in its multifarious forms, involving iconoclastic and experimental approaches to such writing alongside more conventional representations. It is primarily concerned with critical modes of writing, as distinct from fan-based writing or descriptive writing, insofar as these discourses can be separated at the current time (on which point, see Wiley 2020, and Pace’s chapters in this volume), and it looks reflexively at such writing in the hope of providing more rigorous and ethically sound foundations for future practices of this type. Matters of ethics in relation to researching and writing on contemporary artists are to be found throughout the collection, for example, in Lorraine York’s chapter on scandal. The advent of practice as research in the arts disciplines (various key texts about which are cited above) is a secondary concern of the volume, since many of the questions raised by researching and writing on other contemporary artists also relate to writing about oneself and one’s own practice. This became a particularly cutting-edge issue ever since greater recognition in the academic realm of practice as research, beginning in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s and Australia in 1987, followed by the USA in the 1990s and elsewhere later in that decade,

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emerging in the UK around 1997 (see Kershaw 2009, 106; Cook 2015; Pace 2015b). This phenomenon engendered a range of debates about when and how exactly practice can be said to embody research, as have occupied many academics in the UK who are required to submit outputs to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), subsequently the Research Excellence Framework (REF), such that they are forced to justify their work in this respect. Some maintain that certain forms of creative practice can only become research when accompanied by writing (see, for example, Nelson 2013, 71–73; Vaes 2015); others believe that that the research can be embodied within the creative practice itself, a key issue in the debates following from John Croft’s article (2015a), responses by Ian Pace (2015a) and Camden Reeves (2015), and a further contribution from Croft (2015b), in the journal Tempo, on music composition and performance. Others have grappled with the meaning of quality in such outputs (for example, Schippers 2007; Biggs and Karlsson 2011). Our volume incorporates contributions from artists as well as incorporating different forms of art—a visual essay and a music composition—in later sections alongside more conventional modes of scholarly enquiry, while Christopher Leedham and Martin Scheuregger’s chapter on the written component of music composition PhD degrees addresses the matter directly. It therefore responds to timely questions such as the validity of creative practice as research and its parity with more traditional humanities-oriented output. In the wake of various revelations relating to artists’ private lives and activities, some alleged to have committed sexual harassment and assault, and the subsequent #MeToo movement which began in Autumn 2017 following allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, new complications have arisen concerning how those writing about such artists respond to such knowledge. In Part II of the volume, Lorraine York offers a particular perspective on the vexed question of how to continue to undertake academic study of contemporary artists at a time during which they have been embroiled in disciplinary scandal, with reference to three interrelated controversies of Canadian literary celebrity that developed in 2016–2017. First, a case involving allegations of sexual harassment at the University of British Columbia associated with the writer Steven Galloway, and articulated through a series of online statements including the ‘UBC Accountable’ letter (signed by household names including Margaret Atwood) and a subsequent counter-letter (though the case was eventually dismissed and UBC forced to pay damages to

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Galloway [Eagland 2018]). Second, the criticism on social media and other platforms faced by Joseph Boyden, author of the seminal UBC Accountable letter, disputing his claims of Indigenous identity and heritage. Third, an editorial written by Hal Niedzviecki in which he endorsed the appropriation of the stories of Indigenous communities by non-­ Indigenous writers in the name of diversity, including a suggestion for an ‘Appropriation Prize’ that, although tongue-in-cheek, nonetheless received high-profile support via Twitter. Drawing on the field of celebrity studies as well as scholarship on scandal itself, York argues that while it has often been expected that scandal violates prevailing morals, the above controversies represent instances in which hegemonic institutions were among the sources of scandal, yielding an enhanced understanding in which scandal is no longer associated solely with the agency of an individual who is seen to be transgressive. She further suggests that scandal should be understood as lasting rather than fleeting and that rather than merely excising scandalous artists from the institutions that once upheld them, we should knowingly question their past and present place within them mindful of scandal’s persistent nature, in order to appreciate the full extent of the artists in a given field whom that scandal affects. Hywel Dix’s chapter engages with issues pertaining to the reception of contemporary writers, in particular those whose later work is negatively affected by comparison with their earlier successes upon which their reputation is primarily founded. Drawing parallels with career guidance counselling and using career construction theory as a springboard for discussion, Dix theorises the range of different career trajectories that may be experienced by authors depending on the level of critical acclaim they experience over time: some enjoy initial or sustained success in their careers, while others attain success more gradually or experience a mid-career peak or trough. Noting a common trajectory of decline in an artist’s later output, Dix argues that the late-stage career—which may, in reality, fall at different stages of life for different authors depending on their unique career trajectory—should itself be scrutinised as a distinct category. He suggests that writers may become more self-reflective and self-aware about their practice in their later output, even when their earlier work has attained significant success, as exemplified by such phenomena as retrospective commentary on one’s own work, the revisiting of previously employed literary techniques, as well as specific modes of fictionalised criticism and autobiography.

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The subject of Christopher Leedham and Martin Scheuregger’s c­ hapter is the written component that accompanies the musical portfolio of many composition PhD degrees in the UK, which finds a parallel in current practices with respect to the Research Excellence Framework for which submitting composers are expected to contextualise their work through a 300-word narrative statement (Pace 2015b). By means of an anonymous online survey of current and former UK PhD students, the authors uncover a range of different opinions concerning the value of this written component to the candidates’ overall development as composers. While the survey yielded much evidence of a shared understanding among the students of the need for such a written element, there was less agreement as to whether this component should comprise a technical commentary, a reflective account or a conceptual and aesthetic context for the portfolio. Other key findings include that this writing was typically undertaken only in the latter stages of the PhD (thereby precluding contemporaneous reflection on the totality of the compositional process), and that the supervisor was the single biggest influence. Ultimately, Leedham and Scheuregger ask whether the purpose of the doctoral degree is one of training in composition or research through composition, and argue for a common understanding of the purpose of the written component to be adopted across the discipline, with defined approaches to writing. In a two-part study, Ian Pace provides a rigorous critique of an existing body of work that applies ethnomusicological approaches specifically to writing on Western art music. He founds this critique upon a comparative examination of different definitions for the term ‘ethnography’ and a consideration of the history of the development of the field and the internal methodological and other criticisms it has generated, concerns that are also highly relevant for ethnomusicology, which frequently employs ethnographic approaches. Certain ethnomusicologists have also posited their discipline as oppositional to what they hold to be the more traditional field of historical musicology, said to be focused on musical texts and sounds while resistant to more contextual, sociological approaches; conversely, Pace argues that this is a straw target dichotomy, while the overlooking of sonic and aural evidence in such studies significantly confines their coverage. Exploring the differences between journalistic and scholarly modes of writing and between descriptive and analytical discourses, Pace suggests that much ethnographic w ­ riting on music is indebted to simple description and taxonomy rather than

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analysis, as well as to long quotations from participant testimonies, and hence retains the external appearance of non-academic writing. This is demonstrated in some of the most lauded ethnographies of Western art music and its institutions that have appeared in recent decades, some of which he compares to more sensationalist journalism: both types lack a measured critical stance with respect to their subject matter, ignoring perspectives that do not accord with their one-sided presentation, and often arrive at relatively obvious and predictable conclusions. Nonetheless, he identifies a shift in this body of work, from early disparaging studies of institutions to the ascendancy of a more neutrally descriptive approach. In the second of his chapters, Pace applies some of these critical perspectives to recent ethnomusicological studies of the latter type, on a work by the composer Michael Finnissy, performed by the Kreutzer Quartet (by Amanda Bayley and Michael Clarke), on professional music-making in London (by Stephen Cottrell) and on the life and work of composer Kaija Saariaho (by Pirkko Moisala). While these vary in nature and their response to wider ethnographic debates, they share a reluctance to expose their objects of enquiry to due critique and questioning or to embrace competing perspectives, which ultimately leads authors to adopt what can be an uncritically reverential, even hagiographic tone for their work. The volume’s Part III switches attention from more general critical perspectives on researching and writing about contemporary art and ­artists, to individual case studies from across the arts disciplines. Andy W. Smith explores the writing by and about acclaimed radical playwright Howard Barker, whose political plays of the 1970s gave way to a new dramatic form, the Theatre of Catastrophe, from the late 1980s, characterised by a reimagining of history. This, in turn, led to the founding in 1988 of Barker’s own theatre company, The Wrestling School, in order to realise his unique artistic vision, with Barker himself assuming artistic control from 1993. Its productions have elicited a range of, mainly critical, reviews noting the lack of accessibility of his fringe theatre. To insulate himself from criticisms of the playwright who doubles as director, Barker created multiple secret alter egos to disguise the extent of his aesthetic contribution to The Wrestling School productions, as well as to write about himself in a playfully innovative manner. His own m ­ emoirs were penned under the name of one of these pseudonyms, Eduardo Houth, with Barker referenced in the third person. Other of his alter egos include costume designer Billie Kaiser and stage designer Tomas

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Leipzig, who were credited, complete with invented biographies—­surreal to the point of absurdity—in production programmes. Barker’s writings have developed in parallel with his artistic practice and hence reflect these outputs as well as his removal from the milieu of the theatrical mainstream. Jill Brown discusses the challenges associated with writing about the lives and careers of two ballerinas, Sylvie Guillem and Misty Copeland, consideration of whose biographies exemplifies the changing status of the artist between different generations. Notwithstanding the appearance of various media interviews as well as biographical books on each figure targeted at a general market, the information available on both is relatively scant, and few have critically appraised their activity as dancers in a scholarly manner. This paucity of material yields only disparate and conflicting snapshots of the artists’ lives, leaving the biographer tasked with somehow reconciling them with one another. Guillem’s eschewal of public attention in her career prompted Brown to turn instead to such sources as television appearances to supplement the dearth of more traditional forms of evidence, in the process discovering understandings of the subject that could not have been gleaned from more conventional texts. While Copeland hired a manager and became established as a brand identity, being apparently forthcoming about aspects of her personal life in the media, Brown discovered lacunae in writing about her life as well, since her early career was much less widely documented than Guillem’s. Brown describes the biographer’s processes of piecing together a story mosaic-like from this partial evidence, departing from a position of ignorance in order to reach one of new insights into the subjects, all the while aware of the biographer’s mediating voice. Ultimately, she suggests, the difference in the ways in which the lives of these ballerinas have been chronicled speaks to the shift between the two from celebrating the artist in public to desiring engagement with their private self. Vered Engelhard’s chapter concerns the artist and philosopher Adrian Piper and the challenges that she presents to writers on her work owing to the multifaceted nature of her activity. Specifically, Engelhard explores three of Piper’s key works from the 1970s: Context #7, Untitled Performance for Max’s Kansas City and The Mythic Being. Context #7 (1970) was a piece of concept art in which viewers were encouraged to contribute responses on a blank notepad, and hence simultaneously constitutes a form of writing as art and writing about art; while Untitled

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Performance for Max’s Kansas City (1970) placed Piper’s body on d ­ isplay as an object of art, silent, blinded and wearing earplugs. Both raise important questions relating to the ontological manifestation of the artworks, resulting from the tension between the works’ difference from, and similarity to, existing artistic tradition. The Mythic Being (1973– 1975) took the idea of the subject itself being the object of art a stage further, being a collection of mantras recited from Piper’s personal journal at public gatherings and published as a series of periodical advertisements. Developed over a period of three years, The Mythic Being assumed the guise of a ‘black man’ persona whom Piper held to be oppositional to herself, and thereby prompted viewers to confront issues of race, gender and morality. In directly addressing the viewer, Engelhard argues, Piper’s artwork aspires to universality. Joel M. Baldwin discusses Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger’s 1983 monograph on Stravinsky, The Apollonian Clockwork. This text stands out among the substantial body of literature on that composer, both for its coverage of lesser-known music alongside the more popular works, and its central inclusion of personal thoughts and anecdotes concerning the subject. In this respect, it eschews some of the meticulousness and objectivity of modern scholarly work studies in favour of a more playful, ironic approach. It therefore raises questions about the challenges and limitations faced by authors writing about contemporary artists to whom inevitably they are temporally close, prompting Baldwin to suggest that the adoption of a more subjective tenor may be just as valid and meaningful when it is not possible to write with the benefit of hindsight. Yet this need not lead to hagiographic writing, which would entail uncritical adoption of the ‘official’ position perpetuated by promoters and other champions of the subject. Rather, Andriessen and Schönberger are honest and upfront that the residual memory of Stravinsky’s output is such that they can only hope to offer a perspective coloured by those elements with which the music has historically been associated, and implicitly encourage readers to form their own opinions by presenting a personal position with which they might therefore agree or disagree. Mimi Cabell and Phoebe Stubbs report on Contributors Inc., an artistic research project founded in 2015 that explores the contents lists in art and culture magazines archivally. Its purpose is to identify gender imbalance as well as other commercial and ideological shifts in the establishment and perpetuation of canons in the writing about contemporary

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art and artists, thereby calling into question the nature of art criticism as documented in key publications including Cabinet and particularly the leading New York-based art magazine Artforum. The ‘Artfrom’ and (ongoing) ‘Arton’ projects associated with the latter are concerned with the effect of both writers and the artists who are the subjects of their discourse upon art world canons, in order to identify the contribution of the magazine to the shaping of art criticism and correspondingly to the establishment of frames of reference for students and educators of art. Discussing a number of other recent investigations into gender imbalance in the art world, Cabell and Stubbs describe the procedure whereby they converted Artforum’s contents lists into quantitative data for analysis. This process revealed the disproportionately small number of authors who had written for the magazine, especially at its inception, as well as its initially North Atlantic focus and its apparent avoidance of art that explicitly engaged with politics. The authors further detail the workshops they have consequently developed in order to advocate for greater awareness of the limited and highly subjective sense of the art world offered by some of its foremost publications. Part IV of the volume seeks to enable art to be considered on its own terms, and to hear the voices of the artists themselves, through a series of innovative modes of discourse. The first of these, by Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley, is written as a visual essay that reveals a practice-as-research process using photographs as an integral part of its presentation. Practice as research is here conceived as the product of the totality of a practitioner’s experiences as brought to bear on their research, reading the epistemological spaces, navigating the various changes of direction, necessitating self-reflexivity. Considering practice as research as a process of occlusion, Whalley questions its nature as a dance-like engagement between writer and reader, in which the subject of the research is closed off to both. Ultimately she suggests whether the process of practice as research in fact reveals more than it occludes, whereby the less we are able to see, the more becomes visible to us. The inclusion within this collection of Richard Birchall’s composition Abstracts demonstrates the possibilities for music itself to constitute an act of writing about contemporary art, if not also of its originating artist. Inspired by the works of the distinguished painter Christopher Le Brun, and in particular the use of colour in his paintings in an exhibition at Colnaghi Gallery, London in 2015, Birchall’s piece is written for

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solo piano in four sections. The creative stimulus derives from the entire experience of visiting the studio but more specifically from a single painting, ‘Cloud’. Birchall’s music represents this as viewed from four different distances and explores the contrasting understandings this generates of Le Brun’s work. The composition also constitutes the transference of art from one medium to another, drawing on parallels between colour of the painting and musical harmony, between the texture of the artwork and the texture of the music, and between the gradual recognition of colour-curves (as one moves closer to the painting) and the emergence of discernible melodies in the music. Annie Yim, in conversation with Christopher Wiley, discusses the MusicArt London initiative that she founded in 2015. Under Yim’s artistic directorship, MusicArt has striven to celebrate the relationships and intersections between different arts disciplines, as well as to bring together old and new music. Its activities have comprised collaborations with gallerists, painters, composers, dancers and poets—including the painter Christopher Le Brun, the composers Richard Birchall and Raymond Yiu, the book artist Pauline Rafal, the choreographer Patricia Okenwa, and the poets Zaffar Kunial and Kayo Chingonyi—that have generated new multidisciplinary artwork in a series of ‘conceptual concerts’. Through its various projects, MusicArt has thereby sought to explore dialogues between the constituent arts, their shared aesthetics and the ‘poetic concepts’ concerned with the artistic imaginative processes themselves. A feature of MusicArt’s performances has been the staging of public conversations between different contributing artists, intertwined within curated programmes of historical and contemporary music that are creatively combined with the other arts. It has thereby aspired to establish new musical contexts for existing art as well as to commission new work, including Richard Birchall’s Abstracts, the context of whose composition is explored in this chapter. Researching and writing about contemporary art and artists present unique challenges for scholars, students, professional critics and creative practitioners alike. In exploring a range of different forms of discourse on living or recently deceased subjects, this volume seeks to bring to light the common ground shared across the arts disciplines as well as setting the agenda for rigorous critical thinking on the nature of the relationship between those who write about art and the artists about whom they write.

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Bibliography Allegue, Ludivine, Simon Jones, Baz Kershaw, and Angela Piccini, eds. 2009. Practice-as-Research in Performance and Screen. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Barnet, Sylvan. 2015. A Short Guide to Writing About Art, 12th ed. Boston: Pearson Education. Batchelor, John, ed. 1995. The Art of Literary Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Biggs, Michael, and Henrik Karlsson. 2011. ‘Evaluating Quality in Artistic Research’. In The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, edited by Michael Biggs and Henrik Karlsson, 405–42. London: Routledge. Cook, Nicholas. 2015. ‘Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives’. In Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, edited by Mine Doğantan-Dack, 11–32. Farnham: Ashgate. Croft, John. 2015a. ‘Composition Is Not Research’. Tempo 69, no. 272: 6–11. Croft, John. 2015b. ‘Composing, Researching and Ways of Talking’. Tempo 70, no. 275: 71–77. Eagland, Nick. 2018. ‘Fired UBC Prof Steven Galloway Awarded Damages in Arbitration’. Vancouver Sun, 19 July. https://vancouversun.com/news/localnews/steven-galloway-awarded-damages-in-arbitration. Accessed 2 August 2019. Freeman, John. 2010. Blood, Sweat & Theory: Research Through Practice in Performance. Faringdon: Libri. Hatcher, Evelyn Payne. 1985. Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art. Lanham, MD and London: University Press of America. Herbert, Trevor. 2012. Music in Words: A Guide to Research and Writing About Music, 2nd ed. London: ABRSM. Herndon, Marcia, and Norma McLeod. 1979. Music as Culture. Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions. Kershaw, Baz. 2009. ‘Practice as Research Through Performance’. In Practice-Led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts, edited by Hazel Smith and Roger T. Dean, 104–25. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Krüger, Simone. 2008. ‘Ethnography in the Performing Arts: A Student Guide’. https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/Ethnography-in-thePerforming-Arts-A-Student-Guide.pdf. Accessed 3 August 2019. Meyers, Jeffrey, ed. 1985. The Craft of Literary Biography. London: Macmillan. Morphy, Howard, and Morgan Perkins, eds. 2006. The Anthropology of Art: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Nelson, Robin. 2013. Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies, Resistances. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Pace, Ian. 2015a. ‘Composition and Performance Can be, and Often Have Been, Research’. Tempo 70, no. 275: 60–70. Pace, Ian. 2015b. ‘Those 300-Word Statements on Practice-as-Research for the RAE/REF—Origins and Stipulations’. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/17489/1/ Those%20300-word%20statements%20on%20Practice-as-Research%20for%20 the%20RAE%20%26%20REF.pdf. Accessed 27 February 2020. Reeves, Camden. 2015. ‘Composition, Research and Pseudo-Science: A Response to John Croft’. Tempo 70, no. 275: 50–59. Schippers, Huib. 2007. ‘The Marriage of Art and Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for Music Research in Practice-Based Environments’. Dutch Journal of Music Theory 12, no. 1: 34–40. Smith, Hazel, and Roger T. Dean, eds. 2009. Practice-Led Research, ResearchLed Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Vaes, Luke. 2015. ‘When Composition Is Not Research’, Three Parts. http://artisticresearchreports.blogspot.com/2015/06/when-composition-is-not-research. html, http://artisticresearchreports.blogspot.com/2015/06/when-compositionis-not-research-2.html, and http://artisticresearchreports.blogspot.com/2015/ 11/when-composition-is-not-research.html. Accessed 2 August 2019. Wiley, Christopher. 2020. ‘Between “Scholarly Treatments” and “Fanzine Hype”: The Mediation of Adulation and Academic Discourse in Popular Music Studies’. In Writing About Contemporary Musicians: Promotion, Advocacy, Disinterest, Censure, edited by Ian Pace and Christopher Wiley. Abingdon: Routledge. Williams, Gilda. 2014. How to Write About Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

PART II

Critical Perspectives

CHAPTER 2

The Artist Is Present: Scandal and the Academic Study of the Living Artist Lorraine York

My title references the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović’s remarkable work ‘The Artist is Present’. In its 2010 Museum of Modern Art incarnation, Abramović, dressed in a long gown, sat silently at a wooden table looking forward towards the empty chair across from her, every day the museum was open, for 7–8 hours a day, for a total of 736 hours. Over one thousand people lined up to take their place in the empty chair and to simply sit across from Abramović and meet her gaze. They were instructed not to speak to her or to touch her. Many were moved to tears. Media coverage and academic analysis alike largely dealt with attempts to articulate the nature of this ‘presence’ of the artist or to dispute its very existence; as the visual culture scholar Amelia Jones, who was one of the people who sat across from Abramović, argued in The Drama Review, ‘Paradoxically, Abramović’s recent practice, in its desire to manifest presence, points to the very fact that the live act itself

L. York (*)  Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University, Toronto, Canada © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_2

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destroys presence (or makes the impossibility of its being secured evident)’ (2010, 18). As a scholar invested in what fans make out of celebrity, I am inclined to accept and not to worry overmuch that the ontological status of the artist’s—or celebrity’s—presence may never be ‘secured’, but the far more pressing point is this: many of Abramović’s sitters made a notion of her presence work in some way for them. I approach the question of the ‘presence’ of the contemporary as an object of study, not so much to determine its philosophical status, but, instead, to consider how it works upon us as viewers, readers or scholars, and how we, in turn, work upon it. This reciprocity of artist and audience immediately launches us into the realm of ethics, for the study of contemporary culture makes demands of us, as enigmatically sometimes as that calm, searching gaze of Marina Abramović. And we choose, in a variety of ways, to respond—or not. The ethical demands of art are heightened at moments of public scandal, as we decide how to respond to a controversial set of public events, and so, in this study, I will ponder the thorny issue of how to conduct academic study of a contemporary artist in the midst of scandal. In my field of expertise, Canadian literature, three high-profile scandals that erupted in 2016–2017 and are ongoing have been popularly referred to as ‘the CanLit dumpster fires’ (the term ‘CanLit’ signifying the institutionalised, canonised version of the broader and more diverse terrain of writing in Canada). As Laura Moss and Brendan McCormack note in their editorial to the Spring 2017 issue of Canadian Literature, the flagship journal in the field, ‘After a year in which the asymmetries of power and privilege operating within and upon the field have been newly illuminated by a number of high-profile flare-ups, we have seen many people drawing on fire metaphorically on social media, often with images of dumpster fires accompanied by #CanLit’ (7). Drawing upon these specific episodes and, self-reflexively, on my own critical practice, I will query the metaphors of sudden incendiary crisis that attend such discussions. Moving into praxis, I ask, how do we conduct academic research at a time of widespread disciplinary scandal? How do we write about or perform the work of contemporary artists who are engulfed in scandal’s flames? In questioning discourses of apocalyptic destruction, I suggest that major scandal in the contemporary artistic celebrity realm can be better understood as disclosing a situation, whether of inequity, harassment or discrimination, that was already fully in place: a cultural space already in flames. I propose various critical means of writing about

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contemporary artists and their scandals in ways that bring this extended temporality of scandal into plain view, rather than avoiding or abandoning the burnt-out field of the discipline or the individual scandal-ridden artist completely. The theoretical foundation of this analysis combines the burgeoning field of celebrity studies and the study of scandal, which, while related to celebrity studies is most often carried out within the discipline of sociology. Indeed, it might be more accurate to say that this study brings those two fields of inquiry into collision, for the question of how to write about or teach living artists who are engulfed in scandal poses a direct challenge to the ways in which some scholarship, mine included, has, to date, theorised celebrity as a force for potential resistance to enforced norms and hierarchies. The field of celebrity studies has, from its inception, sometimes been riven and sometimes enriched by two countervailing tendencies: to perceive that potential for resistance at work, on one hand, and to see celebrity as ultimately and only ever circumscribed and driven by the forces of capitalism, on the other. The former tendency derives from the popular culture and fan studies threads running through the field, and the latter often issues from a Marxist-inflected, specifically Gramscian, understanding of hegemony and the continuing influences of Horkheimer and Adorno’s critiques of the culture industries. Sometimes, in the best work in the field, those two threads are intertwined and brought to bear on each other in complex acts of mutual inquiry, but often they appear in isolation. For example, Milly Williamson’s valuable 2016 study Celebrity: Capitalism and the Making of Fame, is, as its title suggests, a Marxist analysis of the history and emergence of celebrity. And while Williamson is mindful of the problems with critiques that see celebrity as a symptom of a perpetually bewailed social decline, such as Daniel Boorstin’s concept of the pseudo-event (11), she primarily understands celebrity as an instrument of capitalist control and as a phenomenon that displaced earlier working-class cultural formations that were more responsive to the needs of the collectivity. Opposed to that theory, for Williamson, are understandings of celebrity as an unduly idealised democratisation or as the charismatic manifestation of audience desire (157). But those are only the extreme versions of consumer-focused theories of celebrity. Other possibilities, such as the strategic and affective-political uses of celebrity for working-class and other subaltern—i.e. raced, gendered or sexual—projects receive less consideration in Williamson’s study.

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In a great deal of celebrity studies, there is a steadfast, hard-to-shake belief that celebrity can only ever be the product of capitalist hegemonic will. It is often that, of course—or, it can be as well. On the other side of the disciplinary divide, equally problematic analyses of celebrity that uncritically celebrate the ‘subversive’ content of even the most industrially manufactured celebrities continue to appear, and while there is room even in cases of blatant manufacture for considerations of audiences ‘making do’ with celebrity texts, analyses that do not acknowledge manufacture at all, particularly in a neoliberal moment, are rendered theoretically weak. There is also a good deal of celebrity studies work that nervously inhabits the binary ‘analytic framework’ that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank claim ‘can all too adequately be summarized as “kinda subversive, kinda hegemonic”’ (1995, 5). To reach the conclusion of an analysis of a celebrity only to be given this hedging, mixed diagnosis, is disappointing, unless it is anchored in specific ways that bring the hegemonic and the subversive into an illuminating relation to each other. The first systematic theoretical study of celebrity, Richard Dyer’s Stars (1979), is a model of this more fully articulated stance, for he critiqued both extremes of production- and consumption-focused theories of celebrity. Dyer painstakingly showed how production-focused theories of celebrity—as an outcome of economic exigencies or as pure manufacture of empty cultural products designed to dupe naïve consumers, say—are just as incomplete as considerations of celebrity as the manifestation of an idealised individual ‘magic’ or as something built up and destroyed by the forces of consumer desire. And while his analysis might be assumed to fall into Sedgwick and Frank’s ‘kinda subversive, kinda hegemonic’ trap, it is, on the contrary, both rigorously dialectical and grounded in the specificities of historical moments and genres of cultural production (in Dyer’s case, cinema). But it is more. In the very closing moments of Stars, Dyer makes sure that, in remaining conscious of celebrity’s ideologies, we do not forget its pleasures: finally, I feel I should mention beauty, pleasure, delight … The emphasis in this book has been on analysis and demystification, and I would defend this emphasis to the last. … When I see Montgomery Clift I sigh over how beautiful he is; when I see Barbara Stanwyck, I know that women are strong. … [W]hile I accept utterly that beauty and pleasure are culturally and historically specific, and in no way escape ideology, none the less they are beauty and pleasure and I want to hang on to them in some form or another. (1979, 162)

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My work in celebrity studies has been formed by a similar desire to preserve audience pleasures while pursuing ideological critique, to refuse a long tradition of finding celebrity culture worthless and its pleasures delusionary. As a result, I see celebrity as more of a testing ground for the performance of personae, both on the part of the celebrity and the fan, and I have pointedly criticised work in my field that automatically reaches for the denunciation of the popular or its circumscription by capitalism. I am wary of knee-jerk assumptions about celebrity or related subjects of social media and fandom that see them as attacks on All That We Hold Dear, whether from a socially conservative, nostalgic point of view or from a tradition of political critique that overstates the hegemonic contents of popular culture and understates its potential for various types of resistant fan meaning-making. For example, bringing together the realms of popular culture and the literary, I have formulated a theory of Canadian literary celebrity that has tried to counteract views of celebrity as false or empty cultural value, and I reinforced that message at the close of my book Literary Celebrity in Canada: ‘I hope that the present study adds to the growing tendency to avoid, or at least try to avoid, automatically negative assumptions about celebrity and its workings. In this analysis, I have steered away from gloomy prognostications about increasing commercialization and from nostalgic yearnings for a golden age when writers were valued for their achievements alone’ (2007, 176). I acknowledged that ‘Celebrity has had its benefits as well as its pitfalls for writers’—which is hardly surprising—and I ended with the following call: ‘we need to acknowledge frankly the workings of celebrity in all cultural venues’. But this is where the silence of my work on celebrity begins. My stance, leaning more towards the capacity of audiences to produce and consume polysemic celebrity texts, left me unprepared to respond fully to the scandals that plagued ‘CanLit’, for they put on full display the capacity of celebrity to do harm. To provide a context for readers not familiar with the field, the scandals in question unfolded as follows. The first of these is the sexual harassment case at the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing department and the controversy that erupted in November 2016, when 89 Canadian writers, publishers and other powerful literary people signed an online open letter, ‘UBC Accountable’, drafted by writer Joseph Boyden supporting the accused, fellow author Steven Galloway, Chair of the Creative Writing department, and making only the briefest of mentions of the young women complainants from the Creative

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Writing programme. A second group of 640 writers, academics and literary people, myself included, signed a counter-letter that protested against the silencing of the complainants and the automatic, unquestioning support for Galloway in the absence of full process and the knowledge it would have offered (‘Open Counter-Letter’). ‘Acknowledging frankly the workings of celebrity in all cultural venues’ needs to include the way in which celebrity in the literary field can act as a silencing, intimidating, harassing force, though I retain enough attachment to my previous position to add that it can also, potentially, be brought to bear in resistance to that silencing. The events that unfolded at UBC and the consequent response across the country show celebrity power at work in both of these ways. If you survey the defences of Galloway mounted online by some of the established writers who signed on to the first UBC Accountable letter, you will witness the language of cultural respectability, and clout that gets connected with his name; writer Karen Connolly, a staunch supporter of Galloway, stated in a Facebook post, ‘what a force for [the] literary community he has been—how many students he has helped, to find work, to access agents, to meet publishers’ (Lederman 2016a), little realising how this very encomium cements Galloway’s degree of power in the industry. How chilling for women seeking to bring a complaint, to be thus ‘schooled’ in the degree of power wielded by the object of that complaint. So many of the defenders of Galloway who signed the UBC Accountable letter find the notion that they embody institutional power laughable, and the very fact that they can so easily dismiss that possibility is paradoxical evidence of that power’s normalised, routinised operations within the literary field. Responding to writer Larissa Lai’s statement, ‘No to the star machine using celebrity power to reinforce already established careers on the backs of young women’, Karen Connelly demurred in another Facebook post that she certainly was not a powerful force to be reckoned with in the world of Canadian literature, and that Lai’s protest, in Connelly’s words, ‘…does seem a little hyperbolic—for surely the opposite is happening?’ (2016): that is, those who protest the UBC Accountable letter were building their own celebrity visibility by attacking canonised writers in public. Such a suggestion overlooks the fact that many of the signatories of the counter-letter risked much in signing it, and there were others who felt unable, for so many reasons involving systemic power, to sign their names in protest against this silencing.

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The most striking denial of celebrity power, though, was voiced by Canada’s most visible global literary brand, Margaret Atwood, who told the journalist Marsha Lederman that she was shocked and surprised that her signature on the UBC Accountable letter had prompted a vexed response: ‘I think one of my problems is that I don’t realize that I’m a big deal. So I think I can just sign a letter like anybody else and I’ll just be one of these signatories. I didn’t actually realize that all of the gazelles in the herd were going to turn and look at me’ (Lederman 2016b). My research on Atwood, especially the reading of her voluminous archives that informed my study Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity (2013), established in my mind, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she is fully cognisant of her celebrity and accurately reckons the extent of its power. The archives that span several decades of her career offer ample testimony to the sexism she had faced as a young, newly successful writer, everything from being called a man-hater to being denounced in a national Canadian newspaper for, among other things, breastfeeding her child. The denials of Connelly and, especially, Atwood would seem to add fuel to the argument that celebrity, like other forms of privilege, is powerful when it is taken for granted. And yet the UBC harassment case also provides evidence for the capacity of celebrity to operate against these very systems of denial. First of all, consider the public representation of the refusal to sign the UBC Accountable letter that received national coverage when the author Lawrence Hill referred to the controversy as part of his remarks at the November 2016 McMaster University convocation that were published in another national newspaper. Noting that ‘In the last days, dozens of Canadian writers have risen to’ Galloway’s ‘defense’, he added: ‘I am not one of them. … When a woman steps forward to say that she is not safe or has been ill-treated in her university studies or in the office with her boss or at home with her partner, there can only be one response: You are welcome to speak. We will investigate and you will be safe’. These remarks, distributed widely through Facebook and Twitter, became a rallying instance of how literary celebrity can be turned to the purposes of counteracting unrecognised privilege. Countering the economy of visibility that the signature of an open online letter participates in, Hill managed to place the usually non-visualised, non-verbalised act of not signing a letter into representation. One should also recognise here, as part of the counter-uses of celebrity, the acts of many writers who removed their signatures from the

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UBC Accountable letter (even as others, of course, joined). I knowingly place them into representation here, for the removal of a name typically operates under conditions of invisibility too: Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Wayne Johnston, Jean Baird, George Murray, Carrie Snyder, Sheila Heti, Sameema Nawaz Webster, Camilla Gibb, Miriam Toews, Andrew Westoll, John K. Samson, Erik Rutherford, Christine Fellows, Dave Bidini, Carolyn Forde, Ryan Knighton, Noah Richler, Shandi Mitchell, Yann Martel, Alice Kuipers, and Dede Crane. Some of these writers also undertook crucial pedagogical work, in thinking publicly about why they rethought their decision to sign. Camilla Gibb was exemplary in this regard, and her Facebook post movingly explained that ‘I had to remove my name from this letter. It was causing so much pain. I have had to sit back and really reflect on why I failed to understand how much pain it would cause—to think about ways beyond this letter that I may have been inadvertently complicit in contributing to a culture of shaming and silencing’. Even more impressive was Gibb’s closing acknowledgment of the way in which the gendered blandishments of celebrity power operated in her case: ‘I am also guilty of being insecure and susceptible to flattery and the desire for inclusion when a man in a position of power asks. Despite being almost 50. Despite being established. Because I am still a woman’. So to the counter-argument that, after all, not everyone who signed UBC Accountable was a household name, we must point out what Gibb is teaching us here: that one of the powers wielded by the celebrity is to confer celebrity-by-association. Scholars of celebrity call this, after film critic James Monaco, ‘paracelebrity’. And in the literary world, it is powerful, as Pierre Bourdieu recognised decades ago: the field of cultural production is the site of struggles in which what is at stake is the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the writer. … [E]very survey aimed at establishing the hierarchy of writers predetermines the hierarchy by determining the population deemed worthy of helping to establish it … [T]he consecrated writer is the one who has the power to consecrate and to win assent when he or she consecrates an author or a work—with a preface, a favourable review, a prize, etc. (1993, 42)

We may regard an invitation to sign a public petition similarly. The second crisis of Canadian literary celebrity power that erupted late in 2016 was in part an outgrowth of the UBC harassment case. The

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first open letter’s author, Joseph Boyden, the widely celebrated author of Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce, came under scrutiny for his claims of Indigenous identity and ancestry. And while these questions had been raised in many Indigenous communities well before this, it took the UBC Accountable letter, and the counter-letter to give those questions an added urgency, direction and visibility. In particular, many Indigenous women in the literary field were taken aback by Boyden’s minimising of the issue of violence against women in the open letter in support of Galloway, and they took to social media, in particular, to criticise him for it. As the Anishnaabe writer Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, from the Chippewas of the Nawash First Nation, observed, ‘There have been questions about Joseph and who he claimed to be for quite a long while. But it was really nothing that any of us individually could put their finger on’ (Andrew-Gee 2017). In December 2016, APTN, the Aboriginal People’s Television Network, ran an extensively researched story about Boyden’s claims of Indigenous ancestry that drew upon two separate research portfolios that they independently verified before asking a third party to review the methodology of all of the genealogical research involved. They found that Boyden’s claims were, essentially, baseless. Part of the issue concerned Boyden’s claiming various community connections at various times, few among them making much sense: Ojibway, Metis, Mi’kmaq, Nipmuc and Wendat. These are distinctly different communities. Another part of the issue related to Boyden’s accepting awards for his fiction, including one that was specifically designated for Indigenous writers, the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year award, which he won for Three Day Road in the award’s inaugural year, 2005. The UBC Galloway case and the simmering questions about Boyden’s identity claims came to a head around the same time, and they were linked. A few weeks before the APTN broadcast, on 24 November 2016, in a surprising tweet, Margaret Atwood seemed to credit Boyden with the authority to vouch for the Indigenous identity of others, specifically, that of Steven Galloway: ‘Confirmed @josephboyden that Steven Galloway is #indigenous + was adopted. @ubcaccountable Well known but not so far mentioned in the convo’. Twitter erupted at this statement, with many Indigenous tweeters deploring the implied linkage of Indigenous identity and the question of Galloway’s innocence or culpability. The journalistic research that culminated in the December APTN profile had, of course, been underway long before Atwood’s tweet,

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but the notion of Boyden being a trusted Indigenous authority on the identity claims of others sharpened the inquiry into his own claims. It also sharpened the sense of Boyden being taken up as an Indigenous spokesperson by very powerful white Canadian literary and political figures, thus taking up cultural space that might otherwise have been filled by Indigenous voices. This goes right to the top, to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who declined to comment on Boyden’s identity, but who added, ‘On a personal level I have to say I’m a big fan of Joseph’s storytelling abilities and his passion and compassion, and I certainly hope we hear voices like his and other voices in this conversation very loudly and clearly in the weeks, months, years, decades that it’s going to take to create true reconciliation’ (Andrew-Gee 2017). The Globe and Mail journalist Eric Andrew-Gee set this quotation beside that of the Anishnaabe scholar Hayden King, who observed, ‘Canadians don’t want to let him go. They want him to be the voice of reconciliation’, and noted that the term reconciliation, used approvingly by Trudeau, is conversely used disparagingly by King and other Indigenous intellectuals and activists, who criticise its suggestion of mutual responsibility for the traumas of colonisation. King’s assessment is borne out by the title of a Globe and Mail column that appeared in the heat of the controversy: ‘Amid Heritage Controversy, Publishing Heavyweights Stand By Joseph Boyden’ (Lederman 2017). Some of those same publishing industry powers unquestioningly stood by Steven Galloway too. As the Canadian literary community struggled to come to terms with both of these events, a third broke out in May 2017, and this one was also intricately tied up with the UBC and Boyden affairs. The internal magazine of the Writers’ Union of Canada, Write, published a special issue on Indigenous writing, and its non-Indigenous editor Hal Niedzviecki prefaced it with a short piece called ‘Winning the Appropriation Prize’. In it he defended the appropriation of other groups’ stories by white Canadian writers as a means of increasing the diversity of Canadian literature, and he facetiously called for an ‘Appropriation Prize’ to be given to the best performance in the stealing of other communities’ stories. Indigenous contributors to the magazine were horrified to see their work thus introduced. Members of the Union, who automatically receive the magazine, wondered how the editorial collective had approved this preface. The appearance of the editorial, and the consequent publicity, would have been harmful enough, but in the early hours of 11 May 2017, as the story broke, several high-profile

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publishers and journalists took to Twitter to voice their support for such a prize. Ken Whyte, the founding editor of the National Post and editor of Maclean’s magazine, stepped in first, offering to donate $500, and the others followed: Anne-Marie Owens, editor in Chief of the National Post; Alison Uncles, editor of Maclean’s; Steve Maich, head of digital content and publishing at Rogers Media; Scott Feschuk, a columnist for Maclean’s; Christie Blatchford, columnist for the National Post; and, shockingly, Steve Ladurantaye, the managing editor of CBC News which is produced by Canada’s national broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The editor of The Walrus, a high-profile Canadian arts and current affairs magazine, and a frequent commentator on CBC National news, Jonathan Kay, retweeted Whyte’s call approvingly. Many of these same people had defended Joseph Boyden and blamed those who investigated and questioned his claims, and many also had defended Steven Galloway. Kay wrote a piece in The Walrus called ‘Why is Joseph Boyden’s Indigenous Identity Being Questioned?’ (2016). And his short-form answer was, essentially, because of ‘politically correct’ activists and the evils of Twitter. Showing an alarming ignorance of how Indigenous people trace and communicate their community belongings, Kay explained Boyden’s contradictory claims of Indigenous identity by recycling the racist notion that Indigenous people do not really know who they are. Christie Blatchford, for her part, published a column in the National Post defending Steven Galloway, entitled ‘Again a Man’s Life Left in Ruins while his Sexual Assault Accuser Goes About Hers’ (2017). So, anti-racist and anti-sexist Canadian literature academics had, in a few short months, to confront head-on the existence of a powerfully interconnected white elite in the publishing world that, in their words and deeds, sought to block access to cultural expression to others. For those of us who were drawn to the study of contemporary Canadian literature largely because it offered a space to think about, teach and write about progressive visions of social justice, it has been a painful time. For my own part, my scholarship on Canadian literary celebrity as a not necessarily disastrous condition had received a timely, contemporary rebuke, and I needed to rethink it. Seeking out how the concept of scandal might inflect my thinking about literary celebrity in Canada, I returned to the scholarly work on scandal that I already knew from celebrity studies, and consulted other theories of scandal from sociological criticism that I had not previously

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consulted because they did not foreground celebrity. A substantial amount of the latter theory adopts what I call a dominant morality approach: that is, an assumption that scandal erupts in contravention of hegemonic moral nostrums, and the scandalous subjects are those who transgress those majority views. (One thinks here of Oscar Wilde’s epigram ‘Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality’; 1962, 53.) James Lull and Stephen Hinerman’s introduction to their 1997 collection Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace falls into this category, even though they acknowledge the power of scandal to function ‘simultaneously as a moral anchor in a sea of conventionality, and as a vigorous challenge to mainstream values conditioned by the substantial forces of ideological and cultural hegemony’ (2). But whether scandal ultimately reaffirms or challenges ‘dominant morality’ (3), Lull and Hinerman explain, it is in any event set off by a transgression of it; in fact, their first, ‘fundamental’ criterion of scandal, out of ten, is that ‘social norms reflecting the dominant morality must be transgressed’ (11). Briefly they acknowledge that ‘dominant morality’ is a tricky concept that is ‘never completely fixed’, never geo-culturally constant. But they confirm that the basic question remains: have the scandalous agents in question violated ‘social norms’ (4)? ‘Competing emergent interpretations of what the narrative [of a scandal] means are negotiated against a backdrop of a dominant moral code’, Lull and Hinerman reaffirm, ‘articulated and reinforced by major social institutions’ (3). But what if it is a dominant institution—say, the Writers’ Union of Canada—that is scandalous? John B. Thompson, while he contributes to Lull and Hinerman’s volume, departs from the interpretive framework that his editors have provided and builds the foundation for an understanding of scandal that is flexible enough so that the transgressive party can be those who represent institutional power. Scandals, he points out, ‘often involve much more than the transgression of values or norms’; they are ‘struggles over power and the sources of power’ and they ‘can … have long-term consequences for the character of the social relations and institutions associated with them’ (1997, 58). Such a formulation better captures the erosion of trust in a whole range of cultural institutions that was occasioned by the CanLit scandals of 2016–2017: not only the Writers’ Union but also publishing houses, literary publicity industries, universities and journalism itself.

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Once this flexibility is granted, it follows that the scandalous subject need not be individual, as much of the dominant morality theory would have us believe. Returning to Lull and Hinerman, consider their second criterion for scandal: ‘specific persons who carry out … actions that reflect an exercise of their desires or interests’ are ‘identified as perpetrators of the act(s)’ (1997, 11, emphasis in original). Lull and Hinerman allow that, ‘while scandals must be of a personal nature, it is not just persons who are perceived to act scandalously. We must also hold institutions responsible for breaches in moral conduct’ (9)—breaches performed by offending individuals, that is. But holding on so determinedly to the personal seems to yield diminishing theoretical returns, for it restricts scandal once again to the realm of ‘dominant morality’. What if the scandal discloses not a breach but a confirmation of unjust conduct that is the unspoken norm within an institution? Departing from this individualistic paradigm, Herman Gray, who studies the way in which representations of black American subjects as scandalous have upheld white racist hegemony, notes that ‘the notion of scandal is usually applied to personal, often moral acts of transgression and behavioral lapses of the normative boundaries of the collective’; however, he wants ‘to extend and broaden this understanding of scandal by proposing that we consider it as a … discursive regime that has invested in representing social, cultural, and political struggles over power in racial terms, framing such struggles to the racial and economic order in moral terms’ (1997, 86). Once scandal is theoretically freed from its attachment to the individual body, we can conceptualise it as a discursive regime that determines which representations of justice are allowed to hold sway in influential outlets of expression. Returning to the UBC Accountable scandal once again, the title of National Post journalist Christie Blatchford’s column, ‘Again a Man’s Life Left in Ruins while his Sexual Assault Accuser Goes About Hers’, operates discursively in just this way, with its recursive opening ‘Again’ positioning women complainants in general as the scandalous bodies and accused men as the injured parties. In an interview Galloway gave to The Globe and Mail after he was awarded a settlement with UBC in June 2018 for the university’s improper announcement of the charges against him, he referred to the ongoing allegations as a ‘lynching’ (Mason 2018), a racially charged term that relocates the provocations of scandalous behaviour to a group composed of the

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complainants and their supporters and that figures that group as sheetclad Klansmen. There are signs that theorists of scandal have moved away from dominant morality theory and its individualistic underpinnings. Ari Adut, in On Scandal (2008), defines scandal without any reference either to a homogeneous standard of morality or to the necessity of an individual agent: ‘A scandal is an episode of moral disturbance, marked by an interaction around an actual, apparent, or alleged transgression that draws sustained and negative attention from a public’, and it is ‘experienced differentially by different parties’ (23). This is the full flexibility that is required to build a theory of scandal capable of explaining what Laura Moss and Brendon McCormack called ‘the asymmetries of power and privilege’ (2017, 7) in the Canadian literary fields and, by implication, in other fields of cultural production as well. As part of the project of moving this theory forward, I propose a further revision to Adut’s definition. His mention of the ‘sustained … attention’ that publics grant scandals brings to the fore the question of the duration of scandal. Often, ephemerality is considered a feature of scandals; Adut, who acknowledges that scandals can brief or sustained, specifies that they last ‘as long as there is significant and sustained public interest in it’ (11), a precept that does appear to tip the balance towards the relatively fleeting. In common parlance, scandal is strongly associated with ephemerality; the coinage ‘dumpster fire’, for example, evokes a brief but spectacular flameout. This language, in turn, is connected to the individualist cast of many understandings of scandal because the duration of scandal is correlated to the extent of public attention offered to the individual, who often rapidly retreats from social visibility; accordingly, to the extent that the scandals of 2016–2017 brought Steven Galloway, Joseph Boyden and Hal Niedzviecki into the uncomfortable spotlight, they were for the most part brief. (Owing to the role of legal proceedings in the case of Galloway, however, public attention stretched out longer, through 2016–2017 and reviving in June 2018 with the news of his settlement with UBC.) But considering scandals like these to be political and institutional entails thinking differently about their duration. As Smaro Kamboureli writes about the tendency for multiculturalism to be presented as scandalous in the Canadian press, ‘the representation of multiculturalism through the sign of scandal obscures the need to examine the historical coordinates of minority subjectivities … multiculturalism as a media-manufactured scandal

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circumvents the systemic structures of which it is both symptom and effect’ (2000, 89). And I argue that it does so because it individualises and therefore temporally foreshortens scandal. When literary scandals of the recent past have been considered in Canadian criticism, they have not surprisingly been understood to be, as Kamboureli suggests, a means of othering and discounting subaltern experience, and such experiences are of long duration, and indeed are routinised, for minoritised subjects. Larissa Lai, looking back at two scandals in Asian Canadian literature and culture in the late 2000s (the publication of the 2010 magazine article ‘Too Asian’ that criticised the proportion of Asian Canadian students in universities; and a plagiarism lawsuit launched by three Asian Canadian writers), writes that ‘media scandals dramatize mainstream anxieties about its others’ (2014, 16). In a similar vein, Kamboureli extensively surveys the ways in which media accounts represent multiculturalism as an ‘explosive issue’ (89) and ‘minority Canadians’ as ‘threatening subjects’ (84). She focuses on what she calls the ‘hysterical response’ to the Writing Thru Race conference in 1994: a conference run by writers of colour that excluded white registrants from the workshop proceedings (though they were welcome to various public events). Such critical takes on the scandals of the recent Canadian literary past are attuned to Herman Gray’s theory of scandal and American racial politics; as he explains, ‘such racialized discourse’ (1997, 86)—that is, the ‘overt assignment to blackness of the signs of danger, excess, and social decay’ (89)—‘works by naming and rendering as “scandalous” transgressions and oppositions to the dominant order of things’ (86). He underlines the kinds of ideological work that the assignment of scandal does by distinguishing in his writing between ‘scandal’ and scandal, the former denoting the imputation of scandalous excess to black bodies and the latter indicating the actual scandal of such an imputation and the racism it upholds. What is to be done? As I observed at the opening of this chapter, scandal intensifies the ethical questions prompted by our writing about, teaching and consumption of living artists. They are therefore crucial sites of pedagogy and critical self-reflection. However, I have noted a tendency among colleagues in my field to respond to these scandals by wiping the artists who have become subject to scandal off their syllabi and research projects. One Facebook post, I recall, asked contacts whether they would continue to teach the work of Margaret Atwood or not. Among the responses that flowed in, I was equally dissatisfied with those who came to Atwood’s

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defence (because they separated aesthetics and politics) and with those who summarily crossed her off their lists for political reasons. Instead, drawing on the theoretical frameworks I have built in this chapter, I have several methodological propositions to make about why and how we should continue to teach, consume and write about scandalous artists. First of all, drawing on the growing willingness of theorists to consider scandal polysemic (Lull and Hinerman 1997, 17; Adut 2008, 11; Kamboureli 2000, ix), we should be teaching scandal in a way that opens up the question of who or what is the subject of scandal. Following the example of Herman Gray’s separation of ‘scandal’ and scandal, we could consider with our students and colleagues the scandalous nature of the institution of Canadian Literature itself, given its alignment with the state and, therefore, with the colonisation of Indigenous peoples, and branching into its legacies of misogyny, racism and homophobia. There are already signs that the discipline has made steps in the direction of a more capacious understanding of literary scandal. For example, when Smaro Kamboureli published Scandalous Bodies in 2000, she discussed the way in which ‘minority Canadians’ were rendered scandalous by news media. But by the time we reach the scandals of 2016 and after, scandal has primarily attached itself to those individuals and their institutions who became associated with the closing off of access to emerging women and Indigenous writers. Although it may seem too easy for a settler scholar such as myself to point to this index of progress, it at least is there as a promise of the great deal more that needs to happen. I therefore propose that in our work, pedagogical or critical, we consistently adopt a language that emphasises the persistence of scandals rather than their evanescence. Removing these writers from our curricula because they have behaved scandalously reinforces the ephemerality of scandal; although we may wish to move away from teaching long-canonised authors for other reasons—as part of a process of ­ pedagogical decolonisation and a desire to represent our field more ­ accurately—we should also be able to consider retaining those writers in order to teach to the issue of scandal. One settler colleague confessed to me that he could no longer teach Boyden because he taught him as a representative of Indigenous storytelling. But rather than retreating from the teaching of Boyden, would it not be more productive and compelling to look deeply at how we decide representativeness, and to query the very concept? While we are at it, we could also reconsider why we are comfortable teaching some writers and not others, and why comfort should be a criterion for teaching specific

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materials in the first place. Are particular writers’ works like Boyden’s comfortable or palatable to a settler teacher? What is it about Boyden, we might ask, that made his texts curricular favourites in the first place? Since scandal is a persistent state, we need to teach to the ongoingness of scandalous conditions. The blocking of access to publication, to audiences, to opportunity in the literary field has not been a temporary scandal for many emergent writers who are Indigenous, women, black people and people of colour: it has been a condition of their everyday lives as writers. To illustrate this point about the differential temporality and experience of scandal, I return to where I began this inquiry: to the presence of Marina Abramović and her calm, steady, challenging ethical gaze. One individual person who takes a seat across from her experiences that ethical exchange for a mere few minutes, but Abramović as an artist experiences a wearying, extended duration of ethical exchange. We need to think through the ongoing nature of scandal because we need to think about the ‘ongoingness’ of being an emerging Indigenous writer whose breakthrough into the Writers’ Union of Canada magazine is ruined. We need to think about the terrible ongoingness of being a survivor of sexual violence. And we need to think of the ongoingness of being an Indigenous writer whose work is passed over for the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year award in favour of a writer who is not who he claims to be. These are the everyday, working, striving artists who seem leagues removed from Abramović’s ballgown-wearing, ­ crowd-attracting celebrity ‘Artist’. These artists are present too, in the sense that their labour is a vital part of the tissue of literary life; but their full presence, in the sense of their positive thriving, is compromised by the continued conditions of inequity that the Galloway, Boyden and Niedzviecki scandals have, if only briefly, disclosed to a broader public. When we begin to appreciate the ongoingness of the scandal of unequal opportunity, we can begin to imagine a cultural field in which all of the artists are present.

Bibliography Abramović, Marina. 2010. ‘The Artist Is Present’. New York: Museum of Modern Art. Adut, Ari. 2008. On Scandal: Moral Disturbances in Society, Politics, and Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Andrew-Gee, Eric. 2017. ‘The Making of Joseph Boyden’. The Globe and Mail, 4 August. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/josephboyden/article35881215/. Accessed 21 May 2018.

36  L. YORK Atwood, Margaret (@MargaretAtwood). 2016. ‘Confirmed @josephboyden That Steven Galloway Is #indigenous + Was Adopted. @ubcaccountable Well Known but Not so Far Mentioned in the Convo’. Twitter, 24 November 2016, 5:02 pm. Blatchford, Christie. 2017. ‘Again a Man’s Life Left in Ruins While His Sexual Assault Accuser Goes About Hers’. National Post, 17 March. http://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-again-a-mans-life-left-in-ruins-whilehis-sexual-assault-accuser-goes-about-hers. Accessed 21 May 2018. Boorstin, Daniel J. 1961. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Vintage, 2012. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, edited and introduced by Randal Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press. Connelly, Karen. 2016. ‘…Does Seem a Little Hyperbolic—For Surely the Opposite Is Happening?’ Facebook, 7 December. Dyer, Richard. 1979. Stars, 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute, 1998. Gibb, Camilla. 2016. ‘…I Had to Remove My Name from This Letter’. Facebook, 19 November. Gray, Herman. 1997. ‘Anxiety, Desire, and Conflict in the American Racial Imagination’. In Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace, edited by James Lull and Stephen Hinerman, 85–98. New York: Columbia University Press. Hill, Lawrence. 2016. ‘Women Have a Right to Be Heard and Respected’. The Globe and Mail, 18 November. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/women-have-a-right-to-be-heard-and-respected/article32931267/. Accessed 21 May 2018. Jones, Amelia. 2011. ‘The Artist Is Present: Artistic Re-enactments and the Impossibility of Presence’. The Drama Review 55, no. 1: 16–45. Kamboureli, Smaro. 2000. Scandalous Bodies: Diasporic Literature in English Canada. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kay, Jonathan. 2016. ‘Why Is Joseph Boyden’s Indigenous Identity Being Questioned?’ The Walrus, 28 December. https://thewalrus.ca/why-is-joseph-boydens-indigenous-identity-being-questioned/. Accessed 21 May 2018. Lai, Larissa. 2014. Slanting I, Imagining We: Asian Canadian Literary Production in the 1980s and 1990s. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Lederman, Marsha. 2016a. ‘Under a Cloud: How UBC’s Steven Galloway Affair Has Haunted a Campus and Changed Lives’. The Globe and Mail, 28 October. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/ubc-andthe-steven-galloway-affair/article32562653/. Accessed 2 June 2018.

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Lederman, Marsha. 2016b. ‘How the Steven Galloway Scandal Sparked a CanLit Civil War’. The Globe and Mail, 25 November. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/how-the-steven-galloway-scandal-sparkeda-canlit-civil-war/article33049536/. Accessed 2 June 2018. Lederman, Marsha. 2017. ‘Amid Heritage Controversy, Publishing Heavyweights Stand by Joseph Boyden’. The Globe and Mail, 6 January. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/amid-heritage-controversy-publishing-heavyweights-stand-by-joseph-boyden/article33526706/. Accessed 2 June 2018. Lull, James, and Stephen Hinerman, eds. 1997. Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace. New York: Columbia University Press. Mason, Gary. 2018. ‘Steven Galloway Breaks Silence: “My Life Is Destroyed”’. The Globe and Mail, 8 June. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/ books/article-steven-galloway-says-his-life-is-destroyed-after-ubc-payout/. Accessed 8 June 2018. Monaco, James. 1978. Celebrity: The Media as Image Makers. New York: Dell. Moss, Laura, and Brendan McCormack. 2017. ‘Meanwhile, Home: Tinder-Dry Conditions’. Canadian Literature 232: 6–9. Niedzviecki, Hal. 2017. ‘Winning the Appropriation Prize’. Write: The Magazine of the Writers’ Union of Canada 45, no. 1: 8. ‘Open Counter-Letter About the Steven Galloway Case at UBC’. 2016. https:// www.change.org/p/ubc-accountable-open-counter-letter-about-the-stevengalloway-case-at-ubc. Accessed 2 June 2018. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, and Adam Frank, eds. 1995. Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Durham: Duke University Press. Thompson, John B. 1997. ‘Scandal and Social Theory’. In Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in the Popular Culture Marketplace, edited by James Lull and Stephen Hinerman, 34–64. New York: Columbia University Press. ‘UBC Accountable’. 14 November 2016. http://www.ubcaccountable.com/ open-letter/steven-galloway-ubc/. Accessed 2 June 2018. Wilde, Oscar. 1962. ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’. In Oscar Wilde: Plays. London: Penguin Books. Williamson, Milly. 2016. Celebrity: Capitalism and the Making of Fame. Cambridge: Polity. York, Lorraine. 2007. Literary Celebrity in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. York, Lorraine. 2013. Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

CHAPTER 3

From Vocational Calling to Career Construction: Late-Career Authors and Critical Self-reflection Hywel Dix

Introduction A challenge that sometimes arises when contemplating contemporary writers is that their later works seem to suffer through critical comparison to earlier work for which they have already become known. In some cases, this is a sin of omission, the later works simply not attracting as much critical interest as the previous. Graham Swift’s Wish You Were Here (2011) has not been discussed nearly so widely as his Booker-Prize winning Last Orders (1996), and far less energy has been expended on the appreciation of Sebastian Faulks’s work since A Possible Life (2012) than on Birdsong (1993) or Charlotte Gray (1998). In others, it is an act of commission whereby the later works are actively judged to be inferior to those that came before. Salman Rushdie’s work since Shalimar the Clown (2005) has not only failed to generate as much critical attention as Midnight’s Children (1981) or The Satanic Verses (1988) but has also H. Dix (*)  Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_3

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attracted more opprobrium than those two, where it has been discussed at all. Likewise, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Buried Giant (2015) has generally been written about less often but more critically than The Remains of the Day (1989). Clearly, this is not an assumption that would hold true in every case, especially not of canonical writers from earlier periods in literary history, and it may be related to the changing forces at play in the modern marketplace. Within the contemporary world, however, it is a situation that can result in writers being primarily associated with one or two specific works produced years—or even decades—earlier, in a way that hinders a positive reception of the later work. This situation raises a theoretical question about how we define the contemporary; and another about the mechanics of canonisation more generally. Moreover, until recently, the concept of a literary career, with certain material properties of its own, had received inadequate critical scholarly attention—although Guy Davidson and Nicola Evans’s Literary Careers in the Modern Era (2015) is an important exception. This chapter has two goals. First, by applying career construction theory to a discussion of the late stage of the authorial careers of contemporary British writers, it presents career construction as a new theory of authorship, with potential application to the analysis of artistic careers in different media and art forms. In doing so it will construct a framework for considering what is specific to late-career works when compared with those produced during earlier stages, in a bid to avoid the negative comparison mentioned above. Implicit in this is the suggestion that late-career works are likely to receive more positive interpretation if we treat them as such—that is, if the means by which we judge them is consciously different from how we judge the earlier works. Second, it draws attention to forms of creative self-reflection in which writers are able to engage during the later stages of their careers. In doing this, it also assesses the extent to which such forms of reflection entail a merging of individual vision with wider social themes and collective aspirations.

The Emergence of Career Construction Theory Among the first major contributions to analysing the vocational aspect of writers’ lives were Edward Said in Beginnings (1975) and Wayne C. Booth in The Company We Keep (1988). Said’s key argument is that prior to the twentieth century, writing was a vocation rather than a profession

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as such, so that the works of twentieth-century authors are distinguished from their predecessors by an increasing preoccupation with the career of the writer (227). However, his suggestion that writing as a vocation was supplanted by writing as a professional career at that time fails to account for the fact that even today, writing remains a vocation for many people, especially at the start of their writing life when they cannot be certain of achieving sufficient commercial success to turn it into a professional career. In other words, to many contemporary writers, writing can be both vocation and career at different stages of their life. Booth assigned more significance to the vocational element than Said, and, as one of the pioneers of reader research, his interest lay in documenting how different readers told him that the reading of particularly cherished books had inspired them to make specific ethical or vocational decisions (279). He was not, however, able to adduce any proof that the books in question really had made the telling contribution to the decisions that his interviewees claimed they had. Beyond the insights of Said and Booth, a new way of thinking about literary careers has therefore become necessary, for which I draw upon the tools of career construction theory. Although this is a branch of social psychology more concerned with training career guidance counsellors than with literary study, it has the potential to illuminate our understanding of the writer’s vocation. This is because it entails a shift away from forms of vocational guidance based on aptitude tests and computer databanks, instead using a narrative method based on the telling of life stories. In the counselling relationship, the purpose of elucidating life stories is to enable the person seeking guidance to make some type of decision about the next stage of their career, metaphorically becoming the ‘author’ of the next chapter in that narrative (Savickas 2011b, 179). If the individuals in question happen to be authors, that metaphor becomes oddly literal in the sense that authors enter a new phase of their career as such when they start writing new kinds of work. This means that, without consulting career counsellors, they are enacting the same kinds of symbolic behaviour that career advisors develop in the people they advise. Career construction theory was developed by Larry Cochran (1997) and Mark Savickas (2011a) in the context of three major developments. The first of these was the fact that patterns of life and work in the Western world had changed dramatically in the last quarter of the twentieth century, such that, whereas people of the preceding two generations

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might commonly expect to work in the same field—even for the same employer—for their whole working life, people at the turn of the millennium were much more likely to need to change both employers and areas of work on multiple occasions. Secondly, the development of career construction was given a major impetus by the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, a period typified by financial uncertainty and the concomitant closures of businesses at every level from the very small to the transnational, such that changes between different employers and careers became increasingly necessary. During the same period, the increased average lifespans of people in the Western world generated a third context in which career construction arose, in the face of systematic increases in state retirement and pension ages causing people to work for longer than ever before. One of the goals of career construction is to build qualities of resilience, the capacity to live with uncertainty and comfort in experiencing change. For both Cochran and Savickas, encouraging their clients to tell their life stories helps elucidate certain recurring themes and aptitudes which are discernible across very different life experiences, which can be used to foster the aforementioned qualities and thus help them negotiate complex transitions in their working life. Interestingly, Cochran and Savickas each assert that the life stories people tell their counsellors need not be true in a verifiable, factual sense. What is important are the meanings that the individuals associate with the stories they tell, whether or not they are empirically accurate, because such meanings inform future career decisions. Thus the order of truth associated with the life stories told exists at the symbolic and emotive, rather than factual, level. The same is true of the recently emerged literary genre known as autofiction, in which authors typically write autobiographies using techniques derived from experimental novels. The experiences so narrated are real, but their precise veracity is less important than their symbolic truth, which incorporates a degree of uncertainty because of the fallibility of human memory. To career guidance counsellors, therefore, telling life stories is a matter of elucidating cyclical patterns of symbolic behaviour to which can be ascribed feelings of satisfaction and fulfilment, thereby enabling people to seek professional roles that will provide similar feelings in the future and so facilitating the process of constructing a career. Career construction theory treats individuals as archives or repositories of memory and feeling. Excavating those archives is then the principal purpose of this form of vocational guidance, directing the individual’s

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attention towards their own internal resources and opening up the potential for those resources to be reapplied in changing roles and new environments. As living archives, people have myriad rich and complex stories to tell, which is why narrative approaches to vocational guidance are potentially beneficial in thinking about changes between different life and career stages. In this sense, the general tendency of people to live and work longer illustrates an important facet of specifically authorial careers. Authors, like composers, visual artists and others (though performing artists are often different) tend not formally to retire at all, or as Roger Grenier puts it, ‘few writers have willingly put their last words to paper’ (2014, 105). This means that the traditional model of a lifespan divided into three stages of youth and education, followed by working life, then retirement (Laslett 1996, 5) no longer applies to these types of careers. Career construction therefore provides a potentially illuminating alternative way of thinking about the stages within an authorial career.

Life Stages and Career Trajectories Figures 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6 depict a series of indicative career trajectories typically experienced by authors, where degrees of critical and/or commercial success vary over time. Clearly, the question of how

Fig. 3.1  Only a low level of success is ever achieved

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Fig. 3.2  Early break-out is consolidated by a high level of subsequent success

Fig. 3.3  Subsequent work struggles to live up to early successes

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Fig. 3.4  The career is slowly and gradually developed

Fig. 3.5  The overall career trajectory experiences a ‘peak’

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Fig. 3.6  The overall career trajectory experiences an inverted peak

to define ‘success’ is variable from one author to another, depending on what precisely each author aims to achieve. This might be very commercially focused and hence measurable in a quantitative way; or it may depend on a degree of innovation that is less tangible, less easy to document and by its nature less concerned with achieving measurable outputs, even though it might result in significant critical acclaim. The latter would be especially true of creative artists who concurrently work in higher education institutions, or what Howard Becker (2008) refers to as academic artists. Although David Galenson has provided a highly innovative means of quantifying success statistically in Artistic Capital (2006), for the purposes of this chapter there are no specific units of measurement. Rather, the charts should be taken to indicate an abstract, generalised raising or lowering of success over time. It should also be noted that only those artistically active portions of a career have been considered, not those dedicated to performing other areas of work, even though in many cases the intersections between these and writers’ careers can be intricate and complex. From a materialist perspective, the stability that arises from the effective engagement in another kind of work might create the requisite degree of financial security to allow these people to write at all. Professions from which contemporary authors have emerged include law (Alexander McCall

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Smith), medicine (Khaled Hosseini), teaching (Michael Morpurgo, Joanne Harris), politics (Michael Dobbs) and banking (Polly Courtney). On the other hand, the mere fact of devoting a significant portion of one’s time, creativity and mental energy to those spheres also conflicts with the demands of being a writer, which in the prior sense they enable. The relationship between writing and other work is therefore highly ambivalent as well as dialectical. In many cases, the pressures created by that work and by other life experiences are too great and the vocation to write is sacrificed to them. Figure 3.1 maps out the indicative trajectory of a career in writing for an author who has not yet become established as such. The level of success (however measured) remains relatively low throughout the whole period dedicated to writing. This might be because the author has ­created a work that has been badly received and struggled to make a critical or commercial impact; or it might be that the other personal and professional commitments have precluded them from producing a single written work (or, having produced one, from publishing and publicising it). The kinds of work typically created during this kind of career might be common, but are unlikely to come to the attention of a wide readership, as the manuscripts languish unpublished in drawers or linger on the remainder shelves of warehouses. Then again, Laura Dietz (2015) has drawn attention to how the rise of self-publishing via the Internet and other forms of new media has somewhat lessened the power of traditional gatekeeping roles within the industry (such as publisher, agent or commissioning editor) so that some of these early ‘unpublished’ works can still be made available in the public domain. Even in these cases, however, a low level of success in a quantifiable sense need not be interpreted to mean no success, especially for individuals whose writing has been undertaken with the specific aim of self-reflection and ­self-development rather than with any necessary market orientation. This is increasingly true of writers who practise the genre of autofiction, and Mark McGurl (2011) points out that it is also important to students enrolled in certain kinds of creative writing programmes. Figure 3.2 shows a contrasting indicative career trajectory for authors who achieve a major breakthrough early on in their careers as writers, and thereafter manage to retain a comparably high critical and/or commercial standard throughout subsequent stages of their authorial careers. Again, it should be emphasised that the start of the career in writing does not necessarily coincide with the start of the author’s working

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life, and in many cases, two different careers are pursued in tandem. This means that the beginning stage of an authorial career is not necessarily defined by age: a debut novelist is not necessarily young when measured by the career stages of other industries. Tim Lott published his first book, The Scent of Dried Roses, in 1996, the year in which he turned 43; Tessa Hadley’s debut Accidents in the Home (2002) came at the age of 46 and Clare Morrall published her first novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, in 2003, her fifty-second year. By the same token a relatively young person, not yet ready for retirement in any other industry and certainly not drawing near the end of their career as novelist, might be considered a ‘veteran’ if they have already published several works: David Mitchell and Ali Smith are good examples. Examples of real-world authors whose careers have followed the trajectory indicated in Fig. 3.2 are sadly much rarer than those in Fig. 3.1. Among contemporary writers, J. K. Rowling might be considered such a figure, having achieved such broad commercial success and such public worldwide visibility that her status has eclipsed that of mere author and has become that of a policy-maker and advocate of the literary arts more generally. All sorts of complicating questions arise in her case, first of all about the relationship of the specialist field of children’s literature to commercial success and then about the impact of Rowling’s subsequent role with UNESCO on any future attempts she might make to continue writing. Indeed this may be an ironic counterfoil to those instances where the need to make a living in other kinds of work render dedicating sufficient time and mental energy for artistic success difficult to achieve in practice. In Rowling’s case, it is a question of her having been excessively rather than insufficiently successful, her great success propelling her into the orbit of an advocate, policy leader and public figure which risks taking her out of the domain of writing altogether so that her career becomes what Fred Inglis calls an extended ‘performance’ of her celebrity status (2010, 3). Indeed, early critical responses to her fictional output subsequent to the Harry Potter series have been much less enthusiastic, and her successful reinvention as a crime writer under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith seems to have relied in large part on the audience’s discovery that the two authors are one and the same. This might indicate that her success as an innovative writer (which in any case is only one way in which to understand success) might in fact be closer to that indicated in Fig. 3.3, in which an early major break-out is followed by a gradual lessening of artistic achievement.

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The opposite case is indicated in Fig. 3.4. This maps the career of a writer whose breakthrough is much less sudden and dramatic than that of an author like Rowling, but who nevertheless labours away over a long and sustained period of time such that a successful authorial career is constructed in stages. Among contemporary writers, Jim Crace sits in this category as well as, possibly, Shena Mackay. Galenson refers to artists of this kind as ‘experimental innovators’ because their careers evince a commitment to many different attempts at stylistic, aesthetic and formal innovation over time (2006, 174). This contrasts with artists whom he terms ‘conceptual innovators’ who typically achieve one specific innovation in a particular work during their career, and then repeat the same practice in subsequent works (27). Jonathan Buckley’s repeated experiments in various forms of fictional biography, and Sarah Hall’s defamiliarisation of the landscape of her native Northwest England in a number of different novels, are contemporary examples. It would however be a mistake to assume that career narratives are best understood by recourse to a model of linear progress that brings nothing but improved standing within artistic communities and/ or higher levels of commercial reward over time. Although many writers continue to expand their degree of innovation, formal accomplishment and the size and reach of their readership over time, in reality this is rarely experienced as a one-way narrative of development. Degrees of formal experimentation, commercial acumen, aesthetic innovation and readerly pleasure are all prone to fluctuations over time, so that a writer’s career trajectory may feature slight dips and inclines as well as gradual climbs. But in a case such as that indicated by Fig. 3.4, the overall trajectory is likely to be upwards (whereas in Fig. 3.3 the overall movement is in the opposite direction). It would also be misleading to assume that in cases like Fig. 3.4, the achievements of the author go on slowly increasing forever. It is much more common that the writer’s status reaches a high point at some point during the career and then either ceases to grow or positively declines thereafter. Figure 3.5 indicates this typical career trajectory, with a peak followed by a gradual decline. Again, allowing for the inclusion of lesser degrees of gradation at specific points, this shape maps the most commonly experienced general career trajectory. A good example is A. S. Byatt, whose early novels received little attention and whose accomplishments reached a high point with The Virgin in the Garden (1978) and Possession (1990), and whose subsequent work, though still admired, was less widely read.

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It did however, achieve a second, lesser peak following her award of the Man Booker Prize for The Children’s Book (2009). This shows that ultimately Byatt’s career evinces elements of both Figs. 3.5 and 3.6, where the latter describes a form of inverted peak: the successes achieved during the early stages of the career give rise to a period where the author is still active but the success attained—whether measured through critical response, commercial success or artistic innovation—struggles to match what was achieved early on until a noted upturn in fortune takes place somewhat belatedly. This career trajectory is somewhat rare, but Kingsley Amis could be considered an example: the early success of Lucky Jim (1954) was succeeded by an output that was prolific but qualitatively mixed in the 1960s and 1970s, before a significant degree of innovation was achieved with the late Old Devils (1986).

Lateness Interrogated Three of these models equate the later stages in an author’s career with lesser achievement. There are many possible reasons for this. It may be that the works produced by certain authors in the later stages of their careers really are less innovative, less aesthetically pleasing or less formally accomplished than what they achieved in earlier periods. It might be that they are driven out of the limelight as artistic fashions change and critical attention shifts elsewhere. It may simply be a matter of having said all that there is to say. Or it could be a question of sociological positioning: the success of earlier works at the high point of the career peak itself sets up an expectation for what kind of work the author should produce such that to deviate from that expectation is to be found wanting (whereas to meet it is to lay oneself open to the charge of repetition and unoriginality). Authors in the later stages of their careers are often thus in a peculiar kind of double bind. Indeed, the idea of a narrative of decline whereby levels of creative achievement diminish over time is very commonly associated with authorial careers. In this sense, the careers of authors are not very different from other kinds of careers, where retirement and withdrawal from the workforce give rise to a lowering of both social status and economic power. What typical decline narratives fail to interrogate, however, is the category of lateness itself. Thus in On Late Style (2005), Edward Said argues that certain late-career works of art have a special ability to speak truth to power and hence expound a form of critique with regard to

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the prevailing social order. This, he argues implicitly, is because artists at such a stage are to some degree insulated against the material pressures associated with building a career in specific institutional contexts so that their status is liberating and allows a degree of outspokenness. However, Charles Rosen suggests that this view gives rise to a number of quite dubious critical judgements on Said’s part, such as his evaluation, reached via a reading of Adorno, of Beethoven’s last piano sonata (Rosen 2012, 261). Moreover, if Said says much about the style of late style, he has less to say about the lateness of late style. He identifies various ways in which a work could be considered ‘late’, but never marshals these into a systematic programme, so that a casual definition of lateness pervades his thinking despite efforts to consider its different forms. Gordon McMullan and Sam Stiles, by contrast, have presented a number of much more nuanced analyses in Late Style and Its Discontents (2016). Its general trend is to liberate the concept of lateness from an unspoken association with biological age and the apprehension by the artists of approaching mortality, and to suggest instead that lateness itself is perhaps better defined as a relational concept, constructed as such through its association with what has come before, with late works then being produced in a range of different specific material and cultural contexts. Using career construction theory to conceptualise the different stages of an authorial career has the effect of taking this emphasis on materiality even further. This is useful for a number of reasons. First of all, it demystifies the status of authorship as such, by treating it as a field with material properties and characteristics just like other careers and disciplines, subject to discernible fluctuations and vicissitudes like any other. As such, it need not be considered a special case. Secondly, career construction employs a dialogic method to construct a narrative trajectory of an individual’s career through a synthesis of two distinct timeframes. One of these emphasises continuity and commonality across all the phases of that career; the other identifies discernible stages therein and then considers the distinct properties of each. As we have seen, career construction treats individuals as both characters in their own narrative arc and, crucially, as authors of that narrative, capable of writing the next stage in their life story. Thus periods of career or vocational uncertainty are analogous to experiences of ‘writer’s block’ (Savickas 2011b, 179), which is the counsellor’s business to assist the client in overcoming. This emphasis on the co-creation of a life story told by the client and related back by the counsellor chimes with much recent scholarship

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about the category of authorship which has placed increasing ­emphasis on the collaborative networks and relationships in which all authors are necessarily involved. One of the main points to arise from applying career construction theory to hypothetical discussion of authorial careers is this identification of the importance of collaboration and joint authorship. By the same token, just as the model of ‘the author’ is interrogated and altered, so too the different stages that comprise an authorial career turn out to be something other than they first appeared. This is because the different stages that comprise an overall career should not be seen as empty chunks of time but are better understood as the sum total of activities and relationships in which a person is involved during different periods, and to which he or she assigns deep sources of meaning and value. In the case of an author’s career, this means that a new stage exists when a new kind of work—or related set of works—begins to be created. The new way of thinking about career stages has significant implications for how we conceptualise the properties associated with authors’ late works. It was noted above that Said theorised a form of material stability for artists at that stage that he believed made possible a degree of outspokenness with regard to the social and political order. This, in his account, gives such works a special critical power. It was also noted however that this sharp theoretical critique is difficult to discern in some of the literary works he discussed. For example, it is not easy to read into Lampedusa’s somewhat nostalgic novel The Leopard the historical rage against a changing social structure that Said seems to ascribe to it. Part of the problem might be that although it was written when Lampedusa was 61, it was also his first (and only novel) so that the status of the late-career writer, which Said suggests enables vociferous social critique, is not necessarily applicable. To try and avoid this problem, Said moves towards arguing that all works of art in the twentieth century and beyond have an inherent lateness relative to the full depth of prior literary and artistic history, which is also how Giorgio Agamben (2009) and Jean-Luc Nancy (2010) each define the ‘contemporary’. To Said, the fact of coming after a long, rich and deep cultural history in itself endows such works with a status and set of properties that earlier works and writers could not have possessed. This perhaps places a useful emphasis on the historical specificity of twentieth-century experience in its relation to what had gone before; and a corresponding emphasis on what is newly specific to the twenty-first century might also be helpful when considering contemporary writers. However, it also has the unfortunate effect of

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conflating all those different writers and works that Said associates with an inherent historical belatedness and then categorising them in a surprisingly ahistorical way. An alternative means of thinking about the nature of the ‘afterwards’ in the context of literary careers is generated by Meg Jensen (2018). Drawing on the research of Lynn Hunt and Joseph Slaughter into the relationship between the development of human rights law and the evolution of confessional literary genres such as the Bildungsroman, Jensen argues that the material history of the former was strongly inflected by the development of the latter. Specifically, she points out that in a Bildungsroman, the protagonist typically progresses from the status of an outsider relative to some social, cultural or moral norm, towards incorporation and acceptance within those norms by sloughing off the experiences, attitudes or characteristics that had previously marked their outsider status. What interests Jensen is the degree to which the same may be said of the history of the development of the discourse of human rights. Here too individuals are brought within the sphere of a legal-political system based partly on the guarantee of rights, partly on the discharging of responsibilities and ultimately on the acceptance of legal and political structures of authority. Those who do not accept such authority therefore avoid acquiescence in the discharging of responsibilities and correspondingly cede (whether willingly or not) a portion of their legal rights. By drawing attention to this parallel between the histories of the Bildungsroman and the discourse of legal rights from the late eighteenth century to the present day, Jensen argues that each ‘informed’ the development of the other (2018, 68). This sense of interrelation enables her to suggest that the Bildungsroman has been the primary literary genre by which art mediates and constructs (as opposed to merely reflecting) a certain legal and political version of the human subject. As she notes, ‘Through its relation to rights law … the Bildungsroman privileges a certain type of human experience as having universal value and deserving human dignity’ (69). In turn, this process of privileging one type of human experience over others had the effect of constituting in a legal sense what it means to be human at all. Human experiences that do not conform to the dominant type are therefore implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—not afforded the same human status and become marginalised. Ethically speaking, this is a troubling realisation for authors, readers and literary scholars because it reveals that literature itself has historically been implicated in the dissemination of a highly differential version of

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legal equality owing to its complicity with the evolution of human rights discourse, and the selective privileging of some forms of human experience over others. The main argument of this chapter is that career construction theory uses the methods of storytelling and concepts and models found in literature such as the occupational plot, the narrative arc, the author as protagonist and the creation of new career chapters. If career construction arose by drawing on concepts from literature, this chapter reverses that process, reapplying the concepts from career counselling back to the field of literature. But as the example of human rights discourse indicates, the development of new fields in the wake of literary models is not free from the dominant forms of ideology prevalent in the period when the new development takes place, and in fact it is highly circumscribed by them. In effect the human rights example reveals a tendency, modelled on literary antecedents, to treat all human beings as equal, but some as more equal than others. Unlike Said’s belief that artists late in their careers are relatively free to deliver various forms of critique towards existing sources of authority, Jensen’s more nuanced account follows those of Hunt and Slaughter in generating a sociological blueprint of the interrelation between legal discourses and literary genres in which the latter, far from expressing dissent towards the dominant structures of legal and political power, are incorporated within them. The construction of the sovereign subject depends on the recognition and fulfilment by the individual of certain social expectations based on participation within civil society, so that the sovereign subject turns out to be highly social in nature. Thus the distance between individual and society collapses, and space from which to articulate effective critique of the latter is squeezed out. To the extent that career construction posits the individual subject as sovereign, it too risks limiting forms of collaboration or collective action in opposition to a given socio-economic order. Can it be applied to forms of literary analysis in a way that avoids this squeezing out of the social?

Career Construction and the Construction of the Subject: From Individual to Social On the surface, it might seem that career construction is a practice implicated in the construction of the bourgeois individual Western subject in the same ways that human rights discourse and the Bildungsroman are both also implicated. In each case, the sovereign subject is interpellated

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as such on behalf of structures of social and political authority which ironically offer to guarantee forms of liberty and equality. Indeed, were it the case that career construction practitioners were only ever concerned to enhance the benefit of their individual clients as individuals, this might vitiate the capacity of the field to evoke meaningful social contribution. In an endeavour to address this limiting approach to constructing individual careers, N. Mkhize suggests that the ‘the notion of an object, sovereign self’ should be ‘rejected’ by career counsellors, in favour of ‘a relational stance to the object of one’s knowledge’ which in the context of career counselling ‘may involve active attempts to change the plight of those who may be less fortunate than us’ (2011, 97). Jean Guichard, Jacques Pouyaud, and Bernadette Dumora go even further, pointing out that individualistic approaches to career counselling ‘could appear to be progress for those who have a margin of choice, but could constitute social regression and thus a psychological ordeal for vulnerable workers who are placed in the paradoxical situation of being made to feel responsible for their own career path over which in fact they have no control’ (2011, 70). This leads them to doubt whether the imbrication of vocational guidance with individual self-management, which has been the dominant paradigm in the West, is sufficient to equip humanity to face the major challenges of today such as economic and environmental crises, the rise of the precariat, large-scale economic and political migration and an increase in fundamentalism. They thus conclude by asking: ‘Should we not accept that the individual’s reflection about his/ her development goes beyond mere self-concern and includes concern for the other?’ (ibid.). This discussion illustrates one key point: that whether career construction exists primarily to elicit capacity for self-improvement at a strictly individual level, or whether it can devise a means for marrying individual aspiration to social contribution, remains an open question. One means of combining personal fulfilment with a wider common purpose is to reflect on the kinds of contribution that an individual can meaningfully make given their available range of skills, experiences, interests and aptitudes. In this final section of the chapter, this idea of reflection, and more specifically, of critical self-reflection, will be brought to bear upon the type of work authors tend to produce during the later stages of their careers (where later is again defined in the relational sense outlined above).

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Within career construction research, Hazel Reid has identified a ­ istinction between reflection on action, reflection in action, and reflecd tion for action—where each of these can be seen as gradations within a continuum of ascending degrees of self-criticality (2011, 106). An enhanced capacity for self-awareness or critical self-consciousness need not be a function of age or even of experience, but the pattern of behaviours associated with self-reflection typically takes the form of a cycle. It begins with an action that somebody has performed and then that person evaluates the action in order to find ways to improve similar actions in the future. Thus the distinction between reflection on a given action or intervention and reflection for action is that the former takes a mainly remedial approach to the correction of error, whereas the latter overhauls the dichotomy between success and error and creates constant opportunities for improvement as an end in its own right. What Reid’s tripartite model of reflection on, in and for action does not encompass, however, is the possibility of seeing reflection as a form of action in and for itself. Yet critical self-reflection as an activity in its own right, rather than as a stage in the evolution of other actions, appears most germane to a consideration of the work produced by authors during the later stages of their careers. This may be because, as we have seen, few authors consciously retire from writing and instead appear vocationally impelled to continue producing new works and new forms of work as if to improve upon, or at the very least supplement, what they have already done. To put it another way, because it is a creative calling, the vocational aspect of the career means that authors are often more attached to their next piece of work than to any previous work, even in cases where a previous work has been well received. Genette goes as far as to suggest that from among an author’s entire oeuvre, his or her own ‘preference’ naturally ‘inclines’ towards those works least valued by critics, audiences or the reading public (1997, 255). Career construction theory emphasises that what constitutes success for an individual at one stage in their career is not necessarily the same as what constitutes success at another. For authors, this implies that the definition of good work is not itself a given, but is highly provisional and subject to continual modification and redefinition through a process of self-reflection as a new form of creative intervention. Or, writing new work at a later stage may be considered successful by the author if it represents the adoption of new aesthetic values that he or she did not hold

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earlier on, so that the criteria for measuring the qualitative value of the work varies at different career stages. This chapter therefore adumbrates the modest idea of self-reflection and self-criticality as forms of aesthetic innovation that are more likely to arise in the latter stages of an authorial career. Authors in those stages can be described as evincing an ongoing concern with the conditions of authorship in general, and with their own authorial practice in particular—so much so that late-career works are often identifiable by their deployment of a specific form of metafiction, as authors build so many fictional avatars for themselves into their work, specifically in order to be able to reflect on it. This form of ­reflection-as-action is notable, for example, in Angela Carter’s final novel, Wise Children (1991); in V. S. Naipaul’s last works Half a Life (2001) and Magic Seeds (2004); and in the later work of Ian McEwan, especially Sweet Tooth (2012). There are four different ways in which late-career authors practice reflection-as-action in their writing. First there is the retrospective self-commentary, in which the author reviews his or her writing so far in the form of essays or articles written about specific works. Typically these are written in the form of a new introduction to a work that was published years earlier, possibly heralding the publication of a reissue or a new edition, or marking a landmark occasion such as an anniversary. Genette variously refers to these as ‘later’ prefaces (1997, 239), or, in cases where authors feel it will constitute their own last word on the original work, as ‘delayed’ prefaces (247). A. S. Byatt’s self-commentary in the 1991 introduction to her first novel, The Shadow of the Sun (Byatt 1964), is a good example, as is Graham Swift’s introduction to the 25th anniversary edition (2008) of his novel Waterland (1983). On the other hand, there is no a priori reason why retrospective ­ self-commentary need be addressed to specific works, or to creative work as such. V. S. Naipaul’s penultimate book A Writer’s People (2007) represented a belated summation of his commitment to the world of writing per se, rather than to any particular work within it. Jonathan Dollimore’s Desire: A Memoir (2017) is more concerned with the life than with the writing, but retains the suggestion that certain key episodes in the former were crucial parts of the writer’s intellectual formation and therefore are not entirely extricable from the critical, non-fictional works for which he became known. It has by now become a commonplace observation within biographical and autobiographical studies that the easy distinction between purportedly

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factual genres such as biography and criticism, and purportedly imaginative ones such as fiction, is not in practice as clear-cut as it seems. This is partly because, as the example of Dollimore’s account of his intellectual formation shows, for a writer, writing about one’s life is to some extent bound up with writing about one’s own writing as well. In other words, the distinction between fact and fiction does not necessarily hold at the level of content. By the same token, neither does that distinction easily hold at the level of form. The second general category for forms of writing in which writers late in their careers carry out the process of reflection-as-action on their earlier work is that which Heather Kerr (1995) has termed fictocriticism. Here, the writer engages in the retrospective self-commentary of specific works as mentioned above, but often in a loosely imaginative and creative way (as opposed to the scrupulous analytical rigour associated with literary research and scholarship). Gillian Clarke’s re-imaging of herself as a mythic avatar of Shakespeare’s Cordelia, first in the narrative poem The King of Britain’s Daughter (1993) and subsequently in a different form in the memoir At the Source: A Writer’s Year (2008), are clear examples of this fictocritical practice. The third form of late-career reflection-as-action, and a natural complement to Kerr’s fictocriticism, is the recently emerging genre of autofiction, which arose in France in the 1970s through the work of Serge Doubrovsky and which has latterly been gaining momentum in the English-speaking world both as an object of analysis and a subject of fictional practice. In autofiction, authors effectively create fictionalised autobiographies. That is, they narrate memories, incidents, events and relationships that are empirically true. But whereas biographies and autobiographies tend to adhere to the semblance of verifiable factual accuracy, autofiction uses the experimental techniques of modernist writing, foregrounding the gaps and aporia that exist in memory and hence its fundamentally flawed nature and overall unreliability. This means that writing autofiction is often tantamount to a process of trying to remember, and of assigning emotional significance and meaning to what is remembered. Autofictions are so many self-reflective quests for truth, but the truths that emerge are of a symbolic, provisional and unstable nature, rather than the kinds of factual information we would find in a reference book or encyclopaedia. There is no necessary reason why autofiction should arise late in the author’s life as defined by biological age, but autofictions tend either to be written in the aftermath of some traumatic experience or simply after a period of time has elapsed between

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what is narrated and the act of narrating. For this reason, autofictions are often delayed (in Gerard Genette’s sense of the term): they are primary written works in their own right, but there is a mimetic gap between them and the events they represent. The ‘repositioning’ of ‘the relation between the self and the fiction’ (Ferreira-Meyers 2018, 33) is a feature of Jeanette Winterson’s oeuvre, with John Burnside’s ‘serial forms of self-expression’ (Menn 2018, 165) of different fictionalised episodes from his empirical life being another prominent contemporary example. Finally, there is a specific form of fictional self-retrospect that is sometimes to be found in literary texts produced by authors late in their careers. No critical term has yet been coined for such works, but they could accurately be described as late-career metafictions. Typically in such works, authors revisit themes, structures, events or even techniques that they had already employed in works produced earlier in their career and for which they are probably better known. However, it is not merely a question of revisiting or simple repetition. What is distinctive about such works is the addition of a newly critical authorial self-awareness to the existing forms and themes. Such critical self-awareness is both enabled and demonstrated by embedding within the text so many avatars for the author function. The typical protagonists portrayed in late-career metafictions are often characters who are themselves authors, storytellers, filmmakers, artists, letter writers or others whose fictional vocations enable the flesh-and-blood author to inscribe within their construction a whole series of explorations into the role and nature of authorship. This is why, just as so many debut novels evince a philosophical concern with the question of what it means to be an author (and often explore the environment and conditions in which the practice of authorship occurs), so too late-career metafictions are concerned to explore those same questions from a different career standpoint. For example, in A. S. Byatt’s novel The Children’s Book (2009), many of the themes and interests portrayed bespeak a widespread continuity with the works produced earlier in Byatt’s oeuvre. Adding to those interests a protagonist whose vocation also happens to be that of a storyteller elevates the work into a profoundly metatextual orbit whereby, rather than merely repeating what has gone before, Byatt meditates on her role in the creative process and uses that meditation as the basis for further creation. A similar point may be made about Graham Swift’s novel Wish You Were Here (2011) with regard to his earlier and better-known works. The concerns with vocation, domestic tragedy, memory and nostalgia that have been

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recurring preoccupations throughout Swift’s career as a novelist are again represented, with the addition of a metafictional component through which Swift is able to insert a quasi-author figure into the work and hence apply the process of reflection-as-action to the task of creating a new and distinctive metafictional work.

Conclusion This chapter commenced by suggesting that for some authors, the works written late in their careers have tended either to receive less critical interest than works from the earlier or middle stages of their careers or to be more negatively received than them. Clearly, it is not an assumption that holds true in every case or in every branch of the arts. Indeed, it may be a more significant phenomenon in literature than in music, for example, where the very late works are often taken to have a special significance. But there is sufficient critical evidence to suggest that it is a fairly common situation in the literary arts, specifically fiction. Having suggested this general tendency within literature, the chapter identified a series of possible career trajectories, mapping varying levels of success over the course of a writer’s career. It drew extensively on career construction theory to argue that the different stages comprising a career should not be seen as discrete chunks of time, but rather as series of works produced over time, which relate to each other in a thematic, stylistic or aesthetic way. The natural implication of this is that the stages are non-linear and non-successive: over the same period of time, authors might be involved in work associated with qualitatively different stages of their careers. This emphasis on the qualitative paved the way for the second main argument of the chapter, again derived from career construction theory as implemented by practising vocational guidance counsellors, which is that the definition of good work is itself apt to vary over time. As such, the definition of success has to be actively constructed anew each time a new career stage is entered into. Since for authors to enter a new career stage often entails writing a new work, or a new set of related works, this has the implication that how we evaluate the success of such work is particular to it. If we looked for the same qualities in qualitatively different kinds of work, we would inevitably judge some more negatively than others and very often this would be because we would be looking in later work for a repeat of the same qualities that we found in an earlier work, and failing to find them. This might explain why late-career works

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have so often been misjudged. It also suggests that works from one stage of the author’s career might be more effectively evaluated if we look for different qualities in them. Finally, the chapter has drawn on career construction theory to argue that one of the important ways by which people achieve satisfaction in their working life is by generating fundamental sources of value and meaning for themselves through their work. Very often this entails using that work to make a wider social contribution. Thus it was argued that one of the properties that often characterises late-career writers is their tendency to engage in a form of fictional self-reflection on the work they have already undertaken. In effect this endows late-career works with a metafictional dimension that is particular to them and could not be possible in earlier works where there is no element of reflection. At the same time, as the discussion of career construction theory has sought to demonstrate, critical reflection of this kind entails not merely looking back at the works the individual author has written, but also to their capacity to imagine forms of collective action, to heighten the collective critical or political consciousness, and to express forms of social solidarity. Since the form of metafiction associated with late-career fiction of this kind elevates the practice of self-reflection from an individual to a social plane, I suggest that late-career works bespeak an ethical commitment to identifying exactly what happens when individual interest and collective commitment merge.

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. 2009. ‘What Is the Contemporary?’. In ‘What Is an Apparatus?’ and Other Essays, edited by Giorgio Agamben and translated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella, 39–54. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Amis, Kingsley. 1954. Lucky Jim. London: Gollancz. Amis, Kingsley. 1986. The Old Devils. London: Hutchinson. Becker, Howard S. 2008. Art Worlds, rev. ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Booth, Wayne C. 1988. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Byatt, A. S. 1964. The Shadow of the Sun. London: Vintage. Byatt, A. S. 1978. The Virgin in the Garden. London: Vintage. Byatt, A. S. 1990. Possession. London: Vintage. Byatt, A. S. 1991. ‘Introduction’. In The Shadow of the Sun, viii–xvi. London: Vintage. Byatt, A. S. 2009. The Children’s Book. London: Vintage.

62  H. DIX Carter, Angela. 1991. Wise Children. London: Chatto & Windus. Clarke, Gillian. 1993. The King of Britain’s Daughter. Manchester: Carcanet. Clarke, Gillian. 2008. At the Source: A Writer’s Year. Manchester: Carcanet. Cochran, Larry. 1997. Career Counseling: A Narrative Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Davidson, Guy and Nicola Evans, eds. 2015. Literary Careers in the Modern Era. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Dietz, Laura. 2015. ‘Who Are You Calling an Author? Changing Definitions of Career Legitimacy for Novelists in the Digital Era’. In Literary Careers in the Modern Era, edited by Guy Davidson and Nicola Evans, 196–214. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Dollimore, Jonathan. 2017. Desire: A Memoir. London: Bloomsbury. Faulks, Sebastian. 1993. Birdsong. London: Hutchinson. Faulks, Sebastian. 1998. Charlotte Gray. London: Random House. Faulks, Sebastian. 2012. A Possible Life. London: Hutchinson. Ferreira-Meyers, Karen. 2018. ‘Does Autofiction Belong to French or Francophone Authors and Readers Only?’ In Autofiction in English, edited by Hywel Dix, 27–48. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Galenson, David. 2006. Artistic Capital. Abingdon: Routledge. Genette, Gerard. 1997. Paratexts. Translated by Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grenier, Roger. 2014. Palace of Books. Translated by Alice Kaplan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Guichard, Jean, Jacques Pouyaud, and Bernadette Dumora. 2011. ‘Self-identity Construction and Reflexivity’. In Career Counseling and Constructivism: Elaboration of Constructs, edited by Mary McMahon and Mark Watson, 57–72. New York: Nova Science. Hadley, Tessa. 2002. Accidents in the Home. London: Cape. Inglis, Fred. 2010. A Short History of Celebrity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ishiguro, Kazuo. 1989. The Remains of the Day. London: Faber and Faber. Ishiguro, Kazuo. 2015. The Buried Giant. London: Faber and Faber. Jensen, Meg. 2018. ‘How Art Constitutes the Human: Aesthetics, Empathy and the Interesting in Autofiction’. In Autofiction in English, edited by Hywel Dix, 65–83. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kerr, Heather. 1995. ‘Fictocriticism, the “Doubtful Category” and “The Space Between”’. In Crossing Lines: Formations of Australian Culture, edited by Caroline Guerin, Philip Butterss and Amanda Nettelbeck, 93–96. Burwood: Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi di. 2007. The Leopard. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun. London: Vintage. First published 1958. Laslett, Peter. 1996. A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

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Lott, Tim. 1996. The Scent of Dried Roses. London: Viking. Maree, Jacobus. 2013. Counselling for Career Construction: Connecting Life Themes to Construct Life Portraits: Turning Pain into Hope. Rotterdam: Sense. McEwan, Ian. 2012. Sweet Tooth. London: Cape. McGurl, Mark. 2011. The Program Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McMullan, Gordon, and Sam Stiles, eds. 2016. Late Style and Its Discontents: Essays on Art, Literature, and Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Menn, Ricarda. 2018. ‘Unpicked and Remade: Creative Imperatives in John Burnside’s Autofictions’. In Autofiction in English, edited by Hywel Dix, 163–78. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mkhize, N. 2011. ‘Connectedness and Dialogism in Career Theory and Practice’. In Career Counseling and Constructivism: Elaboration of Constructs, edited by Mary McMahon and Mark Watson, 87–100. New York: Nova Science. Morrall, Clare. 2003. Astonishing Splashes of Colour. Birmingham: Tindal Street. Naipaul, V. S. 2001. Half a Life. London: Knopf. Naipaul, V. S. 2004. Magic Seeds. London: Picador. Naipaul, V. S. 2007. A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling. London: Picador. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2010. ‘Art Today’. Journal of Visual Culture 9, no. 1: 91–99. Reid, Hazel L., and Barbara Bassot. 2011. ‘Reflection: A Constructive Space for Career Development’. In Career Counseling and Constructivism: Elaboration of Constructs, edited by Mary McMahon and Mark Watson, 101–16. New York: Nova Science. Rosen, Charles. 2012. Freedom and the Arts: Essays on Music and Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rushdie, Salman. 1981. Midnight’s Children. London: Cape. Rushdie, Salman. 1988. The Satanic Verses. London: Random House. Rushdie, Salman. 2005. Shalimar the Clown. London: Cape. Said, Edward. 1975. Beginnings: Intention and Method. New York: Basic Books. Said, Edward. 2005. On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain. New York: Vintage. Savickas, Mark. 2011a. Career Counseling. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Savickas, Mark. 2011b. ‘Constructing Careers: Actor, Agent and Author’. Journal of Employment Counseling 48, no. 4: 179–81. Swift, Graham. 1983. Waterland. London: Heinemann. Swift, Graham. 1996. Last Orders. London: Picador. Swift, Graham. 2008. ‘Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition’. In Waterland, i–xi. London: Picador. Swift, Graham. 2011. Wish You Were Here. London: Picador.

CHAPTER 4

The Purpose of the Written Element in Composition PhDs Christopher Leedham and Martin Scheuregger

Introduction Doctoral study in music composition is one of the longest-established Practice Research (P-R)1 fields in the UK academy: the University of Oxford has been awarding DMus degrees in composition since 1511, recognising the legitimate place of composition amongst other forms of academic practice. During the nineteenth century, composition PhDs were often awarded for pieces that demonstrated a mastery of pre-existing compositional forms (fugue, aria, etc.). The model for the twenty-first-century composition PhD—a portfolio of newly composed original work as demonstration of some kind of developmental process—first emerged in the UK in 1970, initially at the University of York, and followed closely by the University of Durham (Archbold 2016; LeFanu, personal communication, 22 August 2019). Whilst the expectations placed on universities have changed dramatically over the last C. Leedham (*)  Ely, UK M. Scheuregger  School of Fine and Performing Arts, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_4

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500 years, music has been ever-present, with composition and composers remaining a steadfast part throughout. In contrast, disciplines involving practice that have emerged in the academy comparatively recently have had to consider more carefully their position in relation to readily accepted or ‘straightforward’ modes of research. Similarly, the role of written components in these subjects has undergone more explicit consideration than in composition, which—for a variety of institutional and epistemological reasons explored below—has stumbled somewhat accidentally into the P-R ‘camp’. Composition may, superficially, be one of the longest-established P-R disciplines, but this means its proponents are yet to engage fully with a self-conscious examination of methodology. Complacency in some quarters in regard to the research qualities of composition means that its sense of methodological coherence is the least clear amongst P-R disciplines. Whilst composers still argue whether composition is indeed research (Hellawell 2014, 2015; Croft 2015a; Reeves 2015), other disciplines have moved on to the more pertinent issue of how best to assess and communicate practice-derived knowledge (cf. Hann 2015). Candidates have a variety of motivations for undertaking a PhD in composition. Whilst it provides a traditional stepping stone into a career in higher education (HE) teaching and/or research for many, others see it more as a quasi-apprenticeship leading to a professional career outside, or at least only tangentially related to, academia. But this division is not reflected in the variety of programmes in the UK: the vast majority of doctoral composition candidates here pursue a PhD that involves a written element2 in conjunction with a portfolio of works. A brief survey of course guidance suggests a range of requirements for this written element: whilst the consensus seems to be for a component around 20,000 words in length, there are considerable variations. Some institutions specify simply that it should be ‘a brief commentary on the pieces submitted’ (University of York, n.d.) or ‘an accompanying commentary not exceeding 10,000 words in length’ (University of Sheffield, n.d.); some downplay the direct connection between practice and textual submission, requiring only that it be ‘relevant to the intellectual and artistic concerns of the candidate’ (University of Oxford, n.d.). In contrast, others might look for a specifically ‘technical commentary’ (Kings College London, n.d.), or a longer submission (15,000–50,000 words) that ‘indicates the manner in which the research is embodied in the practice’ (University of Leeds, n.d.). Unlike the parallel development

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of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in North America and Australia, which suggests a more vocational bent (cf. Draper and Harrison 2011), the UK sector remains overwhelmingly PhD-centric. Whilst UK conservatoires provide some alternatives, offering differently focussed DMus and PhD degrees,3 the practice-focussed DMus does still require a significant written element, often matching PhDs in the university sector: the University of Edinburgh remains unusual (in the UK) in offering a PhD in Musical Composition that has ‘no requirement for an additional thesis or commentary’ (n.d.). In order to explore the issues raised by this situation, this chapter brings together a range of opinions and discourse on the importance of, role for, methodologies employed in, and motivation behind a PhD in composition, focussing in particular on the written element. Through these enquiries, the authors highlight examples of good practice, offer insight into the framing of composition research more broadly and propose areas for future development. * * * The survey that informs much of the discussion below was conducted anonymously online between 23 July 2018 and 31 December 2018 and canvassed opinion from current and former PhD candidates at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Engagement was sought by publicising the survey at conferences, by circulation via music departments and through social media. The participants were thus self-selecting, presenting limitations to the overarching conclusions that can be reached; however, 102 responses across 41 unique HEIs4 provide a relatively broad cross-section. Respondents were asked to rate the importance or influence of a range of factors, whilst four free-text questions gave the opportunity to expand on the accuracy with which the written elements reflects their practice, the perceived benefit of the written element to their examiners, the perceived benefit to their overall portfolio/thesis and the impact on their ongoing practice as a composer. Participants were able to provide further comments on the process of creating the written element and the written element overall. 76% of participants completed at least one of these fields, with a total of over 16,000 words written between them. Several themes recur in the results, which yield insight into the differing views on the place of writing in composers’ work, what the written element should address, the positive and negative impact of writing on

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practice, and the stage in the degree programme at which a candidate undertakes their written component. Other themes are less prevalent, but nonetheless inform some of the discussion here: these include the role of supervisors, the viva experience itself, and experiences gained from working in HE after having been awarded the PhD.

Uneasy Bedfellows: Why Should Composers Write Words? One of the most important themes to arise from the responses is the perceived role of the written element and what it should—and should not—contain. This comprised not only what candidates wanted to include, but also what they were required to write about (which was not always what they expected). The composers expressed a wide range of opinions on this point, but a few antithetical positions can be generalised: some saw the written element as essential, a few thought it unnecessary; some felt it was beneficial for their practice, others felt it obstructed it; those who refer to reflexive approaches tend not to mention conceptual or aesthetic context and vice versa. Two broad positions are reflected: in one, the text is primarily introspective; in the other, it is primarily explanatory. This mirrors a similar split between viewing the composition PhD as practical training in composition or research through composition. This division may be understood as the root of many of the contrasting views explored below. * * * From the advent of P-R, the role and extent of complementary writing has proved contentious. As early as 1997, the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) proposed a roughly even balance between practice and complementary writing, leading to an indicative thesis length of 30,000–40,000 words (UKCGE 1997). Nonetheless, in the emergence of P-R courses, ‘the proportion of writing to process/practice has been a conceptually vexed one’ (Nelson 2013, 101), and the place for complementary writing has been widely questioned (36). Whilst debates over the balance between practice and writing have also raged in other practice-led areas (cf. Candlin 2000), composition research is often cited as being somewhat different: Nelson (2013, 101) explicitly singles out music composition as an area of praxis that has demanded shorter complementary written elements, or none at all,

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building on the UKCGE’s observation that ‘[e]xperience from music suggests that it is possible for students and examiners who share a strong disciplinary language of practice to have a dialogue with little recourse to text’ (2001, 27). Yet this view was not always accepted: as Nicholas Cook recalls, some on the UKCGE study group in 1996 ‘seemed shocked by my laid-back attitude over composition, where it is not unusual for the textual component of a doctoral submission to be quite minimal’ and, in his view, the insistence of an ‘ancillary dissertation suggested a lack of confidence in the capacity of their own spheres of practice to embody doctoral-level qualities’ (2015, 11). Cook’s ‘laid-back attitude’ may be due to a perceived difference between score-based outputs and other forms of documented practice. Music scores, particularly since the early nineteenth century, have received textual status in a way that other, more kinetic, forms of practice have not, although creative writing has a similar claim to textual authority. The primacy of ‘the work’ and its manifestation in the form of a musical score is a central concept that has informed many traditional approaches to music within the academy; indeed, the challenging of this assumption has been at the heart of revisionist approaches in a range of fields (e.g. Goehr 1992; Taruskin 1995; Small 1998; Talbot 2000). Nonetheless, the prevailing assumption is often that music notation is as much of an immutable language as the written word, and the score itself can therefore stand alone as the ‘text’ of the research: this, furthermore, tends to privilege score-based composition over other forms of notation and process (for example, studio-based composition or improvisation). This is reflected in the history of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the UK since 1986,5 the first of which accepted composition as one of ‘the two forms of written output in musical research’ (Cook 2015, 22) alongside musicology. It was only with the inclusion of performance as research in 1996 that the need for supporting statements arose, reflecting this greater uncertainty in the admission of performance as ‘text’. By the time of the 2001 RAE, these statements were an ostensibly optional element to demonstrate ‘how the practice embodies research’, but, as Pace (2015b) outlines, they have now become essentially compulsory for a composition submission to the RAE’s successor since 2014, the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Given the previous acceptance of composition alone, the increasing importance of these statements has led to a point where composers feel the goalposts have shifted: they are now required to write 300 words

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to—as some see it—‘explain themselves’, although some might consider this ‘not in itself that much of an imposition’ (Pace 2015b). The subpanel report from REF 2014 praises P-R submissions that ‘needed no more than a well-turned 300 word statement’ but also points to submissions that ‘offered insightful additional documentation of process and/or outcomes’ (REF 2015, 99). It is easy to interpret the report as advocating much more than the 300 words, even if this was not the ­panel’s intention. It is in this context that a wider debate around composition as research emerged, with a particular focus on the potential that the requirement for written contextualisation has to advantage some aesthetics and approaches over others (Till 2013; Hellawell 2014, 2015; Croft 2015a; Pace 2015a; Reeves 2015): inevitably, given the enormous financial importance of the REF, institutions nervous of P-R have been pushed towards a low-risk approach that increasingly squeezes out certain kinds of composition, or favours researchers who submit composition ‘packaged’ in a quasi-musicological context.6 Yet, since before the first RAE, composers have been undertaking PhDs in which written elements have been understood to be less important than the submitted compositions. The attitude that the written element is of secondary importance continues to be perpetuated by many composers now supervising PhDs for whom their own written element was not a particular priority. Despite the argument elsewhere moving on to issues of accessibility and quality (Hann 2015; Hann and Ladron de Guevara 2015), a broad subsection of composers have failed to engage fully with the P-R debate; instead of embracing and adopting more recent developments from P-R methodologies in other fields, the response has often been an ill-conceived slash-and-burn defence that ‘Composition is Not Research’ (Croft 2015a). * * * Reflecting this situation, many respondents to the survey expressed some unease around the written element of their PhD. Very few felt it to be completely unnecessary, but many ‘did not see [it] as an essential part of the portfolio of music’ (R1). Moreover, whilst it was nonetheless regarded as ‘a good thing’ (R10), it was often seen as distinctly adjunct, being ‘very much a “commentary” and not a vital part of the research’ (R10). Other respondents saw it as more negative still: ‘a mild irritant which took up time I would have rather used for exploring the central theme of the PhD. It had absolutely no use for my ongoing compositional practice’ (R76). However, this respondent did go on to

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acknowledge its usefulness to the examiner. The statistical data seems to confirm this trend, as those who rate the written element as having little benefit to their own practice still tended to rate it as relatively more beneficial to their examiners (see Fig. 4.1). Nonetheless, many respondents see the commentary as a means of giving validity to their work, and acknowledge that they ‘would be concerned if there wasn’t a written element’, seeing it as ‘vital’ (R62). For example: I don’t see how a practice-based PhD can be possible without a written element to direct the assessors (and future researchers) to the research questions. In the worst case scenario this would result in a research degree that is assessed according to some nebulous concept of musical quality without any clear research imperative or way for this knowledge to be passed on to other composers/researchers. (R4)

The danger of subjective notions of quality is echoed in Cook’s commentary on the 2001 RAE’s recommendation that 300-word ­statements are not expected ‘when the status of the practice as research is ­self-evident’ (quoted in Cook 2015, 24). The ease with which composition was understood itself to embody research in the (recent) past is less evident in a newer generation of PhD composers.7 When asked to comment on the usefulness of the written element to the examiners, R5 responded with certainty: I completed a PhD in Composition, not a summer school composition course; as such, it was integral for my examiners to understand my own aesthetic/philosophical/etc. (as appropriate) position, contextualisation of my work within various relevant fields etc.

Later on, the same respondent stated, ‘[w]ithout it, it’s a portfolio of compositions’. Nonetheless, a portfolio of compositions alone clearly constitutes a PhD in the minds of some of the other participants. R43 demonstrated something of Cook’s confidence in the inherent ­‘doctoral-level qualities’ of composition (2015, 11), stating that [the commentary] should be eliminated altogether and examiners should focus on the music itself. All the discussion should be based on the scores themselves. Written components are for and [sic] academics, not composers.

-1.75

-0.29

-0.25

-0.08

1.17

3.33

4.00

1.75

2.33

Difference (b-a)

4.29

Average corresponding rating given to perceived benefit of the written element to examiners (b)

Rating given to perceived benefit of the written element to ongoing practice as a composer (a)

Fig. 4.1  Comparison of perceived benefits to self and examiners (Respondents were asked to give these elements a ‘star’ rating between 0 and 10)

0

2

4

6

8

10

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This final sentence reflects the sentiment implicit in other responses that writing about the music makes the process unnecessarily ‘academic’, despite the PhD being an academic qualification. The view here is clearly that the PhD is training in composition not research through composition. * * * Overall, the written element is accepted as necessary in P-R literature and amongst the survey respondents8; however, guidance on its relationship to the compositional practice is sufficiently vague to allow for a disconnect between expectation and reality. Sector-level studies suggest that there is a ‘general acceptance of a wide range of exhibits or performances, so long as the candidate could show how the artefacts related to the thesis and its defence’ (Christianson et al. 2015, 6), but that ‘[m]any institutions were at pains to point out that the inclusion of creative work was in addition to the requirement for a written dissertation, and not a substitute for it’ (2015, 17). In reality, though, the results of the present survey suggest that PhD-level composers themselves have very different views regarding the relationships between the portfolio and written elements.

What to Write If the issue of the need for a written element is more or less agreed upon, the question of what it should constitute is not. Participants were asked to rate the importance of ten areas of discourse (Fig. 4.2) using a ­five-point Likert scale (ranging from ‘unimportant’ to ‘very important’). Overall, reflection and diarising emerged as much less important than discussion of the technical processes and products of composition; aesthetic and stylistic context was considered important, whilst the relevance of context provided by other composers’ work was less widespread. Three types of written components can be identified from the results: technical commentary, conceptual/aesthetic context and reflective account, together with four hybrid categories that combine elements of each (Fig. 4.3). Of course, many PhD composers will apply each approach in varying proportions, but respondents primarily occupied the technical and/or conceptual domains here. Although not a direct parallel, the model distills the three areas proposed in Nelson’s ‘multi-mode epistemological models for Practice as Research’ (2006, 114; 2013, 37).

Of little importance

Fig. 4.2  Content of written element

Unimportant

100%

Ongoing account/diarising of creative process Ongoing account/diarising of broader (personal) circumstances

Analysis of other composers’ works

Reflection on creative failure

Reflection on creative success

Reference to other composers’ works

Explanation of pre-compositional approaches

Analysis of completed compositions

Aesthetic/stylistic contexts

Discussion of compositional techniques

Moderately important

Important

0%

Very important

100%

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Fig. 4.3  Types of commentary

A divide between those favouring self-analytical writing (of the finished works) and those concentrating on aesthetic and contextual content is more apparent from the qualitative responses. The results of the survey indicated that the former group tend to write less than the latter, suggesting that technical commentaries often go hand in hand with institutions that require a shorter written element. This might reflect a view of the composition PhD as training in composition, where the need to contextualise the music ‘as’ research is not prevalent. A variety of issues arose which can be categorised as contextual, ranging from respondents who position their work against extant practice, to those who outline non-musical frameworks. Many responses reflected a

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mix of contextual and technical issues, but some were particularly noteworthy for the weight given to context. For example, R35 related that ‘[t]he written element gives me an opportunity to discuss the theoretical framework I’ve developed in tandem with the compositions’. Similarly, for R68, ‘[i]t helped to cement my practical ideas in a theoretical way’. R4 explained the importance of ‘investigating other contexts (sciences/ musics/arts/practices), all of which strongly influenced the compositional ideas’, whilst R11 acknowledged the importance of context in grounding the written element: While at times the written element felt like a disconnect from the composition, certain research (particularly more philosophical and extramusical reading) had a larger impact on the thought behind newer compositions.

One respondent went further, explaining how ‘[r]esearch into contextualising my aesthetic and compositional ideology has completely changed my approach to future work’ (R88). Another indicated a conscious effort to favour context over reflection and technical commentary: I was keen to do some research that went beyond my own music even though that wasn’t required, as I found (from reading some) that the commentaries that were personal diaries, or full of pre-compositional charts, were tedious and not something I wanted to do. (R89)

In contrast, other responses indicated a scepticism around issues that may simply be tacked on to validate the practice. R33 was pleased that there was [n]o pressure to pretend Deleuze is relevant to your work if he isn’t! It’s lovely. It means that the examiners HAVE to listen to/watch the actual compositional/performance work. They can’t ‘get it’ just by reading the thesis.

Although it may be relevant in the context of some research there is a danger that, in the process of contextualising practice, intellectual name-dropping may be employed as a way of justifying the work, even if the full implications of Deleuze, or anyone else, may not be fully understood. For another respondent, context was ultimately useful when it is

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directly related to the music and not its ancillary properties. They wrote that their writing didn’t refer to existing compositional practices or models to any great extent but instead situated the work in a cultural-critical context drawing on critical theory. This was a mistake! An approach that investigated the creative context for the works would have been more successful and useful …. There was no sense of a literature survey in terms of the position of the creative work within the field. This is something that I insist my students now engage with. (R92)

Another respondent, who identifies as an experienced composer working in UK HE, indicated that too much attention to the context of the work may suggest that the compositions are less important: It can replace real engagement with the music itself, either because it has so many problems or because it acts as a mask, hiding the fact that the written words reveal ideas that are more interesting than the music. (R79)

The implication here is that the solution to overbearing context is to concentrate instead on areas that fall within the bracket of ‘technical commentary’. Many respondents referred specifically to compositional techniques, with a range of similar views to R70: The written element provided some essential elements in order to understand the techniques applied on [sic] the composition portfolio. Composition techniques are hardly explicit by only reading the music from the score.

Some respondents referred to the importance of a technical commentary to the examiners’ understanding of compositional process, and several reflected on the long-term benefit to their technical development of writing about technique. A minority even sought to pass on their techniques to other composers; that these respondents also identified as established composers suggests greater confidence in the pedagogical usefulness of their work, reflecting the traditional view of a PhD as a means to generate and disseminate knowledge (rather than a means of training in composition). Whilst the exposition of ‘process’ was found to be important to many, it is often assumed to refer to the technical procedures by which

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student composers arrived at the finished work. It may be that t­echnical processes are favoured as they can be evidenced in the score with certainty; however, the act of composing itself—involving multivalent conscious and unconscious parts, from influence, to circumstance, to mood—is far more difficult to quantify. Attempting to capture this more nebulous ‘process’ in a document that may be as short as 10,000 words may be daunting. Indeed, only a minority of respondents reported adopting a reflective approach. R18 laid out a process that reflects Nelson’s suggestions on what to include in the written element (2013, 34–37) entirely: Before composing, I started a practice/literature review. During and after each project, I wrote about the general processes and outcomes. After most of the projects were complete, I started writing a ‘methodological review’ chapter.

Writing before composing permits context to be given in relation to other composers; writing during the process allows one to—amongst other things—‘capture moments of insight’ (Nelson 2013, 29); and retrospectively reviewing the work allows for reflection. The combination of these elements and their likely repetition across several compositions enables genuinely reflexive practice, and potentially places all areas shown in Fig. 4.2 on an equal footing. The same respondent went on to describe this process as ‘writing out/up’,9 explaining that: [w]riting out occurs during the creative process and is a reflection of the ongoing practice, whereas writing up occurs afterwards. New insights can be discovered through both of these methods. (R18)

Writing and keeping notes during the creative process appears to differentiate reflective composers from others. As R62 attests, ‘I kept copious notebooks on processes/thoughts. Everything I did was documented so that I could refer to it in the commentary of [sic] necessary’. Others only saw the benefit once it was too late: ‘I wish I’d taken notes during the composition process. Would have made writing up so much easier’ (R45). This suggests there is often a need for more proactive supervisory guidance in genuinely reflective methodologies. Commentary and reflection on process is also important to those respondents whose work is not score-based. Although small in number, they reflect a category of practice that may be overlooked when institutions

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frequently describe the composition PhD as a portfolio of pieces, implicitly suggesting that they are presented as a collection of documents. R33 reflected on the importance of the written element in such cases: I am a composer-performer and my compositions are often created through performance. I don’t usually sit at a desk and write dots on lines. So writing the commentary was useful in appraising the work I’d done.

This respondent described their work as ‘interdisciplinary music that falls between the cracks’ (R33), and it might be fair to assume that similar composers may feel the written element is there to give, as R33 put it, ‘some context to our weird little world’. Where the music presented is in the form of a score—which effectively functions as a ‘text’ of its own—the separate written element might be given less thought. Indeed, this is precisely what Cook identifies as ‘experts in the field reach[ing] decisions on the basis of deeply internalised and generally shared experience’ (2015, 23). In contrast, respondents whose work fits less comfortably into the traditional model tended to adopt a more considered approach, engaging with P-R literature more thoroughly and adopting reflexive practices. Equally, a composer whose music is not score-based may face the challenge of ephemerality so prominent in performing arts P-R, requiring an engagement with—for example—documentation of the devising process. In these modes, such practice is seen as crucial, but whatever form the practice takes, an argument can be made for all composers engaging more directly in the reflective processes that encompass note-taking, recording of process and other stages highlighted by Nelson (2013). This is especially worthy of consideration given the almost ubiquitous state of assessing composition research in the context of writing, whether in the 300-word REF narratives or through the extensive supporting material of many composition doctorates.

Late-Stage Reflexivity The point in their PhD studies at which respondents started work on the written element is shown in Fig. 4.4. The trend for many to undertake the writing in the latter stages of their degree echoes the paucity of respondents identifying reflective methodologies: such an approach requires writing throughout, a strategy adopted by only 22% of participants. The benefit of writing is, nevertheless, reflected in the

80  C. LEEDHAM AND M. SCHEUREGGER I wrote/am writing having completed the majority or all of my compositions

49%

I wrote/am writing alongside composing from the beginning of my degree

22%

I began/am beginning to write in the middle stages of my degree

21%

I wrote/am writing in as short a period as possible at the end of my degree

5%

There is/was no written element for me to complete

2%

Unanswered

2%

0%

Values do not add up to 100% due to rounding 10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Fig. 4.4  Timing of writing

qualitative responses. A notable trend—which cuts across the variety of approaches to what to write—is the experience of the process of writing in aiding creative development in composition. However, given that the most common approach reflected here is to write towards the end of a PhD, the effects of writing late in the process are of particular relevance. Several respondents saw the written element as a summative text that relates to a final composition. This may be guided by a sense that the commentary should demonstrate the successful achievement of a research goal, commonly reflected in the requirement for one piece of a portfolio to be ‘substantial’. One respondent reflected on this process as follows: I’m currently working through the written element, having completed all but my final, large-scale piece. This is turning out to be a useful method as it allows me to consolidate 4 years of work in my mind, before feeding the relevant findings into the final composition. (R35)

The comments of one respondent were indicative of a number of others: The written portion actually contributed to a much more thorough and experimental approach to my music making towards the end of the degree and further aided in the consolidation of my thesis into a single larger scale work which I am now quite proud of. (R40)

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Fig. 4.5  Model of late-stage reflexivity

Such responses suggest a model of ‘late-stage reflexivity’ (Fig. 4.5) in which earlier works function as formative ‘workings out’, the written element helps make sense of this experimentation through reflection, and a final—often large-scale—piece then demonstrates the ‘findings’.10 This model requires one to accept that the nature of artistic enquiry is necessarily disordered, and that the ‘failed experiments’ are both valid research products and an important part of a rigorous research process. As one respondent wrote: The written element has a focus that was not clear at the start of the PhD. However, this is not in any way a post-factum imposition of a question onto already-composed works, the core research question addressed in the written element was already nascent in those early pieces, which are presented largely as ‘proto’ versions of compositional approaches that in later years of [my] PhD were focused more explicitly. (R4)

Under such an approach, the written element is there as much to allow the process of reflection as to demonstrate the process of composition. The earlier compositions—far from being merely a means to an end— articulate the nuances of the research through their non-linguistic meaning and allow the significance of the whole to be understood. Put simply, the process and product of composition are too intrinsically linked to be presented separately. A striking account of late-stage reflexivity came from a respondent who more explicitly re-evaluated earlier works through contextual self-analysis.

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Unlike other responses, here an impression is given that the final work demonstrates a transformation rather than an apotheosis: The written component arose from my exposure to concepts relating to post-modernism and the new musicology in a series of Masters classes I attended in my final year. These investigations prompted the core element of my thesis and I retrospectively interpreted my existing compositions according to my new ‘philosophy’. My final major piece for the submission was however composed directly in support of the written component and the ideas I was attempting to convey. (R21)

A similarly revelatory experience was felt by one further respondent; however, it came too late to inform the PhD. Writing the exegesis after I had completed all the creative work made me realise the extent to which there were deep problems with the way I had be [sic] working. It exposed ‘blindspots’. Not that I necessarily detailed all of this in the written element, but the act of writing was cathartic in that it I realised much of what I had been doing as a composer was very constrained by certain ideas that I was clinging on to. My approach to composition changed as a result. (R36)

The above response underlines the need for reflexivity articulated by Nelson, and the dangers of being a non-reflexive practitioner-researcher: Tacit knowledge may be too close (proximal) for it to be fully recognized. Moreover, through non-reflective iteration, it might become habitual. In order to shake it up a little and to understand it more fully, a required movement away from the proximal towards the distal can be effected through critical reflection. (Nelson 2013, 46)

As a strictly research-focussed exercise it might be argued that formative works should not be presented in the portfolio—that is, as the finished research—but simply referred to in the written element and presented as appendices, if at all. After all, a musicologist is unlikely to submit their early drafts as part of their final thesis. Of course, a PhD in composition involves a different methodology from most of those encountered in musicology, but the role of the portfolio might nonetheless be better defined: does it demonstrate a set of findings, or illustrate the stages of a research journey? Respondents here demonstrate differing views and

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varying institutional expectations, but the notion of late-stage reflexivity is certainly a persuasive argument for the inclusion of ‘proto-’material, whether as examples of process or product, and goes some way to bridging the gap between views of the PhD as training in or research through composition.

Degrees of Clarity in Composition Research Doctoral composition programmes in the UK represent a vibrant and diverse landscape of creative research, with much variation in the attitudes of PhD candidates to the role of written documentation. This diversity may be a strength of the system; however, there is clarity needed in framing the methodologies adopted and in how this translates into the design of doctoral programmes. Returning to the frame of the introduction, composers might legitimately claim to be ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding composition as research. However, when a ‘we always did it this way’ attitude is married with a distrust of P-R methodologies that primarily arise from other disciplines, composers in HE too often move to the defensive. Whilst there is a legitimate argument to be made (cf. Hellawell 2014, 2015 and others), such an attitude in the context of doctoral training may be unhelpful. Indeed, whilst the written word in the context of research outputs (for those employed in academia) is often concerned with signposting the research content to others, the written element of a composition PhD must demonstrate a candidate’s ability to conduct research at the level required to work in academia: more than signposting, it must also situate the work within other research (composition-based or otherwise). If a composition PhD is a research degree conducted through composition as a methodology, then it is the responsibility of those leading such programmes to equip candidates with the skills needed to operate in the current (and changing) research environment. For better or worse, in the UK this means understanding the REF, an audit through which recommendations regarding P-R have been made: ‘HEIs can do much more to assist excellent practitioners who move into the academy to make the transition in developing the research articulation of their work’ (REF 2015, 100). Such advice might well be heeded at PhD level too. If the purpose of a composition PhD is training in composition, much of the research paraphernalia might be better left out; if it is

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intended as research through composition (and preparation to work in academia), the wider research environment (with expectations of the use of text-based outputs) must be considered. Responses here indicated a latent division between these two approaches, a division that is partly defined by what a candidate wishes to achieve but also by the expectations of their institution and supervisors. For those who are currently undertaking or have recently completed a PhD, as well as those who are working in HE now and obtained their doctorates some time ago (before 2008), there is frequently divergence between the stated aims and the realities of the composition doctorate in practice. This disconnect has the potential to undermine the qualification from both artistic and research-focussed perspectives. More transparency about what a specific department’s programme offers and expects is therefore necessary: the often implicit assumptions about the hierarchy of practice and written exegesis must be made explicit, and the expected content of the written element (in terms of the various possibilities discussed in this chapter) must be clearly stated. Although institutional requirements underpin what students produce, the survey indicated that the attitude of supervisors to the written element can have the biggest impact on how a candidate approaches writing. When asked to rate the influence of four factors on their choice of focus in the written element, the supervisor was by far the most influential, with 56% of respondents choosing either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ influential, as compared with only 8% for their institution’s written guidance (Fig. 4.6). Supervisory relationships appear to be mostly productive, but when problems do occur—especially at the examination stage—it may be that clearer guidance is needed regarding the expectations of the written element. Responses reflecting little supervisory engagement with the written element range from its being ‘very lightly’ supervised (R70) to ‘zero input’ (R67). This lack of support represents a significant issue amongst a minority of respondents and may be due to the predominance of composer-only supervisors. Supervisors with expertise in areas other than composition may be of great benefit to doctoral programmes and may help to produce graduates better prepared for the expectations of the UK research environment. The potential disconnect between institutional expectations and supervisory approach provides particular friction: in the most extreme cases, ‘[t]he written element was supervised as an afterthought and examined as the founding cornerstone of the degree’ (R40).

Slightly influential

Somewhat influential

Fig. 4.6  Influencing factors on the written element

Not at all influential

100%

National research agenda (e.g. created by Research Excellence Framework, etc.)

Written guidance from institution

Institutional research environment (e.g. created by other PhD students and staff)

Supervisor

Very influential

0%

Extremely influential

100%

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The purpose of doctoral composition training is, once again, at the heart of this issue: the master/apprentice model that fits a PhD as training in composition might be at odds with the needs of a research degree through composition in which a team of supervisors—bringing different expertise—may be beneficial. In R46’s experience, a second supervisor from a related field was engaged from outside the institution, ‘to steer the theoretical side of the written component’. The benefits of such an approach are spelt out as ‘a welcome compliment [sic] to the (composition-focused) supervision’ and ‘an important aspect of why my PhD was a success’, showing that such a beneficial approach can indeed be found within the sector. With when, what and how to write so inextricably tied to the underlying conception of a composition PhD’s purpose, the range of approaches indicated above are all potentially valid. However, candidates—and ­composer-researchers more broadly—may be better served by a greater sense of methodological rigour across the discipline. * * * Broadly speaking, the present system of doctoral composition study operates effectively. However, there are missed opportunities in approaches to the written element. In particular, the models raised in P-R literature give scope for composers to define their own approaches to documenting, contextualising, analysing and ultimately ‘explaining’ their work. Reeves issues something of a call to arms, critiquing the tacit acceptance of the scientific method and proposing that ‘[w]e would do better to devise our own models’ (2015, 57). This sentiment is echoed across other engagements with the topic since 2015 referenced throughout this chapter, but none answer the call. There is no desire to lose the notion of the musical text (score, recording or other form) as the research output, so there is a particular need to adopt approaches to the written element—in doctoral study and more broadly—that avoid claims that the musical component is simply being supplanted. Of course, composers must continue to argue for their works to stand on their own where appropriate, but this might be better achieved by engaging with what writing can add to the research rather than arguing for no writing at all. If the discipline itself can establish a paradigm for composition research in which the purposes of the written word are defined, then it will be much easier to locate the work of individuals within the continuum of approaches that would no doubt

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feature. Composers can present work with reflexive, contextual or other forms of writing, or none at all, but at the moment there is little to establish these approaches in appropriate and defined methodologies. There is therefore a twin objective: composers in HE must define models of writing and use such approaches when delivering doctoral training. As one respondent puts it: I would not want [the written element] to become codified so that all commentaries have to have the same format (there’s enough of that sort of thing in HE as it is), but rather an open discussion of the different functions it can fulfil and the different forms it could take. Unfortunately composition doesn’t have such a forum at present. (R79)

There is clearly scope for a large variety of rigorous approaches to writing about composition with the breadth and depth seen in the responses collected by the authors. The sooner we begin to engage with defining these approaches and reflecting them in how doctoral composition is supervised (and advertised), the sooner composition research can start to feel more comfortable in its own skin once again.

Notes



1. Throughout this chapter, P-R will be used as an all-encompassing term that aims not to favour one understanding of practice within research over another, as suggested by Hann (2015). 2. The terms ‘written element’ and ‘writing’ are used throughout to refer to the textual/verbal exegesis required in the majority of doctoral composition programmes. 3.  Guildhall School of Music and Drama, for example, accommodates doctoral composers in both its PhD and DMus programmes. The DMus is aimed at ‘established practitioners of an exceptional calibre’, whilst for the PhD, ‘students may combine a written submission with ­practice-research’ (GSMD, n.d.). Although a greater research focus in the PhD is implicit in how the programmes are described, exactly what differentiates these submissions is not clear. 4. Four respondents opted not to name their institution. 5. Full exploration of the history of the RAE in the UK can be found in Pace (2018). 6. The impact of research policy is a significant factor here but, whilst a critical examination of this is needed, it is beyond the scope of this chapter.

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7.  Respondents were asked whether they were currently undertaking their PhD, had completed it after 1 October 2008 or had completed it before 30 September 2008. 8.  One exception in the present survey was a respondent who was not required to submit a written element (save for a programme note for each piece): they chose to complete ‘a very long written element’ but were ‘told to cut 90%’ at the viva stage (R37). Their stated final length of 2000 words is substantially shorter than those of other responses, and seems to be an outlier amongst participants’ experiences. 9. See Igweonu (2011) for more on this approach. 10. ‘Pseudo-scientific’ terms are used here as shorthand for a process that—as Reeves (2015) acknowledges—is quite different in composition-research.

Bibliography Archbold, Paul. 2016. ‘REF Practice Research: Overview of How We Got Here’. Paper Presented to National Association for Music in Higher Education, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 3 May. Barrett, Estelle. 2007. ‘Developing and Writing Creative Arts Practice Research: A Guide’. In Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, edited by Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt, 185–205. London: Taurus. Candlin, Fiona. 2000. ‘Practice-Based Doctorates and Questions of Academic Legitimacy’. International Journal of Art and Design Education 19, no. 1: 96–101. Cook, Nicholas. 2015. ‘Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives’. In Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, edited by Mine Dogantan-Dack, 11–32. Basingstoke: Ashgate. Christianson, Bruce, Martin Elliot, and Ben Massey. 2015. The Role of Publications and Other Artefacts in Submissions for the UK PhD. Lichfield: UK Council for Graduate Education. Croft, John. 2015a. ‘Composition Is Not Research’. Tempo 69, no. 272: 6–11. Croft, John. 2015b. ‘Composing, Researching and Ways of Talking’. Tempo 70, no. 275: 71–77. Draper, Paul, and Scott Harrison. 2011. ‘Through the Eye of a Needle: The Emergence of a Practice-Led Research Doctorate in Music’. British Journal of Music Education 28, no. 1: 87–102. Goehr, Lydia. 1992. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Clarendon. Guildhall School of Music and Drama. n.d. ‘Types of Research Award’. https:// www.gsmd.ac.uk/about_the_school/research/research_degrees_mphildmus_ mphilphd/types_of_research_award/. Accessed 1 February 2019.

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Hann, Rachel. 2015. ‘Practice Matters: Arguments for a “Second Wave” of Practice Research’. https://futurepracticeresearch.org/2015/07/28/practice-matters-arguments-for-a-second-wave-of-practice-research/. Accessed 23 January 2019. Hann, Rachel, and Victor Ladron de Guevara. 2015. ‘Addressing Practice: Introducing a New Section for STP’. Studies in Theatre and Performance 35, no. 1: 3–6. Hellawell, Piers. 2014. ‘Treating Composers as Researchers Is Bonkers’. Standpoint, 29 April. http://standpointmag.co.uk/critique-may-14-treatingcomposers-as-researchers-bonker. Accessed 23 January 2019. Hellawell, Piers. 2015. ‘Is Composition Research?’ [Video]. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=YiA1ahHw3HA. Igweonu, Kene. 2011. ‘Practice, Theory and Reflection: An Examination of Writing in Performance Training and Research’. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 4, no. 2: 141–51. Nelson, Robin. 2006. ‘Practice-as-Research and the Problem of Knowledge’. Performance Research 11, no. 4: 105–16. Nelson, Robin. 2013. Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies, Resistances. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pace, Ian. 2015a. ‘Composition and Performance Can Be, and Often Have Been, Research’. Tempo 70, no. 275: 60–70. Pace, Ian. 2015b. ‘Those 300-Word Statements on Practice-as-Research for the RAE/REF—Origins and Stipulations’. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/ eprint/17489/. Accessed 27 February 2020. Pace, Ian. 2018. ‘The RAE and REF: Resources and Critiques’. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/22361/. Accessed 26 February 2020. Reeves, Camden. 2015. ‘Composition, Research and Pseudo-Science: A Response to John Croft’. Tempo 70, no. 275: 50–59. REF. 2015. Research Excellence Framework 2014: Overview Report by Main Panel D and Sub-panels 27 to 36. https://www.ref.ac.uk/2014/media/ref/content/expanel/member/Main%20Panel%20D%20overview%20report.pdf. Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Stewart, Robyn. 2007. ‘Creating New Stories for Praxis: Navigations, Narrations, Neonarratives’. In Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, edited by Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt, 123–34. London: Taurus. Talbot, Michael, ed. 2000. The Musical Work: Reality or Invention? Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Taruskin, Richard. 1995. Text and Act: Essays in Musical Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

90  C. LEEDHAM AND M. SCHEUREGGER Till, Nicholas. 2013. ‘Opus Versus Output’. Times Higher Education, 7 March. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/opus-versus-output/2002261.article. Accessed 30 July 2019. UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE). 1997. Practice-Based Doctorates in the Creative and Performing Arts and Design. UK Council for Graduate Education. UK Council for Graduate Education. 2001. Research Training in the Creative & Performing Arts & Design. UK Council for Graduate Education. University of Edinburgh. n.d. ‘Musical Composition PhD’. https://www. ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees/index.php?r=site/view&edition=2020&id=918. Accessed 21 January 2020. University of Leeds. n.d. ‘Doctor of Philosophy’. https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/ music-research-degrees/doc/doctor-philosophy-phd-1. Accessed 21 January 2020. University of Oxford. n.d. ‘Research Students’. https://www.music.ox.ac.uk/ apply/postgraduate/research-students-apply/. Accessed 21 January 2020. University of Sheffield. n.d. ‘Research Proposal’. https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ music/postgraduate/phd/research-proposal. Accessed 21 January 2020. University of York. n.d. ‘MPhil/PhD by Composition (Acoustic and Electroacoustic)’. https://www.york.ac.uk/music/postgraduate/researchcourses/mphil-phd-composition. Accessed 21 January 2020.

CHAPTER 5

Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Western Art Music: Questions of Context, Realism, Evidence, Description and Analysis Ian Pace

Introduction Many words have been written by scholars in multiple disciplines about the value or limitations of various practices that have come to be regarded as ethnographic. To summarise these debates would require more space than is available in a chapter of this size. But many ethnographic practitioners in musical fields make significant claims for the superiority of their approach (or of associated methods conventionally employed by ethnomusicologists) over other approaches and ­sub-disciplines. In the process, they often treat most pejoratively other long-established musicological practices for research and teaching, and/or Western art music per se, as the traditional subject of inquiry of much musicology. Peter Dunbar-Hall calls Australian music syllabi I. Pace (*)  Department of Music, City, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_5

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‘colonialist’, whose ‘analytical perspective’ imposes ‘Eurocentric ways of understanding’ that are at odds with those of various music’s creators (Dunbar-Hall 2005; cited in Drummond 2010, 119), while Philip Bohlman talks of Western art music being portrayed by musicologists as ‘totally international and purged of any ethnic or historical particularity’ (Bohlman 1991, 255) and elsewhere of ‘the process of disciplining to cover up the racism, colonialism, and sexism that underlie many of the singular canons of the West’ (Bohlman 1992, 198). Laudan Nooshin speaks of ‘occupied musicology’ (illustrated by a picture of the Israeli Wall) and a ‘fetishist focus on music as sound’ (Nooshin 2016),1 while Christopher Small calls a symphony concert ‘a celebration of the “sacred history” of the western middle classes’; and the work of Boulez and others at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/ Musique (IRCAM) no more than ‘a naive, gee-whiz celebration of the most superficial aspects of modern technology’ unless considered in the ritualistic terms he favours (Small 1987, 19, 29). Yara El-Ghadban calls contemporary Western art music ‘highly canonized, ritualized, and institutionalized’ (El-Ghadban 2009, 141), Henry Kingsbury finds little more than the reproduction of the worst social hierarchies in conservatory musical education (Kingsbury 1988), while Bruno Nettl says that music schools, like orchestras, are ‘a replication of a factory or a plantation—with its dictatorial arm-waving director, the hierarchical structure of its sections, its rigid class structure’ and claims that these are ‘run more autocratically than other departments’ (Nettl 2002, 236). Georgina Born, also investigating IRCAM, writes of ‘a music that cannot communicate, because no one will listen’, ‘the aesthetic impotence of an “autonomous” modernism’, and ‘the sense of sterility attached to composition techniques such as serialism’ (Born 1995, 6, 39, 198). These and other writers regularly assert the need for other types of musicologists to employ ethnomusicological approaches (that ethnomusicologists could learn from other musicological sub-disciplines is a far rarer claim). As someone who continues to believe that much of great value is to be found in many established forms of musicology, in canonical composers in the Western art tradition,2 the symphony concert, the conservatory3 and modernist and serialist music, including some of that produced at IRCAM, I believe the work that generates such conclusions should be subject to the same degree of critical scrutiny as its writers routinely apply to others.

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In this chapter, I will focus on a particular tradition of academic ­ riting, applying ethnomusicological approaches to the study of Western w art music, not to present a thoroughgoing critique of this field (for the beginnings of this, see Pace 2020a), but to focus in particular upon a subset of writing therein, in order to examine the implications of the application of an ‘ethnographic’ approach. I will consider some critical arguments that have developed within the wider fields of anthropology and ethnography, examine the limitations of dogmatic approaches that are dismissive of other non-ethnographic methods and data, elucidate key categories of ‘description’ as opposed to ‘analysis’ and then apply my findings in the process of outlining a brief critical overview of the field. This is followed in Chapter 6 by closer investigation of three case studies.

Ethnography ‘Ethnography’ is a difficult term to define with any precision, and the term has been sometimes unhelpfully conflated with anthropology in general, or the use of participant observation (see Ingold 2008; Hockey and Forsey 2012). Entries in a few common dictionaries and encyclopaedias define it literally as ‘writing about people’ (for example Hammersley 2007, 1479; Bruce and Yearly 2006; 95, also Ingold 2014, 384–85), while many also focus on participant observation of activities of particular groups of people (Warren 2000, 852; Bloor and Wood 2006, 176; and the aforementioned). In the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, the only further qualification is ‘producing a written description thereof’ (Scott 2014, 223; a similar view is found in Johnson 2000, 111); others add ‘the description and evaluation of such activity’ (Abercrombie et al. 2006, 136), or allude to Clifford Geertz’s concept of ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973, 3–30). A few go further, for example demanding ‘analysis: the generation of concepts, patterns, or typologies from thick description, and their linkage to concepts, theories, and literatures already established in the discipline’ (Warren 2000, 852; for a looser demand for analysis, see Fetterman 2010, 2–3). John D. Brewer takes a freer view, arguing that ethnography is ‘not one particular method of data collection but a style of research’ and posits that ‘travellers tales’ written over the centuries count as a type of ethnographic research. However, Brewer views ethnography proper as only beginning in the twentieth century, coming out of British social anthropology,

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closely linked to colonialism but also to the Chicago school of sociology, and applying observational techniques to marginal social groups— though in the latter case it was more likely to be called simply participant observation or field research (Brewer 2000, 11–13; see Hockey and Forsey 2012 for a critique of this equation). Most writers seem to agree that an ethnography requires some sort of fieldwork (which can take various forms), as one source of data (Paul Atkinson and Martyn Hammersley argue that ethnographers generally employ multiple sources of data [2007, 3]); opinions differ on how much else is required. The idea of fieldwork has clearly been a fundamental aspect of ethnomusicology throughout much of its history (see Barz and Cooley 2008 for extensive discussion of this). In more recent times, however, a number of social scientists have taken a more critical attitude specifically towards aspects of this and some other established ethnographic practices and methods, though without necessarily rejecting the discipline. A ‘postmodern turn’ in ethnography began in the 1980s with critiques of the conventions of what was labelled ‘ethnographic realism’. This latter was said to entail a limited presence for the ethnographer, downplaying of individuals in favour of groups, a focus on everyday experience, issues of representation, extrapolation of data and so on. Critics of this approach favoured more creative approaches to ethnographic writing, drawing upon experimental literary models. This type of turn went hand in hand with a questioning of the purported objectivity and dispassion of the ethnographer and other assumptions, not least in light of post-colonial concerns (see Marcus and Cushman 1982; Marcus 1986; Clifford and Marcus 1986; Geertz 1988; Clifford 1988). In one of a series of influential writings, James Clifford evoked Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of ‘heteroglossia’, entailing a ‘bewildering diversity of idioms’, and the fact that not only writing itself, but also the use of ‘texts’ that are taken away from fieldwork, are far from disinterested acts (1988, 22–23, 39–42). Clifford explored different ways of dealing with this, most obviously the use of regular long quotations from informants, to provide an alternative to the singular vantage point of realist work (46–53). In 1992, Martyn Hammersley, in a far-reaching critique that modified in a cautionary manner some of the prescriptions of 1980s writers on ethnography, argued that approaches based on data collection involve an imposition of the researcher’s assumptions, are contrived and used to

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generate questionable generalisations, rely upon what people say they do (rather than observing what they actually do and grappling with the dialectic between the two), and as such constitute a reification of social phenomena (Hammersley 1992, 11–12). Nonetheless, he also argued that ethnography entailed discovery of the social world through observation and participation, consideration of social processes and the meanings behind them, in order to produce ‘theoretical’, ‘analytical’ or ‘thick’ descriptions, grounded in concrete events, but allowing for generalisation, the greatest emphasis being placed upon theoretical description, employing wider concepts and theories (12–13).4 Anticipating some critiques of what were then relatively recent postmodern turns in various disciplines, Hammersley was sceptical about fetishisation of novelty (either of presentation or subject matter), and took a cautionary attitude towards political advocacy (1992, 14–16, 22–23). He also questioned those ethnographic rationales whose advocates dismiss judgement from others, or the claim that ethnographic models constitute theories in any conventional sense; such advocates present them instead as ‘contributions to a public dialogue that should compete on equal terms with those from other sources’. By claiming immunity from critique, Hammersley worried that ethnographers’ work might not be viewed as scholarship, and pointed out that such a view might imply that ‘both factual and value claims must be judged solely in terms of their pragmatic utility or their market appeal’ (15). Nonetheless, he was also critical of ethnographic realism and the idea that there was ‘one true description that the ethnographer’s account seeks to approximate’ (24). Hammersley also noted a range of critiques of highly selective ethnographic descriptions, when the latter reinforce already-existing theories or priorities, whether to bolster Marxist convictions, or to discover a multiplicity of ‘deviants’. Nonetheless, he did not conclude from this that the problem is one of imposed values, in contrast to some supposedly objective description of how things really are, but instead saw it as the deliberate omission of relevant things, and as such an insufficient guiding principle of discovering what is true (25–27). Above all, he emphasised the crucial factor of ‘understanding events in context’ (22–23). In 1995, John van Maanen registered a range of then-current critiques of ethnography, on the basis of various of the arguments above, and also noted a large degree of inertia in ethnographic practices (Van Maanen 1995, 2–4, 7, 45–72). While essentially supporting others who

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had emphasised the role of language in shaping representation, and keenly aware of the problematic nature of concepts such as ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, van Mannen also noted how rare it still was for ethnographers to overturn previous representations by restudying the same group of people (15–18), in contrast to various scientific and historical methods in which data is subject to repeated scrutiny. In the same volume as van Mannen’s essay, Harry F. Wolcott sought to draw a clear distinction between the merely qualitative/descriptive and the specifically ethnographic, insisting that the latter term referred ‘both to the processes for accomplishing it—ordinarily involving original fieldwork and always requiring the reorganization and editing of material for presentation—and to the presentation itself, the product of that research, which ordinarily takes its form in prose’, while insisting it is underlaid by a rationale of ‘cultural interpretation’ (Wolcott 1995, 82–83, 93–95). In contrast to this, Wolcott employed the term ‘haphazard descriptiveness’, coined earlier by George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer to characterise the view presented by E. E. Evans-Pritchard of the work of Bronisław Malinowski and Margaret Mead, in contrast to his own analytical approach (Marcus and Fischer 1983, rev. 1999, 56; Evans-Pritchard 1951, repr. 2004, 96–104). Wolcott used the term to indicate a rather distracting process of simply listing different pieces of factual information without further interpretation (Wolcott 1995, 85–86), a situation that will be encountered in some of my case studies in Chapter 6. Perhaps even more importantly, he insisted that culture was ‘an abstraction based on the ethnographer’s observations of actual behaviour’, which they attempt to pull together into a comprehensive picture, though with caution (86–87). Simple inclusion of a good deal of detail, incorporating vague references to culture, or even simply labelling one’s work ‘ethnographic’, were among strategies he identified as superficial means to make a study ‘more ethnographic’ at an advanced stage in the process (90–97). In a general introduction to social and cultural anthropology, Thomas Hylland Eriksen took an appropriately sceptical view towards idealised accounts of fieldwork and many of the more exalted claims made for it, noting its over-reliance upon rigid dichotomies, and arguing that anthropologists’ careerist concerns may be more significant than any particular love of generating knowledge (Eriksen 2015, 32–51). He also noted how anthropologists have been inclined until recently simply to account for a particular society or culture without explaining any of the causes

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such as might be possible through more conventional historical study (39–40, 43–44). According to Eriksen, this latter issue, combined with the tendency towards ‘realism’, renders much ethnography extremely susceptible to reification (he does not use this term here, but his argument is of this nature), whereby a particular existing and historically contingent state of cultural affairs is presented as if it were innate and inevitable. Such a neo-Brechtian critique also constitutes a response to a legacy of studying non-Western music and culture as if they were unchanging and timeless (Nettl 1985, 12–17). The unhappier ways in which the history of anthropology was enmeshed with colonialism have taken their toll upon ethnographers (as acknowledged in Evans-Pritchard 1951, repr/ 2004, 67; see also James 1975; Asad 1994, 59–62, and the latter’s claim that ‘typification’ entails ‘the imposition by the anthropologist of an idealized cultural system on remembered and recorded data’ [65]). In theory at least, the approach advocated by Clifford, involving quotations from informants, is a means to avoid ethnography’s entailing an act of domination (Madison 2005, 7–8, citing Noblit et al. 2004). To this end, Charles Kurzman, echoing Clifford, also emphasised the vitality of allowing the subjects of inquiry to ‘speak up for themselves’, presenting as the ideal ‘to give the subjects a voice in the academic world’ while recognising that this may have the opposite effect because those subjects ‘may not feel qualified to participate in academic debates’ (Kurzman 1991, 267). A different type of critique came from anthropologist Tim Ingold, who, while making clear his continuing belief in the value of a particular conception of ethnography, expressed his frustration with overuse of the term ‘ethnographic’, which he said ‘appears to be a modish substitute for qualitative’ (echoing Wolcott), generating a surplus of secondary literature, often as a substitute for actually engaging in the activity (Ingold 2014, 383–85, 391). Ingold agreed with others that the term ‘ethnography’ should not in itself be seen as defining of anthropology, and sounded a wry note about the spinning of fieldnotes as ‘data’, and the projection backwards of conceptions derived at a later stage, including of one’s own ethnographic experiences (384, 386). As such, he suggested dropping the term ‘ethnography’ altogether, as many cases are simply ‘participant observation’, though he was also sceptical as to whether the participant can really observe at the same time as participating (386–88). Ingold suggested such activity constitutes above all an education for the anthropologist that involves an especially attentive mode of being, and entails a ‘way of working’ rather than a ‘method’ (388–91).

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But perhaps the most incisive critique comes from outside of the anthropological profession, in a book by law professor Steven Lubet. Lubet was drawn to investigate further after the success of Alice Goffman’s (2014) study of low-income African-American communities, On the Run, leading him to entertain some distrust towards the methods and ethics employed. Surveying a wide range of urban ethnographies, Lubet asked a range of standard scholarly questions: (i) to what extent have the ethnographers relied on rumours or hearsay?, (ii) how much have they fact-checked their sources?, (iii) have they ignored inconvenient evidence?, (iv) have they accepted the word of unreliable witnesses? and (v) have their arguments exceeded what could be factually substantiated? (Lubet 2018: xiv; my numbering).5 In particular, he drew upon Mitchell Duneier’s conception of an ‘ethnographic trial’, in which the ethnographers must defend their work against charges of malpractice and show that they have provided readers with ‘a reasonably reliable rendering of the social world’ (Duneier 2011, 2). Duneier notes that: When ethnographers don’t have to worry about hearing from the witnesses they have never met or talked to, they more easily sidestep alternative perspectives or deceive themselves into thinking that these alternative perspectives either don’t exist or don’t have implications for their developing line of thinking. (Duneier 2011, 3)6

Drawing upon Duneier’s observation of a general lack of expectation of fact-checking among ethnographers, Lubet argued wryly that in this respect ‘An ethnographer’s work might be incomplete or inaccurate, but it isn’t malpractice if everyone else does it too’ (2018, 5). Subsequently he found a wide variety of practice in the ethnographies he scrutinises, with some of the more questionable examples overly reliant upon hearsay, ethnographers offering opinions on specialised areas that exceed their professional expertise, lack of scrupulousness in checking available documentation, use of questionable recollections from informants and taking unreliable witnesses at face value, editing so as to cherry-pick evidence that supports a hypothesis and ignoring that to the contrary, unwillingness to question rumour or folklore, and various abuses of anonymisation, for example through creating composite individuals from multiple live subjects, without making this apparent to the reader, or altering details from anonymous informants such as may change the arguments (15–108). This is not to say that there were not exemplary

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ethnographies with respect to his criteria, in particular Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016), which Lubet held up as a model. Amongst his conclusions were that ethnographers should lessen their reliance on unsourced generalities, avoid composites, document how and when there have been ‘minor’ changes to data, clarify the distinction between direct observation and that from other sources, and what is hearsay, rumour or folklore, be more sceptical of informants, include all contrary facts and inconvenient witnesses, give as clear detail as possible for sources and informants, including dates and natures of communications for anonymised subjects, allow third parties to check field notes, and have ethnographers routinely fact-check each other’s work (Lubet 2018, 136–37). He also cited Duneier’s account of Stephen Steinberg’s concept of ‘the ethnographic fallacy’,7 an ‘epistemology that relies exclusively on observation’, which ‘sharply delineates the behavior at close range but obscures the less visible structures and processes that engender and sustain the behavior’ (Duneier 2016, 343), resembling some of the arguments of Eriksen. While some ethnomusicologists have moved away from the ‘realist’ model and explored experimental forms, and employed long quotations to emphasise a ‘dialogical’ approach, many of the writings by such scholars on Western art music are deeply vulnerable to the other types of critique I have detailed. These will guide the following analysis, and I will return to the specific critiques in the conclusion to Chapter 6.

Territorial Issues In commenting on ‘traditional musicology’, Stephen Cottrell asserts that its practitioners cast themselves in the role of informed experts, providing readings or interpretations of musical practice which remain subjective, notwithstanding that their interpretations or readings of given artworks may attempt to establish links with other social or cultural practices in a manner analogous to ethnomusicological method. (Cottrell 2004, 4)

His disparaging use of the term ‘experts’ anticipates populist rhetoric that became commonplace in the United Kingdom over a decade later, most memorably in the words of Conservative politician Michael Gove, when speaking of the lack of economists who backed Britain’s exit from the

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European Union (Mance 2016; for a rigorous, nuanced treatment of the subject of expertise and its detractors, see Nichols 2017). Cottrell does acknowledge that ethnomusicologists also cast themselves in the role of experts, but he does not wish to give their views precedence over ‘others for whom the music may be equally important or meaningful (and often more so)’ (Cottrell 2004, 4), which begs the question of what is the value of education and associated expertise at all? His associated claim that traditional musicologists seldom allow ‘room in their texts for other voices’ is untenable in view of the reality of much scholarly work undertaken in that area, and will be discussed further in Chapter 6. As for ethnomusicologists writing on Western art music, it is rare that they allow for any dissenting expert voices (as opposed to evoking a range of canonical figures: Alan Merriam, Marcel Mauss, Geertz, Pierre Bourdieu and so on). As I will show in his own case and that of Amanda Bayley and Michael Clarke, ethnomusicologists also often ignore other relevant scholarship when produced by scholars from other sub-disciplines. Many traditional musicologists are experts in a very meaningful sense of the term: for example, many Schubert scholars demonstrate intense knowledge of a breadth of repertory, musical and textual conventions and provenance, historical conditions of performance, a wide range of poetry, aesthetics, and existing analytical and other literature. Anything comparable to this sort of range of learning (as distinct from a certain amount of what is essentially focus group data) is almost nowhere present in the particular branch of ethnomusicology I will discuss below. Jonathan Stock is a little clearer in his definition of ‘traditional musicology’, saying that he refers ‘mostly to what we might today more formally identify as historical musicology’ (Stock 1997, 41), thus excluding analytical musicology, study of performance practice (dating at least back to the 1920s), music aesthetics, acoustics, and much else, all with long and rich traditions. There is not the space to deal here with the various false dichotomies entailed in his Manichean opposition between his object and idealised ethnomusicology (for more on this, see Pace 2020a); suffice to say that Stock’s arguments, like those of Cottrell, rely quite fundamentally upon the construction of an ‘other’ that is portrayed as ‘traditional’ musicology. Cottrell writes elsewhere that ethnographic approaches to Western art music ‘antagonize a small number of musicologists, who continue

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to argue for the primacy of the musical text and decry sociological or anthropological approaches that fail to put the musical sounds and structures at the centre of the methodology’ (Cottrell 2017, 322), echoing Nooshin’s description of a ‘fetishistic’ focus on sound, noted above. My own scepticism is towards those approaches that do not simply fail to place sounds (not just ‘texts’) and structures at the centre of the methodology, but ignore them altogether, producing what I have elsewhere called simply ‘musicology without ears’ (Pace 2016a). Without a focus on sound, what gives musicology any separate disciplinary identity? Some, for sure, might view the loss of the entire discipline as no bad thing, leading to a situation (already existing in some institutions) in which all types of musicologists would instead be housed in sociology, anthropology or cultural studies departments (on this, see also Nettl 2005, 189–91), and academic positions and teaching would not necessarily require any prerequisite skills specific to music (see Pace and Tregear 2020). But this move would likely lead to the near-dissolution of musicology altogether, with musicologists—including ethnomusicologists—consigned to an extremely marginal position if their work is indeed desired at all, compared to those with more specialised training in the other subjects. But what else might be wrong with musicology without ears? Beyond the unhappy spectacle of a profession eschewing aural and associated intellectual skills, it can lead to serious misrepresentations of music when that music is understood as little more than a stylistic ‘brand’. Björn Heile has noted how Georgina Born, in her 1995 ethnography of IRCAM, asserts that ‘for decades’ the courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse were characterised by serialism, subsuming a wide range of heterogeneous developments under one heading as part of what Heile calls part of a ‘fundamentally distorted picture of modernism’. Born’s lack of knowledge of the many developments of open form composition, aleatory technique, post-Cage experimentalism, live electronics, heavily politicised musical aesthetics, debates about Weltmusik, free text scores for improvisation and more at the courses at Darmstadt, are said to result from her ‘dependence on secondary literature instead of independent readings of composers’ works’ (Heile 2004, 167–68; see also Pace 2011 for falsification of the claim that Darmstadt was dominated by serialism even in the 1950s). Richard Herrmann, in a more detailed critique, examines the simplistic dualisms upon which Born’s study (which he calls ‘a polemic; it is not scholarship’ [Herrmann 1997, 6.1]) is founded, and

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how consistently falsifiable they are in the case of the repertoire in question, as well as how ill-defined and understood are terms such as ‘serialism’, ‘neoclassicism’, ‘tonal’, ‘modal’ and so on, concluding that ‘Born has difficulties not only with aesthetic concepts but also more directly with technical concepts and even relatively recent historical facts about music’ (4.13). He attributes this to ‘her comparative lack of technical training or historical study of music’ and the fact that ‘she did not analyze any of the music under discussion’, relying instead upon ‘blatant, unsubstantiated, and unmediated value judgments against modernism, at least as practiced by IRCAM’ (4.13; 5.1). Heile recognises that it may be harsh to judge a ‘non-musicologist’ in such a fashion (though at the time of writing, Born holds a position as ‘Professor of Music and Anthropology’ at the University of Oxford, associated with the Faculty of Music as well as the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, which surely suggests some type of musicological expertise). Arguably, a purely anthropological study, for which music is only important as a window onto a wider culture, could be undertaken successfully without any engagement with the actual music produced (though I remain sceptical and have not seen any positive example of such a thing), such as would require listening; but this is insufficient for Born, who does wish to pronounce on the actual music, but without having to engage with it in any detail.8 Similar problems can be located throughout related literature, for example in Yara El-Ghadban’s pronouncements, cruder than those of Born, on contemporary Western art music, derived primarily from the views of other anthropologists and ethnomusicologists, without external verification, and so disregarding Hammersley’s dialectic and Lubet’s questions (i), (ii) and (iv) (El-Ghadban 2009); or Hettie Malcolmson’s attempts to construct a trinity of ‘mainstream’/‘new complexity’/‘experimental’ approaches to composition, on the basis of casual remarks by composers, with no exploration or evidence of understanding of the provenance and aesthetic meanings of such concepts (Malcolmson 2013, 128–29). In all such cases, Hammersley’s requirement of contextual knowledge is also significantly lacking, and it is difficult to see how this could be remedied without genuine musical engagement. Those who doggedly exclude aural and analytical evidence from their enquiries will always be limited in the scope of their endeavours.

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Description and Analysis: Journalistic and Scholarly Writing Earlier I mentioned differing requirements of ‘description’ and ‘analysis’ for ethnographic writing. This dichotomy is used as a yardstick by some academics to distinguish ‘scholarly’ from ‘journalistic’ writing, though it has not often been subject to more sustained exploration (though see some of the essays in Pace and Wiley 2020), and is ignored in some textbooks on academic writing (e.g. Murray and Moore 2006; Bailey 2011). Certainly one characteristic would be the implied readership, whereby scholarly writing is produced for other scholars with the requisite expertise, while journalistic writing aims for a wider constituency.9 In a rare article attempting to identify wider characteristics, Andrew Duffy argues for some continuities, whereby ‘Scholarly writing can be viewed as an advanced form of journalism’, through more rigorous and transparent methods, careful use of data and enhanced editing (Duffy 2015, 7–10). Whether there is such a clear hierarchy of editing quality between publications produced by academic outlets and others is certainly open to question, while in a musical/musicological context, methodological rigour can have a great many meanings. Two brief examples will serve here as an indication of clear distinctions of style, approach and intended readership.10 The first is from Graham Johnson’s book on Gabriel Fauré’s songs, here looking at Fauré’s setting of Paul Verlaine’s poem ‘Une sainte en son auréole’, Op. 61, No. 1: Fauré’s usual time-travelling music often suggests the seventeenth-century madrigal, or the eighteenth-century fêtes galantes of Versailles, but here his part-writing and counterpoint imitate the rigorous devotion of a medieval motet—somewhat ‘archaïsant’, as Suckling puts it—without sacrificing a jot of his own style or sound-world. […] The music has a firmness that discourages sentimentality; Fauré understands that the function of this chatelaine is to improve her husband, as well as to motivate and inspire him—a kind of purity by example. The entire song breathes an air of seraphic calm despite a tempo that moves forward with implacable assurance—as if to say ‘this is ordained’. There is some word-painting: a D♭ concealed in the accompaniment (with the following F♭ a minor third above) mournfully suggests the ‘golden note’ of the horn in the distant forest. This unexpected touch from a composer who usually refrains from such illustrative details reminds us of works by Debussy as yet uncomposed—the Verlaine

104  I. PACE setting Le Son du cor, and Golaud’s horn-call in the prelude to Pelléas et Mélisande. The curvaceous characteristics of theme A are to be heard traced in the introduction to the song, and in many a bar of the piano writing, but the actual theme appears for the first time only at bar 15 (just before ‘de grâce et d’amour; Example 5.1); Jankélévitch refers to this six-crotchet motif as being ‘as pure and lily-like as the neck of a woman.’ This ‘Carlovingien’ theme reappears three times in the song’s last two lines; we will hear it again in Nos 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 of the cycle. (Johnson 2009, 229–30)

This can be compared with the second example, from Beate Perry’s book on Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, specifically here about the song ‘Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’, which is accompanied by a musical example of bars 12–17. Obviously, the singular prominence and impact with which Schumann projects the diminished-seventh chord owes much to the repetition of the E-minor chord in the preceding bar (b. 12) from which it emerges. While this rhythmic and intervallic structure of b. 12 has been established as the song’s nucleus from the very start (bb. 1–2), and although this motive has been transformed constantly up to this point through intricate interaction between voice and piano (bb. 1–11), its unison presentation at the words ‘doch wenn du’ (b. 12), just before ‘sprichst’, is certainly new. Earlier, the piano either followed the voice (b. 2) or preceded it (b. 4) in the statement of the motive. Thus, the repeated E-minor chords before ‘sprichst’ (b. 12) with their new-found congruence between voice and piano convey a sense of ‘expectation’. The diminished-seventh chord before ‘Ich liebe dich’ is the structurally crucial aspect of ‘Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’’, leading as it odes to the striking suspension on ‘liebe’ (b. 14). Let us note here the movement of the voice: a third-step up followed by a whole-step down. This lyrical detail will reappear conspicuously three times at a later stage in Dichterliebe. In bb. 13–14, that is from ‘sprichst’ through ‘dich’, the song conveys a sense of stasis: for a moment, nothing moves as the diminished-seventh chord spreads its veil over ‘sprichst’ in order to come to a halt on ‘liebe dich’, again constrained in terms of time and tempo by a ritardando. Motion resumes again all the more perceptibly at ‘so muß ich weinen bitterlich’ (bb. 14–16), which the piano continues to ‘sing’ three times, decreasing in tempo (ritardando in bb. 17 and 19) and dynamics (p in b. 16 and pp in b. 18). The ambiguity created by the diminished-seventh chord is resolved locally on ‘dich’; however, this resolution is only

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tentative, as the A-minor sonority (on the second beat of b. 14) functions as ii6 of G and is hence tonally distant from the home key. The real resolution is the ensuing V7-I progression (bb. 15–16) on ‘bitterlich’. (Perry 2002, 185–86)

Johnson describes the song, relates the musical idiom to historical precedent, considers briefly the aesthetic context and then provides a few stimulating if quite general thoughts on the music with a small amount of technical or analytical detail, as well as relating the song to some music of Debussy. Perry’s text does not employ any formalised theories beyond reasonably straightforward harmonic analysis,11 but examines the microscopic details of the song to reveal aspects less than obvious from merely aural familiarity. Elsewhere in the book she combines this approach with an intense critical consideration of early Romanticism and its theoretical models. In short, Johnson presents context, description and a certain amount of ‘appreciation’ for a general reader; Perry writes more detailed analysis and aesthetic theory for specialists. The difference is not so much of value as of type: between the ‘general’ and the ‘specific’, between species of writing that can be identified as description and analysis respectively. But consider also the following passage, by Paul F. Berliner, an ethnographic study of the music of the Zimbabwean Shona People. A beginning student of the mbira dzavadzimu usually first learns the kushaura or lead part of an mbira piece. After learning the kushaura parts to several compositions he then learns the kutsinhira parts. As a matter of personal taste, some musicians specialize in either the first or the second part to mbira pieces. Others methodically learn both the kushaura and kutsinhira parts of mbira compositions. Gradually mbira students expand their repertories not only with new pieces but with the traditional variations on the classic pieces they have mastered. Once a student has developed confidence in his playing, he begins to experiment with the subtleties and nuances of the compositions. By slight changes in the rhythmic relationship between the two interlocking hand parts he can effect a change in the total feeling of the piece and its overall phrasing. By shifting accents to different keys or alternating accents from one hand to the other, new parts spring out from the polyphonic fabric of the piece. As the student progresses, he develops enough control to add new high-tone embellishments to the basic mbira parts, thus increasing the complexity of the mbira music. He can listen to the music

106  I. PACE in different ways, almost as if he were a member of the audience and his hands were playing independently of his body. At this stage the mbira player achieves the level of playing described in Chapter 5, in which the musician exchanges ideas with the mbira. This relationship between the mbira player and his instrument presents one of the greatest challenges for the learner. (Berliner 1978, republished 1993, 144–45)

To my mind this passage, which is typical of a significant part of the book,12 entails description more than analysis, and as such is closer to the writing of Johnson than that of Perry. The likely remoteness of the subject matter to many Western readers might be said to render the work more for the specialist, but that could equally be said of much journalism or travel writing exploring remote or exotic locations. ‘Description’ is rarely likely to be a positive epithet if applied to academic writing on Western art music, but the concept is viewed quite differently in cultural anthropology and some branches of ethnomusicology, especially since Clifford Geertz’s theorisation of ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973, 3–30). Geertz’s concept was taken from Gilbert Ryle, specifically what Ryle called ‘practising a burlesque of a friend faking a wink to deceive an innocent into thinking a conspiracy is in motion’. It may overlap with what I identify as analysis, encompassing synthetic interpretation: it involves knowledge of cultural codes and other contextual information; Geertz only eschews the term ‘analysis’ because of associations with ‘the cipher clerk’ (Geertz 1973, 6–9). Geertz was certainly not antipathetic to the application of theoretical ideas, which he believed were in general adopted from those found useful in earlier relevant studies, but refined, modified and re-applied (27). Certainly Perry’s writing would come closer to Geertz’s thick description than that of Johnson, or for that matter Berliner and some others. Wolcott, however, believed incorporation of thick description to be ‘a thin basis for ethnographic claims-making’ (Wolcott 1995, 91), but he appears to have conceived the concept more narrowly than Geertz. Hammersley went further in arguing that ‘ethnographic descriptions are theoretical only in the sense that they apply theories to the understanding of particular phenomena’, and that the question of why one type of description is provided over another remains, often to do with questions of relevance rather than solely of truth (Hammersley 1992, 24–25). But the distinction between description and analysis made by Eriksen is most meaningful in terms of critical scholarship: for him, in an ethnographic

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context, description is generally closer to the conceptualisation of the natives studied, and will rely heavily upon direct quotations, whereas the alternative is to engage in comparative social or cultural analysis and render the area studied in terms of concepts that are not common in the society itself (Eriksen 2015, 46–47). Where there is a tendency towards a less ‘thick’ form of description rather than analysis—or description simply followed by taxonomy— then the work concerned can be difficult to distinguish from other ­non-academic phenomena. The very act of creating an ethnography or other type of work drawing upon words from human subjects can, for sure, never be neutral or dispassionate, because of the inevitable processes of selection, editing, translation (see Asad 1986), organisation, presentation and so on that accompany the production of a written text. Furthermore, the choices involved are rarely at all transparent, meaning that the reader has to take on trust that the ethnographer has acted fairly and equitably, a form of trust I am reluctant to bestow where there is clear evidence of a casual or heavily biased approach towards, or simple lack of appropriate knowledge of, other types of sources. Nonetheless, when such ethnographic writing embodies a critical intelligence, subtlety and creativity, then the description may approach a type of analysis. I will return to this dichotomy at the end of Chapter 6.

The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music Some of the ethnomusicology of Western art music can be conceived as a particular variety of what has been conceptualised as ‘indigenous’ or ‘at-home’ anthropology (Fahim 1982; Jackson 1987), when carried out by active musicians. Other than in a few cases such as that of Cottrell I will discuss in the next chapter, this situation is the exception rather than the rule, as many of the ethnographers do not otherwise function as part of the groups they study, so can be considered etic rather than emic. One of the earliest such studies was an article published by the sociologist Robert Faulkner in 1973, a fairly balanced account of perceptions relating to hierarchies between orchestral players and conductors, based upon seven months of observation and interviews. Then in 1982, Catherine M. Cameron completed her Ph.D. dissertation, later published in revised form (1996), on ‘experimentalism’ in American music. While making some important observations about the nationalistic ideologies that underlie the aesthetic positions of many of the composers, this

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study provides only a loose and vague definition of the ‘experimental’ (which had been extensively theorised prior to Cameron’s thesis, in Nyman 1974; Smalley 1975; Schnebel 1976; Ballantine 1977; Benitez 1978; the earlier provenance of the term is analysed in detail in Metzger 1985; Blumröder 1995; Brooks 2012). It relies almost exclusively upon the pronouncements—and thus self-fashioning—of American radicals on their difference from their European counterparts, rather than engaging with the latter’s work (thus collapsing Hammersley’s dialectic). The result is a distorted picture of reality, which sometimes replicates some of the nationalistic and xenophobic assumptions it was intended to critique. In 1987, Christopher Small explored the traditional priorities of a cultural anthropologist: the rituals associated with a symphony concert. Considering the spatial layout of buildings, players and audiences, the logistics of obtaining tickets, behavioural conventions, stage conventions, concert format, the character of music commonly played and so on, Small disregarded questions of historical contingency and variability in these factors, instead portraying the ritual as if atemporal, in the manner critiqued by Eriksen, while also making extravagant claims about the motivations of listeners, based in part upon a stereotypical view of various composers (Small 1987).13 In the sense identified by Madison (2005), Small’s work shows a clear domination of his subjects, a trait mirrored in subsequent publications as the field expanded, especially with the appearance first of Henry Kingsbury’s Music, Talent, & Performance (1988) and seven years later Bruno Nettl’s Heartland Excursions (1995). Both of these titles were studies of music conservatories, though Kingsbury made the extravagant claim that his work was presented ‘less as an ethnography of a conservatory than as an ethnography of music’ (Kingsbury 1988, 14). It is a heavy-handed study, animated by Kingsbury’s reductionist view that music is ‘a metaphor of the society in which it takes place’ (8). The book features many generalisations about music, pedagogy, analysis, canons, prestige, audiences and so on, which cannot be tested without a separate investigation into Kingsbury’s unnamed institution,14 though many of these can easily be falsified in a wider context. For example, his all-purpose claim that the authoritative pedagogue requires the authoritative musical score, or Urtext (Kingsbury 1988, 15) is certainly true of some teachers and performers, but decried by many others, as is made clear in interviews with leading teachers Jorge Bolet (in Kozinn 1982) and Earl Wild (in Dubal 1985, 342–43). Kingsbury did not hesitate to

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attribute motivations to teachers, students and administrators, and again it is impossible to gauge whether he is providing a fair account of the totality of what he experienced, or simply selecting information that bolsters a particular ideological agenda. He also attributes views to a range of musicological ‘others’ (for example about the supposed undesirability of considering social issues in music, without providing any actual examples of such individuals (Kingsbury 1988, 16)). His observation of how naming teachers can lend prestige to students (44–46) is not unfair (though by no means necessarily the only reason), but is rather ironic in light of Kingsbury’s own biographical description of himself as ‘a onetime disciple of the late Alan Merriam’ (Kingsbury, n.d.). A large section of the book is devoted to the concept of ‘talent’,15 which is viewed disparagingly, though without giving evidence from psychology or elsewhere that might bolster the implied converse position with respect to the performance of Western art music—that there are no differences in aptitude, and so all could achieve the highest level (67– 80). Some of the stock concepts Kingsbury encountered, such as ‘expression’ and playing ‘with feeling’ (64–69), are vague and amorphous terms if simply taken at face value, but it should not be too difficult to see how they may be ciphers for more specific perceptions relating to phrase shaping, rhythmic flexibility, subtlety of voicing, judicious use of vibrato, pedalling and so on. It is hard to imagine the value of any conservatory in which teachers and examiners did not pay attention to such rudimentary matters from students. Nettl, who wrote in his memoir of having been inspired by Kingsbury’s study (thus engaging in his own reciprocal process of esteem and exchange) (Nettl 2002, 230) took a similar approach, and notably disregarded a good deal of historical and contemporary evidence—as for example in his simplistic picture of the history of the orchestra16—in order to pass judgement ‘from above’ on his area of study, replete with loaded language and an almost wholly derogatory view of Western art music compared with an idealised one of music from elsewhere in the world. Just a year before the appearance of Kingsbury’s book, Judith Kogan published her Nothing But the Best: The Struggle for Perfection at the Juilliard School (1987). Kogan was herself a graduate of the school, and provides a scandal-ridden tabloid account of the place, describing the ferocious competition, the ritual of auditions, the huge pressures upon students, the godlike nature of the teachers, the central role of competitions, the bitchy gossip in the cafeteria and the students’ love lives, all

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padded out with salacious anecdotes and conversations reported with relish. There is little described in the book that I do not recognise from my own time studying at Juilliard in the early 1990s (as I recognise some of the less desirable phenomena described by Kingsbury and Nettl, though not in such an overwhelming fashion), but it is also clear that this is an extremely partial and sensationalist account, filtering out much else that was pedagogically inspiring, co-operative and supportive, musically penetrating or for that matter simply routine but necessary. Kogan was writing a commercial book for a large audience rather than an academic study,17 but the differences between this populist text and Kingsbury and Nettl’s supposedly scholarly studies have more to do with literary style than content. Kingsbury is more sober in his language, and both he and Nettl are obviously more concerned to make reference to appropriate theorists, but are not fundamentally different to Kogan in their partisan reading of some of the rituals. Kingsbury and Nettl similarly share with Kogan a uniformly dismissive attitude towards such institutions and most of those who work there, few of whom have the academic platform available to Kingsbury and Nettl, and so are in no more of a position to respond as equals than Small’s subjects. A different but equally influential key text from this period is anthropologist Ruth Finnegan’s The Hidden Musicians (1989), very much in the ‘realist’ tradition. This is an obsessively detailed description of every aspect of music-making in the town of Milton Keynes, from orchestras, through amateur choirs and brass bands, to folk groups and over 100 small bands, packed with long passages of prose and lists of figures, right down to detailed information about who does the washing-up, puts out cups and saucers, fills the electric urn for tea and coffee and so on, in some amateur musical groups (Finnegan 1989, 241). But the findings are quite modest, such as that there are many people involved in one or other form of music, that many find this a significant part of their lives, family and class background is a factor, or that it is apparently noticeable that men’s and women’s voices are divided in four-part choirs. This study is clearly written but lacks any incisive research questions, and avoids critical dialogue with the subjects; the bulk of the book thus comprises description rather than analysis. The culmination of this phase of ethnographic work on Western art music and its institutions comes in Georgina Born’s Rationalizing Culture (1995) on IRCAM. I mentioned above some scholars’ accounts of its methodological, ideological and other problems (see also Deliège

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2003, 962; Watson 2011, 109–30; Pace 2016a, 2020a; Pàmies 2020). It will suffice to say here that many of the issues found above in Kingsbury and Nettl are also present in an exacerbated form in this anti-modernist polemic. If one were to consider the criteria of Kurzman, the claim that Kingsbury, Nettl or Born are giving their subjects a voice in the academic world is absurd; the authors’ work pointedly omits any perspectives that do not concur with their own and as such constitute acts of domination.18 Cameron and Finnegan are, however, certainly different. Finnegan reports but does not question the views of her subjects, while Cameron is sympathetic but not uncritical. In this sense Cameron’s work stands out methodologically, which makes the limitations of its insights more disappointing. In subsequent writings, the emphasis changed, and the model from Finnegan seems to have become the primary influence. A key text for a ‘second period’ of ethnographic work relating to Western art music and its institutions is Kay Kaufman Shelemay’s essay ‘Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement’ (2001). After a period of several months spent among musicians involved in the Boston early music movement, Shelemay arrived at a series of findings, such as that ‘the early music movement […] is powerfully informed by the creative impulses of its practitioners and the aesthetics of the present’, that musicians attested to ‘the centrality of creative activity in their conceptualization and performance of musical repertory’, that many demonstrated knowledge of their instruments’ technical aspects, but also their ‘history and social significance’, or that musicians make creative decisions about repertory. These conclusions are obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the movement and are self-evident from other scholarly literature about it (most obviously Kenyon 1988; Haskell 1988; Taruskin 1995; Sherman 1997; Lawson and Stowell 1999). Shelemay reveals only that the Boston Early Music movement is like others elsewhere. The more complex questions are not explored in detail; the huge issue of ‘what is “Early Music”’ is passed over in a few sentences (8), while the potentially fruitful discussion of the economics of early music mostly reports musicians’ experiences of difficulties in making a living in this field, rather than giving data on earnings, subsidies and recording costs. The question of whether early music is ‘Western music’, which is discussed without any definition of the latter term, mentions a few cases of those involved with early music who have collaborated with others in the ‘world music’ field, but not the

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English a cappella movement from the 1970s onwards, which saw a marked shift away from the counter-cultural aspects of earlier medieval musical performers and groups, and had a wider international impact (see Page 1992, 1993). The aforementioned literature and other contributions from scholars on earlier music and historical performance have engaged with these issues and others, such as the meaning of re-creating past practices in a contemporary setting, the possibility of doing so on the basis of fragmentary surviving evidence or the value or otherwise of using instruments from later periods than some of the repertory. The musicians interviewed by Shelemay are not necessarily verbally articulate about their work, so the burden is on the ethnographer to bring out more interesting responses through their questions. A more critical questioner might ask, for example, when musicians speak of the centrality of ‘creative activity’, what this term actually means, and how it is manifested in practice. A wider aspect of this body of work should also be mentioned here. Considering how regularly one reads attacks by ethnomusicologists on an allegedly inflexible canonisation process within Western art music, it is somewhat ironic to see the same process at stake with their own texts on this area. From the point at which a certain number of such texts had accumulated, they began to be presented as a type of catechism. The texts of Small, Kingsbury, Finnegan, Nettl, then of Born, Shelemay, Cottrell and others are invariably given a hallowed mention, as frequently are other texts in the ethnomusicological canon such as those of Merriam, Nettl, John Blacking, or Marcia Herndon and Norma McLeod (for examples of such canonisation, see Stock 1997, 40–41; Shelemay 2001, 5; Cottrell 2004, 4–6; Cook 2008, 48–49; Bithell 2008, 79–80; El-Ghabran 2009, 153–54; Nooshin 2011, 286–87; Dobson and Pitts 2011, 354; Moisala 2011, 444–45; Usner 2011, 415; Malcolmson 2013, 116; Nooshin 2016; Cottrell 2017). This is one manifestation of hagiographical tendencies within such work; I will deal with the question of hagiography in more detail in Chapter 6.

Notes



1. My response to this position paper, including a range of ethnographically sourced comments by non-ethnomusicologists on ethnomusicology (as Nooshin had included her own range of comments from other ethnomusicologists in her statement) can be found in Pace (2016b). 2. For my wider views on musical canons, see Pace (2016c).

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3. I write here as one who has been publicly involved as a campaigner against abusive practices in musical education, with no illusions as to the worst things that can occur under the auspices of the conservatory. See in particular Pace (2013). 4. Hammersley does acknowledge that all description involves some concepts and theories, but distinguishes ethnographic theoretical description as involving ‘(i) insightful descriptions; (ii) descriptions of social microcosms; (iii) applications of theories; (iv) developments of theory through the study of crucial cases’ (1992, 13). 5. Lubet also asks a question relating to complicity with criminal activity on the part of ethnographers, a major issue relating to Goffman, but one that is not generally relevant for musical ethnography. 6. Duneier takes one of the most classic examples, Geertz’s essay on the Balinese cock-fight (Geertz 1973, 412–53) and finds some potential problems here, to do with Geertz’s over-reliance upon the view of the economic elite in the village in question, without observing others whose accounts might potentially contradict Geertz’s claim that class resentment, in a deeply unequal community, is irrelevant to understanding the scene of the cock-fight. Without having access to accounts that might actually falsify Geertz’s broader claims, Duneier nonetheless feels their existence cannot be ruled out (Duneier 2011, 4–8). 7. Duneier cites here from an unpublished paper by Steinberg. 8. For a related critique of the lack of engagement with Beethoven’s music (and also of a reliance on secondary literature) in DeNora (1995), see Rosen (1996). 9. Historian Richard J. Evans does not necessarily wish to draw the distinction much more widely than this, arguing that many questions of method, truth and objectivity remain the same whatever the target audience (Evans 1997, rev. 2000, 258–63). 10. These two examples, and that of Berliner below, are examined in more detail in Pace (2020b). 11. Perry does elsewhere reproduce Heinrich Schenker’s graph for the song in a footnote (Perry 2002, 184 n. 164). 12. The rest of the book consists primarily of reportage of the views of the musicians. 13. Bach entails ‘secure, death-obsessed Protestantism’, Chaikovsky ‘barely controlled hysteria’, Elgar ‘the imperialist extravagance of Edwardian England’ and so on (Small 1987, 19). 14. Nettl himself suggests it may have been the New England Conservatory. See Nettl (2002, 236). 15. Kingsbury writes that ‘The analysis of musical “talent” in this chapter will proceed along lines similar to those taken in anthropological analyses

114  I. PACE of extraordinary powers that accrue to special persons, powers such as ­religious charisma, spirit possession, or witchcraft’ (1988, 62), but spirit possession and witchcraft can be ruled out as nothing other than wholly imaginary, quite unlike religious or any other type of charisma. 16. For examples of this see Pace (2020a). 17. A far more nuanced study of the Juilliard School, historical in nature (written by a former teacher of music history at the school), and certainly open-eyed to many of the issues detailed by Kogan, while also incorporating considerable detail on the internal politics of the administration, is Olmstead (1999). 18. As Ben Watson points out, ‘IRCAM is swarming with intellectuals, any of whom could engage Born in talk about music theory, but in its ghastly attempt to reach an “objective” understanding of social relations, her anthropology leaves no room for the point-of-view of the analyst herself, who disappears, God-like, into an invisible, all-seeing eye. Adorno pointed out that it was an affront to “psychoanalyse” your friends; similarly, Born cannot avoid creaking condescension in such a supposedly “scientific” overview of the conflicts at IRCAM’ (Watson 2011, 116).

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Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic. Geertz, Clifford. 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Goffman, Alice. 2014. On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hammersley, Martyn. 1992. What’s Wrong with Ethnography. Abingdon: Routledge. Hammersley, Martyn. 2007. ‘Ethnography’. In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 1479–83. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Haskell, Harry. 1988. The Early Music Movement: A History. London: Thames & Hudson. Heile, Björn. 2004. ‘Darmstadt as Other: British and American Responses to Musical Modernism’. Twentieth-Century Music 1, no. 2: 167–69. Hermann, Richard. 1997. ‘Reflexive Postmodern Anthropology Meets Musical “Modernism”: Georgina Born’s Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde’. Music Theory Online 3, no. 5. http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.97.3.5/mto.97.3.5.hermann_ frames.html. Accessed 23 June 2019. Hockey, Jenny, and Martin Forsey. 2012. ‘Ethnography Is Not Participant Observation: Reflections on the Interview as Participatory Qualitative Research’. In The Interview: An Ethnographic Approach, edited by Jenny Skinner, 69–87. New York: Berg. Ingold, Tim. 2008. ‘Anthropology is not Ethnography’. Proceedings of the British Academy 154: 69–92. Ingold, Tim. 2014. ‘That’s Enough About Ethnography!’. HAU: Journal of Ethnography Theory 4, no. 1: 383–95. Jackson, Anthony, ed. 1987. Anthropology at Home. London: Tavistock. James, Wendy. 1975. ‘The Anthropologist as Reluctant Imperialist’. In Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter, edited by Talal Asad, 41–70. London: Ithaca. Johnson, Allan G. 2000. The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology. A User’s Guide to Sociological Language. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Johnson, Graham. 2009. Gabriel Fauré: The Songs and their Poets. Farnham: Ashgate. Kenyon, Nicholas, ed. 1988. Authenticity and Early Music: A Symposium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kingsbury, Henry. 1988. Music, Talent, & Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Kingsbury, Henry. n.d. [Biography]. http://henrykingsbury.com/hokbio.htm. Accessed 19 July 2019.

118  I. PACE Kogan, Judith. 1987. Nothing But the Best: The Struggle for Perfection at the Juilliard School. New York: Random House. Kozinn, Alann. 1982. ‘A Romantic at the Keyboard’. New York Times, 25 April. Kurzman, Charles. 1991. ‘Convincing Sociologists: Values and Interests in the Sociology of Knowledge’. In Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis, Michael Burawoy et al., 250–68. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lawson, Colin, and Robin Stowell. 1999. The Historical Performance of Music: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leiris, Michel. 1950. ‘L’ethnographe devant le colonialisme’. Les temps modernes 58, 357–74. Reprinted in Brisees, 125–45. Paris: Mercure, 1966. http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/leiris_michel/Ethnographie_devant_colonialisme/Ethnographie_devant_colonialisme_texte.html. Accessed 26 July 2019. Lubet, Steven. 2018. Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters. New York: Oxford University Press. Madison, D. Soyini. 2005. Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Malcolmson, Hettie. 2013. ‘Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network’. TwentiethCentury Music 10, no. 1: 115–36. Mance, Henry. 2016. ‘Britain Has Had Enough of Experts, Says Gove’. Financial Times, 3 June. Marcus, George E. 1986. ‘Contemporary Problems of Ethnography in the Modern World System’. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus, 165–93. Berkeley: University of California Press. Marcus, George E., and Dick Cushman. 1982. ‘Ethnographies as Texts’. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 25–69. Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer. 1983, rev. 1999. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Metzger, Heinz-Klaus. 1985. ‘Zum Begriff des Experimentellen in der Musik’. Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Musik 2: 29–48. Repr. in Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Die freigelassene Musik: Schriften zu John Cage, 91–105. Vienna: Klever, 2012. Moisala, Pirkko. 2011. ‘Reflections on an Ethnomusicological Study of a Contemporary Western Art Music Composer’. Ethnomusicology Forum 20, no. 3: 443–51. Morris, Mike. 2012. Concise Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Murray, Rowena, and Sarah Moore. 2006. The Handbook of Academic Writing: A Fresh Approach. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

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Nettl, Bruno. 1985. The Western Impact on World Music: Change, Adaptation, and Survival. New York: Schirmer. Nettl, Bruno. 1995. Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Nettl, Bruno. 2002. Encounters in Ethnomusicology: A Memoir. Warren, MI: Harmonie Park. Nettl, Bruno. 2005. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts. New ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. 1st ed. 1983. Nichols, Tom. 2017. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. New York: Oxford University Press. Noblit, George W., Susana Y. Flores, and Enrique G. Murrilo. 2004. Postcritical Ethnography: Reinscribing Critique. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton. Nooshin, Laudan. 2011. ‘Introduction to the Special Issue: The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music’. Ethnomusicology Forum 20, no. 3: 285–300. Nooshin, Laudan, ed. 2015. The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music. London: Routledge. Nooshin, Laudan. 2016. ‘Happy Families? Convergence, Antagonism and Disciplinary Identities or “We’re all God knows what now” (Cook 2016)’. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/14817/. Accessed 24 July 2019. Nyman, Michael. 1974. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. London: Studio Vista. Olmstead, Andrea. 1999. Juilliard: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Pace, Ian. 2011. ‘The Cold War in Germany as Ideological Weapon for Antimodernists’. Paper Presented at Radical Music History Conference, Helsinki, 8 December. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/6482/. Accessed 24 July 2019. Pace, Ian. 2013. ‘Reported Cases of Abuse in Musical Education, 1990–2012, and Issues for a Public Inquiry’. https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2013/12/ 30/reported-cases-of-abuse-in-musical-education-1990-2012-and-issues-fora-public-inquiry/. Accessed 2 August 2019. Pace, Ian. 2016a. ‘My Contribution to the Debate “Are We All Ethnomusicologists Now?”’. https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/my-contribution-to-thedebate-are-we-all-ethnomusicologists-now/. Accessed 11 July 2019. Pace, Ian. 2016b. ‘Ethnographically Sourced Experiences of Ethnomusicology—A Further Response to the Debate’. https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2016/ 08/14/ethnographically-sourced-experiences-of-ethnomusicology-a-further-response-to-the-debate/. Accessed 24 July 2019. Pace, Ian. 2016c. ‘On Canons (and Teaching Le Sacre du Printemps). https:// ianpace.wordpress.com/2016/11/23/on-canons-and-teaching-le-sacre-duprintemps/. Accessed 28 July 2019.

120  I. PACE Pace, Ian. 2020a. ‘The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music’. In Rethinking Contemporary Musicology: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity, Skills and Deskilling, edited by Ian Pace and Peter Tregear. Abingdon: Routledge (forthcoming). Pace, Ian. 2020b. ‘Musicological Jargon and Academic Power-Play’. Search: Journal for New Music and Culture 11 (forthcoming). Pace, Ian, and Peter Tregear, eds. 2020. Rethinking Contemporary Musicology: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity, Skills and Deskilling. Abingdon: Routledge (forthcoming). Pace, Ian, and Christopher Wiley, eds. 2020. Writing About Contemporary Musicians: Promotion, Advocacy, Disinterest, Censure. Abingdon: Routledge (forthcoming). Page, Christopher. 1992. ‘The English a Cappella Heresy’. In Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music, edited by Tess Knighton and David Fallows, 23–29. London: Dent. Page, Christopher. 1993. ‘The English a Cappella Renaissance’. Early Music 21, no. 3: 453–71. Pàmies, Joan Arnau. 2020. ‘Listening as Precondition, or Musicology with Ears’. In Rethinking Contemporary Musicology: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity, Skills and Deskilling, edited by Ian Pace and Peter Tregear. Abingdon: Routledge (forthcoming). Perry, Beate. 2002. Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Early Romantic Poetics: Fragmentation of Desire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosen, Charles. 1996. ‘Did Beethoven Have All the Luck?’. New York Review of Books, 14 Nov. 1996. Repr. as ‘Beethoven’s Career’, in Charles Rosen, Critical Entertainments, 105–23. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Schnebel, Dieter. 1976. ‘Über experimentelle Musik und ihre Vermittlung’. Melos/Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 2, no. 6: 461–67. Scott, John. 2014. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. 2001. ‘Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds’. Ethnomusicology 45: 1–29. Sherman, Bernard D. 1997. Inside Early Music: Conversations with Performers. New York: Oxford University Press. Small, Christopher. 1987. ‘Performance as Ritual: Sketch for an Enquiry into the Nature of a Symphony Concert’. In Lost in Music: Culture, Style, and the Musical Event, edited by Avron Levine White, 6–32. London: Routledge. Smalley, Roger. 1975. ‘Experimental Music’. The Musical Times 116, no. 1583: 23–26.

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Stobart, Henry, ed. 2008. The New (Ethno)musicologies. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow. Stock, Jonathan P. J. 1997. ‘New Musicologies, Old Musicologies: Ethnomusicology and the Study of Western Music’. Current Musicology 62. https://currentmusicology.columbia.edu/article/new-musicologies-old-musicologies-ethnomusicology-and-the-study-of-western-music/. Accessed 25 July 2019. Taruskin, Richard. 1995. Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. New York: Oxford University Press. Usner, Eric Martin. 2011. ‘“The Condition of Mozart”: Mozart Year 2006 and the New Vienna’. Ethnomusicology Forum 20, no. 3: 413–42. Van Maanen, John. 1995. ‘An End to Innocence: The Ethnography of Ethnography’. In Representation in Ethnography, edited by John van Maanen, 1–35. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Warren, Carol A. B. 2000. ‘Ethnography’. In Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by Edgar F. Borgatta and Rhonda J. V. Montgomery. 2nd ed., 852–56. New York: Macmillan. Watson, Ben. 2011. Adorno for Revolutionaries, edited by Andy Wilson. London: Unkant. Wolcott, Harry F. 1995. ‘Making a Study “More Ethnographic”’. In Representation in Ethnography, edited by John van Maanen, 79–111. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

CHAPTER 6

When Ethnography Becomes Hagiography: Uncritical Musical Perspectives Ian Pace

In Chapter 5 of this book, I considered a range of issues pertaining to ethnographic study in general, and included an overview of ethnographic work on Western art music. Here I apply various of the methodological questions presented there to three case studies in this tradition, all concerning areas to which I can bring a degree of contextual knowledge and expertise: on the music of Michael Finnissy and its performance; on professional music-making in London; and on the life and work of Kaija Saariaho. In particular, I will consider the use of a large number of quotations, as advocated by James Clifford (for which reason the anthropologist Ioan Lewis once described anthropologists as ‘all plagiarists’ [Lewis 1973, 10–11, 16–17]), and the question of the critical agency of the writer with respect to these, working from a hypothesis that where a critical perspective is absent, the result may be hagiographic.

I. Pace (*)  Department of Music, City, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_6

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Hagiography ‘Hagiography’, originally a Christian term that traditionally meant literally ‘writings about the saints’, though which was adopted by scholars of other religions as well (Head 2000, xiii–xiv), has in later times come to mean a type of writing ‘that represents the person as perfect or much better than they really are, or the activity of writing about someone in this way’ (Cambridge Dictionary 2019). Only a few writers have considered possible overlaps between ethnography and hagiography. Scott G. Bruce (2006) uses the tale of ninth-century monk Ratramnus, who came to believe that the mythical dog-headed Cynocephali were human beings with rational minds, at odds with the view in primitive writings, because of the monks’ reliance on a hagiographical life of Saint Christopher, as witness to such creatures. But Bruce is looking at the consequences of ethnographers employing hagiographic sources (which is a distinct category from traditional sources which embody veneration or dissemination of Christian virtue), rather than the ethnography itself being hagiographic. Pnina Werbner compares her own 2003 anthropological monograph about Sufi saint Zindapir (d. 1999) with a hagiography by a poet devotee, published four years earlier (but not seen by Werbner until after her own publication). She accepts that ethnographic texts, if not ‘fictions’ in the manner of hagiographies, may also be ‘moral allegories’, through their inevitably selective use of information, but still provides a cogent argument for clear distinctions between the two (Werbner 2016). In a post-colonial or other context where a major imbalance of power and privilege exists between ethnographer and subjects, it is easy to see why the former, when concerned to give their subjects a voice and avoid any implication of domination, might be inclined towards taking their words at face value (which would run up against Steven Lubet’s questions [i] and [iv]) or fail to contextualise or dig beneath the surface of what they observe (running up against Martyn Hammersley’s objections and also Stephen Steinberg’s ‘ethnographic fallacy’, both discussed in Chapter 5). In the three case studies I discuss below, no such obvious power discrepancies exist (other than in terms of access to academic arenas); indeed, in the first and last, it is at least arguable that the musicians occupy a position of greater power and prestige than the ethnographers. Yet in each of the three cases, the authors exhibit a similar reticence towards questioning or critiquing the subjects. Such an attitude sometimes constrains the possibility of more dispassionate and critical inquiry,

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and engenders an often reverential tone that can be considered hagiographic. This feature, to which I will return in the conclusion to this chapter, in my view indicates wider problems with some of the methodological assumptions.

Bayley and Clarke on Finnissy and Performance of His Work The first of my ethnographic case studies is a DVD-ROM entitled Evolution & Collaboration: the composition, rehearsal and performance of Finnissy’s Second String Quartet (Bayley and Clarke 2011), which was based upon a study of the Kreutzer Quartet playing the work in question, and was accompanied by several articles, in particular ‘Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal’ (Bayley 2011). This and other articles (Bayley and Clarke 2009; Bayley 2010) make bold claims for the authors’ methodology, but what is delivered is more modest. The DVD is made up in large measure of quotations and interview clips with Finnissy and the performers, as well as a series of scanned score excerpts and parts of the sketches. The general approach is simply to present these with minimal commentary, interrogation or reflection. In a section on ‘analysis’ on the DVD, for example, the ‘structural outlines’ consist simply of a reproduction of Finnissy’s lists of tempos and sub-divisions of the quartet, taken from the sketches. The ‘schematic diagram’ and ‘textural analysis’ are of a similar nature. There is a certain amount of potentially interesting material on ‘motivic analysis’, by which one can click on some parts to see these highlighted where certain intervals feature, and also locate them in the Haydn Quartet on which Finnissy draws. Experience from working regularly with Finnissy over a 30-year period tells me that this is likely to have been motivated by a direction from the composer, who has drawn my attention to comparable qualities in other earlier works. Little is said, however, about how these inform the sounding result when they are manifested in different ways in the various instrumental parts. Claims like the following, in one of the associated articles, are deeply problematic: The fact that some pitch relationships are closely related to (and in some cases exactly the same as) Haydn’s, makes this Quartet different from Finnissy’s earlier chamber music. Other compositional methods, however, such as recycling materials using random numbers and their permutations to produce non-recurring pitch sequences, create characteristics that are similar to his earlier music. (Bayley and Clarke 2009, 152)

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There is very little free post-tonal music in which one cannot identify most intervals, including those found in Haydn and elsewhere. Finnissy’s Second String Quartet (2006–2007) was very far from being the first of his works to draw upon pre-existing musical sources; many of the earlier chamber works also do so, and in a similar manner. I am not aware of earlier works drawing upon Haydn, but others use sources from Mozart, Beethoven and many others. The earlier String Trio (1986) employs on a macroscopic level a pitch structure derived from Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, which has been investigated in some detail by Richard Toop (see Toop 1988, 15–18). This can, I believe, be demonstrated to colour, quite perceptibly, the type of otherwise abstract post-tonal writing in the piece, developing that found in the String Quartet (1984) from two years earlier. No examples are given by Bayley and Clarke of which of Finnissy’s ‘earlier music’ exhibits characteristics that relate to the random recycling technique. My own studies of Finnissy’s sketch materials (see for example Pace 1998a, 2013) analyse his use of ‘cut-up’ techniques, drawing upon literary techniques developed by William Burroughs and others, dividing up pages of pre-existing material in an ad hoc manner into numbered fragments, which are randomly permuted, often with other operations performed upon the fragments using basic techniques drawn from serial composition. Bayley and Clarke simply ask Finnissy what he does, and present his replies as an interview fragment, as they do with the difficult question of ‘tonality’ in Finnissy’s harmonically ambiguous work, rather than offering any independent analysis or critical perspective of their own. These and other issues appertaining to Finnissy’s work and its performance are explored in an existing body of literature published prior to the work of Bayley and Clarke but to which they make hardly any reference (see for example Toop 1988; Barrett 1995; Cross 1996; Pace 1998a, 1998b; Redgate 1998; Fox 1998; Anderson 1998; Thomas 1999; Beirens 2003; Beaudoin 2007). Nor do they consider a range of performing traditions that have developed around this work. As such, various types of well-established knowledge are presented as if they amounted to new discoveries: the fact that Finnissy recycles materials using random numbers, as mentioned above (a technique which has a long provenance within his output and was used quite relentlessly in his 1970s compositions), or the use of independent, unsynchronised parts, of which there are countless earlier examples and different manifestations

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that can be traced back at least as far as his work n (1969–1972) for 1–4 players, and for that matter in various earlier works for string quartet, such as Nobody’s Jig (1980–1981), or Multiple forms of constraint (1997) for solo violin and string trio. Furthermore, there are a wide range of performers for these types of works who have developed their own approaches. In this respect, the study is greatly lacking in the contextual knowledge presented as vital in Hammersley 1992 (see Chapter 5). Bayley and Clarke do provide fruitful material on percentages of rehearsal time spent on play, co-ordination, sound quality and general conversation, as well as asking some valuable questions about Finnissy’s use of metaphorical language in rehearsal, but otherwise I believe the majority of the content would be self-evident to those with even a small degree of familiarity with this music and its performance. There is also only a little information that could be more widely generalised from such a specific example. Margaret LeCompte and Jean J. Schensul are rightly emphatic that while the piles of data generated in a research project certainly form ‘the raw material for ethnographies’, but nonetheless: by themselves, they do not create an ethnography. Rather, ethnographers create ethnography in a sometimes tedious and often exhilarating twostep process of analysis of raw data and interpretation of analysed data. (LeCompte and Schensul 2013, 1–2, emphasis in original)

It would be unfair to deny the presence of any analysis or interpretation in Bayley and Clarke’s study, but it is relatively slight compared to earlier Finnissy scholarship. The authors do not in general analyse, critique, interrogate or contextualise the statements of composers or performers (let alone consider a dialectic between what they say and what they do, as also required by Hammersley [1992] and Lubet [2018]); there is nothing to suggest these statements are anything other than primary sources of wisdom. As such, the work is hagiographic.1

Cottrell on Professional Music-Making in London The title of Stephen Cottrell’s book Professional Music-Making in London (2004) might imply various possible contents: it might include some data relating to what and how professional musicians in London

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play (the defining aspects of their activity), the latter on the basis of aural evidence, or compare the musical culture therein with that in other countries. Such a study could incorporate an analysis of the current social and economic conditions under which professional musicians operate at the time of the research or writing (as ‘professional’ is fundamentally an economic term), drawing upon relevant historical and contemporary data and existing secondary literature. While certainly a study of London professional musicians, Cottrell’s book does not take any of the above approaches. It includes a certain amount of material on performers’ particular ‘sounds’, but based mostly upon anecdote rather than independent evaluation. The subtitle Ethnography and Experience relates to the fact that it is a collection of data about the experiences of musicians, primarily in the form of quotations, sourced ethnographically, through a diary kept during a season of professional work (in which context Cottrell argues it was possible to take notes without compromising one’s situation or being perceived as a ‘hanger-on’, thus dramatising the conflict of participant observation as outlined by Tim Ingold [2014]). Other sources include a small handful of newspaper and magazine articles, television documentaries and general books written by and about musicians. Cottrell reiterates a fair amount of material from Christopher Small (1987) and Henry Kingsbury (1988), taking a more critical attitude towards the former than the latter. His book features many quotations (as advocated by Clifford [1988] and Charles Kurzman [1991]), organised into several categories, with a certain amount of commentary. This is strongest in the chapter on ‘Musicality and Individuality’, in which he makes some pertinent observations on certain systems of valorisation of different types of sound, albeit in rather dogmatic terms. For example, Cottrell characterises the sounds supposedly favoured in the early music movement as a whole as relatively homogenous, while they actually vary considerably between performers of early music in different countries (as a comparison of various British and Italian groups playing Vivaldi, for example, would amply demonstrate), while the experience of working in other countries arguably affects the sounds of those working in the United Kingdom, a consideration that never features through the necessity of treating the London scene as a type of ‘closed system’. Cottrell also applies some basic discourse analysis to the metaphors employed by musicians to describe the sound they make. In the chapter on ‘Musicianship, Small Ensembles, and the Social Self’, there is an important passage emphasising how in a chamber group, ‘personal styles of performance’ do

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matter, while performers must find some type of harmonisation so that such styles do not overly clash. Other passages appear to over-complicate and elaborate relatively simple points, mentioning the work of certain favoured academic theorists, but not necessarily revealing any particularly noteworthy conclusions through the process (especially in the overloaded chapter on ‘The Performance Event’). The content of the six central chapters can be summarised as follows: Musicality and Individuality: this tells us that some believe themselves to be ‘musical’, but others disagree, and this matters; that popular music is learned in a different way from classical; that some do not think ‘musicality’ can be taught, but still go to teachers. Timbre is not viewed as significant in Western art music.2 There are a few vague comments on ‘German sound’, ‘French sound’, etc., but no aural investigation of what this might entail. Self-Conception and Individual Identity: The Deputy System: this contains material that was also explored in a detailed historical context by Robert Philip in his Performing Music in the Art of Recording (2004), published the same year as Cottrell’s book. In the latter, we learn that there is much competition for work; that London musicians are paid poorly compared to those in other cities (though no figures are supplied); of the practice of deputising though not its musical implications; and that some forms of music-making are more lucrative but have less prestige (which is the result of a long passage employing Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptions of different types of ‘capital’). Generally, musicians who have well-paid work and are offered even more lucrative opportunities tend to pass work on to other highly-ranked musicians, but would not offer low-status work to those who tend to have more prestigious engagements. Sometimes choices in this respect cause tension, and some players find themselves blacklisted. Sharing work creates a sense of community, and various musicians feel obligations to reciprocate. All of this is presented with reference to the work of Marcel Mauss. Musicianship, Small Ensembles, and the Social Self: this tells us that musicians also need social skills (and share anecdotes), and need to ‘fit in’ in ensembles, without playing in too soloistic a manner. Musicians have to arrive at some consensus about the interpretation of musical texts. Recordings are important (though expensive to make), and it is difficult to make a living from ensemble playing alone. Groups gain a clearer conception of their collective ‘sound’

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through listening to their own recordings. Some use names for themselves intended to be distinctive. Orchestras, the Self, and Creativity in Musical Performance: some players prefer playing in small groups, and feel less individual in orchestras, whose repertoire derives primarily from the late-eighteenth and nineteenth century, with a certain amount from the twentieth. Freelance orchestral playing is insecure, especially when there are cuts to funding. Conductors are frequently resented, with one respondent comparing them to Chairman Mao, though some recognise that they give some leeway for players. As in small ­ ensembles, players have to balance their individual wishes with the requirements of the larger group, and some do not feel this work offers much potential for creativity. Myth and Humour: following further claims about other forms of musicology and unevidenced assertions (or reiterations of others’ claims) about the Western canon and other matters, this tells us that Beethoven and others are seen as more significant composers than others; that performers’ reputations decline after their death; and that musicians are supposed to be well-behaved, but there is plenty evidence to the contrary—here a principal source is a salacious novel by Jilly Cooper. Cottrell indicates that various types of players are stereotyped, and musicians’ humour often relies on stereotypes. There is more on conductors, who are now compared with Hitler, with details of players giving a Nazi salute to a conductor simply because they were German. This latter fact is presented without critique. There is also a passage detailing viola jokes, telling us that the violas are the ‘other’ of music. The Performance Event: Ritual, Theatre, Play: after a long passage on ritual in general, this chapter says that orchestral concerts are not seasonal but continuous, and do not play a central role to the political or economic structure of society. Small is cited on how different rooms in a concert hall are used for different purposes. There are also claims that one cannot distinguish audience members in terms of class (I believe there are visual and behavioural clues), and a little material on applause and when it occurs. Cottrell notes that different musicians have different amounts of work to do within orchestras, and some perceive the music differently from listeners. Orchestra positions are structured hierarchically, and managements dictate concert dress. Some more innovative concerts, especially

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those involving new music, allow different practices. All live performance has a theatrical dimension, but some contemporary composers have explored new approaches to this. A very long and somewhat convoluted passage tells us that music-making involves ‘play’ in the broadest sense of the term, meaning it has a capricious quality but is also taken very seriously. Cottrell himself, when playing, follows the broader rather than the more detailed aspects of the music concerned. I believe the majority of these various findings and perceptions would be familiar to most people with experience of professional music-making. I certainly recognise most of them, and recall often discussing similar matters with other musicians. The primary service that Cottrell performs is to make these available for wider readers (which amounts to a little more than the achievement in Kay Kaufman Shelemay [2001], as much of the knowledge she generates was already available in the scholarly literature), rather than significantly adding to them. This process is somewhat obscured by the need to make plentiful reference to and provide summaries of common anthropological paradigms, but the net result is a rendition of passing views of insiders and gossip, frequently reiterated rather than critically analysed. If not wholly hagiographic in the sense defined at the beginning of this chapter, certainly this approach overlaps with that of hagiographic writing. The implied exalted claims made by Cottrell for the superiority of the ethnomusicological method are hardly borne out by the somewhat unremarkable findings. By contrast, Marcia Herndon’s study (1988) of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra does provide some figures relating to the economics of running the orchestra in question, and also some contextual information about the orchestra’s history, such as informing the reader of its economic state in the period leading up to the time of writing, though this information is poorly referenced. Cottrell makes a few generalised statements about class distinctions between amateurs and professionals, citing the work of Paula Gillett (2000), but does not consider much wider scholarship on the professionalisation of musical life (such as Frederickson and Rooney 1990; Froelich and Chesky 2000; Rohr 2001; there are just three short references to the key book by Cyril Ehrlich on the British music profession [1985],3 while another important text that appeared at the same time as Cottrell’s is that by Frederic M. Scherer [2004], though Cottrell could not have engaged with this at the time of writing). Otherwise, he makes some general

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comments about players being ‘all a bit semi-pro’ and moving around between different work, mentions how some engagements are better paid than others, but avoids more contentious subjects such as the freedom of some with independent means to be much more selective about which work they take on. In general, such disengagement with wider economics and the role of private capital (an evasion that is essential for cultural relativism) leads J. P. E. Harper-Scott to categorise modern ethnomusicology (as well as empirical musicology and popular music studies) as ‘crypto-capitalist’ (Harper-Scott 2012, xiv), embodying an ideology in which the abstraction of ‘culture’ (as identified by Harry F. Wolcott [1995, 86–87]) is afforded an ontological primacy over wider social and economic forces, a mystification that obviates the need for wider contextual investigation of the latter. To view the state of professional music-making in London as something that simply is (rather as Nicholas Cook says that Madonna is worth of study simply because she is there, in crypto-capitalist fashion disregarding the role of capital in putting her ‘there’ [Cook 2001, 172]), is a classic case of Steinberg’s ethnographic fallacy (Duneier 2016, 343) and the type of reification detailed by Thomas Hylland Eriksen (2015, 43–44). Without any sustained engagement with history and economics, causes and determinants, the study can only be an uncontextualised snapshot of Cottrell’s particular group of informants in a specific city at a particular time. There are wider problems relating to the book’s polemical nature, apparent from the passage explored in Chapter 5, to which I wish to return (Cottrell 2004, 4). Cottrell’s contrasting of the ‘subjective’ work of other musicologists with those employing the ‘ethnomusicological method’ (which is never adequately defined) is unconvincing. Few if any varieties of scholarly practice can claim total objectivity, as almost all rest upon various subjectively chosen assumptions, and involve other subjective decisions at numerous stages, but stand or fall by the cogency of their arguments, use of data (written, aural, analytical, iconographic and other in the case of musicologists), contextual knowledge and reasoning, in order to convince others. Cottrell goes on to say of ‘traditional’ musicologists: There is seldom room in their texts for other voices, except those fellow academics who are deemed worthy of inclusion for the purpose of theoretical engagement or as an obligation arising out of academic convention. (Cottrell 2004, 4)

This is an astonishing statement. Not only is there a long tradition of biographical writing that draws extensively upon letters, diaries and

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memoirs (for example, in the case of Brahms, from May 1905 and Kalbeck 1908–1914 through to Kross 1997), but there are also few studies of musical works that do not give some space to the views of others before them (including journalists and critics) on the same or related work. A simple glance at the first issues of the Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft (arguably the first musicological journal) from 1885 reveals an article by Philipp Spitta on domestic song in the eighteenth century, drawing upon a wide range of voices provided by newspapers, catalogues, poems, autobiographies, letters, histories and other publications, as well as musical melodies from the century in question. In the same issue, a study of jongleurs and minstrels by Josef Sittard not only incorporates the voices of a range of nineteenth-century historians and other scholars, but also features copious amounts of quotation from the jongleurs and minstrels themselves in the form of many old French poems, as well as those found in Anglo-Norman chronicles and thirteenth-century accounts of the tournament of Chauvency (Spitta 1885; Sittard 1885). In the 1913 book on Mozart’s operas by Cottrell’s compatriot Edward J. Dent, one finds plentiful references to letters of Mozart and his father, accounts by other figures contemporary with Mozart, the views of eighteenth-century writers on opera, nineteenth-century biographers and writers, articles in the Italian press from the time of the operas alluding to contemporary events of which Lorenzo da Ponte might have been aware, as well as, of course, incisive commentary on the musical and dramatic aspects of the operas in question (Dent 1913). Many later examples could be cited exhibiting similar qualities, such as the work of Edward Lockspeiser on Debussy (1962, 1965), Eric Sams on Schumann (1969), Julian Budden on Verdi (1973– 1981, rev. 1983), David Brown on Chaikovsky (1978–1991) and a great many others. A multiplicity of voices feature in the majority of historical musicology, just as Richard J. Evans argues they do in most wider historical work (Evans 1997, rev. 2000, 103–106). Where these differ from Cottrell is in the measured critical attitude taken towards these sources, while he tends to lionise and fetishise the statements of his subjects, despite the fact that many have relatively limited verbal articulacy. Cottrell’s argument also wholly disregards the study of music reception, especially from the 1960s onwards, much of it in German (see for example Kneif 1968; Eggebrecht 1972; Lissa 1974; Dahlhaus 1982). Heiner Gembris published an article in 1999 looking back at 100 years of research into this area (see Gembris 1999) that gives the lie to Cottrell’s claims and earlier ones about ‘traditional musicology’.

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Nor does Cottrell at all register the long history of the sociology and social history of music.4 As Marcello Source Keller has pointed out, its practitioners have been a mixture of social scientists and musicologists, with some, like Theodor W. Adorno and Kurt Blaukopf, having a foot in both camps (Keller 1986, 173–74), but certainly this sort of work has engaged many involved with ‘traditional musicology’. Furthermore, a good deal of musicology concerns the idea of voice emerging from the musical work. Voluminous evidence could be used to respond to Cottrell’s implication that ethnomusicologists are practically the only ones to explore ‘the way in which individuals and groups use music, or how the meanings with which they endow it might change according to context’ (2004, 3) or who ‘make room for the folk view’ (4), or his straw target argument that ‘traditional musicology has, until very recently, often treated the study of Western music in a rather abstracted, “dehumanized” way, frequently divorcing musical texts, and the recreations of them, from the cultural environments in which they have arisen’ (2). Perhaps most important to note is the fact that a good deal of ‘traditional’ musicology, while certainly not ignoring cultural context, does not view music as a secondary concern compared to this, and its protagonists believe that the music needs to be studied for its immanent properties as well. Cottrell’s ‘traditional musicology’ is a mythical entity blatantly contradicted by the history of the discipline, an entity that serves merely to render his own work considerably more original than it actually is.

Moisala on Saariaho At the outset of Pirkko Moisala’s monograph on composer Kaija Saariaho, the most hagiographic of all my three case studies, she describes her methods as follows, implicitly evoking the ideas of Clifford: I have approached Saariaho’s music by using ethnographic fieldwork methods: I have interviewed Saariaho on numerous occasions; the musicians, agents, and conductors with whom she has worked, as well as other musicians and conductors familiar with her music, have also provided time for research interviews. I have also observed rehearsals and performances of her works. This kind of approach is—in the spirit of Mikhail Bakhtin— interested in the heterophony of meanings given to musical works. (Moisala 2009, vii)

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In a self-legitimising methodological article published two years after the book, Moisala identifies her work with ethnomusicology rather than musicology, using Jonathan P. J. Stock’s dichotomies (1997; see Chapter 5), and explicitly alludes to ethnomusicology ‘at home’. Yet what she defines as the aims of her main research questions, ‘to reveal the ingredients of Saariaho’s music, to explain why it is as it is, and how it has developed over the years’ (Moisala 2011, 445) are well-established in other fields of musicology; indeed, it is hard to think of many studies of contemporary composers that do not attempt these. Because of Saariaho’s use of electronics, Moisala says that she pursues ‘a research methodology other than score-based analysis’ (445). Alternative approaches to the analysis of music involving electronics include the use of sonic spectra or other related techniques, though the eschewal of score-based analysis seems rash considering how many of Saariaho’s works still have scores. But her approach excludes all of these and most other established means of identifying ‘the ingredients’ of a composer’s music: she relies upon observation of rehearsals and performances (described in very generalised terms, without technical or analytical commentary), and interviews with the composer, with others involved in performing her work, and with her publishers. These approaches are not at all new to either scholarly writing or for that matter looser forms of journalism; Moisala appears to realise the resemblance of her work to the latter when she notes how Saariaho’s answers to her questions were the same as those she had read in her media interviews, and also how Finnish media have adopted Saariaho’s views (446–47). Moisala makes clear at the outset that this is an ‘authorised’ work: ‘I am deeply grateful for the time and attention Saariaho has given to this project; she read the manuscript twice, thus providing me with her views on the final product’ (Moisala 2009, vii). What exactly such a reading entailed, and whether Moisala would have been prepared to incorporate any perspectives that might be at odds with the composer’s own, is not made explicit, but there is little evidence to suggest it through the course of the book. The result is ultimately very much like an old-fashioned ‘life and works’ of a composer, padded out with unmediated quotes from ­critics—except where the critic is not wholly favourable, in which case Moisala attempts to pathologise them rather than engage with their views, which confirms the wholly hagiographic nature of the study— and the composer’s own words (e.g. Moisala 2011, 15). Material on

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the aesthetic worlds inhabited by Saariaho is generally paraphrased from others’ writings, and throughout the book there is little evidence of an aptitude for independent critical investigation, as compared to reiteration of secondary literature. This approach is as far away as could be imagined from Mitchell Duneier’s ‘stance of the skeptic, often not accepting accounts at face value’ (Duneier 2016, 344). The following is typical, also resembling the assemblages of critical quotations routinely found in publicists’ materials: When the music journalist Robert Maycock sought words to describe Saariaho’s music in 1989, he ended up listing ‘exploration, introspection, beauty, pain and sensuality,’ hoping that these words would point to the area of feeling that is revealed to the ear. He found that ‘the music makes itself perfectly clear, but its sense of time and logic is remote from conceptual thinking, and it doesn’t sound like anybody else’s. It is liberated from the tyranny of metre and motive, yet it organises its infinitely spacious visions in concise pieces of ten or fifteen minutes.’ In Karttunen’s opinion, ‘Kaija’s music is actually not music at all. It is pure emotion which takes the form of music. It is Kaija who writes the music, but it feels as if these works have always existed. Her music, such as L’amour de loin, deals with very primary situations but they are full of events in the inner sense. Underneath the surface which may seem to be treacherous calm there is the world of boiling emotions.’ The conductor Kent Nagano regards Saariaho’s music as fundamentally impressionistic. ‘It creates impressions of colors, impressions of pictures, and impressions of several different emotions, of a rich spirituality.’ (Moisala 2009, 75)

The writing style in biographical passages resembles many from the nineteenth century, as for example in the opening descriptions of the birds singing in the forests of Saariaho’s childhood village. Elsewhere the prose contains basic factual information taken from the composer, such as one might read in a programme note. The dominant tone is one of adoration and adulation for the subject, culminating in purple prose such as the following: her music encourages us to hear look, and feel differently. It teaches us to focus on the things and events that are in-between, things that, at first, might not seem to be so important but that locate at the points where gravity is lightened by grace. (107)

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Early on in the book come rather hackneyed intellect/emotion dualities from both composer and author, contrasting the supposed intellectualism of Saariaho’s teachers Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber with ‘communicative, audible musical forms’ (9). Personally, I cannot recognise the picture presented of either Ferneyhough and Huber (supposedly exhibiting ‘strict post-serial aesthetics’, which are not defined or explained), but these well-worn polemics are continued in her contrasting of spectral music ‘for the ears’ with serialism ‘for the eyes’ (10– 11). Already at this point, the claims for a Bakhtinian heteroglossia are unconvincing, as Moisala makes no attempt to explore plural opinions on such a subject, as she might have found had she spoken to Ferneyhough and Huber, or others sympathetic to serial music as an aural, not merely analytic, experience. Any aesthetic judgements not synonymous with those of the author or the composer are excluded or denigrated, quite at odds with the pluralism claimed by Moisala. Many of her wider claims about the history and aesthetics of new music do not inspire confidence: she presents the opposition between musique concrète and electronic music as if the synthesis that began in the mid-1950s with Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge had never happened (12–13). And, as in the work of Bayley and Clarke, some passages, such as that on extended techniques (80–87), are presented as if such approaches were much more distinctive and original than they actually are, as can be demonstrated by a wider consideration of European new music. Certainly, Saariaho’s particular approaches in this respect can be said to differ in nature from those of Helmut Lachenmann, Salvatore Sciarrino, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Gérard Grisey, Emmanuel Nunes and others, but to identify how they do would require some sort of analytical approach. Comments such as ‘Saariaho has a background in Central European avant-garde. The influence of serialism on her first composition can be witnessed in her way of organizing musical material.’ (74) are never explained and thus are unsubstantiated. The passages on sketches mostly consist of copies of the composer’s verbal comments, or reproductions of sketches of proportional durations, rather than attempts to analyse how these inform the work. Other comments, such as ‘textures rich in sound color are the primary means in the construction of the form of the work’ or ‘She also amplified selected strings in order to foreground them over the orchestra’ (32–33) are journalistic descriptions of surface features, in the manner identified in Chapter 5.

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Conclusion In the event of an ‘ethnographic trial’ (as defined by Duneier 2011, 2–3), Bayley and Clarke, and Moisala, would be highly vulnerable (as potentially would be Small 1987; Kingsbury 1988; Nettl 1995; Born 1995) because of the extent to which they sidestep perspectives from others. However, they are not really presenting a ‘rendering of the social world’, nor drawing conclusions concerning people, so their work would not really be considered ethnographic according to Wolcott’s definition (1995). Both are however also susceptible to Wolcott’s critique of ‘haphazard descriptiveness’; the ‘ethnographic’ is used here as a substitute for ‘qualitative’, as identified by Ingold (2014). In one sense, Bayley and Clarke do employ the most novel format (as advocated in Marcus and Cushman 1982; Clifford and Marcus 1986; Clifford 1988 and elsewhere), though primarily because of the use of the DVD medium rather than featuring a more creative and challenging approach to writing. Moisala’s work is highly conventional, while Cottrell’s does employ a degree of dialogue and multiple voices, though its format is quite bureaucratic, with the content separated into clear ‘boxes’. He does not really consider Hammersley’s dialectic between respondents’ perceptions and reality, though this problem is more acute in the writings of Catherine M. Cameron (1996) and Georgina Born (1995), and afflicts the work of Bayley and Clarke, and Moisala (who practically never independently evaluates the view of the composer, nor that of the positive critics). Cottrell is the only of the three case studies that could be said to embody some degree of theoretical description. Hammersley’s concerns about highly selective ethnographic descriptions, with deliberate omissions, cannot really be assessed for the three main case studies, and I am sure there are concerns in this respect about Small, Kingsbury, Bruno Nettl and Born as well. Bayley and Clarke provide the least contextual knowledge, which has a relatively limited presence in Moisala and Cottrell. All three idealise fieldwork as critiqued by Eriksen (2015, 32–51). Cottrell uses a few dichotomies, but in a measured rather than rigid fashion (unlike Born, who is quite extreme in this respect). The work of Bayley and Clarke, and especially Moisala, in large measure constitute description rather than analysis. Cottrell provides his own descriptions and those of others, and weaves a commentary around these, with certain long passages from anthropological theorists, but generally uses material from fieldwork to illustrate a point, rather than

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evaluating it more detail. Eriksen also claims that a necessary condition for meaningful anthropological research is ‘that the researcher knows something essential that the native does not know’ (Eriksen 2015, 48). Bayley and Clarke between them may know as a result of their study something of what their five subjects also know (or at least that which they articulate) but not much more, and nothing essential. There is no evidence of Moisala knowing anything like as much as Saariaho about the latter’s work, and she brings little else to the study. Regardless of whether the ethnography constitutes a monologue or a dialogue (Moisala’s does not constitute the latter, and Bayley and Clarke only to a limited degree), the crucial distinction is between analysis and repetition rather than description (as above). Simply letting subjects ‘speak for themselves’ without questioning them, engaging in serious dialogue that allows for opposing views, or in other forms of analysis or critique, quite apart from saving the ethnographer a great deal of work, renders the subject in the manner of a ‘noble savage’, an archetype that has long pervaded ethnography (see Ellingson 2001). The three case studies fare relatively well in terms of Lubet’s five tests (2018, xiv; see Chapter 5), however, mostly because of their nature: (i) none relies on rumours or hearsay (this may be an issue with Kingsley and Nettl); (ii) fact-checking is not really a consideration except in the work of Cottrell, who has at least his own experiences as a type of corroboration (but this is a major issue in the work of Cameron and Born); (iii) Cottrell’s work has the greatest potential for a significant category of ‘inconvenient evidence’, though there is no indication on his part of ignoring this (such categories also exist for Cameron, Kingsbury, Nettl and Born); arguably Moisala’s lack of engagement with diverse perspectives, or Bayley and Clarke’s disregarding of other relevant scholarship, could fall foul of this test; (iv) Cottrell’s musicians may not be wholly reliable in terms of their views on other musicians and conductors (like Cameron’s, Born’s and those investigated by Hettie Malcolmson [2013]); (v) there are no real arguments put forward in Bayley and Clarke or Moisala, though Cottrell’s arguments are of an appropriate scope on the basis of the data available (which is not the case for Small, Kingsbury, Nettl or Born). Cottrell’s book thus does respond to some of the critiques of ethnography that have been launched since the 1980s, and incorporates a degree of methodological self-awareness that exceeds the other two case studies, while avoiding the loaded attitude towards the subject of Kingsbury, Nettl or Born. My problems with this book, over and above its polemics, relate more to the question of how much this ethnographic

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approach can really reveal. Cottrell does deduce some wider conclusions about a group of people, though many of these are relatively obvious just from the surface of the comments. But he is beholden in large measure to the abstraction of a ‘culture’ and uses this to mystify some of what he observes (especially in sections such as that on ‘play’), which is primarily a range of common practices and assumptions on the part of professional musicians. The knowledge generated is relatively slight in either musical or anthropological terms, relating to a very specialised group of people who are hardly observed in the context of documented or observable wider social, cultural or historical forces. Cottrell’s unwillingness to question seriously either the word or the underlying thinking of the musicians he encounters lends his work a quality of uncritical advocacy of the subjects, for which hagiography may be too strong a term, but nonetheless belongs on the same spectrum. Bayley and Clarke, and Moisala, are however definitely hagiographic in nature. They are far from alone in this respect; Yara El-Ghadban’s (2009) accounts of works by two composers, Ezequiel Menalled and Marko Nikodijevic, are considerably more hagiographic than anything that would be commonplace in more established critical discourse about contemporary art music, while Tina K. Ramnarine’s (2011) article on ‘Community and Conscience in Symphony Orchestras’ is hard to distinguish from promotional copy for the institutions about which she writes. I am not aware of any critical views of my three case studies from within the ethnomusicological community; Bayley and Clarke, and Cottrell, are by contrast regularly held up as shining examples, as mentioned earlier, though Moisala’s work is somewhat less well-known. While I am not in a position to know which peer reviewers may have been used for each, I do believe this work needs to be scrutinised by others (not just kept in a protected environment of fellow ethnographers, as critiqued in Hammersley 1992, 14–16), experts with wide contextual knowledge of the fields of investigation, who might bring inconvenient information (especially contextual information) in the context of an ethnographic trial. I would definitely not wish to dismiss the value of ethnographic approaches, but do have reservations about the practically exclusive use of participant observation (see Hockey and Forsey 2012), as I have also indicated elsewhere (Pace 2016a; 2020a). Many writings in this tradition seem limited by the writers’ apparent need to assert the clear superiority of a construction of ethnography over most other approaches, requiring

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the eschewal of historical knowledge, detailed aural- or score-based analysis, or critical reflection upon the words of musicians and critics. This is limiting and often petty. An antipathy towards participant observation, which can certainly generate extremely valuable and often unique findings, would be equally petty, and such a position should be avoided for that reason. Ultimately, all sources of material that can inform knowledge are worth considering; what matters is how the scholar generates such knowledge from them. In 1995, Wolcott wrote that ‘in our enthusiasm for turning a critical eye on everyone else, we have attended rather little to ethnography’s own assumptions and blind spots’ (88). This remains true of ethnographic work on Western art music, which demands in general a more measured and critical attitude from both ethnomusicologists and others, no longer venerated nor employed as a weapon in academic turf wars.

Notes 1. Arnold Whittall rightly criticised the authors of the volume Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy for not questioning the composer’s own view (Whittall 1998), but this issue is of another order of magnitude in the work of Bayley and Clarke. 2. This view would surely be surprising to many of those who have investigated Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, etc., let alone most contemporary composers, or to those drawn to the particular timbres of historical instruments. 3.  The most substantial of these references to Ehrlich indicates that deputising existed in the 1760s (Cottrell 2004, 60), but Cottrell does not consider the interim period, which saw the formation of most of the major British orchestras (not to mention other vast social and economic changes). 4. For example the work of Karl Bücher, Jules Combarieu and Pierre Aubry around the beginning of the twentieth century (Bücher 1899; Combarieu 1907; Campos 2006), through that of Max Weber, Ernst Bloch, Siegfried Kracauer and Theodor Adorno in the interwar period (Weber 1921; Bloch 1985; Kracauer 1937; Adorno 1932), to post-war work by Wilfred Mellers, Kurt Blaukopf, Tibor Kneif, Henry Raynor, William Weber, Peter Rümmenholler, Alan Durant and others (Mellers 1946; Blaukopf 1950; Harman et al. 1962; Kneif 1971; Raynor 1972, 1976; Weber 1975; Rummenhöller 1978; Durant 1984). Some of this work, for example that of Bücher and Combarieu, could equally be considered anthropological.

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Bücher, Karl. 1899. Arbeit und Rhythmus. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. Budden, Julian. 1973–1981, rev. 1983. The Operas of Verdi, 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. Cambridge Dictionary. 2019. ‘Hagiography’. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ dictionary/english/hagiography. Accessed 29 July 2019. Cameron, Catherine M. 1996. Dialectics in the Arts: The Rise of Experimentalism in American Music. Westport, CO: Praeger. Campos, Rémy. 2006, Jan 14. ‘Philologie et sociologie de la musique au début du XXe siècle’. Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines. https://www.cairn. info/revue-histoire-des-sciences-humaines-2006-1-page-19.htm. Accessed 28 July 2019. Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Combarieu, Jules. 1907. La musique, ses lois, son évolution. Paris: Ernest Flammarion. Eng. translated by author, 1910, as Music, its Laws and Evolution. New York: Appleton. Cook, Nicholas. 2001. ‘On Qualifying Relativism’. Musicae Scientiae 5 (2_ suppl): 167–89. Cook, Nicholas. 2008. ‘We Are All (Ethno)Musicologists Now’. In The New (Ethno)Musicologies, edited by Henry Stobart, 48–70. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow. Cottrell, Stephen. 2004. Professional Music-Making in London: Ethnography and Experience. Aldershot: Ashgate. Cross, Jonathan. 1996. ‘Vive la Différence’. The Musical Times 137, no. 1837: 7–13. Dahlhaus, Carl. 1982. ‘Zwischen Relativismus und Dogmatismus: Anmerkungen zur Rezeptionsgeschichte’. Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz 1981/82: 139–46. Dent, Edward J. 1913. Mozart’s Operas: A Critical Study. London: Chatto & Windus. Duneier, Mitchell. 2011. ‘How Not to Lie with Ethnography’. Sociological Methodology 41: 1–11. Duneier, Mitchell. 2016. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Durant, Alan. 1984. Conditions of Music. London: Macmillan. Eggebrecht, Hans Heinrich. 1972. Zur Geschichte der Beethoven-Rezeption. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Ehrlich, Cyril. 1985. The Music Profession in Britain since the Eighteenth Century: A Social History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ellingson, Ter. 2001. The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley: University of California Press.

144  I. PACE El-Ghadban, Yara. 2009. ‘Facing the Music: Rituals of Belonging and Recognition in Contemporary Western Art Music’. American Ethnologist 36, no. 1: 140–60. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2015. Small Places, Big Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. London: Pluto. Evans, Richard J. 1997, rev. 2000. In Defence of History, rev. ed. with afterword. London: Granta. Faulkner, Robert. 1973. ‘Orchestra Interaction: Some Features of Communication and Authority in an Artistic Organization’. Sociological Quarterly 14: 147–57. Finnegan, Ruth. 1989. The Hidden Musicians: Music Making in an English Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frederickson, Jon, and James F. Ronney. 1990. ‘How the Music Occupation Failed to Become a Profession’. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 21, no. 2: 189–206. Froelich, Hildegard, and Kris Chesky, eds. 2000. ‘The Education of the Professional Musician’. Musical Performance 2, no. 3. Fox, Christopher. 1998. ‘The Vocal Music’. In Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy, edited by Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox and Ian Pace, 211–57. Aldershot: Ashgate. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic. Geertz, Clifford. 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gembris, Heiner. 1999. ‘100 Jahre musikalische Rezeptionsforschung. Ein Rückblick in die Zunkunft’. In Musikpsychologie. Jahrbuch der Dt. Gesellschaft fur Musikpsychologie 14: 24–41. Göttingen: Hogrefe. Gillett, Paula. 2000. ‘Ambivalent Friendships: Music-lovers, Amateurs, and Professional Musicians in the Late Nineteenth Century’. In Music and British Culture, 1785–1914: Essays in Honour of Cyril Ehrlich, edited by Christine Bashford and Leanne Langley, 321–40. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hammersley, Martyn. 1992. What’s Wrong with Ethnography. Abingdon: Routledge. Harman, Alec, Anthony Milner, and Wilfred Mellers. 1962. Man and His Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the West, 4 vols. London: Barrie & Rockliff. Harper-Scott, J. P. E. 2012. The Quilting Points of Musical Modernism: Revolution, Reaction, and William Walton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Head, Thomas, ed. 2000. Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology. New York: Routledge. Herndon, Marcia. 1988. ‘Cultural Engagement: The Case of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra’. Yearbook for Traditional Music 20: 134–45.

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Hockey, Jenny, and Martin Forsey. 2012. ‘Ethnography Is Not Participant Observation: Reflections on the Interview as Participatory Qualitative Research’. In The Interview: An Ethnographic Approach, edited by Jenny Skinner, 69–87. New York: Berg. Ingold, Tim. 2014. ‘That’s Enough About Ethnography!’. HAU: Journal of Ethnography Theory 4, no. 1: 383–95. Kalbeck, Max. 1908–1914. Johannes Brahms, 4 vols. Berlin: Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft. Keller, Marcello Source. 1986. ‘Sociology of Music and Ethnomusicology: Two Disciplines in Competition’. The Journal of General Education 38, no. 3: 167–81. Kingsbury, Henry. 1988. Music, Talent, & Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Kneif, Tibor. 1968. Über das Musikleben der Gegenwart. Berlin: Merseburger. Kneif, Tibor. 1971. Musiksoziologie. Cologne: Gerig. Kracauer, Siegfried. 1937. Jacques Offenbach und das Paris seiner Zeit. Amsterdam: Allert de Lange. Eng. trans., 2002, as Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time, translated by Gertrud Koch. New York: Zone. Kross, Siegfried. 1997. Johannes Brahms. Versuch einer kritischen DokumentarBiographie, 2 vols. Bonn: Bouvier. Kurzman, Charles. 1991. ‘Convincing Sociologists: Values and Interests in the Sociology of Knowledge’. In Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis, edited by Michael Burawoy et al., 250–68. Berkeley: University of California Press. LeCompte, Margaret D., and Jean J. Schensul. 2013. Interpretation of Ethnographic Data: A Mixed Methods Approach, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Altamira. Lissa, Zofia. 1974. ‘Zur Theorie der musikalischen Rezeption’. Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 31, no. 3: 157–69. Lockspeiser, Edward. 1951, rev. 1962, 1965. Debussy: His Life and Mind, 2 vols., revised edition. London, Cassell. Lubet, Steven. 2018. Interrogating Ethnography: Why Evidence Matters. New York: Oxford University Press. Malcolmson, Hettie. 2013. ‘Composing Individuals: Ethnographic Reflections on Success and Prestige in the British New Music Network’. TwentiethCentury Music 10, no. 1: 115–36. Marcus, George E., and Dick Cushman. 1982. ‘Ethnographies as Texts’. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 25–69. May, Florence. 1905. The Life of Johannes Brahms. London: Arnold. Mellers, Wilfrid. 1946. Music and Society: England and the European Tradition. London: Dobson. Moisala, Pirkko. 2009. Kaija Saariaho. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

146  I. PACE Moisala, Pirkko. 2011. ‘Reflections on an Ethnomusicological Study of a Contemporary Western Art Music Composer’. Ethnomusicology Forum 20, no. 3: 443–51. Nettl, Bruno. 1995. Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Nooshin, Laudan, ed. 2015. The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music. London: Routledge. Pace, Ian. 1998a. ‘The Piano Music’. In Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy, edited by Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox and Ian Pace, 43–133. Aldershot: Ashgate. Pace, Ian. 1998b. ‘The Theatrical Works’. In Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy, edited by Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox and Ian Pace, 259–346. Aldershot: Ashgate. Pace, Ian. 2013. Michael Finnissy’s The History of Photography in Sound: A Study of Sources, Techniques and Interpretation. Swarland: Divine Art. Available for download at https://divineartrecords.com/recording/finnissy-the-historyof-photography-in-sound/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Pace, Ian. 2016a. ‘My Contribution to the Debate “Are We All Ethnomusicologists Now?”’. https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/my-contribution-to-thedebate-are-we-all-ethnomusicologists-now/. Accessed 11 July 2019. Pace, Ian. 2016b. ‘Ethnographically Sourced Experiences of Ethnomusicology—A Further Response to the Debate’. https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/ ethnographically-sourced-experiences-of-ethnomusicology-a-further-response-to-the-debate/. Accessed 24 July 2019. Pace, Ian. 2020a. ‘The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music’. In Rethinking Contemporary Musicology: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity, Skills and Deskilling, edited by Ian Pace and Peter Tregear. Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming. Pace, Ian. 2020b. ‘Musicological Jargon and Academic Power-Play’. Search: Journal for New Music and Culture 11, forthcoming. Pace, Ian, and Peter Tregear, eds. 2020. Rethinking Contemporary Musicology: Perspectives on Interdisciplinarity, Skills and Deskilling. Abingdon: Routledge. Philip, Robert. 2004. Performing Music in the Age of Recording. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Ramnarine, Tina K. 2011. ‘The Orchestration of Civil Society: Community and Conscience in Symphony Orchestras’. Ethnomusicology Forum 20, no. 3: 327–51. Raynor, Henry. 1972. A Social History of Music: From the Middle Ages to Beethoven. London: Barrie and Jenkins. Raynor, Henry. 1976. Music and Society since 1815. London: Barrie and Jenkins. Redgate, Roger. 1998. ‘The Chamber Music’. In Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy, edited by Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox and Ian Pace, 135–68. Aldershot: Ashgate.

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Rohr, Deborah. 2001. The Careers of British Musicians, 1750–1850: A Profession of Artisans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rummenhöller, Peter. 1978. Einführung in die Musiksoziologie. Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen. Sams, Eric. 1969. The Songs of Robert Schumann. With foreword by Gerald Moore. London: Methuen & Co. Scherer, Frederic M. 2004. Quarter Notes and Bank Notes: The Economics of Music Composition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. 2001. ‘Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds’. Ethnomusicology 45: 1–29. Sittard, Josef. 1885. ‘Jongleurs und Menestrels. Eine Studie’. Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft 1: 175–200. Small, Christopher. 1987. ‘Performance as Ritual: Sketch for an Enquiry into the Nature of a Symphony Concert’. In Lost in Music: Culture, Style, and the Musical Event, edited by Avron Levine White, 6–32. London: Routledge. Spitta, Philipp. 1885. ‘Sperontes’ “Singende Muse an der Pleiße”. Zur Geschichte des deutschen Hausgesanges im achtzehnten Jahrhundert’. Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft 1: 35–124. Stobart, Henry, ed. 2008. The New (Ethno)Musicologies. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow. Stock, Jonathan. P. J. 1997. ‘New Musicologies, Old Musicologies: Ethnomusicology and the Study of Western Music’. Current Musicology 62. https://currentmusicology.columbia.edu/article/new-musicologies-old-musicologies-ethnomusicology-and-the-study-of-western-music/. Accessed 25 July 2019. Thomas, J. Philip. 1999. ‘Interpretative Issues in Performing Contemporary Piano Music’. PhD diss., University of Sheffield. Toop, Richard. 1988. ‘Four Facets of the “New Complexity”’. Contact 32: 4–50. Weber, Max. 1921. Die rationalen und soziologischen Grundlagen der Musik, with introduction by Theodor Kroyer. Munich: Drei Masken. Eng. trans., 1958, as The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, translated and edited by Don Martindale, Johannes Riedel and Gertrude Neuwirth. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Weber, William. 1975. Music and the Middle Class. New York: Holmes and Meier. Werbner, Pnina. 2016. ‘Between Ethnography and Hagiography: Allegorical Truths and Representational Dilemmas in Narratives of South Asian Muslim Saints’. History and Anthropology 27, no. 2: 135–53.

148  I. PACE Whittall, Arnold. 1998. ‘Out of inner time’, review of Uncommon Ground: The Music of Michael Finnissy, edited by Henrietta Brougham, Christopher Fox and Ian Pace. Times Literary Supplement, 3 Apr. 1998. Wolcott, Harry F. 1995. ‘Making a Study “More Ethnographic”’. In Representation in Ethnography, edited by John van Maanen, 79–111. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

PART III

Case Studies Across the Arts

CHAPTER 7

Writing Catastrophe: Howard Barker’s Theatre Andy W. Smith Introduction Howard Barker’s (1946–) interweaving of aesthetics, philosophy, image and language marks him out as a unique individual in the context of contemporary British theatre. Primarily known as a dramatist of international repute, Barker is also a published poet and artist whose paintings have been exhibited in art galleries across Europe. He is the artistic director of The Wrestling School, the theatre company set up in 1988 exclusively to perform his plays. This chapter will explore the development of Barker’s practice, not only in the context of his drama and its production histories, but the wider sociocultural impact of the work through writing on, about and by him—from theatre critics, academics and Barker’s own attempts to form rapprochement with the complexities and agonies of artistic production. Barker’s career can be divided into three main periods. The first of these contains his political plays from the 1970s, which explore the crisis of power at the heart of parliamentary socialism. The second constitutes Barker’s development in the 1980s of a new form of drama that he A. W. Smith (*)  Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Cardiff, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_7

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called the ‘Theatre of Catastrophe’. During this period, he wrote four plays that were to become the best-known and performed of his dramatic outputs: Victory (1983), The Castle (1985), Scenes from an Execution (1990) and The Europeans (1993).1 For Barker, the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979 changed the political landscape to such an extent that a more radical approach was required than was provided by the ineffectuality of democratic socialism, in order to offer a credible response to the new strain of right-wing ideology. This paradigm shift was not only ideological; it required a new way of thinking about the purpose and uses of theatre as an aesthetic construct. Barker’s third, most productive and artistically challenging period followed with the formation of The Wrestling School in 1988, and his work there as a director, designer and photographer.

Barker and 1970s Political Theatre As Charles Lamb notes, Barker’s plays from the 1970s such as Claw (1975), Stripwell (1975), That Good Between Us (1977) and The Hang of the Gaol (1978), were ‘overtly concerned with political figures and political questions’ (Lamb 1997, 2). While these were influenced by a Marxist view of contemporary politics, Barker’s instincts as a writer were somewhat askew from the domination of explicit socialist commitment in 1970s British political theatre; as he later stated, ‘I’ve always seen myself as a playwright first and a socialist second, so it’s not discarding beliefs when I say other aspects of life interest me more—and always have done—than the simple projection of ideological belief’ (Barker 1984, 36). In an interview from 1980, Barker noted that ‘I am never certain of my political thinking. It is easy to say you are a revolutionary socialist, but it is stale with cliché and a certain vanity’ (Barker 2011a, 23). In the same interview, Barker emphasises how he sees his plays from this period as refusing to show the ‘bold, confident projection of left-wing ideology, flashed at an audience in the expectation of instant support’, but rather as celebrating ‘energy and the small discovery of dignity. I think that is socialist’ (37). Consequently, critical writing on Barker from this period has often viewed him as a marginal figure in comparison to better-known contemporaries, including Edward Bond, David Edgar, Howard Brenton, Trevor Griffiths and David Hare. In John Bull’s study New British Political Dramatists (1984), for example, Barker’s plays are analysed only in a brief section towards

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the end of the book. While Bull recognises that his choice of Edgar, Brenton, Griffiths and Hare as the main focuses of his study is very much a personal one, he represents Barker as a minor figure within a major dramatic movement that attempted to define the ‘State of the Nation’ in the pre-Thatcherite era. Similarly, writing in Sandy Craig’s edited Dreams and Deconstructions (1980), a study of Alternative Theatre in Britain during the 1970s, Steve Grant places Barker along with his contemporaries Edgar, Brenton, Hare, Griffiths, Snoo Wilson, Stephen Poliakoff and Barrie Keeffe as part of a new movement in his essay entitled ‘Voicing the Protest: The New Writers’, while offering a trenchant critique of Barker’s dramatic impulses: Barker’s main shortcomings are his inability to write parts for women that do not reverberate with what seems to be an imported sense of male sexual antagonism, and his tendency to load his more morally and politically dubious creations with a lot of leaden and barely credible self-apology and irony. (Grant 1980, 140)

Barker’s ‘morally and politically dubious creations’, as disparaged by Grant, are a recurrent theme among academic critics and theatre reviewers opposed to Barker’s view that ‘it is my first principle as a dramatist, and subsequently as a director of my plays, that the author does not instruct’ (Barker 1997, 9). In 1984, Barker predicted the gradual fragmentation of the socialist–dramatist school of the 1970s, making clear how he was set apart from Edgar, Hare and Brenton: Our enemies lump us together as a group of radical propagandists saying the same things in various shades of anger. But this school is breaking up slowly, and must do … we are finding different areas and voices … Anything on the left is punished in this society, but to an extent we have contributed to a view of us as ruthless and cause obsessed. (Barker 1984, 30)

Academic writers such as David Ian Rabey and Charles Lamb championed Barker’s work in the 1980s and 1990s,2 especially the developing aesthetic of the Theatre of Catastrophe. In an interview with Lamb from 1987, Barker outlines his approach to this new theatre form: ‘Under ordinary circumstances, the character remains unexplored, unexposed; the nerves are quite concealed. But in order to force that exposure on characters, I always set them within catastrophic situations. The characters onstage are not simply in unlikely situations but usually disastrous

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ones’ (Barker 2011b, 44). Barker’s rejection of socially recognisable worlds in favour of what Elisabeth Angel-Perez describes as ‘a new sort of theatre, brutal and lyrical, intellectual and visceral’ (2006, 136) formed the central focus of his work from the mid-1980s onwards. However, recent academic criticism has seen a re-evaluation of Barker’s 1970s output. Chris Megson writes that these plays ‘occupy a strikingly liminal position, drawing on satirical and often topical frames of reference while marking an intensification of his interest in the inability of humanist political systems to confront the radically destabilising force of sexual desire’ (2006, 126). In Claw, the central character of Noel Biledew begins his career as a pimp for government officials by persuading a fellow Young Communist to sell her body in the interests of the class war, the nexus of sex and money established as an intricate symbiosis of capital and labour. That Good Between Us dramatises a female Labour Home Secretary who, controlled by the clandestine forces of the British secret services, is pressured into introducing draconian legislation as the military plots an attempted coup d’état against the democratically elected government. In Fair Slaughter (1977), the character of Old Gocher, an ex-music-hall star incarcerated inside a prison hospital ward, recounts his past to his warder Leary in a bid to persuade his jailer to help him escape to Russia. Old Gocher wants to return the severed hand of Trotsky’s train driver, an icon of Revolutionary sacrifice, back to the Motherland. As Ian Cooper writes, ‘in this period of his writing, Barker dramatizes the economic and political compromises of a post-colonial/industrial nation in decline, while reaching increasingly and identifiably towards the principal European contexts of his later work’ (2013, 51). While these early plays of Barker’s share an ineffectual rage at the betrayal of international socialism by the realities of political pragmatism, the recurring motif of the body as a site of transformation and contestation was to become an essential element of Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe. Megson notes that ‘these “State of England” dramas co-opt the satirical impulses of his early pieces whilst pre-figuring in important ways the moral and imaginative speculation that lies at the heart of his Theatre of Catastrophe’ (2006, 126), while Cooper writes of Barker’s plays The Castle and Women Beware Women (1986) that ‘the body is shown as invulnerable to possession by the state, and to annexation as a monument or icon to validate the state’s own edifice’ (2013, 63). The Theatre of Catastrophe, combining Barker’s emphasis on poetic language with

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excavations of English and European history along with adaptations of canonical texts, was to define Barker’s subsequent work as a dramatist, designer and artist for the next 30 years.

Barker and Theatre Institutions The refusal to engage with domestic naturalism is an unambiguous ideological statement by Barker, an attitude that developed during the course of his playwriting career in the 1970s. In an interview from 1984, Barker makes clear his rejection of naturalism as a theatre form and the ideological processes that underpin it: The room can’t any longer be the place where serious social collision occurs, in which social alienation is properly represented. On the contrary, the room is an area of reconciliation or individual crisis, unrelated to the outside. (Barker 1984, 38)

Barker’s relations with the major theatre institutions of the UK reveal much about how his work has been perceived within this context. Up until the 2012 production of his play Scenes from an Execution, Barker did not have a single production staged by the National Theatre. A quotation from Barker in The Guardian newspaper—‘I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly’ (Barker 1992)—indicates that this exile was in part self-­imposed, although he also makes clear in a 2004 interview that his dramatic vision is desperately at odds with what he sees as the status quo within a National Theatre: A National Theatre is an ideological construct, it is not a benign provider of facilities to serious artists … Quality is not the first consideration, the first consideration is whether the text is compatible with the prejudices of the age. (Barker 2004)

Barker’s relationship with the Royal Shakespeare Company reflects the wider context of the production and commissioning of his plays in the 1970s and 1980s. Barker had seven plays staged at the RSC’s fringe 1970s London venue The Warehouse Theatre,3 as well as a season of his work (Crimes in Hot Countries, The Castle and Downchild) staged by the RSC at the Barbican’s small downstairs theatre in London in October

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1985, and his play The Bite of the Night was produced by the RSC in 1988. The RSC also commissioned Barker’s The Europeans but subsequently rejected it, along with his earlier Victory. Both were to find homes elsewhere,4 but Barker’s relationship with the RSC was effectively ended with the rejection of The Europeans. The Royal Court Theatre also staged several of Barker’s plays in the 1970s and 1980s. Two of his major plays were staged on their main stage in the 1970s: Stripwell (1975) and Fair Slaughter (1977). In addition, he had his first play, Cheek, performed in the fringe Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court in 1970, as well as No One Was Saved in the same year. Barker’s No End of Blame was staged by the Court in June 1981 as a co-production with Oxford Playhouse. As well as Victory and No End of Blame, the 1980s saw Barker’s adaptation of Thomas Middleton’s Jacobean revenge tragedy Women Beware Women and the first Wrestling School production, The Last Supper (1988), performed at the Court. However, as Barker writes, ‘I was never to become a Royal Court writer. To articulate the profound dissatisfaction I felt took me a number of years. All I had to go on was a sense of opposition’ (1997, 32). This ‘sense of opposition’ was made public in 1989, when Barker published a series of essays, poems and aphorisms entitled Arguments for a Theatre (reprinted in 1993, 1997 and 2003). A central component of the Theatre of Catastrophe was Barker’s focus on what David Ian Rabey describes as ‘the unsettling power of anti-history’ (1989, 211), the process of estrangement that occurs when the contemporary and historical collide.

History and Anti-History In response to a question in an interview, ‘Did reading history at university in any way provide you with tools for your writing?’, Barker responded thus: ‘It made me refuse the obvious in the political play, made me cautious, even suspicious, especially of crude political situations’ (2011a, 36). Barker’s writing of History as one of the elements of his Theatre of Catastrophe is a complex and, at times, contradictory one. Barker coined the term ‘imagined history’ to describe his approach in plays such as Victory and The Castle: ‘My history plays are imagined history. I don’t do research, they are an amalgam of intuitions, and the absence or misuse of facts does not make them any the less historical’ (1984, 34). However, his comment that ‘I don’t do research’ is playfully

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disingenuous; Barker’s knowledge of European history in particular comes from his background as a trained historian, and his placement of historical narratives is carefully constructed in plays like Victory, The Castle and The Europeans, which are all set at moments of significant rupture and change in European history. Set just after the Restoration of Charles II to the throne of England in 1660, Victory explores the failure of English republicanism through the journey by the protagonist Susan Bradshaw to gather her regicidal husband’s remains, and in doing so emancipate herself from the suffocating utopianism that he symbolically represents. In The Castle, English knights return from the Crusades to find their village has been transformed from a feudal idyll into a feminine commune by Anne, the wife of the lord of the village Stucley, and Skinner, a witch. Stucley, enraged by what he sees as a betrayal of his marriage vows, orders his Arab prisoner Krak to build a Castle in order to reassert his power and authority over the women of the village, or what Cooper describes as ‘an edifice of impingement on all previous forms of social and moral order’ (2013, 60). In an interview, Barker comments on how he was concerned with writing a play whose major theme would be the ‘way in which the resources of human society are funnelled into mechanics of destruction’, but he would not choose to write about this in a modern context: ‘I don’t want to write an anti-nuclear play set in a bunker. That’s a genre I don’t want to be part of’ (Barker 1984, 33). Barker’s rejection of ‘an anti-nuclear play’ in favour of ‘anti-history’ in The Castle is expressed more fully in an interview with Charles Lamb, where Barker explains why he chooses to write about history as a way of commenting upon the present: I believe the experience of history is an experience of pain; the words are interchangeable. Just as the individual, in the years following trauma, likes to recall the trauma, so does society insist on reproducing its dislocations, but always in a laundered way, which invokes necessity… This returns me to the emphasis I place on the individual as the centre of all resistance. (2011b, 48)

Barker’s placement of ‘the individual as the centre of all resistance’ is most acutely realised in his play The Europeans. The play’s historical setting is a pivotal moment in European history, as the Christian states’ attempt to fight back the Ottoman Turks who are laying siege to Vienna

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in 1683. The Europeans central narrative concerns the rape and mutilation of the character Katrin by the Turkish invaders during the occupation, and the consequent effects of Katrin’s traumatic experience on the state’s attempts to impose a political and moral order on the populace post-siege. Katrin desires to give birth publicly to reveal the result of her rape and, on the orders of the Emperor Leopold, the public birth is annulled as her suffering becomes too graphic for the liberal dictates of the state. As Barker notes, ‘the more she refuses to allow her own suffering to be subsumed within history, the more unpleasant she becomes to the regime’ (2011b, 48). Richard Boon and Amanda Price, writing of the relationship between 1980s political drama and Jacobean theatre, describe a ‘commitment to charting what they (dramatists) saw as a decaying society on the edge of terminal collapse through the use of dramaturgical practice that seemed at least to parallel that of the Jacobean stage’ (1998, 636). Boon and Price use Howard Brenton and Howard Barker as examples of how dramatists responded to the politics of Thatcherism. Focusing on the autonomy of the subject’s experience in relation to social hierarchies, Boon and Price compare Barker to the New Historicist Stephen Greenblatt’s analysis of Marlowe as a dramatist who ‘exposes the terror underpinning social formation; it is the gauntlet of a world unmapped thrown to the self-determining will of the radical individual’ (1998, 644). By comparing him to Greenblatt’s Marlowe, they offer up a convincing picture of Barker as a dramatist whose work ‘defies categorisation or explanation and which consistently denies the spectator a subject position that comforts and assures’ (1998, 645). Barker’s ‘self-determining will of the radical individual’ is reflected in plays like Victory and The Castle, where the audience are, in Barker’s phrase, ‘liberated from the ideology of redemption’ (1997, 78). Boon and Price relate Barker’s increasing concern with History’s annexation of the individual and the body as a locus for ideological contestation with the distorted, revenge-driven liminality of the Jacobean malcontent: The state of transition in which these subversive bodies exist is one of a fervent corporeality in which the flesh is exposed, wielded, imposed, and invoked constantly both through the language and through the actions of the characters. Their desire urges them towards a body which is denied by the keepers of the nation’s moral health, and this body often appears as a distortion, an overwhelming and at times terrifying presence when placed beside the self-limiting representations of authority they confront. (1998, 651)

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This ‘neo-Jacobean liminality’ of ‘subversive bodies’ is expressed in a number of Barker plays from the 1980s, most notably his adaptation of Thomas Middleton’s Woman Beware Woman but also through the contested maternal bodies of the characters Katrin, Bradshaw and Skinner. Barker differs from a writer such as Edward Bond in his approach to dramatising history, as Bond demonstrates in his plays Bingo (1973), which recounts the final days of Shakespeare on his farm at Stratford-Upon-Avon, and The Fool (1975), Bond’s dramatisation of the English rural poet John Clare’s struggle to record a way of life against the oncoming destructiveness of the Industrial machine in nineteenth-century England. Jenny S. Spencer, writing of Bond’s use of history in the aforementioned plays, makes the distinction between dramatists who use history as a subjective force and those who see it from a socialist-critical perspective: an important distinction must be made between plays that take historical figures and events for their plots (which may be plausible yet blatantly untrue) and plays in which history itself (its movement and interpretation) is the playwright’s foremost concern. While the former is characteristic of costume drama and the ever-popular television ‘history series’, the latter is both the challenge and the problem of a socialist theatre practice. (Spencer 1992, 45)

The emphasis on a ‘socialist theatre practice’ is the project of Bond’s Rational Theatre, one that shows art as an ‘aspect of the logic of history, not the consecration of any particular moment of history but of the processes of history’ (Bond 1985, 17). Bond’s dramatisation of history offers the audience a choice: ‘These scenes of something don’t just tell a story, they also, I hope, make a statement to those watching, a statement the audience is invited to finish’ (Bond, quoted in Hay and Roberts 1978, 21). Bond achieves this not only through his drama, but also through the prolific prefaces, introductions and commentaries on his own work. A play like Bingo could be seen as an example of Bond’s utilisation of a Brechtian gestic action, where each character relationship projects a social relationship encased in transactions of commerce and barter. The final scene of Bingo encapsulates this gestus perfectly: as Shakespeare lies dying on his bedroom floor, his daughter Judith is desperately ransacking the room for evidence of a will that leaves Shakespeare’s assets to her and her mother. The gestic action through which the play is structured has the intention of making the audience draw conclusions about

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the present from the critical presentation of the past, although Bond himself was wary of Brecht’s theory of ‘alienation’, claiming it to be ‘patronising’ to the audience: ‘Brechtism lays claim to the highest function of drama. It must be judged on those terms. It patronises its audience, is locked into an old paradigm of knowledge and hinders the creation of a modern theatre’. (Bond 2000, 183). Bond’s approach is in direct contrast to Barker’s view that art has no social function and has no responsibility to teach: The naturalistic and the Brechtian projects seem equally false to me, I neither believe in reproducing the voice and manner of the social person nor in identifying the source of self in economics, ideology, etc. I am interested in character as speculation; the stage character makes no pretence at existent life, or rather he bounds over it, leading the audience into areas of fantasy and imagination. The possible, rather than the probable, becomes the definition of action. (Barker 2011b, 44).

David Ian Rabey neatly summarises Barker’s use of the past in his work: ‘Thus Barker opposes History—the imposition of moral and ideological narrative form—with Anti-history—the disruptive fragmentation of this form by the testimony and performance of individual pain’ (Rabey 2006, 18). Barker’s ‘imaginative reconstructions’ (Barker 1984, 34) of history in plays like Victory, The Castle and The Europeans explore how power relations become an integral part of a liberalising ideology, viewing Enlightenment philosophy as a gauze through which the domination of the state over the individual is controlled via Foucauldian disciplinary practices of religion, education, medicine and science.5

Barker and Brecht Charles Lamb offers a defence of Barker’s theatre through the latter’s oppositional stance to Brechtian rationalism, both from a philosophical and dramatic point of view (1997, 26–33). Critics such as Desmond Gallant have conversely questioned Barker’s antagonism towards Brechtian theatre practice. Gallant writes that Barker is influenced in particular by Brecht’s treatment of sexual politics (Gallant 1997, 403–13) and posits that Barker’s disruption of narrativity, the use of interludes and the rejection of naturalism is derived directly from Epic Theatre conventions (Gallant 1997, 405). There are some Barker plays that use an

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episodic structure to develop digressive, anti-critical positions; in particular No End of Blame and Victory both utilise a series of episodes to facilitate a protagonist’s journey through the debris of a decayed culture. It could be argued that there is a Brechtian influence in Barker’s positioning of himself as an anti-naturalist writer. But any attempt to perform Barker’s texts in a way that creates a critical, reflective context is impossible, partly due to his writing style which, in Lamb’s analysis, is a ‘direct seduction of the audience’: Seduction is the alternative to the manipulative, controlling relation which characterises communication in our society and it is with this in view that one must consider Barker’s frequent denunciations of ‘authoritarianism’ both in the theatre and society at large. This rejection does not merely concern the crude manipulations of the commercial stage but, perhaps more particularly, the Brechtian aim of presenting an analysis of ‘the world’ along the theoretical lines of, let us say, ‘The Street Scene’. (Lamb 1997, 46)

Heiner Zimmermann also suggests that there are more dramatic connections between Barker and Brecht than have previously been considered. In his essay ‘Howard Barker’s Brecht or Brecht as Whipping Boy’, Zimmermann suggests that Barker places Brecht in opposition to his aesthetic through a reductive reading of Brecht’s drama as ‘purely rationalist and exclusively didactic’ (2001, 221). Zimmermann’s defence of Brecht against Barker’s accusations of didacticism argues for the complexity of Brecht’s characters in relation to their material environment: Barker consequently overlooked the fact that for Brecht the driving force of individual behaviour, of change in society and thus of history were contradictions within the individual, between the individual and society as well as between groups of society. (Zimmerman 2001, 222)

Zimmermann detects in Barker’s theatre an attempt, using devices such as an unreliable chorus or the digressive interlude, to distance the audience further from the action, and makes the contention that both Barker and Brecht create alternative histories. Instead, in a play like The Castle, Barker writes a drama that Lamb describes as ‘dis-closure’—not an attempt to instigate a ‘closure’ that offers a model for changing an audience’s values or beliefs, but rather a drama that is ‘radically heuristic and exploratory’ (Lamb 1997, 28).

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Running parallel with this creation of a new theatre philosophy was the requirement to find a performance technique appropriate to the demands that Barker’s writing made upon the actor. The actor and director Kenny Ireland, who had earlier acted in Barker’s plays Victory and The Power of the Dog (1984), was to become Barker’s ally in both promoting his work and establishing what was to become The Wrestling School. I have written in some detail elsewhere, with James Reynolds, about the formation of The Wrestling School (Reynolds and Smith 2015, 6–15), and it is worth revisiting some of the contexts and conditions that led to the formation of the company.

The Wrestling School: Towards a Theory of Production In the first six years of the company all the productions, with one exception, were directed by Kenny Ireland. This meant that much of the early work was predicated on the specific performance style and ideas that Ireland bought to bear on the shows. As the company manager Chris Corner recollects, Ireland’s directorial approach intended to ‘make every moment in the show very clear, and very understandable to the audience’ (Reynolds and Smith 2015, 11). In contrast, Barker’s theatrical instincts as a writer and director were towards ambiguity, contradiction and elusiveness, traits that were to come to the fore once Barker took over the directing responsibilities from Ireland in 1994 with the production of Hated Nightfall.6 Although Ireland returned to The Wrestling School to direct The Castle in 1995, the future direction of the company was to coalesce with Barker’s control over all interpretative elements of production and performance: acting, directing, design, scenography, sound and publicity. To date, Barker has directed a total of eighteen Wrestling School productions, most of them in the UK, with other major Wrestling School productions in Australia, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Latvia. However, there were difficulties associated with Barker’s artistic control of the company’s output, primarily the reception of the work by theatre critics. Barker’s relationship with theatre critics has been fraught with tension and misunderstandings from both sides throughout his career. In Arguments for a Theatre, Barker writes, ‘The critic must suffer like everyone else’ (1997, 71). In an interview from 1980, Barker noted that ‘I am disconcerted about the critical hostility towards my work. I

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do feel that people I might have relied on for support a few years ago no longer supply it with the same readiness. Critics like Michael Billington and Irving Wardle—that range of middlebrow critic—now seem to be actively hostile towards my work’ (2011a, 34). Although Barker goes on to say that ‘But I’m not hostile towards the critics: there is a good role for them’ (35), the developing aesthetic of Barker’s drama has meant his work being viewed in terms that mainstream theatre criticism has found challenging. Mark Brown has written about theatre criticism in relation to Barker’s work, and posits the theory that much of the critical hostility is down to ‘demands for naturalism, social realism, liberal humanism, functionality and, above all, meaning’ (2013, 96). Brown makes a link here between Barker’s work and the baffled critical reception of modernist plays like Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1956). As Barker notes in conversation with James Reynolds, the Theatre of Catastrophe runs counter to the notion of theatre as unifying, humanising and conciliatory: ‘the audience experiences 1) no familiar territory, that’s to say imaginative, 2) no moral consensus, and 3) a peculiar discourse, poetry’ (Reynolds and Smith 2015, 80). Most of all, Brown identifies Barker’s rejection of a ‘liberal humanist’ project as the main cause of the critical disapproval of the work, defined as ‘the politically determined expectation that theatre subject itself to a project of moral and/or social improvement/reassurance of its audience’ (Brown 2013, 94). Reviews of Barker’s plays have ranged from the hostile to the bewildered to the grudgingly respectful. Of The Wrestling School production 13 Objects (2003), Rod Dungate wrote: I see a lot of plays: many are tragic tales, others paint bleak landscapes. Mostly I’m uplifted in some way by the experience—my eyes opened to new aspects of the world around me. I can’t think I’ve ever felt that I’ve been beaten into a comatose state by an iron bar until I saw 13 Objects. (Dungate 2003)

Dungate’s review follows many in the same register, focusing on the experience of a Barker play as something to be endured, both mentally and physically. Reviewing Barker’s (Uncle) Vanya (1996) for the Financial Times, Ian Shuttleworth had the following to say: Barker is primarily a dramatic essayist, and his subject matter is in equal parts the moral necessity of accepting one’s freedoms and the validity of

164  A. W. SMITH using theatre to express as much. In arguing that artistic works not just may, but in a sense must be turned toward such an end, he enables much of his audience to affect the very disengagement he despises: art about art, runs the response; navel-gazing; switch off.

Shuttleworth picks up on a common theme among theatre reviewers, that Barker’s plays are intellectually demanding for an audience to the point of being unintelligible. Conversely, Lyn Gardner has often been supportive of The Wrestling School’s work in the past, recognising that they offer a unique theatrical experience, as with the production of He Stumbled: This is classic Barker territory and he approaches it here with customary wit and poetic intensity. The acting is crystal, almost frighteningly so. You have to be prepared to work damn hard for the rewards, but ultimately He Stumbled delivers, laying bare the secrets beneath its cool skeletal exterior. (Gardner 2000)

Other Gardner reviews are not as complimentary, such as this one from the 2017 production of Barker’s In The Depths of Dead Love at the Print Room in London7: ‘a piece that has a poetic elegance yet often feels over-familiar, stultifying and removed from all reality in Gerald [sic] McArthur’s way too tasteful and reverent production’ (Gardner 2017). Reviewing Barker’s radio play Albertina, Anne Karpf notes Barker’s refusal to submit to the sensitivities of an audience: In a Radio 3 documentary about his work earlier this year, Barker freely admitted that ‘When I work with actors, I say this is principally for us. The audience comes as a guest, but we don’t put their interests before the work’s own demands, we don’t ask if it’s accessible—I won’t entertain that as a question.’ You can’t help but admire such maddening, magnificent intransigence—the antithesis of most audience-wooing modern culture. (Karpf 1999)

Gardner has also been critical of Barker’s work as a director, noting a ‘frustrating Barker obscurity that comes when a writer directs too much of his own work and doesn’t have to justify and test his writing enough’ (Gardner 2003). In her review of I Saw Myself, Gardner again returns to the issue of Barker’s directing his own work:

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But Barker, who also directs, can be his own worst enemy. What might be done with economy is done with such defeating density and coolness that I felt entirely detached. Like his own heroine, Barker presents a face to the world that is insanely heroic and wilful; I just wish he would get himself a director and dramaturg. (Gardner 2008)

The critical antagonism towards Barker’s work is part of a wider discourse around the purposes and value of theatre as an art form. Christine Kiehls’s essay ‘Staging Barker in France 2009’, published in Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre, is one of the most important and incisive commentaries on Barker’s drama, as it places the later work of The Wrestling School within a wider context of political economy and theatre-making. For Kiehl, Barker’s drama is ‘relentlessly resistant to the widely pronounced and assumed “fact that the aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of life are now entirely subservient to industrial consumption […] whose interests have altered the economy of desire, contributing to the loss of individuation”’ (Kiehl 2013, 110). In response to a French critic’s review of a season of Barker’s plays staged in Paris in 2009, Kiehl lucidly articulates why the work is routinely reviewed, using verbs such as ‘detached’, ‘wilful’ and ‘dense’: Catastrophe, within and beyond elaborate sophistication, permeates the plays as a paradoxically coherent design, necessarily elusive to reason, but organically consistent. Critics […] are compliant with cultural consumerism’s terms of swift efficiency in dispensing immediate gratification and an overly profitable ‘customer satisfaction’; they use a risk-averse, defensive and infantilising journalistic idiom which is at odds with Barker’s essentially poetic work. (Kiehl 2013, 110)

As Kiehl notes, ‘the unnameable abyss of Catastrophe, the noisy silence of aporia—wrongly interpreted as pessimism—is as frightening as death… Barker’s Baroque elegance disturbs as much as Beckett’s bareness and silence’ (2013, 111). Kiehl argues for an approach to viewing the work of Barker as outside of traditional theatre criticism that serves ‘the economic priorities of cultural production and consumption’ (2013, 109). As a response to the criticism of him directing for The Wrestling School, Barker formulated three alter egos: stage designer Tomas Leipzig, costume designer Billie Kaiser and photographer Eduardo

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Houth. In A Style and Its Origins, his 2007 memoir written in the third person using Eduardo Houth as ‘co-author’, Barker revealed his use of Kaiser, Leipzig and Houth as the principal designers credited with establishing the design aesthetic of The Wrestling School. This process of constructing fictional identities is a crucial aspect of Barker’s creative act of writing, alongside his plays, poetry and theory. This is seen in the imagined personal histories of Kaiser and Leipzig that populate the programme notes, and in Barker’s reflective and personal inscription of his life in A Style and Its Origins. Despite the public outing of their identities in A Style and Its Origins, Barker continued to credit Kaiser/Leipzig in programmes of The Wrestling School, even as the funding given by the Arts Council to the company for nearly 20 years finally ended (1988– 2007). This required an extraordinary financial contribution from an anonymous American benefactor in order that the plays could continue to be produced, matching what would have been the Arts Council funding for a further five years (2008–2013). As Barker notes in correspondence, ‘had I taken the credit for all these departments, the poisonous nature of the critical response can only be imagined. I feel now, that on future productions, I will maintain the curious game’ (Barker, letter to the author, 2014). The future status of The Wrestling School as a production company remains uncertain; deprived of public funding and with the private patronage now ended, it exists in a state of abeyance.

Blood and Glass I have previously (2015) written about Barker’s use of Houth as a photographic alter ego and will in this section instead focus on Kaiser and Leipzig as Barker’s main design ‘screens’ for his work with The Wrestling School. Barker has, in a number of interviews, articulated how the design aesthetic created by scenography, costume and sound complements the conceptual landscapes he creates in his theatrical writing. In an interview with David Ian Rabey, Barker notes that the designs are part of an overall vision of the stage, part of the de-naturalising imagery. For one thing, they tend to be monochromatic, as the sets do, creating a flat plane for voice to dominate … the use of the narrow range of shades in the clothing of the performers asserts the non-naturalism of the production, and obviously the eruption of one colour becomes powerfully suggestive[.] (Rabey 2006, 31–32)

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Barker’s design of costume through the lens of Billie Kaiser enabled him to construct an invented fashion lineage for Kaiser, influenced by the famous haute couture houses of post-war Europe, particularly Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’ from 1947: ‘the costumes … owe a great deal to classic haute couture of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, not least in their hats’ (Rabey 2006, 31). The profiles of Billie Kaiser and Thomas Leipzig in The Wrestling School programmes create imaginary credits that become more surreal and absurd the longer their careers unfold. Leipzig is first credited as a set designer in Barker’s production of Ursula (1998) as follows: ‘Studied with the great German designer, Ernst Schmeiser. Credits include Strasser’s Wozzeck and Plotinski’s radical Spring Awakening’. The biographies of Kaiser and Leipzig are replete with ‘high art’ references, all invented by Barker to cloak them in an air of mystery and incongruity. Kaiser’s credits for Gertrude—The Cry include the following: ‘Fell in love with The Wrestling School on its visit to Berlin with (Uncle) Vanya in 1997. She designed clothing under her own cult label Honneker in the early 1990s before moving into stage and film’. Similarly, Leipzig’s biography in the programme notes for A House of Correction (2001) read ‘Youngest ever winner of the Berne Prize. Credits include the controversial blood and glass set for Plotinski’s Spring Awakening (Cracow, Novi Sad 1997)’. These imaginative biographies, faintly ludicrous with their referencing of invented awards, labels and artists, include just enough references to real works such as Spring Awakening for them to be plausible. Both Kaiser and Leipzig are firmly situated within a European context, both spatially and conceptually, proficient in the fields of fashion, art, opera, theatre and avant-garde film. Barker has frequently cited European artists as his major influences, especially Céline in literature, Tarkovsky in film and Bartok in music (2011c, 168–70). Barker’s European sensibilities are further articulated in Leipzig’s and Kaiser’s programme credits, traversing Europe’s bloody and ravaged history through their invented biographies: ‘Tomas’ favourite materials have always been steel (polished or rusted) and fabric (pristine or decayed). Through these tactile substances Tomas claims he knows “the entire history of my continent…” This is his eighth design for TWS. Tomas lives in Cadiz’ (Programme notes, Found in the Ground, 2009). Barker extends the absurdity of the biographies even further in the later productions. Kaiser’s programme notes for Found in the Ground read ‘Billie Kaiser describes her costume strategy as “the material

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endorsement of a character’s claim to speech…” In her monochromatic and severely beautiful designs for women, she has created a memorable series of images of social and sexual hierarchy’. Motifs such as ‘Billie’s beloved Trieste’ and her status as a radical fashion designer with the cult label Honneker, or Leipzig’s ever-evolving ‘short film about the birth of Hitler, Christ’s Dog’,8 recur with amusing consistency across the span of Wrestling School programmes. In the programme for Hurts Given and Received (2010), produced following the publication of A Style and Its Origins, Barker teases out the fictional relationships even further with a knowing reference to his use of alter egos: ‘So closely attuned is the method of Tomas Leipzig to Barker’s idea of dramatic space that he has been called “Barker’s alter ego” … Tomas now works from his atelier in Dieppe’. Barker’s use of Leipzig and Kaiser as his alter egos enabled him to experiment with creating a range of design aesthetics that visually captured the style of the Theatre of Catastrophe. From the early publication and revisions of Arguments for a Theatre through to Death, The One and The Art of Theatre (2005), Barker’s theoretical writings have developed alongside the theatrical practice, complementing and refracting his other artistic outputs as designer, painter and photographer. His programme notes for The Wrestling School add an important coda to the theory, further defining his artistic philosophy and offering an ironic response to his exile from the mains stages of British theatre. As I have written elsewhere with James Reynolds, the commercial imperatives of the theatre industry and the changes in criteria for Arts Council England funding made it difficult for The Wrestling School to continue in a sustained form (Reynolds and Smith 2015, 90). As Barker writes in Death, the One and the Art of Theatre: ‘I do not know the theatre and the theatre does not know me’ (Barker 2005, 1). Barker here differentiates between what he describes as ‘the theatre’ (his italics) and the ‘art of theatre’, where the latter ‘lends anxiety to the few’ and the former ‘gives pleasure to the many’. The combination of Barker’s memoir in the third person, his use of alter egos, and his philosophical treatises on theatre, art and culture creates a body of writing distinct in British and European theatre, rejecting the quotidian in favour of theatrical states of ‘stress and collision’ (Barker and Houth 2007, 111) that privilege the tragic imagination as it drives onwards towards death.

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Notes 1. The dates supplied parenthetically indicate the year of the first professional production. 2. Rabey’s Howard Barker: Politics and Desire: An Expository Study of His Drama and Poetry, 1969–1987 (1989) and Lamb’s Howard Barker’s Theatre of Seduction (1997) were the first full-length academic monographs to explore the work of Barker in depth. 3. Plays staged at The Warehouse included That Good Between Us (1977), The Hang of the Gaol (1978) and The Loud Boy’s Life (1980). 4.  Victory was produced by Joint Stock Theatre Company at the Royal Court in 1983, directed by Danny Boyle, and the first professional production of The Europeans was by The Wrestling School in 1993, although there had previously been amateur productions of this play in Canada and Wales. 5.  Please see Michael Mangan’s essay ‘Places of Punishment: Surveillance, Reason and Desire in the Plays of Howard Barker’, in Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre (edited by Rabey and Goldingay, 2013) for a further analysis of Barker’s work in relation to Foucault. 6.  Although this was the first Wrestling School production that Barker directed in the UK and marks his debut as artistic director of the company, he did direct a production of Ego in Arcadia in Sienna, Italy in 1992. 7.  This production, directed by Gerrard McArthur, was not a Wrestling School production, although it utilised similar staging and visual style. 8. Also the title of an unpublished Barker play, written in 2004 and staged in Vienna in 2005.

Bibliography Angel-Perez, Elisabeth. 2006. ‘Facing Defacement: Barker and Levinas’. In Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker, edited by Karoline Gritzner and David Ian Rabey, 136–49. London: Oberon. Barker, Howard. 1984. ‘Interview with Tony Dunn’. Gambit International Theatre Review 11, no. 41: 33–44. Barker, Howard. 1986. Women Beware Women. London: Calder. Barker, Howard. 1992. ‘The Civil Warrior’. The Guardian, 13 Feburary. Barker, Howard. 1997. Arguments for a Theatre. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Barker, Howard. 1998. Ursula. Programme Notes, The Wrestling School. Barker, Howard. 2001. A House of Correction. Programme Notes, The Wrestling School.

170  A. W. SMITH Barker, Howard. 2002. Gertrude—The Cry. Programme Notes, The Wrestling School. Barker, Howard. 2004. Interview with Nick Hobbes. Scenes from an Execution programme Notes, Dundee Repertory Theatre. Barker, Howard. 2005. Death, The One, and the Art of Theatre. London: Routledge. Barker, Howard. 2006. ‘Howard Barker in Conversation with David Ian Rabey and Karoline Gritzner’. In Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker, edited by Karoline Gritzner and David Ian Rabey, 30–37. London: Oberon. Barker, Howard, and Eduardo Houth. 2007. A Style and Its Origins. London: Oberon. Barker, Howard. 2009. Found in the Ground. Programme Notes, The Wrestling School. Barker, Howard. 2010. Hurts Given and Received. Programme Notes, The Wrestling School. Barker, Howard. 2011a. ‘Energy—And the Small Discovery of Dignity’, interview with Malcolm Hay and Simon Trussler. In Howard Barker Interviews 1980–2010, edited by Mark Brown, 19–37. Bristol: Intellect. Barker, Howard. 2011b. ‘Articulate Explorers in an Age of Populism’, interview with Charles Lamb. In Howard Barker Interviews 1980–2010, edited by Mark Brown, 39–54. Bristol: Intellect. Barker, Howard. 2011c. ‘On Shakespeare’, interview with Vanasay Khamphommala. In Howard Barker Interviews 1980–2010, edited by Mark Brown, 161–73. Bristol: Intellect. Barker, Howard. 2015. ‘On Discipline: James Reynolds in Conversation with Howard Barker’. In Howard Barker’s Theatre: Wrestling with Catastrophe, edited by James Reynolds and Andy W. Smith, 79–88. London: Bloomsbury. Bond, Edward. 1985. ‘The Rational Theatre’. In Edward Bond Plays: Two, 9–18. London: Methuen. Bond, Edward. 2000. The Hidden Plot. London: Methuen. Boon, Richard, and Amanda Price. 1998. ‘Maps of the World: Neo-Jacobeanism and Contemporary British Theatre’. Modern Drama 41: 635–54. Brown, Mark. 2013. ‘Barker, Criticism and the Philosophy of the Art of Theatre’. In Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre, edited by David Ian Rabey and Sarah Goldingay, 94–104. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bull, John. 1984. New British Political Dramatists. London: Methuen. Cooper, Ian. 2013. ‘Institutions, Icons and the Body in Barker’s Plays, 1977– 1986’. In Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre, edited by David Ian Rabey and Sarah Goldingay, 51–64. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Gallant, Desmond. 1997. ‘Brechtian Sexual Politics in the Plays of Howard Barker’. Modern Drama 40, no. 3: 403–13.

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Grant, Steve. 1980. ‘Voicing the Protest: The New Writers’. In Dreams and Deconstructions, edited by Sandy Craig, 116–44. Ambergate: Amber Lane. Hay, Malcolm, and Phillip Roberts, eds. 1978. Edward Bond: A Companion to the Plays. London: Theatre Quarterly. Kiehl, Christine. 2013. ‘Staging Barker in France 2009’. In Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre, edited by David Ian Rabey and Sarah Goldingay, 105–14. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lamb, Charles. 1997. Howard Barker’s Theatre of Seduction. London: Harwood Academic Press. Megson, Chris. 2006. ‘“England Brings You Down at Last”: Politics and Passion in Barker’s State of England Dramas’. In Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker, edited by Karoline Gritzner and David Ian Rabey, 124–35. London: Oberon. Reynolds, James, and Andy W. Smith, eds. 2015. Howard Barker’s Theatre: Wrestling with Catastrophe. London: Bloomsbury. Rabey, David Ian. 1989. Howard Barker: Politics and Desire: An Expository Study of his Drama and Poetry, 1969–1987. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rabey, David Ian. 2006. ‘Raising Hell: An Introduction to Howard Barker’s Theatre of Catastrophe’. In Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker, edited by Karoline Gritzner and David Ian Rabey, 13–29. London: Oberon. Rabey, David Ian, and Sarah Goldingay, eds. 2013. Howard Barker’s Art of Theatre. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Spencer, Jenny S. 1992. Dramatic Strategies in the Plays of Edward Bond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Andy W. 2015. ‘To Experience a Thing as Beautiful’: The Photographic Practice of Howard Barker’. In Howard Barker’s Theatre: Wrestling with Catastrophe, edited by James Reynolds and Andy W. Smith, 95–112. London: Bloomsbury. Zimmermann, Heiner. 2001. ‘Howard Barker’s Brecht or Brecht as Whipping Boy’. In What Revels Are in Hand? Assessments of Contemporary Drama in English in Honour of Wolfgang Lippke, edited by Bernhard Reitz and Heiko Stahl, 221–26. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.

Theatre Reviews Dungate, Rod. 2003. ‘Environmentally Friendly Barker—Recycling Ideas’. Reviews Gate, 16 October. https://reviewsgate.com/13-objects-touring/. Gardner, Lyn. 2000. Review of He Stumbled. The Guardian, 5 October. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2000/oct/05/theatre.artsfeatures3. Gardner, Lyn. 2003. Review of 13 Objects. The Guardian, 20 October. https:// www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/oct/20/theatre1.

172  A. W. SMITH Gardner, Lyn. 2008. Review of I Saw Myself. The Guardian, 18 April. https:// www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/apr/18/theatre7. Gardner, Lyn. 2017. Review of In the Depths of Dead Love. The Guardian, 20 January. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jan/20/in-the-depthsof-dead-love-review-howard-barker-print-room-coronet-london. Karpf, Anne. 1999. ‘What Was That All About, Then?’. The Guardian, 19 June. https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/jun/19/books.guardianreview4. Shuttleworth, Ian. 1996. Review of (Uncle) Vanya. Financial Times, June. www. cix.co.uk/~shutters/reviews/96118.htm.

CHAPTER 8

Writing the Contemporary Ballerina: Sylvie Guillem, Misty Copeland and Lessons in Biography Jill Brown The Ignorance of the Biographer When I was a child, I knew with certainty I would be a dancer. When I was a young adult, I accepted that my professional hopes resided in writing, not dancing. Later I embarked on a creative writing thesis on biography for a Master of Philosophy, and I closed the circle by including chapters on Sylvie Guillem and Misty Copeland. I began by knowing something about the world of these subjects from my own dancing days, and confident that my ability to analyse and describe the dancer’s body would enlighten my reader. But I knew little about the mechanics of biography and less about the complexities of researching and writing about contemporary artists. Research, according to the biographer Nigel Hamilton, is ‘the core of biography’ (2008, 63), and my cast of ballerinas each had a kind of biography written about them to provide the cornerstone of my research programme. These

J. Brown (*)  School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_8

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texts are Dominique Frétard and Gilles Tapie’s Invitation (2006), a lavish coffee-table book of photographs, in the case of Guillem, and Misty Copeland and Charisse Jones’s Life in Motion (2014), a memoir, in the case of Copeland. Beyond these works, I presumed to find a treasure– trove online in the form of interviews, reviews, profile pieces and videos of performances. I also expected to find scholarly essays to contribute a critical perspective on their abilities. As both subjects are still alive, clearly my accounts would be incomplete, but my aims were to illuminate something of their life stories and practice and to connect them in the classical ballet tradition by focusing on the body, technique and artistry. Once I began my research, I soon discovered there were indeed many media interviews to be found online given by Guillem and Copeland but that these repeated the same points as the journalists asked similar questions about those aspects of their careers that were the best known. I found scant information about Guillem and Copeland’s emotional lives since intimate matters were not disclosed in their books and never raised in their interviews. I also had little success in unearthing scholarship on Guillem and Copeland to augment my study of their artistry, as the technique of individual dancers and the contribution they make to their art are rarely among the research interests of dance scholars. I made attempts to acquire interviews with them both, but my overtures to Guillem were rebuffed and those to Copeland ignored. In this I was not disappointed, partly because I did not want to have access to one but not the other. Besides, it suited me better to reach my own conclusions about their personalities, unencumbered by personal obligation. Biography is an interpretive art, just as dance is an interpretive art. Nonetheless, the paucity of secondary sources was my first lesson in biography: qualitative evidence may be in short supply, even despite the subject’s renown. The biographer John Worthen confronts the external demands of proceeding with imperfect evidence, describing it as ‘necessary ignorance’ (1995, 227). He argues that biographical writing is ‘a species of confidence trick’, in which a coherent narrative produces the illusion of a ‘carefully balanced and responsible portrait’ that may, in fact, be based upon ‘ignorance and folly’ (240) due to the patchy evidence. Biographers employ various responses to shaping their retrieved artefacts to suit their telling of a subject’s life. Hamilton offers the example of the deliberate misuse of evidence by David Irving who, ‘finding no documentary evidence that Hitler had ordered the extermination of

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the Jews in Germany’, perpetuated the fabrication throughout his scholarly output as a historian and biographer that ‘Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust’ (2008, 85). The illusion Irving produced and strived to maintain was that this position was indisputable and beyond reproach. By contrast, in Stravinsky’s Lunch (1999), the biographer Drusilla Modjeska highlights the silence surrounding the romantic life of the Australian Modernist painter Grace Cossington Smith by resorting to explicitly re-imagining an episode at the end of what may have been a significant party. ‘If this was a novel’, she declares, ‘which it is not, the scene would write itself’ (243). She invents a moment when Cossington Smith leaves in a small horse-drawn cart, supplying the details she wishes to evoke but which are not available as evidence: ‘Outside, if this were a novel, she’d climb into the seat, silent beside her sister. She’d smell sheep, and the distant rumbling of a storm’ (243). By such novelistic sleight of hand, Modjeska’s effect is to conjure up a sensory impression in the reader’s mind that prompts a sympathetic insight into her subject without having to verify facts to support her picture. For my part, I chose to pursue neither of these courses. Worthen’s description of the biographer’s ignorance as ‘necessary’ implies that it is baked into the very act of biography and cannot be avoided. I would have to render my portraits with my limited palette—there could be no conjectures along the lines of ‘she must have felt’. And, as I wished to avoid reproducing the versions of Guillem’s and Copeland’s lives approved for public consumption, I would have to consider what was unsaid as much as what was reported in my various sources, with full acceptance that my interpretations would be unstable and vulnerable to dispute. Once I was deep into my project, I learned a further lesson— specifically related to the challenges of writing about contemporary artists—when I noticed that the nature of the evidence that I collected for each ballerina differed in several respects. It struck me that this tells its own story of changing cultural perceptions and preoccupations: new modes of consumption swiftly arise, as do new relationships with public figures and celebrities. In turn, this modifies the nature of what is selected to be documented and reveals something of the frictions of the moment. Not only were the lives of my subjects continuing to unfold, but the documentary record surrounding them was also was mutating in form and content. Investigating the living artist is like chasing a moving target, as I was to discover.

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Sylvie Guillem: Struck by Wonder Sylvie Guillem was born in Paris in 1965. Her father was a mechanic and her mother a gymnastics teacher. She was physically precocious and became a member of the national Olympic gymnastics team while at primary school. Aged 11, she was invited to join an exchange programme with L’Ecole de Danse de l’Opéra de Paris, and later that year, following her first experience of performing on stage, she decided to abandon gymnastics in favour of ballet and remained at the school. She joined the Ballet Opéra de Paris in 1981 when she was 16. She made rapid progress in the company and in 1984, at the age of 19, she was promoted to the rank of première danseuse. By then, Rudolf Nureyev had assumed the directorship of the company, and a few days after her promotion he elevated her yet again to the highest rank possible: étoile (star). Seeking greater independence, Guillem unexpectedly defected to the Royal Ballet in 1988 where she was contracted as a guest artist for 25 weeks a year leaving her free to dance elsewhere the rest of the time. She maintained this arrangement until 2007. Thereafter she continued to appear as a guest artist with various international ballet companies until 2011, but her focus was increasingly drawn to the programmes of contemporary works that she produced with her favoured collaborators. From 2011 until her retirement in 2015, she was purely a contemporary dancer, touring her final two productions. She gave her very last performance—Boléro by Maurice Bejart, a neoclassical work, and one of her favourites—with the Tokyo Ballet in Yokohama’s Kanagawa Kenmin Hall on 12 December 2015. As noted, my first reference for creating my life of Sylvie Guillem was Invitation, a book of photographs largely taken by her husband Gilles Tapie, which she directed and oversaw. It is a distinctive publication, an international edition with the text written in French, English and Japanese. It is large (394 mm × 290 mm) and heavy, a book for opening on a table. The glamorous images—a combination of dance photography, childhood photos, artwork and informal portraits—provide some overview of her repertory from 1984 until 2004, although they are not reproduced in chronological order or listed in date order in the book’s end matter. Those freeze frames of Guillem in performance could only hint at the kinetic stamp of her artistry; and the collection was further limited for my purposes, designed as it was to ‘share objects, paintings, fragments of happiness, those intimate presences that are part of her autobiography’ (19), thereby curating a view of the dancer as she

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chooses to be seen. ‘She is always totally involved in everything she does, and this book clearly means a lot to her’, notes her friend Dominique Frétard (19), who writes the short biographical essay. Still, the quality of the book’s production values indicated to me Guillem’s singular drive and perfectionism and I found her unconventionality reflected also in the fact that it is so deliberately imposing and cumbersome. In her essay, Frétard describes the newly elevated Guillem as wanting to express ‘incandescence and bloodshed’ when she danced, and also as suffering from nightmares in which she ran the brains of people she knew ‘through a grinder’ (25). This surprising revelation gave me an insight into Guillem’s ‘personal foreground’, to use Hamilton’s phrase (2008, 65). When I excavated an interview with her on YouTube for a programme named HARDtalk—first broadcast on the BBC News Channel on 10 August 2015 when she was 50 years old—I was surprised again. The interviewer, Zeinab Badawi, challenged her on her reputation for being ‘difficult’ to work with, particularly at the Royal Ballet where the artistic director, Anthony Dowell, gave her the nickname ‘Madamoiselle Non’. What struck me was how Guillem parried the questions graciously and gave considered responses. She was not wearing makeup and her long hair was uneven, in need of a cut. At ease with herself, she was clearly a different woman from the 19-year-old who suffered from distressing nightmares. I pondered how to connect these two manifestations into a single coherent representation. I found my solution in a description Guillem claims for herself at the very beginning of Frétard’s biographical essay: the sacred monster (La Monstre Sacrée). As Frétard has it, ‘sacred’ refers to Guillem’s immense gift, her superlative command of balletic technique; while ‘monster’ refers to her ‘freak of nature’ body (19), all extra-long limbs, super-high arches and hyper-flexibility. Surely, I thought, ‘sacred monster’ is the kind of epithet like ‘cool’ or ‘elegant’, conferred on one by others rather than appropriated for oneself. I perceived something self-flattering about it that suggested a form of personal myth-making. One of her fellow principals at the Royal Ballet, Darcey Bussell, relates an incident in her autobiography Life in Dance that shows how Guillem’s sense of entitlement played out in relation to the other dancers. On this occasion in 1996, several lead dancers were forced to change partners at short notice for performances of major works in order to give Guillem her first choice of partner, as her contract stipulated. ‘What Sylvie wants, Sylvie gets’, Bussell and Mackrell observes (1999, 46).

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Bussell’s account suggests that wrapped within Guillem’s ‘sacred monster’ appellation was a willingness to ignore the consequences of her actions on others. To me, this high-handedness in her thirties seemed consistent with the intensity of her younger self. It may be possible that it was also amplified by her status as a box office drawcard. In a discussion of pop stars, David Giles observes how he had witnessed first-hand that the effect of ‘fawning and flattery’ produces a ‘lifting of behavioural constraint’ that disposes of the ‘usual social conventions of politeness and courtesy’ (2000, 7–8). By now, Guillem had been a bone fide ballet star for 11 years and she was long accustomed to fawning and flattery. Yet, while watching the video of a dance work that Guillem created with Akram Khan ten years later, I encountered a contrasting attitude. By that time, she had benefitted from the experience of a collaboration in 2004 with the choreographer Russell Maliphant in the production of a contemporary programme entitled Broken Fall that marked the beginning of her long retreat from being a company artist. In April 2006, she gave her final appearance as Juliet with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, then moved her things to a dressing-room at Sadler’s Wells where the recently appointed artistic director Alistair Spalding had invited her to become an associate artist. In my thesis, I noted that Spalding ‘understood Sylvie and she trusted him’ (Brown 2019, 44). I quoted a remark that he made to the journalist Sarah Crompton: ‘I make sure she gets what she needs to do what she needs to do. She makes demands because she has high expectations of herself and everybody else … She’s not a diva, she’s just very focused’ (Crompton 2015, 52). The work with Khan was her first at Sadler’s Wells and, strangely enough, it is named Sacred Monsters. Her book Invitation had been published the year before: perhaps she had shared the term with him. In the dance, they load its meaning with a shared personal intensity by exploring what Khan referred to as ‘the flipside of stardom’ (Metropolis 2009). They recall their common experience of being child prodigies and explore the difficulties of living in the public gaze. But Guillem speaks on stage to Khan—and by extension the world—about another quality that colours her life, which she calls émerveillé (being filled with wonder). She explains it as follows: ‘It is just that when you see something beautiful or special … you have this ability to see it is beautiful or special, and also the possibility to enjoy it fully’ (Sacred Monsters 2009). She asserts, ‘I don’t want to be blasé, I want to be émerveillé’.

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This evocative word hints at humility, an ability to recognise one’s own insignificance. Hearing it, I beheld again the polite woman who would navigate the HARDtalk interview nine years later. In my thesis, I offered my interpretation of its power, speculating that Guillem’s ‘recent collaborations with Maliphant and Khan had allowed her to find individuality of expression’ (Brown 2019, 45). Moreover, ‘they allowed her to be uncompromising without bashing into the forces of tradition … and they fed her greed for new experiences’. I quoted Spalding who said to me in a personal interview, ‘In my experience of that period, she changed. She became warmer’ (2017). Nonetheless, despite Spalding’s observation, my interpretation remained provisional. After all, Sacred Monsters was a performance and could only offer a facsimile of her subjectivity. Not only that, but I could not know if ‘émerveillé’ was a new quality, or one that had inspired Guillem for as long as she had danced. Two documentaries made for television at different points of her career showed the youthful and mature aspects of her personality. The earlier, Portrait, was directed by Nigel Wattis and produced by the South Bank Show; it was broadcast on ITV in October 1993 when Guillem was 28, four years after she joined the Royal Ballet. The presenter, Melvyn Bragg, interviewed her colleagues and dance critics, allowing for competing perspectives on her influence on British dance to emerge. Here, she rolls her eyes at her critics and emphatically disagrees with them, complaining that to insist on adherence to the British balletic tradition for its own sake was ‘complete nonsense’. The other, Sur le Fil, directed by her friend and trusted collaborator Françoise Ha Van Kern in 2009, charts the production of a dance work Guillem created with the theatre director Robert Lépage, the choreographer Russell Maliphant and the couturier Alexander McQueen. At that time, she was 44 and the documentary provides a view of her life after she had left the Royal Ballet but was still appearing with other companies as a guest artist. Here Guillem draws attention to her nervousness before a performance of Swan Lake. In my thesis, I describe how in the pas de deux in Act Two, ‘Tchaikovsky’s strings are interrupted by snatches of hurdy-gurdy music that intrude grotesquely on Petipa’s cool, white kingdom’ (45). I speculated that these ‘screechings’ suggest ‘what is going on in the ballerina’s brain in all those lifts and penchées’ (45) as Guillem approaches the end of her lengthy career as Odette. In each documentary, her displays of emotion appear frank and uncontrived, but I was yet again viewing Guillem in performance: as

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‘Guillem’. I could not know if her self-representation had been motivated by a degree of calculation—to be viewed first as a rebellious enfant terrible, and later as a dedicated, labouring artist. My hypothesis remained neither proved nor disproved. The personal testimony of a clutch of dance experts who agreed to be interviewed only emphasised her contradictions. Julie Kavanagh, Nureyev’s biographer, was ambivalent about her lasting significance as a dance artist, as was Jonathan Grey, the editor of the Dancing Times; whereas Judith Mackrell, the ex-dance critic of The Guardian, Steven Heathcote, ballet master with The Australian Ballet, and Alistair Spalding were unequivocal admirers. The disparity in their views demonstrates the split in the dance world regarding Guillem’s contribution. For some she was a showy technician, and for others she was a fearless innovator. Those keywords—incandescence and bloodshed, sacred monster, émerveillé—provided my biography’s narrative spine with regards to Guillem’s personal foreground. There is an inherent attractiveness to the shift from early dissatisfaction to late equanimity, but Worthen cautions that ‘so-called documentary facts’ can be manipulated by the biographer to suggest an ‘inevitable and seamless progression’ (1995, 237). I could make no claims to inevitability, given my threadbare sources. For all that those words seemed sodden with meaning, all I could do was highlight them. While I learned much about Guillem, she remains unknowable and I remain ignorant.

Misty Copeland: Rara Avis Misty Copeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1982. Her father was half German and half African American and her mother was half Italian and half African American; Copeland identifies as a ‘black woman … It’s the African-American culture that has raised me, that has shaped my body and my worldview’ (2014, 236). She was brought up by her mother and her early childhood was one of ‘packing, scrambling leaving—often barely surviving’ (9). The family ended up living in two rooms in a motel in Gardena, California, where money was tight, and Copeland’s mother had to apply for food stamps. Copeland began formal dance lessons when she was 13 and noted that ‘Ballet gave my life grace and structure’ (46). She showed rare potential and the following year she began living with her dance teacher, who dedicated herself to developing her star pupil. This state of affairs came to a head when

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Copeland was 15 and her mother demanded that she return home. In response, Copeland’s teacher urged her to take out an emancipation petition against her mother. The petition was dismissed in court, but the unusual nature of the custody dispute attracted attention. The Los Angeles Times reported that ‘this time it’s not a Dad versus Mom moment. It’s Mom versus coach’ (Glionna 1998). Afterwards Copeland was reconciled with her mother, who was soon to find a new job that allowed them to move into an apartment. ‘The days resumed a regular flow’, Copeland observes, adding that ‘we all felt a peace we had never known before’ (Copeland and Jones 2014, 133). Once she graduated from high school, she joined the Studio Company of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) for one year, and after that, at the age of 19, she entered the corps de ballet. In her early years with the company, she gained weight following a serious back injury and briefly endured an eating disorder, but gradually she left the turbulence of her teenage years behind and began her rise through the ranks. She was promoted to soloist in 2011 and then to principal artist in 2015, which is where her memoir ends. As this was also the year in which Guillem retired, I elected to finish my account there too. All this I learned from Copeland’s memoir. It offers a far more comprehensive treatment of the life than Invitation, but it is written for the mass-market in a celebratory mode in which the narrative of personal triumph predominates. As with Invitation, the dancer (via her ghost-writer) shapes a particular version of herself. Copeland is apparently candid about certain difficult aspects of her experience—her relationship with her mother, and her struggle to mould her physique, for example—but in the end, it is a rags-to-riches tale. The reviewer in Ebony magazine throws bouquets: ‘Her memoir is filled with passion, pain, success, and the pure joy of an African-American prodigy dancer maturing and excelling in a field where she is 99% of the time the darkest skintoned woman in the room … and the most talented’ (#teamEbony 2014). The events recounted have been repeated in widely dispersed profile pieces of Copeland’s rise to prominence—for example, by journalists for the New Yorker (Galchen 2014), Rolling Stone (Morse 2015), The Guardian (Winship 2018) and the Sydney Morning Herald (Bowden 2018). To say something fresh about Copeland, I would have to be alert to the hidden story within the plaudits. Copeland’s race did not present an obstacle to her joining ABT, but once she was there, she found herself ‘a little brown-skinned girl in a sea

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of whiteness’ (Copeland and Jones 2014, 156). Fobbs observes that ‘The female ballet dancer of color is inarguably conspicuous in ballet’ (2013, 7), an artform in which ‘the prerequisite characteristics and aesthetics’ continued to be defined by ‘European tastes’ (2). The memoir describes Copeland’s early attempts to ‘blend in’ (Copeland and Jones 2014, 172)—to the point of sponging ivory foundation into her face and arms before her performances in the corps de ballet—but her talent could not be ignored. Fobbs notes that her ‘prestigious’ elevation to soloist in 2011 was ‘the first experienced by an African-American woman in two decades, and only the third time ever that an African-American woman has been selected for that honour’ (11). In 2008, Copeland was approached by the popular artist Prince to appear in a music video of his cover of the song ‘Crimson and Clover’. This led to a series of occasional appearances with him on the concert stage. In my thesis, I noted how Copeland’s encounters with Prince ‘brought her the pleasure of performing without the critical scrutiny of ballet staff and fellow dancers’ (Brown 2019, 63). I discerned what seemed to be a turn in her self-confidence in her decision the following year to appoint a manager, Gilda Squires. This move, unusual for a soloist in the ballet world, suggested ‘drive and ambition and an astute awareness of her cultural capital’ (69) as an emerging African-American artist, which was replacing her earlier self-doubt. Rojek proposes that ‘No celebrity now acquires public recognition without the assistance of cultural intermediaries who operate to stage-manage celebrity presence in the eyes of the public’ (2001, 10), defining this cohort collectively as ‘agents, publicists, marketing personnel, promoters, photographers, fitness trainers, wardrobe staff, cosmetic experts and personal assistants’ (11). Once Copeland had engaged Squires, she undertook an increasing number of extracurricular projects, including TV appearances, books and merchandise, supported by a website and social media presence. Most notably, a video campaign, in which she performed in 2014 for the brand Under Armour, was viewed four million times in one week on YouTube. Yet in her memoir, I sensed a dissonance between Copeland’s twin identities as up-and-coming soloist and well-paid brand ambassador that made me pause and look more closely. I found it significant that she introduced Squires in a single passing mention—I discovered the back story of how they entered into their arrangement in a New York newspaper article online (Allen 2017). Beyond her appearances with Prince, she does not describe any of her commercial activities, which means her

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motivation for pursuing them remains inscrutable. A key element of her brand appeal is her status as a dance artist who lives only to pursue her art. It is possible—I cannot know for certain—that the paradox of presenting herself as unsullied by commercial interests while engaging in commercial activities produced a tension that she did not wish to acknowledge or explain. A quotation appearing in an article in the New York Times in 2015 points to another layer of significance: ‘I’m not trying to dilute the ballet world … But for a long time, I wanted to be at the forefront of pop[ular] culture’, Copeland confesses (La Ferla 2015). Perhaps she found a kind of guilty pleasure in stepping outside conventional boundaries and embracing popular culture, although the phrase ‘diluting the ballet world’ is haunted by her continued insecurity about her place within its milieu. ‘I was ever the latecomer, ever the student, ever the shy little girl just trying to please’, she laments (Copeland and Jones 2014, 250). In probing Copeland’s relationship to ballet further, I found little to enlighten me. The fact she was a classical ballet dancer was a secondary concern in the profile pieces being written about her, and her dance qualities were never described or celebrated. This was largely because the articles were written by journalists who had no specialist knowledge of dance and were intended for a general readership. The lacuna was deepened by a dearth of visual material: I found no videos of her in performance with ABT and no images of her in costume while she was a soloist (2007–2014) from which I could draw my own conclusions about her artistic merit at that time. The filmmaker Nelson George directed a documentary about her named A Ballerina’s Tale (2015), but it relays through a series of interviews her struggle as an African-American classical dancer and her recovery from an injury that almost ended her career in 2012. In the end, I was able to ‘read’ Copeland’s dancing from a brief snatch of a solo from La Bayadère filmed to appear in A Ballerina’s Tale and from adding my gaze to the millions of views for the Under Armour campaign. Returning to the memoir, I noted an incident in which she confesses to the artistic director of ABT her ultimate ambition by saying, ‘I want to be a ballerina’ (Copeland and Jones 2014, 196). For much of her career, she was selected for contemporary dance roles, yet she yearned to dance the traditional heroines of the classical canon. While I did not use this quotation in my thesis, it stayed with me as a pointer towards her deepest wishes. Throughout 2014 and 2015 she was cast in several traditional

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roles, culminating in a performance of Swan Lake at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. I described how ‘the company made much of the event. It was deemed historic, as indeed it was’ (Brown 2019, 70), as Copeland was the first African-American artist to dance Odette/Odile with ABT. This does not mean she was the first such dancer ever to take the role. At her curtain calls, two of her great predecessors, Raven Wilkinson (who danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1955 to 1961 and then with the Dutch National Ballet from 1967 to 1974) and Lauren Anderson (who was a member of the Houston Ballet and who, in 1990, became the first African-American dancer to become a principal with an American company), took their place with her on stage. All were wreathed in smiles and laden with flowers. A few days later, Copeland received her promotion; her ground-breaking achievement was to become the first ‘black woman to hold such a role in a national company’ based in New York (Copeland and Jones 2014, 267). Alistair Macaulay, then the chief dance critic of the New York Times, was unmoved by her landmark performance, writing, ‘Her Odette is dully good in the first lakeside act, Odile is vampily bad in the ballroom act, and then we go back to the lakeside act to watch Odette being dully good again’ (Macaulay 2015). As an experienced and knowledgeable dance critic, Macaulay is a specialist who places the dancer within the context of the tradition and writes about her with a deep knowledge of dance aesthetics. Unlike a journalist for, say, Rolling Stone, he is taken up with the performing artist, not the celebrity. Reflecting on his comments, I wondered if Copeland’s interpretive powers fell short of her stated ambition to be a ballerina on this occasion. She says nothing about it in her memoir. Her silence may not be meaningful, but to me it hinted at a vulnerability that lay on the other side of the heroic tale. While Copeland’s struggle to overcome her artistic limitations were unvoiced, her uncomfortable reality was that it had to be played out in public in the form of reviews such as this one—as with prominent artists of all kinds. At the end of my writing, Copeland remained an even more elusive presence than Guillem. This is partly because I could follow the trajectory of Guillem’s entire career, while Copeland’s continues to unfold. This open-endedness is familiar to all those who write about contemporary artists. Since the evidence available from which to glean my insights was broad but not deep, I had to squint to see Copeland more clearly.

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Her silences regarding both her identity as a brand and her significance as a dance artist seemed charged with ambivalence and conflict. Still, in my necessary ignorance I was obliged merely to gesture towards those quiet spaces and leave Copeland’s story be.

Researching Contemporary Artists: Shifts and Turns Through daily searching, gathering and writing, I learned another lesson in contemporary biography to which I alluded earlier: that the nature of the available evidence says something about the given moment. I concluded there are several historical reasons why my investigations produced a greater variety of sources on Guillem in performance than Copeland. While Copeland began her ballet career at the age of 19, Guillem had already been promoted to étoile by that age. Guillem was championed by Rudolf Nureyev and her exposure to audiences and critics relied partly on his influence. She was considered a physical phenomenon—when she arrived at the Royal Ballet, Darcey Bussell and Mackrell remarked, ‘We’d never seen a dancer with a body like hers’ (1999, 138). Her express need for agency and self-determination also set apart from her peers in dance. All this resulted in tremendous critical interest being taken in her career at a time when newspapers had huge readerships and featured resident dance critics. Furthermore, the glamorous images in Portrait that provide an unofficial partial archive were largely taken by her husband, the photographer Gilles Tapie. Few dancers have the advantage of their own photographer at their performances. Conditions for Copeland and her generation of dancers have changed radically. Technically, elite classical dancers have never been better, but they have never been more invisible to the general public. When Guillem announced her resignation from the Paris Opéra Ballet, questions were asked of Jack Lang, the culture minister, in the French National Assembly (Frétard and Tapie 2006, 22). Individual dancers do not attract such attention any longer; they are unlikely to be regarded as sources of national honour. Furthermore, there are ever fewer professional dance critics to shine a light on their technical and theatrical abilities and artistic merits. According to Mainwaring, over the course of the last twenty years, ‘dance coverage has been decimated in the mainstream press’ (2015). Soon after Copeland began her career as a principal artist with ABT, there were only two full-time dance critics in the US: Alistair Macaulay of the New York Times and Sarah Kaufman of the

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Washington Post. Mainwaring notes that ‘For a medium that can be difficult to understand, generalist coverage remains vital to the accessibility of the dance scene’. While there has been a rise in dance blogs and web forums with active followings, these reach altogether different audiences. Elsewhere, the prestige of dancers has etiolated. Copeland is set apart from this because she has not only blazed bright as a dancer of colour but also as a dance celebrity. She is better known than Guillem was at her pinnacle, but in a different way. The nature of their celebrity is, to borrow Rojek’s formulation, achieved—that is, it derives from the ‘perceived accomplishments of the individual in open competition’ (2001, 18). Yet Copeland’s renown is magnified by her pursuit of professional opportunities beyond the stage, managed and directed by Gilda Squires. In this she approaches what Rojek describes as attributed celebrity: ‘the result of the concentrated representation of an individual as noteworthy or exceptional by cultural intermediaries’ (18). Copeland’s brand story is one of a gifted African-American woman who has overcome adversity to reach the pinnacle of success. Her dancing is a part of the mystique, but not the sole reason for it. Surely, this speaks profoundly to yet another changed historical condition: the shift away from admiring the public artist to seeking connection with the private individual who happens to be an artist. Copeland’s profile pieces emphasise her ‘relatability’—such as her early difficulties with her weight—and the scarcity of voices evaluating her artistry suggest that, currently, the idealised artist inhabiting a rarefied dimension has no cultural salience. Celebrity is always in flux, and in researching Copeland I reflected on how the present moment favours the personal and confessional. Perhaps this shared preference for intimacy unconsciously governed my motivation to address my subjects as Sylvie and Misty when writing their biographies. Hyde and Wasserman open their overview of the field of contemporary literature by questioning what the contemporary is, exactly, for those who study ‘recent literary, artistic and cultural forms’, asking ‘how do you know when you see it?’ (2017, 1). The problem of historicising and defining the contemporary presents unique challenges when one is looking at the work of artists who are still active. It is impossible to apprehend and claim with authority that they are transformative and epoch-making when reviewing them in the present tense. This existential unknowability gives rise to indeterminacy. Guillem is no longer dancing, but her legacy is yet to be understood, as illustrated

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by the conflicting views of the dance experts whom I consulted. Her career was unusual in that she was a classical ballerina-for-hire and that her output in her last two years comprised contemporary works that she herself commissioned, but rather than heralding a new direction for like-minded dancers she may prove to be anomalous. And those final works were created only for her; they are unlikely ever to be danced again. Reflecting on this, I noted that it was as if ‘she had erased all traces of her dancing’ as she was leaving the stage (Brown 2019, 77). Copeland, on the other hand, may represent a definite turn in the fortunes of the classical ballet company. Since 2015, she has refined her artistic powers, surpassing the assumptions on which I concluded my portrait of her. Her celebrity identity has also flourished. In 2019, the New York Times claimed, ‘No other ballet dancer has crossed over into mainstream popular culture like Misty Copeland’ (Associated Press 2019). Her multifaceted career may mean that her legacy becomes the more enduring. I located my subjects in the present moment and discovered something about that moment, but my biographies were not the forum to answer questions of legacy. Nonetheless—for all that the writing entailed unavoidable fumbling—by turning a quizzical gaze on Guillem and Copeland, I started a more searching and ambitious conversation about them beyond the profile pieces and media interviews—one for a future ‘contemporary’, a future biographer.

Bibliography Allen, Zita. 2017. ‘Gilda Squire: The Woman Behind Misty Copeland’. New York Amsterdam News, 15 June. Accessed 30 September 2017. http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2017/jun/15/gilda-squire-womanbehind-misty-copeland/. Associated Press. 2019. ‘Not Just Arabesques: Misty Copeland Imparts Her Life Lessons’. New York Times, 2 December. Accessed 7 December 2019. https:// www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/12/02/us/ap-us/dance-misty-copeland. html. Bowden, Ebony. 2018. ‘“There Is a Generation of People Looking at Me”: The Power of Misty Copeland’. Sydney Morning Herald, 8 November. Accessed 2 September 2019. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/mistycopeland-i-am-in-the-position-to-open-doors-to-more-diversity-20181107p50ehv.html.

188  J. BROWN Brown, G.M. 2019. ‘White Swan Black: Fonteyn, Guillem and Copeland’. Master of Philosophy thesis, University of Queensland. https://doi. org/10.14264/uql.2019.286. Bussell, Darcey, and Judith Mackrell. 1999. Life in Dance. London: Arrow. Copeland, Misty, and Charisse Jones. 2014. Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina. New York: Touchstone. Crompton, Sarah. 2015. ‘Goodbye Guillem’. Intelligent Life, May/June, 47–53. Accessed 7 October 2019. https://www.1843magazine.com/content/ features/sarah-crompton/goodbye-guillem. Fobbs, Joyelle. 2013. ‘Black Ballerinas in U.S. Popular Culture’. Working Paper. Knowledge Bank, Ohio State University. Accessed 18 August 2019. http:// hdl.handle.net/1811/54453. Frétard, Dominique, and Gilles Tapie. 2006. Invitation: Sylvie Guillem. London: Oberon. Galchen, Rivka. 2014. ‘An Unlikely Ballerina: The Rise of Misty Copeland’. New Yorker, 15 September. Accessed 8 November 2017. https://www.newyorker. com/magazine/2014/09/22/unlikely-ballerina. Giles, David. 2000. Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity. London: Macmillan. Glionna, John M. 1998. ‘Trapped in a Dispiriting Dance of Wills’. Los Angeles Times, 23 August. Accessed 1 September 2019. https://www.latimes.com/ archives/la-xpm-1998-aug-23-me-15815-story.html. Grey, Jonathan (Editor, The Dancing Times). 2017. Interview. 25 October. Hamilton, Nigel. 2008. How to Do Biography: A Primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Heathcote, Steven (Ballet Master, The Australian Ballet). 2017. Interview. 8 May. Hyde, Emily, and Sarah Wasserman. 2017. ‘The Contemporary’. Literature Compass 14 (9) (14 September): e12411. Accessed 24 November 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12411. Kavanagh, Julie. 2007. Rudolf Nureyev: The Life. London: Fig Tree. Kavanagh, Julie (Biographer). 2017. Interview. 16 December. Kourlas, Gia. 2007. ‘Where Are All the Black Swans?’ New York Times, 6 May. Accessed 26 September 2017. www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/arts/ dance/06kour.html. La Ferla, Ruth. 2015. ‘The Rise and Rise of Misty Copeland’. New York Times, 18 December. Accessed 28 September 2017. www.nyti.ms/1mcRBZ8. Macaulay, Alistair. 2015. ‘Review: Misty Copeland Debuts as Odette/Odile in “Swan Lake”’. New York Times, 25 June. Accessed 15 September 2016. www. nytimes.com/2015/06/26/arts/misty-copeland-debuts-as-odette-odile-inswan-lake.html. Mackrell, Judith (Dance critic, The Guardian). 2017. Interview. 23 October.

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Mainwaring, Madison. 2015. ‘The Death of the American Dance Critic’. Atlantic, 6 August. Accessed 15 September 2016. www.theatlantic.com/ entertainment/archive/2015/08/american-dance-critic/399908/. Metropolis. 2009. ‘Sacred Monsters: Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan Stage the Ultimate Clash of Dance Cultures’. Metropolis, November. Accessed 28 June 2017. https://metropolisjapan.com/sacred-monsters. Modjeska, Drusilla. 1999. Stravinsky’s Lunch. Sydney: Picador. Morse, Erik. 2015. ‘Misty Copeland: American Dancer’. Rolling Stone, 30 July. Accessed 2 September 2019. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/ culture-news/misty-copeland-american-dancer-37270/. Rojek, Chris. 2001. Celebrity. London: Reaktion. Spalding, Alistair (Artistic Director, Sadlers Wells Theatre). 2017. Interview. 24 October. #teamEbony. 2014. ‘Ballerina Misty Copeland Shares Her Rise’. Review of Life in Motion by Misty Copeland. Ebony, 6 March. Accessed 2 September 2019.  https://www.ebony.com/entertainment/breaking-books-ballerinamisty-copeland-shares-333/. Winship, Lyndsey. 2018. ‘Misty Copeland: The Trailblazing Ballerina Loved by Prince, Obama and Disney’. The Guardian, 7 November. Accessed 2 September 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/nov/07/ misty-copeland-interview-ballet-broken-disney-nutcracker-prince-obama. Worthen, John. 1995. ‘The Necessary Ignorance of a Biographer’. In The Art of Literary Biography, edited by John Batchelor, 227–44. Oxford: Clarendon.

Performances BBC World Service. 2015. HARDtalk: Ballet Dancer Sylvie Guillem. 30 December. Accessed 25 August 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ p03bbvbh. George, Nelson (Dir.). 2015. A Ballerina’s Tale. New York: Urban Romances. Ha Van Kern, Françoise. (Dir.). 2009. Sur le Fil. Lille: A Droit de la lune. Khan, Akram, and Sylvie Guillem (Dirs.). 2009. Sacred Monsters. London: Axiom. Wattis, Nigel (Dir.). 1993. Portrait. Halle: Arthaus Musik.

CHAPTER 9

Amend the Arena: On Adrian Piper’s Work Vered Engelhard

Artist, philosopher and yogi Adrian Piper has an irreducibly interdisciplinary trajectory. Currently she is a Brahmacharin in Yoga, practising in the dharma of the Advaita Vedanta; an analytic philosopher who, in her two-volume book Rationality and Structures of the Self presents a r­ eading of Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy with important consequences for philosophical studies on racism and xenophobia; and a first-­generation conceptual artist, awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. Piper’s multifaceted practice presents a unique challenge for writers on her work. As she has proven excellence in at least these three worlds, each under its own disciplinary standards, Piper’s activity as a whole has a remarkable sense of coherence that demands acute scrutiny. This chapter is concerned with a series of aesthetic, moral and spiritual commitments that shaped and were shaped by Piper’s artistic practice during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The frame around this discussion is the deep questioning around the presuppositions under which things are allowed to exist in discreet objecthood, a series of interrogations that occupied much of the New York Conceptual Art milieu at the time, of V. Engelhard (*)  Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_9

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which Piper is a part. Specifically at stake here are the conditions under which a performing subject is allowed to exist as an art object, and the underlying sociopolitical bias that these presuppositions reify. In the preparatory notes for the two-year project in question, The Mythic Being, the artist writes: I think what I must do at this point is to stop making art objects for a while and amend the arena in which such objects exist. In my own case that arena is my consciousness. I’ve been arguing for a long time that that arena or art context consisted in the particular kind of cultural consciousness of individuals. […] I was trying to develop my arena by becoming an object in it. I now want to become the arena itself; I want to be, for a while, a consciousness within which I view myself and other objects. (Piper 1996d, 100)

Here, when reading a description of ‘consciousness’ as the arena in which things come to exist, I recognise an affinity with a German idealist reading of art, partially because, for the New York conceptual artists at the time, Hegel’s aesthetics were a central reference. For Hegel, creation is seen as the ‘duplication’ of man’s consciousness (cf. Hegel 1975, 31). Yet in Piper’s version, it follows, in opposition to Hegel, that the general status of ‘consciousness’ as a place where objects exist is not a given or a priori. Consciousness is to be ‘amended’. The arena, qua consciousness, is given, in my reading of The Mythic Being, an empiricist arrangement. Under these lines we can think of such a project, in the words of Lisa Jones (2017), as ‘performance art or, [as] I like to call it, the right to self-discovery’. As an experiment in performance, The Mythic Being has a way of encouraging me, as a writer on her work, to consider the parameters of judgement of its representations to be the same ethical parameters with which we judge her life. And it is precisely this tendency that Piper often finds a problematic symptom around critics of her work. The particular set of interdisciplinary practices that the project signals to presents a deep problem for writers, as they are required—by Piper—to keep the art and the artist’s biography separate.1 Still, there is ‘something’ about the work that makes ‘most art critics approach my [Piper’s] work differently than they do the work of many other artists’ (Piper 2016). This chapter aims to explore the mechanics of such boundaries by giving a reading of three foundational works from the early 1970s as a sort of progression: Context #7 (1970), Untitled Performance for Max’s Kansas

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City (1970) and The Mythic Being (1973–1975). The discussion around these formative works reveals underlying difficulties of writing about Piper’s artwork with a philosophical perspective, without considering the autobiographical—usually considered ‘extra-’ philosophical—as being essential to the work’s content.

Context #7 and Untitled Performance for Max’s Kansas City In 1970, Piper participated in a conceptual art show titled Information, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), now considered a staple of the genre (Alberro 2004). Her contribution was Context #7, seven ring-binders and a pen inviting the viewer to participate; as the first page reads: ‘You (the viewer) are requested to write, draw, or otherwise indicate any response suggested by this situation’. In it, we read about the cockroaches crawling from Carl Andre’s Seven Books Red Correct up to Piper’s Context #7 (Binder #70008), as Andre himself writes the definition: ‘Art is what we do. Culture is what is done to us’. On the same page, Fluxus member Peter Frank sets out instructions for a piece for Adrian Piper, and others give their comments on the meaning of art, and the merging of art and life: ‘if you care for it, leave the museums’ (Binder #70008). Yet we also find a claim of justice for political prisoners asking to free the incarcerated Black Panthers, and for Bobby Seale’s trial for murder in New Haven, as it reads: ‘If we still do not get justice, in the small matters and in the large, we will level the earth on this motherfucking century! Power!!!’ (Binder #70008). Piper did not really respond to Frank as a fellow Fluxus artist would, with a different instruction or with an interpretation of the given one. Rather, she picks up the style of direct address from another anonymous writer, who addresses readers impersonally, presupposing that they are most likely to be white. This kind of direct address would characterise Piper’s work from a subsequent series, The Mythic Being. Her choices reveal a fidelity to interpersonal attempts at racial justice, such as the following note in one of the binders of Context #7: I love you. You might not believe me because I am Black and you’re probably White. But I love you—not because what you’ve done to me, or for me, or what you will do for me in the future, but because I LOVE YOU.

194  V. ENGELHARD Because I want to touch you, and feel that innermost part of you, and to achieve this, I must first tell you that I love you, then we must pull ourselves together, and start a new world. AMEN Brother Sister. (Binder #70008)

This statement hits right at an intersection between this and the other piece Piper worked on that same year, Untitled Performance for Max’s Kansas City, in which she displayed her body as an art object by appearing blindfolded, wearing gloves and earplugs, and remaining silent. Much to her surprise, people in Max’s Kansas City, a bar known for being frequented by prominent figures of the artworld, ‘an Art Environment, replete with Art Consciousness and Self-Consciousness about Art Consciousness’ (Piper 1996b, 27), as Piper describes it, behaved as if they were watching a performing subject, rather than a discrete object, as she said that she had ‘designed a piece for a bar[;] unbeknownst to me the bar had turned into a stage’ (2011, 135). As John Bowels described it, ‘Piper had accidentally demonstrated the impossibility of Minimalism’s hermeticism’ (2011, 137).2 Yet what such lack of hermeticism demonstrated was really a double standard. On multiple occasions, Piper claimed to have been ‘kicked out of the artworld for gender and race’ (Rifkin 1991). For instance, ‘art-world contacts’ who showed interest in Piper’s work via mail ‘disappeared’ from the artist’s life after meeting in person. This was due to the fact that Adrian was not a man but a woman of colour (Piper 1996f, 163, n. 9). These series of ‘incidents’, and particularly the event at Max’s Kansas City, raise several questions regarding the lingering historical bias in the identity of artworks, specifically, how and/or where artworks are supposed to make themselves visible. As Fred Moten writes: Adrian Piper might understand this as a parable about the interplay of visual pathology and racist categorization, but she also knows how hard it is—within a certain continuum of intensity, of aesthetic, political, even libidinal, saturation that black folks call everyday life—to look at what seems only to emerge as the occlusion of blackness, the deferral and destruction of another ensemble. In the face of such violent seizure, the temptation to return to an imagined primordiality is massive. (Moten 2003, 123)

In this paragraph Moten refers to the parabolic dualism, expressed by Amiri Baraka, between ‘being and blackness’ (Moten 2003, 123). While

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we think of being as the very heart of the ontological question, blackness exists, in this case, as fundamentally its challenge. ‘The problem of blackness’, Moten writes, ‘emerges only by way of an ontological questioning that might be the very essence of the tradition of the “same”’ (Moten 2003, 123). The tradition of the ‘same’ can be seen as marked, principally, by a particular historical consciousness affirming and affirmed by the ‘punitive and damaging effects’ (Piper 1996g, 305),3 as Piper puts it, of what Moten describes as ‘visual pathology and racist categorization’. The conflict seems to have been the participation within the ‘art consciousness’ while performing, at the same time, an affirmation of blackness. The very ‘art consciousness’ that identifies something as art is suspended in such a conflict, which reveals that the very criteria of identification of art is held by a racist consciousness, a gaze that identifies someone as Black.4 Artworks, assuming their identity from a self-proclaimed relation of difference to the everyday, are then, as Adorno writes, ‘derived concretely from its other’ (Adorno 2002, 3).5 From the perspective of critical race studies, one could add that, in constructing their identity, artworks also contribute to the demarcation of this other. This seemingly irresolvable struggle is one that demands acute scrutiny, especially when aiming for amendment. If the affirmative values of both the identity of difference of the artwork and the identity of sameness of blackness are to exist in one and the same form, their existence will always remain urgently inconclusive. Such urgency demands, in my reading, a paradoxical universality in order to literally craft a space for subjects whose self-sameness must necessarily be occluded in performing a claim to universal experience.6 In a certain sense, the form of direct address given by the anonymous writer in Context #7 is of interest because it could have concluded Piper’s two disparate works from 1970: the MoMA piece, which very easily passes as art; and the Max’s Kansas City one, which failed to do so. Such use of direct address establishes the particularity of the subjects involved as the very ‘site’ of the work. In the following work, The Mythic Being, the site is doubled, as the artist’s own particularity as a subject— or a strategic fictionalisation of it—also becomes a ‘site’ to be reckoned with. Addressing such intersubjectivity as the very grounds in which the work exists becomes a crucial device in Piper’s work. Such is the arena in which the work exists, which, assuming the uneven grounds laid out by the writer of that note on Context #7, has to be amended.

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The very stuff of the work, as I see it, is the aim of amending the arena itself. And the imperative, a contractual gesture that cuts through the fourth wall, becomes the binding force between the artwork and the observer, the art consciousness and the racist consciousness, our unjust reality and its moral amendment. By means of direct address, the imperative forces the observer into sharing a plane of reality with the speaking object. It implicates both agents in an aesthetic form that already comes into the scene as a moral challenge.

The Mythic Being The Mythic Being is a project that Piper developed from 1973 to 1975. Its undertaking marks a breaking point in her creative process, giving a unified form to her foremost explorations at the time: conceptual art, yoga praxis in following the dharma of the Advaita Vedanta, Kant’s rationalist philosophy, performance art and social justice.7 Piper has kept a personal journal since she was 14, choosing for this project a portion of the journal to read each week as a mantra (Piper 1996d, 112). As a point of departure, she would recite the mantra as The Mythic Being while attending public events like gallery openings, dance concerts, panels, museums, on the streets, etc. At the end of every week, she would publish a photograph of The Mythic Being with the mantra in a text bubble as an advertisement in the art segment of The Village Voice. This process would last 12 years, until reaching a mantra for every week of the journal (Piper 1996d, 108). The 12-year unfolding could not be completed, yet, as a near-three-year project, it proved itself quite malleable. Piper describes her ‘avatar’, as Uri McMillan has termed it, as follows8: ‘Short auburn wig, reflecting sunglasses, white turtleneck/shirt, black pants’ (Piper 1996d, 101). The Mythic Being would function as a persona that Piper regards as her ‘opposite in every conceivable respect. He and I are the complements’ (Storr 1996, xx). Such opposition would only begin to exist as such if we consider him against Piper’s inner ‘upper middle-class heterosexual WASP male, the pampered only son of doting parents’ (Piper 1996a, xx), a characterisation that she occasionally claimed for herself. Yet such ‘opposition’ was only an initial moment in the conception of the project that very quickly spilled out in myriad ways. As a presence in the streets, I would tend to read The Mythic Being as a straight Black man. When one hears his voice, however, it sounds like

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a woman’s.9 Yet in some mantras, he reads as a gay man. For instance: ‘I told him we were just platonic friends, so he said he’d never jump on me unless I jump on him first. Well. That’s alright. When I’m ready to jump on him, I will’. As well as: ‘Today was my first day of school. The only decent boys in my class are Robbie & Clyde. I think I like Clyde’ (Piper 1996d, 109). Piper herself writes about how her ‘attraction to women flows more freely’ and her ‘attraction to men is complicated and altered’ (Piper 1996d, 118), as she undertakes a close documentation of the changes of her gestures in public. While the exploration of the gender/sexuality spectrum was not a central aim in the project,10 Piper does end up performing a gender-fluid subject. She passes as a gay man on paper, feels as a butch lesbian inside, but ‘in reality’ is just a cis woman in drag. This fluidity is the product not of an intended difference but of an aimed repetition towards sameness, that reveals a layer to the practice that makes the nature of The Mythic Being’s political resistance even more complex.11 When The Mythic Being does yoga after reading Kant, he is embodying his own demonstration of the existence of an ‘other’ in Kant,12 who is never given the status of a ‘concept’, yet whose acknowledgement is nevertheless essential for self-consciousness. In his performing of yogic rituals, he could be regarded as a simulacrum of Piper’s Ishvara. Ishvara, for the Advaita Vedanta is a god of choice, the god one identifies with the most, an entity through which one channels one’s practice as a threshold for eventual transcendence. Piper’s Ishvara at the time was Shiva, ‘the destroyer and transformer’, broadly regarded as the goddess of creation (Piper, n.d.). As a symbol, The Mythic Being’s existence is rather political, making viewers aware of racial and gender bias within culture by forcing them to recognise their own; it imparts viewers with a rhetorical representation of identity, catalysing a process of self-reflection.13 As an act, he is the unfolding of an epistemological hypothesis, constituting a radical widening of Adrian Piper’s own conception of her identity. Identity, as an empirical fiction, is suspended in a public political statement, and throughout this whole process, the myth, as it gains agency and autonomy, is only enriched and its possibilities and therefore realities only expand. What remains after The Mythic Being is the performance of an epistemological hypothesis, one that likely had everlasting methodological consequences in Piper’s practice as a whole.

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In her series of drawings of photographs, The Mythic Being: A108, the Being is focused on a typewriter and smoking a cigarette, citing a fragment of the Transcendental Deduction, a section of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, with ‘version A’ in the title referring to the first edition of the Critique, published with both of Kant’s original editions, denoted A and B.14 It reads: ‘The original and necessary consciousness of the identity of the self … According to concepts, i.e. according to rules, which not only make them necessarily reproducible, but also in doing so determine an object for their intuition, is thus at the same time … A consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the synthesis of all appearances … i.e. the concept of something wherein they are necessarily interconnected’. The choice of this fragment over all others in Kant’s first Critique— which Piper had been reading quite carefully for several years—is of especial interest. It expresses a sort of redoubling in the movement of consciousness, where, in order to recognise itself as a ‘self’ according to its own structural principles, which already determine the ‘objects’ it perceives, it must also recognise itself as constituted by these very objects. In my reading the emphasis is in the double bind of the self, which knows itself as made of every perceptible ‘other’, but which at the same time conditions its own perception of the ‘other’. This is the phenomenon that this series of drawings seem to highlight. Reading The Mythic Being ‘thinking out loud’ to the spectator as he types down this paragraph at home, which he is citing directly from Kant, becomes a strangely intimate moment. He tells us that we are interconnected, that our presence to each other has the power to affect our own self-conceptions. The first drawing begins with this distance; we see the back of The Mythic Being facing the typewriter on his desk, writing about ‘the original and necessary consciousness of the identity of the self’. As I keep reading, my point of view rotates towards the left, getting more and more of his profile as we read on, moving closer to eye contact. In the last image he is looking at me, sunglasses on, cigarette in mouth, ‘i.e. the concept of something wherein they are necessarily interconnected’. Necessarily interconnected, but never in eye contact. The Mythic Being’s sunglasses deflect our vision away from itself, and into the complexity of its frame of existence. The repetition of Piper’s diary in mantras, the images of The Mythic Being reciting mantras in The Village Voice, photographs of The Mythic Being doing yoga, drawn-on photographs of him reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, among other reproduced

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material, create a complex relationship between The Mythic Being and Adrian Piper, one that is facilitated by its public condition as an ‘artwork’. The Mythic Being, by positioning itself in the gallery section of The Village Voice and going specifically to ‘art events’ like screenings and openings is unfolding in a specific realm of signification, where he can be identified as an artwork but not quite a ‘performance’. Curiously, during an occasion that Piper was invited to ‘perform’— rather than ‘show’—at an art space during the two-year unfolding of The Mythic Being, she decided to go as herself and read about her experience with the project, in order to get feedback. This happened on 26 April 1974, the final evening of the ‘performance art’ show at Artists Space, Persona.15 In the programme, Piper’s piece figures as an ‘…Ongoing Autobiography…’, which probably refers to her Ongoing Autobiography as an Art Object, a piece first published in 1974, listing the instances in which she feels like she was performing an object, deliberately and undeliberately (Piper 1996c). Yet the Artists Space archives hold a different text, dated March 1974 and titled Notes on ‘The Mythic Being’. Instead of performing The Mythic Being, Piper decided to read a text in which she described the ‘piece’ as altogether ‘an unrealized but possible product,’ ‘an abstract entity of mythic proportions,’ ‘a nonmaterial art object’, ‘a product of my own self-consciousness’ and ‘a therapeutic device for freeing me of the burden of my past’. These statements point towards The Mythic Being’s status as less an artwork than a life project. The mysterious set of drawings has a way of being completely transparent. Using this specific text by Kant as a readymade text, the artist reveals that, as far as the artwork goes, she finds Kant’s conception of the perceptual phenomenon in general more relevant than his model for the judgement of the beautiful. The latter, epitomised in his third Critique, which is often considered a most influential text for the field of art criticism, is rendered no longer relevant for the conceptual artist. By leveling the art object with other objects in the plane of the real, the parameters for judgement of this object become one and the same with those for judging both objects and subjects in our everyday. The Mythic Being is using its aesthetic condition as a tool for an original folding of Kant’s epistemology into itself, so that for ‘moral theory’ to remain, the ‘aesthetic theory’ has to go. What would be the difference, here, between being a writer on a contemporary artist and being a writer on contemporary art?

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Say It like You Mean It It is significant that an in-depth discussion of Piper’s artwork tends to refer to an ethical—rather than aesthetic—field. This is perhaps why Fred Moten highlights her ‘interest’ in ‘a theatricality that reconstitutes and redoubles the realm of ethics’ (Moten 2003, 234). In such a ‘redoubling’ and ‘reconstitution’, The Mythic Being exists as both an artwork as an object of Piper’s making, and an experience in Piper’s life as a subject. In this way, the ‘art object’ returns to its condition as tool (technē) for ‘amending the arena’ that is the artist’s consciousness. What remains of the art object is the power bestowed to it by the ‘art consciousness’, a power that allows it to perform—and thus actualise—a reconstitution of ethics. For writers on Piper’s art, this gesture demands acute finesse, as the line between a formal analysis and an ethical one gets increasingly blurry. The Mythic Being presents a particular set of possibilities for what Kant coins as the ‘free play of the cognitive powers’ (Kant 1965, 72). Kant’s categorical moral imperatives, allegedly derived from abstract universals, would, in Piper’s artwork, become a direct address to the viewer.16 The political effectiveness17 of the imperatives is due to the fact that the work keeps the confrontational quality of the Kantian moral imperative, but complicates its content away from simple universality into a quantitative ambiguity. This means that, while the address takes the form of the imperative, its content passes from being singular, to personal, to the universal. In Say It Like You Mean It, a photograph intervened with oil crayon, The Mythic Being faces us saying, ‘Say it like you mean it, baby cakes’ (see Fig. 10.1). We are asked to mean what we say18 while also being playfully gestured to and uncomfortably seduced. The imperative ‘say it like you mean it’ is framed by the artwork, which engages the viewer as a sexualised subject—‘baby cakes’—involved in a power play. In this way, the moral imperative to mean what we say, in being framed by an art object, gives the object, in turn, a different kind of performativity, one that is rather theatrical when contrasted with the dryness of philosophical discourse. Yet it is not a performance. It is important for the work to be thought of as a ‘nonmaterial art object’ rather than a performance, for it is a way of protecting the distance between Piper and her device, which is first conceived of, and perceived of, as a visual signifier. The glasses and the wig are the original distinguishing signifiers between Piper and the Being in the ‘indexical

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present’. We never get to look at The Mythic Being in the eyes, a feature that concretises this distance between us and the work, which exists as a myth more than a subject. The constant recurrence of such a state of nonmaterial objecthood points to the work’s status as a redoubled critique of two interconnected regimes of visuality, that of the ‘art consciousness’ and that of the ‘racist consciousness’. By activating tensions in the regime of the visual, the work questions the interconnectedness between the criteria of identification of ‘art’ and those of ‘race’, demanding from writers on art a firm positioning in critical race discourse. The limit that distinguishes the frameworks of judgement of art and of life is blurred, and, consequently, the distinction between writing about a contemporary artist and writing about contemporary art tends towards collapse.

Notes







1.  ‘Why is it necessary to state these self-evident principles explicitly?— Because most (not all) art criticism that purports to address my artwork violates (1) and (2), and ignores (3). In these respects, the art critical treatment of my work is different from the art critical treatment of most other artists I know’. Where (1) is ‘Make sure you get the facts right’, (2) is ‘Do not instrumentalize the artwork as a psychological artifact for making inferences about the artist’s mental states’, and (3) is ‘Interpret and analyze the artwork, not the artist’ (Piper 2016). 2. The previous statement by Piper, said in an interview, is cited on the same page. 3. ‘What joins me to other blacks, then, and other blacks to one another, is not a set of shared physical characteristics, for there is none that all blacks share. Rather, it is the shared experience of being visually or cognitively identified as black by a white racist society, and the punitive and damaging effects of that identification’ (Piper 1996e, 305). 4. This is present too, in Darby English’s last work, where in order to craft a theoretical space for Black artists working on painterly abstraction during the 1970s, he constructs the parabolic notion of ‘artifactual color’, to refer to ‘a sense of color generated in the tension between color’s racial connotations and its aesthetic meanings’ (2017, 9). 5. ‘Art can be understood only by its laws of movement, not according to any set of invariants. It is defined by its relation to what it is not. The specifically artistic in art must be derived concretely from its other; that alone would fulfill the demands of a materialistic-dialectical aesthetics’ (Adorno 2002, 3).

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6. Gayatri Spivak speaks about the necessary performance that must sustain any claim to truth in a reparative or postcolonial reading: ‘My attempt to read the anthropological moment in Kant is consonant with Paul de Man’s version of deconstruction as well. Especially in his analysis of Rousseau, de Man has shown how the discovery that something that claims to be true as a mere trope is the first (tropological) step in what de Man called deconstruction. The second (performative) step is to disclose how the corrective impulse within the tropological analysis is obliged to act out a lie in attempting to establish it as the corrected version of truth’ (Spivak 1999, 18). 7. ‘In the spring of 1970’, Adrian Piper writes, ‘a number of events occurred that changed everything for me: (1) the invasion of Cambodia; (2) The Women’s Movement; (3) Kent State and Jackson State; (4) The closing of CCNY, where I was in my first term as a philosophy major, during a student rebellion’. She describes this as the time when she began to think about her ‘position as an artist, a woman, and a black’ (Piper 1996c, 31). 8. Here I am following Uri McMillan’s reading of The Mythic Being ‘as an endpoint rather than a beginning’, since it began as ‘a bodily and psychological experiment in transcending the boundaries between subjecthood and objecthood to become an art object’ (McMillan 2015, 101). 9. This is true, at least, in Peter Kennedy’s documentation. 10. ‘I began by dressing in the guise of the Mythic Being and appearing publicly several times during the month (reascription of my thoughts and history, sentence by sentence, to a masculine version of myself; myself in drag). I not consider shelving this aspect of the piece for fear that the Mythic Being will gradually acquire a personal autobiography of experiences and feelings as particular and localized—and limited—as my own. This was the misfortune of Rrose Selavy’ (Piper 1996e, 117). 11. ‘This is “Dispersion” – of self, objecthood, identity, individuality. Dispersed identity → persona self → diary individuation → uniqueness thinghood → discreetness’ (Piper 1996d, 107). 12. ‘On Kant’s account, we identify others as persons on the basis of our own self-identification as persons; and Kant insists that the only self to which we have epistemic access is empirical’ (Piper 1992–1993, 190). 13.  As Piper writes: ‘The work is a catalytic agent, in that it promotes a change in another entity (the viewer) without undergoing any permanent change itself. The value of the work may then be measured in terms of the strength of the change, rather than whether the change accords positively or negatively with some aesthetic standard. In this sense, the work

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as such is nonexistent except when it functions as a medium of change between the artist and the viewer’ (Piper 1996c, 32–33). 14.  In her recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 2018, Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965–2016, the copy she was using at the time, the 1965 re-publication of Norman Kemp’s Smith 1929 English translation, was on display. 15. It was a four-evening show with the participation of Jennifer Bartlett, Eleanor Antin, Nancy Kitchell, Peter Hutchinson, Alan Sonheim and Kathy Acker. Laurie Anderson, Scott Burton, Roger Welch, and Dennis Oppenheim and Jack Smith showed in the same evening as Piper. 16.  In a certain way this makes her symptomatic of the phenomenon described by Gayatri Spivak of postcolonial and feminist discourse’s appropriation of ‘the axiomatics of imperialism’ (Spivak 1999, 139). 17. By ‘political effectiveness’, I am referring here to the clarity with which the piece expresses its intention. Piper’s work, unlike most ‘political’ artworks, does not thrive on ambiguity. Rather, it seeks to deliver its mission as clearly as possible, or, as Piper would put it, ‘to help people confront their racist views’ (Berger 1990). 18. ‘I WILL ALWAYS MEAN WHAT I SAY’ (Piper 2013).

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor. 2002. Aesthetic Theory. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor, edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. London: Continuum. Alberro, Alexander. 2004. Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Berger, Maurice. 1990. ‘The Critique of Pure Racism: An Interview with Adrian Piper’. Afterimage 18, no. 3: 5–9. Bowels, John P. 2011. Adrian Piper: Race, Gender, and Embodiment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. English, Darby. 2017. 1971: A Year in the Life of Color. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hegel, G. W. F. 1975. Lectures on Aesthetics, vol. 1. Translated by T. M. Knox. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, Lisa. 2017. We Wanted A Revolution. Symposium at Brooklyn Museum, New York City, 21 April 2017. Kant, Immanuel. 1965. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. New York: St. Martin’s Press. McMillan, Uri. 2015. Embodied Avatars: Genealogies on Black Feminist Art and Performance. New York: New York University Press. Moten, Fred. 2003. In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

204  V. ENGELHARD Piper, Adrian. 1992–1993. ‘Xenophobia and Kantian Rationalism’. Philosophical Forum 24, nos. 1–3 (Fall–Spring): 188–232. Available at http://www.adrianpiper.com/docs/WebsiteXen&KantRat(1991).pdf. Piper, Adrian. 1996a. ‘Some very FORWARD Remarks’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, xxix–xxxx. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996b. ‘Untitled Performance for Max’s Kansas City’ (1970, written up in 1981). In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 27. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996c. ‘Talking to Myself: The Ongoing Autobiography of an Art Object (1970–1973)’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 29–53. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996d. ‘Preparatory Notes for the Mythic Being I–III (1973– 1974)’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 91–116. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996e. ‘Notes on the Mythic Being I–III (1973–1974)’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 117– 40. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996f. ‘The Triple Negation of Colored Women Artists (1990)’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume II: Selected Essays in Art Criticism 1967– 1992, 161–74. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 1996g. ‘Passing for White, Passing for Black’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Writings in Meta-Art 1968–1992, 275–308. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Piper, Adrian. 2013. ‘The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3’. http://www.adrianpiper.com/art/The_Probable_Trust_Registry.shtml. Accessed 13 August 2019. Piper, Adrian. 2016. ‘Art Criticism Essay Suggested Guidelines’. http://www. adrianpiper.com/docs/Piper2016ArtCriticismSuggestedGuidelines.pdf. Accessed 13 August 2019. Piper, Adrian. n.d. ‘Saraswati’. Accessed 13 August 2019. http://www.adrianpiper.com/yoga/saraswati.html. Rifkin, Ned. 1991. Directions: Adrian Piper: What It’s Like, What It Is #2. Washington, DC: Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture and Garden. Rodenbeck, Judith. 2011. Radical Prototypes: Allan Kaprow and the Invention of Happenings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Storr, Robert. 1996. ‘Foreword’. In Out of Order, Out of Sight, Volume I: Selected Essays in Meta-Art 1968–1992, edited by Adrian Piper, xv–xxvi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

CHAPTER 10

Writing About Contemporary Composers: Memory and Irony in The Apollonian Clockwork Joel M. Baldwin

Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger’s The Apollonian Clockwork (1983)1 is a monograph on Stravinsky with a distinctly unusual structure and style compared to other volumes on the composer. Richard Taruskin describes it as ‘the one book about Stravinsky [that] Stravinsky would have liked’ (quoted in Schönberger 2019). However, it is far from a hagiographical text; in fact, it generally steers clear of admiration altogether unless (somewhat backhandedly) highlighting the c­omposer’s idiosyncrasies—his weaknesses presented as his strengths—as if his unique voice were only the result of unique personality disorders. In this essay, I shall explore the reasons why its authors adopt such a playful tone throughout and what this reveals about the focus of my own research: the book’s co-writer, Louis Andriessen. Can we demythologise contemporary composers with this kind of rhetorical approach, and in

J. M. Baldwin (*)  Faculty of Music, St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_10

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turn discourage the perpetuation of personality cults through paeans of praise, and instead offer a more truthful (‘down to earth’) sense of an artist’s oeuvre through the nuance and abstraction of language? Or does this simply muddy the waters and leave us in the shallows of musicological research? Is Taruskin’s description of The Acpollonian Clockwork a stamp of approval or an ironic statement? Do Andriessen’s and Schönberger’s words on Stravinsky reveal important and unique insights into the composer’s life and works, or are they simply playing a superficial rhetorical game: a contribution to scholarship by composers, rather than writers, who have mastered the art of teasing listeners and delaying gratification to the point of disappointment, leaving us without any real scholarly substance? As a composer writing words, perhaps Andriessen is more interested in setting a tone of language that reveals his own ideas and, in turn, reinventing Stravinsky in his own image. Stravinsky is often considered to be a god-like figure of artistic innovation in the twentieth century, with the anecdote of the riots at the premiere of The Rite of Spring told as often as any other myth championing new and experimental voices rising from the ashes of old and tired formats. Boosey and Hawkes, Stravinsky’s publisher, writes: ‘Igor Stravinsky is widely regarded as the most original and influential composer of the 20th century’ (2019), and similar descriptions abound elsewhere online and in biographical articles. Classic FM, for example, mentions his revered status and the aforementioned anecdote in the same breath, describing Stravinsky as ‘a Russian composer who revolutionised 20th-century music, and provoked riots with The Rite of Spring’ (2019). This story in particular is usually relayed in order to put Stravinsky back up on the proverbial pedestal. It has become a cliché, an ironic anecdote highlighting how easy it is for something so out of the ordinary to become all too familiar, and proof enough that a more nuanced approach to writing about contemporary music and its icons is required. Composer George Benjamin writes in The Guardian newspaper (2013) as follows: ‘Initial performances—even Stravinsky’s own—of this immensely complex score were often on the edge of collapse, but the piece is now part of the international orchestral repertoire and the greatest risk it faces today, paradoxically, is routine renditions which make a work which should shock seem safe and easy.’ It seems that many are willing to accept the narrative that such great works of art are destined for considerable opposition at their premiere as well as notable complacency once subsumed into a canon. However, the

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narrative approach that Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger take to Stravinsky’s life and works does not accept such self-defeating prophecies and hence serves as a useful case study to anyone interested in writing about someone to whom they may be too close, at least chronologically speaking and in terms of their own discipline (in this instance, composition and musicology). The particular journey that Andriessen and Schönberger take is decidedly off the beaten track. Of course, their monograph gives due attention to Stravinsky’s most popular works, but it also meanders through lesser known musical territory with the aid of the writers’ unique approach to music analysis and the unashamedly personal nature of their thoughts and experiences relating to Stravinsky. However, every anecdote serves a particular purpose and each short essay reveals something unique yet connected about the character of both Stravinsky and his music, their shape often resembling a Stravinskyian musical miniature that quickly sets the scene, reinvents its material a few times, then ends sooner than expected. But Jonathan Cross assures us that this monograph is ‘undoubtedly a serious work of musicology’—a quest for the ‘real’ Stravinsky through revelatory montage as opposed to ‘chronological exegesis, thorough analysis and meticulous footnoting’. Although he nonetheless suggests that ‘we never really find [Stravinsky]’, he holds that it is a more accurate portrayal of the composer than that of texts that ‘pretend (and inevitably fail) to be objective’ (Cross in preface to Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, vi). It is worth noting that Andriessen uses the same word as Cross in an opening note to his own Symphonies of the Netherlands, reassuring us that this piece for wind band—which Andriessen has ‘half-jokingly [referred] to as De Staat for the “working-class”’ (quoted in Everett 2006, 72–73)—is indeed ‘serious’ (Programme note to Andriessen 1989). I wonder whether Cross intended to highlight that The Apollonian Clockwork is ‘serious’ in the same, somewhat ironic, sense of the word used by Andriessen: meaningful, yet not without a significant amount of playfulness, and certainly not aspiring to unattainable goals of perfection and objectivity, or even groundbreaking originality. If serious conclusions are to be found in this monograph, they are likely only to be implied so as not to destroy any ironic effect; anything of importance is usually presented in a comic frame with a double meaning. This ever-present irony does not make the text less important, but it certainly makes it more open-ended, perhaps in order to leave room for further opinion, scholarship and discussion.

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Interestingly, this style of rhetoric and deep-seated belief in discovering meaning and structure through playful experimentation is a major connecting factor between Stravinsky and Andriessen, as is the idea that partiality may say more than neutrality. I refer to the approaching of a subject from a particular angle in order to uncover truths that would otherwise become lost in an attempt at total overarching objectivity. The personalities of both composer-authors are coloured by their strong opinions about what is stylistically, philosophically or politically appropriate. Andriessen and Schönberger confidently apply these opinions to make value judgements about Stravinsky’s work. Admittedly, there is nothing unusual about this kind of self-confidence in artists and writers, but a subjectivity like this that borders on bias stands out against much current musicological and music-biographical writing. Andriessen’s voice, both musically and in writing, reflects Stravinsky’s view that all music is about other music—that a piece cannot stand alone, separated from its cultural and historical contexts—or, as the authors write, there is ‘a mentality precipitated in music that points to other music (and makes that pointing into a subject), without ever leaving a moment’s doubt as to who the maker is’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, xii). Andriessen’s large-scale music theatre works such as De Materie (1984–1988), La Commedia (2004–2008) and Theatre of the World (2013–2015), for example, clearly demonstrate this intertextual attitude. Stravinsky also expresses this attitude by his tendency towards stylistic appropriation, whether through jazz parody, classical tropes or serial ‘seriousness’. They are both Platonists in the sense that their dialogues often appear to be, as María Martínez-Alfaro writes, ‘meandering and inconclusive discussions lacking overall unity’ with a ‘digressive and playful tone’, resulting in an ambivalence that is ‘sometimes sympathetic or affectionate, sometimes ironic or even savagely satirical’ (1996, 269). Is this kind of playfully subjective attitude appropriate within serious scholarly writing, and is it really acceptable to embrace such strong biases when we write about our subjects? In many ways this topic has already been addressed by various writers and musicologists in recent years,2 yet the degree of dialectical nuance employed by Andriessen and Schönberger here in relation to their subject is markedly forceful and rarely replicated in musicological texts on contemporary artists. Surely this style of writing and method of presenting bio-musical information can be of use to other writers if it really is as successful as Taruskin and Cross assure us it is. Perhaps this approach is uniquely

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revelatory—because it is more honest about the limitations that writers have with contemporary artists in general—and by incorporating a greater degree of subjectivity, irony and even wit when writing about our subjects, it may even result in a kind of open-ended work that illuminates the output of the subject in question. Scholarship on contemporary artists should, of course, be no less rigorous than any other research; the same standards of scholarly discipline and establishment of facts should always apply. However, I propose that an alternative ‘depth of field’ could be considered for incorporation when writing about contemporary artists. Filtered and carefully focused images with nuanced angles can present a kind of clarity that is often lost in hyper-realistic representations of a subject. Our understanding of music and composition should often be in the abstract because, as in mathematics, when we ‘think abstractly … many philosophical difficulties simply disappear’ (Gowers 2002, vi). And since it is potentially even harder to remove subjectivity and bias without the benefit of considerable hindsight, I am suggesting that it may be more appropriate in certain circumstances to adopt this playful and ironic tone than to present something that continually attempts to find and present hard-and-fast conclusions through ‘factual’ data and ‘thorough’ analysis. Adopting the subject’s own rhetoric and tone (of their music, art or writing) could communicate more effectively the more ordinary elements of their life and works as much as the aesthetic ones. When considered in this light, the writers of The Apollonian Clockwork are indeed serious musicological ‘players’. They are clearly aware of the importance of ‘play’ in writing about art as much as the play element within the art itself, and, as Dutch writers and artists, they are implicitly invoking the spirit of their compatriot Johan Huizinga3 in this monograph. In Temptation in the Archives, Lisa Jardine explains how Huizinga’s particularly ‘innovative’ approach to cultural history in his ‘often cited (but rather less often read) work, Homo Ludens (first published in Dutch in 1938, first English translation 1949, first generally available edition 1955) … continues to exert significant current influence’ (2015, 84–85). Huizinga’s ‘study of the play-element in culture’ argues that ‘play is essentially not a serious activity’, leading many scholars to discuss the meaning of the word ‘serious’ in this context, as Huizinga is ‘notoriously elusive on this point’, writes Hector Rodriguez (2006). Huzinga’s voice seems to live on through the likes of Andriessen, Schönberger and Dutch culture in general, which has arguably absorbed the ‘serious-play’ paradox to a greater extent than most.

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The Apollonian Clockwork The opening section of The Apollonian Clockwork makes it clear that the authors’ aesthetic preferences are ‘more orientated towards the modernism of Stravinsky, Varèse, and improvised music than towards Schoenberg and Boulez’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 6). The fact that Schoenberg and Boulez are perceived by these Dutch writers and their contemporaries as not progressive enough and too rigid in their approach may have more to do with political bias than aesthetic preference, but such opinions clearly influenced the political landscape of new music at the time. They describe how hearing Chanson russe eight times over, and the ‘four pianos in the definitive version of Les Noces’, as well as Maarten Bon’s four piano (re)arrangement of The Rite of Spring, and other Stravinsky-inspired works performed in Amsterdam in 1981, together create a sense of the mechanical, yet poetic, modernism of true ‘Stravinskyism’. This sense of poetic fluidity—often expressed quite conventionally through carefully considered harmonies, linear thematic development and gently evolving densities and dynamics—alongside mechanical process is something that unites Stravinsky’s work from different periods and is widely acknowledged to be synonymous with the artist’s musical voice.4 Interestingly, the book’s authors do not feel the need to justify any aversion expressed here towards serial or post-serial music and the piano cluster that was deemed ‘so old-fashioned’ by an audience at the same concert mentioned above. Instead, they simply take a proud stance in favour of Stravinskyism—a biased position for the sake of the argument—to provoke and to persuade. It should be noted that, in 1958, Andriessen became one of the first Dutch composers to embrace the twelve-tone system when he presented his completely serial work, Séries (Andriessen and Trochimczyk 2002, 34). In many ways, he continues to employ serial ideas and techniques to this day, despite his reputation as a tonal minimalist composer, which is a rather inaccurate description for someone so eclectic. Of course, Stravinsky is also not known for being a serial composer, even though in the 1950s he, to a certain extent, picked up Schoenberg’s twelve-tone baton. This exemplifies the provocative nature of these artists—they seem unwilling to be pigeon-holed by bio-musical writers keen to assign labels neatly—and may reveal why they themselves rarely define aesthetic terms clearly.

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Memory Memory—a subject that crops up repeatedly in The Apollonian Clockwork—is closely linked to the previously mentioned ideas of partiality, rhetorical tone and the abstraction of language, and is acknowledged early on in the book in order to prepare the reader for, and perhaps justify, its fragmented (memorial) nature. It is generally accepted that the ‘quasi-narrative structure’ of memory means that one can merely ‘construct a representation—a shadow, an image of that experience which stands for the experience’ (Shields 2009, 34)—and cannot hope to offer anything more than a unique perspective, a reality blended with a revealing kind of truthful fiction. We feel these postmodern overtones from the outset of The Apollonian Clockwork, but this connection between memory and truth in art (and, one assumes, in writing) is suddenly elucidated in the section entitled ‘Ars Imitatio Artis’. Here the authors are highly critical of composers who strive to remove all traces of memory or historical references and associations—those who try in vain to ‘neutralize the music that has made their own music possible and thereby make that other music anonymous’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 17). At once the reader is forced into a mindset that accepts quasi-narrative structures and memory-like streams of thought. We are encouraged to adopt this position in order to understand not only the fragmentary nature of the text, but the fragmented landscape of associations one finds themselves in when exploring the world of Stravinsky and his music. Andriessen’s artistic voice is echoed here too. David Shields writes: ‘Human memory, driven by emotional self-interest, goes to extraordinary lengths to provide evidence to back up whatever understanding of the world we have our hearts set on— however removed that may be from reality’. He explains that the ‘nonfiction writer who works to revive a lost scene adds one similar story to the collection of stories that ever existed for that moment’ (Shields 2009, 36). Of course, a writer by definition can only portray a blurred or partial vision of reality. The same can be said of musical perception and musical memory. As a result, any music analysis will be ‘wrong’ to a certain extent. It is easy to find B-A-C-H quotations in the fugue from the Symphony of Psalms, as Andriessen and Schönberger show, but it is much more difficult to convey the variety of personal experiences possible when hearing this fugue for the first time, and those that the

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composer intended to be experienced. For them, the ‘eighty-three bars of counterpoint’ that follow the opening fugue theme feel like a ‘footnote’ to the opening bars: a quasi-improvisatory, yet serialised (in the sense of the word intended by Milton Babbitt), highly ornamented structure that derives its meaning from the detail as opposed to its form; an ‘additive construction’ in which register is ‘crucial’ but tonality is not (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 36–38). By stating their clearly personal and deep understanding of the work with this unusually subjective attitude towards its structure and development, they are encouraging the reader to discover the work for themselves and attach their own memories, thoughts and associations to it. The rhetoric entices the reader into Stravinsky’s possible mindset as the piece was being conceived, the crude music analysis highlighting the kind of primitive beginnings of an idea with which composers so often begin. This device brings the focus back to the music without undue reverence for the composer. The discussion is at once opened up—the Platonic groundwork is laid—and the reader can construct their own opinion now that one point of view in relation to an existing work has been set forth. The theme of memory returns again in the section entitled ‘Ordeals of Memory’. At first the reader could be led to believe that this chapter is an exploration of the reasons why Stravinsky’s music may or may not be difficult to recall: how unmemorable it may be at times, yet how familiar it seems at other times, depending on the way its constituent parts fit together and can be deconstructed by our long- and short-term memories. On the surface, that is indeed what is being expressed: how Stravinskyian repetition can make the initial idea less memorable, while strange and elusive melodies somehow get firmly lodged in the mind. However, by now, the reader is aware of a subversive irony in anything that appears at first to be so serious, and paradoxical phrases such as ‘what is most difficult to remember is what is “almost easy to remember”’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 40) lead the reader into a labyrinth where one no longer really knows what kind of memory is being referred to or how it is being defined. Is it the simple recalling of melodies long after the performance has ended? Is it the ‘sensory-motor memory’ of performers to recall the music’s physical timing and placement? Or is it the memories of other musical ‘styles’ and ‘mannerisms’ within the music itself? The emphasis seems to be on the latter—the more poetic idea of ‘music with a rich memory’—yet the following sentence, ‘[it] is strange though, that music that remembers so much hardly

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remembers itself’, suddenly puts Stravinsky’s own ‘childlike’, ‘shortterm’, ‘additive’ memory in the spotlight. However, just as the authors acknowledge Adorno’s critique of Stravinsky’s ‘Infantilismus’,5 they also acknowledge the complexity of the labyrinthine paths Stravinsky often takes and forces the listener to take as well (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 41–42). These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, since various types of memory need to be considered at once in order to understand anything about the conceptual framework of memory. This dialectical approach—and the teasing style of saying things without saying things6—is the most important aspect of The Apollonian Clockwork’s rhetoric: a kind of irony that is present in so much of Andriessen’s thought processes, which is why the concept and the composer must be explored together. I can only assume that Schönberger views irony in a similar way to Andriessen, but as the one who has expressed his interest in the concept so regularly in interviews and in writing, I think it is justified to draw conclusions here based on what we know of Andriessen’s ideas of irony.

Irony Irony is a notoriously difficult term to define. D. C. Muecke states: ‘Only that which has no history can be defined’ (Nietzsche). For this and other reasons the concept of irony is vague, unstable and multiform. The word ‘irony’ does not now mean only what it meant in earlier centuries, it does not mean in one country all it may mean in another, nor in the street what it may mean in the study, nor to one scholar what it may mean to another. (1982, 7)

For Andriessen, in both music and language, irony often appears to be a kind of comic-dramatic device that makes a way for two conflicting ideas to create a new, more malleable idea—a way of connecting themes by exposing their disconnectedness. For him, this relatively simple understanding of irony is at the heart of his music theatre piece La Commedia, which, according to his interview with David Allenby, is less concerned with the ‘religious aspect’ of the Commedia than with ‘Dante’s comic vehicle’ for ‘an overall social, political and essentially humanist framework’ (2008). He further explains that the ‘dialectic manner’ in which he ‘plays off’ the ‘comic and serious sides to this irony’ is the most

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important dramatic device of the opera. Andriessen’s definition of irony in this context, which he goes on to clarify as ‘a satirical view of heaven and hell in our everyday life’, seems to have much in common with the intertextual nature of Dante’s epic. At the heart of this irony is a deeper sense of interconnectedness of culture, the past and ‘the text’. This is perhaps the clearest definition and purpose for irony that we have from the composer and, therefore, it must be in this light that we explore irony within The Apollonian Clockwork. The most intriguing way this kind of irony permeates The Apollonian Clockwork is through the subtly subversive music examples scattered throughout, and the way in which they often reveal little about Stravinsky’s music until you realise that they were not there to ‘reveal’ anything ‘musical’ in the first place. After all, how could a few bars of notation contain enough information to explain its contextual value or structural function in the music with a composer like Stravinsky who so often preferred stark montaged contrasts over blended developmental uniformity? Perhaps the authors have found the most important fragment at the heart of the music, or perhaps such music examples are simply musical truisms, supplied to highlight the obvious so that we are drawn into the grey area of poetic musical meaning. In the short chapter entitled ‘Zoonology’, in one fell swoop, a small notated music example of a pigeon cooing (see Fig. 10.1) seems to undermine the very way that music examples are used to compare a composer’s apparent naturalistic voice with their natural surroundings (which may or may not have influenced their writing of the music). Of course, one can draw parallels quite easily between the shapes and sounds of nature and the shapes and sounds of a composer’s music, because they are just that: shapes and sounds (for instance, additive rhythms, like birdsongs, are all around us). But what is interesting is not any close resemblance to nature (‘sonic correlation’), for this could simply be chance. What is noteworthy is whether these sounds were chosen for a poetic purpose or ‘composed

Fig. 10.1  Ironic music example of a pigeon cooing (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 52)

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in’ subliminally, and whether they develop into something greater or are simply ‘randomly cut out of a continuum’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 52–53). Is it futile to use music examples when writing about a composer such as Stravinsky? Just when the reader might think that this question has been answered, the chapter that follows, ‘1947–Orpheus’, seems to suggest that musicology without music examples is equally problematic, and proceeds to reveal a great deal about Stravinsky’s harmonic syntax (or lack of it) through 13 music examples that together may say as much as a relatively thorough written analysis could about the composer’s pandiatonic language. One begins to realise that the fractured and teasing nature of this book is itself a metaphor for Stravinsky’s musical language, which can only be appreciated through extended exposure to it. In this sense, the book is a performance and engaging with it becomes performative too. Just as the authors present two contrasting images of the ‘neoclassical’ Stravinsky in the chapter on Poétique musicale, so too do they tend to show both sides of music analysis including notation: its unique ability to express what is musical in a way words alone cannot, and the absurdity of its starkness. Most of the music examples that follow from here on fall quite neatly into these two categories. Some from the former category, such as those seen in the aforementioned chapter on Orpheus, can also be seen in the following sections: ‘The Utopian Unison’, where music examples can be taken at face value, in the same way as Stravinsky’s ‘out of tune’ unisons; ‘1952—Cantata’, where a relatively detailed exposition of melodic motifs, hexachordal harmony, canonic development, word-painting and structural symmetry demonstrates some ‘serious’ music analysis; the contrasts between the original works and later revisions as exemplified in ‘1917—Les Noces (Svadebka)’; the meaningful presentation of ‘Stravinsky summariz[ing] himself in [the] fifteen chords’ from ‘The Great Choral[e] from L’Histoire du soldat: a row of four-voiced chords of defying meagerness, almost nothing, but still, the inquisición of four hundred years of Protestant church music’ (170). The last example here shows how such specific musical details point to much wider spheres of influence and understanding, conscious and/ or unconscious. Taken together, these examples demonstrate what the other examples are more broadly pointing to: the demonstration of irony through eclecticism. Essentially, the more associations, stylistic reference points and parodic quotations (one might sum up this approach as

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creative ‘cultural appropriation’ or simply ‘experimentation’) a composer includes in their music, the less the music becomes about the quotations and the more it finds its own voice and structure. Ivana Medić discusses this point in her research into polystylism with reference to Alfred Schnittke: Speaking of the absence of stylistic consistency in Stravinsky’s music and ‘the paradoxical character of his musical ideas, the way he turns the unexpected into normal,’ Schnittke argued that Stravinsky’s creative method was ‘the quickest and the most logical way to encompass the musical space of past and present from various directions’ and admired him for ‘“admitting” anyone at all into himself, while retaining his own identity.’ Schnittke’s observation that in Stravinsky’s Orpheus ‘an organic synthesis of opposing stylistic resources is achieved’ could apply to Schnittke’s own works from the mid-1970s onwards; he aptly described the most significant feature of Stravinsky’s oeuvre as ‘a tragic quality stemming from the impossibility in principle of repeating the classical models today without falling into absurdity […] The only possible solution is to parody these grand forms or to seek new ones.’ (2017, 27–28)

The other kind of examples I refer to act as musical ‘exceptions to prove the rule’, highlighting the carefully crafted (‘meaningful’) yet purposely broken (in order to conceal the meaning) syntax of Stravinsky’s style. Examples include the uncharacteristic and differing functions of the diminished seventh chords in the Concerto for Violin in D and in Oedipus Rex (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 72–74); the tonal dialecticism of Stravinsky’s ‘irritating’ classicism (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 99–101); the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ nature (caught between getting lost and finding something new and interesting) of the Greeting Prelude; those demonstrating the three-way relationship of the composer, the piano and the orchestra in the chapter on Les cinq doigts; Stravinsky as the ‘ironic buffo-composer, no matter how serious the music may get’ in The World, a Comedy. These examples say little about Stravinsky’s specific musical choices (other than highlighting his eclecticism and preference for certain harmonic or rhythmic devices in a very general sense), but exemplify his artistic attitude in a more poetic way: his contrarian, parodic and playfully mocking voice echoing from these glimpses into scores packed with stylistic eclecticism. This is the voice of Stravinsky that has been praised by so many (notably Bernstein7) as well as mocked by the likes of Adorno in Philosophie der neuen Musik (1949).

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However, the authors suggest that both opinions are equally pertinent and, therefore, never delve too deeply into either camp. They suggest that the broad strokes are as important as any focused attention to detail, but that they essentially demonstrate the same thing. While some might say that there is not enough detailed music analysis in The Apollonian Clockwork,8 I would argue that such a montage of examples might prove ineffective if it did not keep its quotations multifarious and short. As the authors state in On Montage Technique: ‘the contrast between the structurally related elements causes one to seek the identity of the separate elements’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 163). One broad-brush music example—the presentation of a bar from Stravinsky’s setting of Balmont’s The Dove (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 117)—is used to express the need for this kind of level-headedness when comparing ‘new’ musical styles. It says what Bernstein aimed to express about Stravinsky’s eclecticism—‘every bar of [The Rite of Spring] comes from somewhere else’ (quoted in Laird 2002, 13)—without the hagiographic overtones. It is easy to follow the established ‘tradition of copying others when writing about music’ (in this case, drawing parallels between the musical language of Stravinsky’s Three Japanese Lyrics and the ‘free-atonal chromaticism’ of Schoenberg), but to remember that the influence on any individual voice is a complex web of influence is as important as remembering that any individual writer might be wrong (or not entirely right), and that something described as ‘Schoenbergian’ may in fact be ‘Webernesque’. As the authors here express it: ‘The Webern of Movements studied with Strauss Jr., the Webern of Agon with Rameau, the Webern of Canticum Sacrum with Gabrieli and all of these Weberns together studied with Stravinsky’ (Andriessen and Schönberger 2006, 115–19). This is the essence of irony—that everything can be perceived to be ironic—for every example of something that is considered to be a specific detail merely leads us to consider the wider picture, while considering the whole picture merely leads us to consider each detail. We are unable ever really to see the wood for the trees or the trees for the wood for they are one and the same, but it is worth trying.

Louis Andriessen It is worth focussing on Andriessen at this point, for it is this composer-author in particular who regularly reveals the spirit of Stravinsky through his wider body of work. Paul Grimstad asks ‘Is

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Andriessen’s music “about” Stravinsky in ways comparable to the way The Apollonian Clockwork is about Stravinsky?’. He explains how ‘Andriessen’s De Materie seems [to be] an extrapolation of the chroma bells of Les noces or Requiem Canticles’ and insightfully recognises that both composers have accepted the problems of the ‘arrangement-composition continuum’ and the tensions between ‘Dionysian chaos’ and ‘Apollonian order’ (Grimstad 2015). Indeed, the dichotomy between playful invention and strict regulated order is at the heart of both composers’ methodologies, as are the many musical oppositions and dualities that can be heard in their works. Referring to Andriessen’s M is for Man, Music, Mozart, Jonathan Cross writes: ‘Looking at the overt way in which Andriessen appropriates Mozart might help us to understand the much more covert ways in which he works with Stravinsky’ (1998, 185). This memory of other music within Andriessen’s music certainly helps to express a sense of timelessness, and it is the ironic overtones in nearly every work by the composer that create a sense of historical aloofness—or, as expressed by Andriessen and Schönberger via Muecke: ‘detachment, distance, disengagement, freedom, serenity, objectivity, dispassion, “lightness”, “play”, urbanity’ (2006, 219). As one interviewer remarks: ‘Never lurking too deeply beneath the surface of a conversation with Louis Andriessen are polemics, dialectics and irony … These three elements are at the core of Andriessen’s music and thought … He contrasts opposing ideas and styles, mixing high art with low art, deep intellect with crass vulgarity’. The composer continually reminds us that ‘we can’t always take what we see and hear at face value’ (Pay 2009). As a result of the memory and irony within his music, it could be argued that all of Andriessen’s work is a kind of meta-communication; it is so often subversive, political and laden with meaning; it is so often dramatic, teasing and stylistically eclectic. The way he writes with Schönberger in The Apollonian Clockwork has many similarities. The widely intertextual, yet relatively apposite, nature of the monograph has the kind of effect that one might expect from a large-scale stage work by the composer. Using music and writing in this way—as a kind of ludic medium or ‘high-minded aesthetic play’ (Moseley 2016, 21)—reveals truths and poses questions that more ‘serious’ works might not, especially when the subject’s life and works have not yet been fully realised or theorised over a significant period of time. We must have more nuanced angles with different ranges of focus that will ultimately present a more accurate sense of the whole when combined with a larger body of research expressed

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through writing as well as performance and other means. A shallow depth of field may reveal something that a narrow aperture might not. This is, in many ways, the essence of art—certainly the kind of art Stravinsky and these two Dutch composer-musicologists expound—and it is clearly a valuable way to approach research, especially when presenting ideas on contemporary artists.

Notes 1.  Louis Andriessenand Elmer Schönberger, Het Apollinisch uurwerk: over Stravinsky, translated by Jeff Hamburg (Amsterdam: Bezige Bij, 1983). English version as The Apollonian Clockwork: On Stravinsky (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006; originally published Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 2.  One instance is Lawrence Kramer’s Interpreting Music (2011), which explores the limitations of language, revealing the nature of musical hermeneutics, which is so tied up with issues of meaning, subjectivity, metaphor, style and nuance. 3.  Jardine describes Huizinga as ‘a master story-teller, whose material is drawn from the everyday detail, literature and poetry of the late middle ages, and who weaves documented incident and event into a richly varied tapestry of the forms of “life, art and thought” of ordinary people in France and Holland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’ (2015, 84). 4. For example, Daniel Albright, speaking about The Nightingale, refers to Stravinsky’s music as ‘the deep equivalence of the natural and the artificial. At the center of his dramatic imagination is the desire to juxtapose in a single work two competing systems—one which seems natural, tasteful, approved alike by man and God, the other of which seems artificial, abhorrent, devilish—and to subvert these distinctions as best he can’ (quoted in Cross 2003, 148). Other writers including Robert Craft, Richard Taruskin and Jonathan Cross have made similar statements, as has the composer about his own music. 5. Van Eecke writes: ‘Adorno ranks works like Renard and L’Histoire du soldat as a specific kind of objectivism, which he describes as “Infantilismus” … To Adorno’s mind, Stravinsky wants to revert behind memory, indeed avoiding thematic-motivic development and replacing it by mere repetition, which makes the music dissociate in time and elapse “in Reflexen”’ (2014, 252–53). 6.  Composer and writer Paul Grimstad (2015) also expresses this parallel between the way The Apollonian Clockwork’s authors embrace a childlike experimentalism (‘playful, curious, witty, whimsical’) and the ‘Infantilismus’ of Stravinsky’s music as expressed by Adorno.

220  J. M. BALDWIN 7. Paul Laird quotes Bernstein as saying that Stravinsky ‘was the most eclectic composer that ever lived’ and that the ‘greater the composer, the better case you can make out for his eclecticism’ (2002, 13). 8.  One review (which strangely names the writers of The Apollonian Clockwork as ‘Boris Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger’) fails to see any serious in-depth analysis in this book at all: ‘Although the authors do compare fragments of Stravinsky works with those of other common-practice composers, they neither consistently use nor formulate an analytic framework with which to make broader associations. As a result, the analytic passages seem misplaced or unconnected. To their credit, however, they have adopted a witty tone reminiscent of the Stravinsky-Craft conversation books’ (Horlacher 1991, 100).

References Adorno, Theodor W. 1949. Philosophie der neuen Musik. Tübingen: Mohr. Andriessen, Louis. 1989. Symphonieën der Nederlanden. Wormerveer: Molenaar. Andriessen, Louis, and David Allenby. 2008. ‘Louis Andriessen Interview: Creating La Commedia’. Boosey & Hawkes. Accessed 14 January 2020. h t t p : / / w w w. b o o s e y. c o m / c r / n e w s / L o u i s - A n d r i e s s e n - i n t e r v i e w creating-La-Commedia/11595. Andriessen, Louis, and Elmer Schönberger. 2006. The Apollonian Clockwork: On Stravinsky. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Andriessen, Louis, and Maya Trochimczyk. 2002. The Music of Louis Andriessen. London: Routledge. Benjamin, George. 2013. ‘How Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring Has Shaped 100 Years of Music’. The Guardian, 29 May. Accessed 14 January 2020. https:// www.theguardian.com/music/2013/may/29/stravinsky-rite-of-spring. Boosey & Hawkes. 2019. ‘Igor Stravinsky’. Accessed 14 January 2020. http:// www.boosey.com/composer/Igor+Stravinsky. Classic FM. 2019. ‘Stravinsky’. Accessed 14 January 2020. https://www.classicfm.com/composers/stravinsky/. Cross, Jonathan. 1998. The Stravinsky Legacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cross, Jonathan (ed.). 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Everett, Yayoi Uno. 2006. The Music of Louis Andriessen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gowers, Timothy. 2002. Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grimstad, Paul. 2015. ‘Notes on Louis Andriessen, Stravinsky, and the Apollonian Clockwork’. Music & Literature, 28 May. Accessed 14 January

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2020. http://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2015/5/26/notes-onlouis-andriessen-stravinsky-and-the-apollonian-clockwork. Horlacher, Gretchen. 1991. ‘The Apollonian Clockwork: On Stravinsky’. Notes 48, no. 1: 99–101. Jardine, Lisa. 2015. Temptation in the Archives: Essays in Golden Age Dutch Culture. London: UCL Press. Kramer, Lawrence. 2011. Interpreting Music. Berkeley: University of California Press. Laird, Paul R. 2002. Leonard Bernstein: A Guide to Research. London: Routledge. Martínez-Alfaro, María Jesús. 1996. ‘Intertextuality: Origins and Development of the Concept’. Atlantis 18, nos. 1–2: 268–85. Medic, Ivana. 2017. From Polystylism to Meta-Pluralism: Essays on Late Soviet Symphonic Music. Belgrade: Institute of Musicology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Metzer, David J. 2003. Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moseley, Roger. 2016. Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo. Oakland: University of California Press. Muecke, D.C. 1982 [1970]. Irony and the Ironic. London: Methuen. Pay, David. 2009. ‘Don’t Get Too Comfortable: An Essay and Conversation About the Ideas and Music of Louis Andriessen’. Music on Main. Accessed 14 January 2020. http://www.musiconmain.ca/wp-content/ uploads/2014/08/Andriessen-Essay-Interview-FINAL-rev2010.pdf. Rodriguez, Hector. 2006. ‘The Playful and the Serious: An Approximation to Huizinga’s Homo Ludens’. Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research 6, no. 1. Accessed 14 January 2020. http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/rodriges. Schönberger, Elmer. 2019. ‘Biography’. Accessed 14 January 2020. http:// www.elmerschonberger.com/english/bio/e_bio.htm. Shields, David. 2009. ‘Memory’. Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art 46: 32–36. Van Eecke, L. 2014. ‘Adorno’s Listening to Stravinsky—Towards a Deconstruction of Objectivism’. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 45, no. 2: 243–60.

CHAPTER 11

Artfrom: Researching the Canon Through Publications of Art and Design Miriam Cabell and Phoebe Stubbs

Contributors Inc. is a collaborative archive-based artistic research ­project initiated in 2015 by Mimi Cabell and Phoebe Stubbs. As our material, we use the contents lists in art and culture magazines, collating and organising this information to create artworks and interventions. We initially established the project to address the gender imbalance in the contributors to magazines of art criticism. Redressing imbalance in art and design is often talked about in terms of visible artists but less in reference to those who create the discourse around art—writers on contemporary art and artists. Through working with this material, however, our aims have broadened as we have come to see art magazines as both archives of the art world—they constitute a large part of its critical history—and sites in which shifting trends based on commercial and political concerns

M. Cabell (*)  Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, USA e-mail: [email protected] P. Stubbs  Journal for Artistic Research, London, UK © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_11

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are visible. While the text on the contents pages is freely available, our aim is to move beyond surface explorations and use this information to comprehend the hidden structures of the canon. Questions we ask include: whose concerns and editorial decisions are reflected? How often does a single reviewer write? How often does a single artist get reviewed? How does this affect art’s critical archive? Our aim with this project is to work through one publication at a time, collecting information—whether a data set or series of images—then allowing it to guide us in our investigation of the publication. We now host workshops around the issues we uncover as a way to change people’s engagement with the material, as well as to challenge some of the assumptions about the way magazines are created and circulated. This extension of the work poses questions of editorial design in its most expansive sense—asking the participants and students with whom we work to question art writing as it is received via publications. ‘Cabinet’ was the first Contributors Inc. intervention, subsequently published in Cabinet magazine—the very publication it was investigating—in Autumn 2016. For this project, we first identified the names of the contributors and the title of their contribution. Using the authors’ biographies solicited by the magazine (Cabinet asks for short biographies from authors written in the third person), we then determined the gender of the contributor as they identified in their biography. Their self-identification was important for us as we felt that the project would be impossible otherwise—we would have to determine gender by what others had written about the writers, or make assumptions based on their name. In the final piece, we arranged the names and titles of the articles in a tight pattern with names of female contributors and the titles of their contributions in magenta ink, while contributions made by men were left in black. The intervention highlights the gender imbalance in the contributors to the magazine over its entire history, and operates explicitly on the gender binary.1 The result was a piece that both highlighted the gender imbalance at the same time as drawing attention to female contributors. Overall, Cabinet’s ratio of male to female authors is roughly 75:25. Through our research we were also able to see patterns in the contributors, such as higher numbers of female contributors when there were more female editors on staff. This acted as a keen reminder of the importance of representation. ‘Artfrom’ and ‘Arton’ are two Contributors Inc. projects that use the contributor lists of the prominent art world publication Artforum as

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their source material. Artforum is a magazine that was founded in 1962 by John P. Irwin Jr. which, while initially established as a counter to the New York and Los Angeles art worlds based in San Francisco, is today based in New York and widely recognised as a decisive voice in the art world.2 Our primary interest with ‘Artfrom’ is to make an intervention that articulates, but also jests about, the role of Artforum and its editors in shaping the art world in terms of who is undertaking its writing. Often critiques of the ‘canon’ of art limit their focus to who is written about, with insufficient attention given to the limited pool of writers whose choices govern that limited canon.3 The specific language they use, and the views they advance, create a foundation not only for future writers writing about those particular artists, but also for other writers, for example art students, seeking and learning a language through which to discuss art. Our study of Artforum follows in a tradition of investigations into the publication by both artists and researchers. The researcher Amy Newman’s book Challenging Art: Artforum 1962–1974 is perhaps best known, and stitches together material from interviews from some of the prominent authors, collectors, critics, curators and editors from that time period. Published in 2000, it focuses on just the first 12 years of the magazine, its genesis and development, during which period many of the well-known design and editorial decisions still evident today were made—for example the writing style of reviews, and the square layout and logo treatment. In a College Art Association review of the book, Mary Leclère (2001) writes, ‘Although the authority that Artforum came to command during the late 1960s has sometimes been described in nearly theological terms, Newman’s book does a great deal to dispel the myth of the univocal character of its criticism. Instead, the book provides a rare opportunity to eavesdrop on a conversation that included a wide range of voices, many of which continue to resonate.’ In her introduction to the book, Newman writes that she employed this methodology in order to emulate the atmosphere of art criticism at the time— multiple conversations, opposing views, competing narratives. Reading the book, however, one is left with a sense that the focus on this time— the way these stories are treated as important, as foundational to art criticism itself—also canonises these critics and editors, and ultimately the magazine itself. In short, Newman’s study confirms the magazine’s status, and the status of those who wrote for it during that timespan, despite the way in which its form endeavours to challenge the univocal

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character of its legacy. A study focusing on the memories of those within the inner circle of the magazine cannot help but do so. For us, a study like this simply made it more important to understand Artforum’s legacy in a different way. Interestingly, Newman finishes her book with the following words from Philip Leider, the magazine’s first editor: ‘There’s no legacy from art magazines. I don’t think art criticism is much of an endeavour in that sense. It’s not lasting … I don’t think Artforum has any legacy, and I don’t think art criticism has any legacy.’ (Newman 2000, 468). The size of her book and the amount of discussion generated in order to create the study renders the idea that there is no legacy moot. Both of the authors of this chapter completed MFA degrees in North America, at the Rhode Island School of Design. Our immediate artistic frames of reference from that education were steeped in a New York-centric art world—a set of references that aligned with the context of Artforum magazine. Many of our teachers wrote for, or had work featured in, the magazine. More telling is leading critic Hal Foster’s response to Newman: ‘What a critic can do is influence you as to what to look at—what to take seriously—and what not to take seriously’ (quoted in Newman 2000, 128). Taking this idea seriously as a central part of Artforum’s legacy, a focus for our interrogation became the specific critical history of art that the magazine has helped to develop since the 1960s. We wondered, for example, what role the magazine played in the creation and maintenance of some of the obvious inequalities in the art world represented by those artists exhibited in galleries and at museums, and those who consistently sold work for the highest prices.4 We further asked how we might begin to investigate this issue such that it could become more visible and knowable. We are not alone in thinking through these questions. Los Angeles artist, curator, and educator Micol Hebron examined the legacy of the magazine, making a visual study of the number of Artforum covers that feature the work of a female or male artist. Only 18% of the covers featured the work of female artists. Talking to Carolina Miranda of the LA Times, Hebron says: ‘There’s a certain agency to being on that cover … It really got me thinking. It occurred to me that if I had seen women instead of men every time I looked at art history, my sense of opportunity would be really different. My sense of legacy would be really different.’ (quoted in Miranda 2015). She continues: ‘As a female artist, looking at my community of artists, and looking at my impact and how my legacy might be recorded and archived … I look at Artforum

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and I have an 18% chance, according to the statistics.’ While it’s an oversimplification to say that cover art representation correlates to inclusion in the magazine as a whole, Hebron’s display of the inequality of the covers makes immediately visible and knowable the disparity in inclusion and coverage in the magazine in a stark way. Continuing this investigation, Hebron also initiated a project called ‘Gallery Tally’, which asks artists and designers to investigate the gender imbalance in gallery representation and make a poster displaying the results. A great example is a poster made of the statistics of representation in Mary Boone’s gallery. Mira Safura O’Brien created it to mimic the graphic work of one of Boone’s artists, Barbara Kruger, an artist known for using bold black, white and red text to make provocative public statements. It reads ‘Mary Boone 16% female 84% male’ (Buffenstein 2016).5 The borrowing of a well-known visual identity to serve a subversive point prompts the viewer to do a double take. Like Hebron, we wanted to see Artforum magazine as a mass of data capable of revealing information to us. As artists, we were inspired by the subversive nature of the visual puns in Hebron’s project. In 2008, the artist Jennifer Dalton created a piece entitled ‘Every Descriptive Word Used to Describe Artists and Their Work in Artforum’s “Best of 2007”’, which takes the form of a 14-foot-long scroll on which Dalton has recorded all of the adjectives and phrases used to describe the work of all the artists featured in Artforum’s ‘Best of 2007’ issue. She separated the words and phrases into two columns, one for male artists and one for female. She notes that ‘the staggeringly disproportionate amount of attention paid to male artists—and the different language used to describe work made by men versus women—is immediately apparent, a damning statement about the still-deeply-ingrained biases against female artists and the gendered concept of genius’ (quoted in Wetzler 2011). The list includes words like ‘greatest’, ‘cutting-edge’, ‘heroic’ and ‘metaphysical’ in the column for men, with words like ‘pure’, ‘artist’s artist’, ‘conceptually tinged’ and ‘nervy’ filling the column for women. Further, she wrote out each of the words and phrases in neat cursive script, an additional gesture towards to the marginalising of that which appears handmade, and in direct confrontation to the objectivity most commonly associated with the infographic. We mention these examples because they demonstrate the breadth of the problem with dealing with a long-running magazine such as Artforum, which has inbuilt structural inequalities over the course of

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its existence: mirroring art world gender and race bias as evidenced in Hebron’s ‘Gallery Tally’; replicating gendered language, as Dalton demonstrates; and perpetuating these problems by defining its own legacy, as Newman’s study inadvertently reveals. These kinds of projects demonstrate the problems that concern us as artists and educators, namely, how we create encounters with these kinds of issues, how we discuss them and how can we change our engagement with art writing via magazines of art and culture such that a new generation of artists and writers no longer face them—challenges we see as essential to writing about contemporary art and artists. In creating the intervention ‘Artfrom’, we first distilled the contents lists of Artforum into a long list of the names of the contributors, which we organised in chronological order. Prior to a recent web redesign that vastly slimmed down the contents of the website, artforum.com published a full contents list of all issues online, including pop-ups for its reviews section. We began the project by copying and pasting the contents list into shared Google Docs. We then manually located missing information using hard copies at libraries until we had a full list from 1962 to the end of 2016. Once the complete contents were listed in a new document, from the first issue to the last, we transferred this clean document to a spreadsheet. When we talk about this work at workshops, our presentation is accompanied by the images of our notebooks, spreadsheets and lists. We do this to highlight the unseen labour that goes into the production of a fact or pattern, because we consider that encouraging this kind of engagement with the production of information is an important strategy for understanding the social and institutional conditions behind writing about art and artists. It acknowledges academic labour and thus the time and energy required to address structural inequity and its conditions. What surprised us most when we started looking closely at the contents is how few authors had participated in the publication, particularly at the beginning. Some of the people who wrote for the magazine in the 1960s are still writing today, and very often, contributing articles at least 10 times a year—for example, Donald Kuspit, a very prolific reviewer. Some writers found favour in certain decades, under specific editors, writing for each issue, but then later wrote less often, such as Ronny Cohen. Such information led us to question the role of the writer in a magazine such as Artforum, as a lesser-known and -celebrated figure but one ultimately responsible for decisions over which artists are

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written about and in control of the discourse that comes to define them. We decided to focus our first Artforum project on the writers in the magazine. Using the spreadsheet’s formulas we calculated the number of times an author wrote in the whole time period, manually checking for any errors in spelling, resolving name changes and formatting issues that the process of digitisation of the magazine had created. Several names were spelled differently over the many decades—a good example of this is the way some female authors used initials instead of their first names in the 1980s (presumably to disguise their gender, a relatively long-established practice) but by the 2000s had reverted to using their full given name, or hyphenated their last name after marriage. While we had anticipated the enormity of the information, we had not quite comprehended the way in which this research and labour has a felt effect on the collator and analyst—the qualitative effects of quantitative research. As the researchers compiling the data, we felt that in experiencing the enormity of the list, we were perceiving the weight of certain voices in the publication differently. We followed the instinct this experience gave us and created a list, organised from most contributions to least, creating a 580-page word document—each contributor’s name was repeated the number of times of their contribution. Scrolling through the list of names felt like a different way to understand what weight certain writers have been given over time. Putting this list back into magazine form became the next logical step, a way to make an overlooked part of Artforum’s critical legacy visible and comprehensible. Borrowing from the magazine’s own design strategies, we turned the list into a mock magazine. The idea of this strategy was to make an intervention in a book store that would stock a magazine such that someone could pick up ‘Artfrom’ thinking it was Artforum and be confronted with a list of names, even having to turn multiple pages before getting past the first name. This creates a physical confrontation with the uneven distribution of writers, giving prominence to the way in which authority is granted to some over others. For example: in the period from 1962–2016, Donald Kuspit is the most frequent contributor, and thus his name appears at the front of the magazine repeated 635 times, one for each contribution. To give further context to this figure, the total number of issues published within the same timeframe is 537. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Kuspit’s preferences for certain artists and schools of art-making are over-represented in the magazine.

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A cursory glance through the many entries of his name is sufficient to confirm that his voice matters significantly to Artforum. Further to this, how he formulates reviews, and the style in which he writes, forms a large part of the voice of the magazine. We use this repetition because it draws attention to authority as something cumulatively created, but also hints at rather than spells out the ways in which the repetition of a single authorial voice might create a single narrative, which might serve to establish myths about given artists. ‘Arton’ is a companion piece to ‘Artfrom’, being an investigation of the artists who have been written about in Artforum magazine. Similar to ‘Artfrom’, ‘Arton’ allows us to analyse and visualise the artists whom we have subconsciously come to understand as the benchmark for who an artist is and what work it is that they create. At the time of the writing of this chapter, the project is still in progress; our aim with the piece is to visualise the frequency with which artists have been written about over the course of the history of the magazine. In this way we can make visible the concerns of the magazine and the art world over time as manifested in which artists are featured at which points in time. Initial insights into this data set reveal that during the period of 1965–1970, Tom Holland was the most frequently discussed artist, featured in 10 separate articles. Following that, Frank Stella and Jackson Pollock were each written about 8 times; Larry Poons, Carl Andre and Dan Flavin were each written about 7 times and Morris Louis, Ellsworth Kelly, Jules Olitski, Donald Judd, Jasper Johns, John Altoon, Mark di Suvero, Anthony Caro, Claes Oldenburg and Bill Geis were all each written about 6 times. Female artists rarely feature in this time period. As the work on Artforum has developed, one of the main interests has become how we experience (or do not experience) the kinds of abstract statistics that comprise an archive—in both its digital state and in material, magazine or journal form. It is hard to tell when searching a library catalogue how slanted a journal or magazine’s contents are, what the perspectives of an editor might be (for instance, what styles and forms of art one editor might favour over another) and how the content is then shaped by those perspectives, or how balanced in terms of identity a journal’s outputs are. In making visible the knowledge we have inherited in different ways from those by which it is commonly discovered, we are no longer levelling specific critique, for instance about gender inequality. Instead, we are endeavouring to instil curiosity about the ways that knowledge in subjects like art has been constructed—whose opinions

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matter, and which artists are more important to which editors at which time—to draw attention to the structures that support the information we learn, to show that they can be biased and can favour some forms of art over others, and to invite curiosity about why that might be. One of the first observations we made about Artforum was how short the list of contributors was at the beginning of the magazine, in terms of which art was being reviewed and which artists were being featured. The work written about was generally limited largely to painting and sculpture, and all of the reviews were of exhibitions in the United States. In comparison, the contents lists in 2015 reflected features on film and performance, in addition to artists who make paintings and sculptures; the previews and reviews were for biennials, triennials and other exhibitions in places including Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Berlin, Beijing, Dubai, Seoul and Istanbul, in addition to exhibitions in the more expected places such as New York and London. For us, this raised questions regarding the expansion of the art market, whether this was the consequence of the magazine discovering and showcasing works taking place in different locations from where the magazine is based, or if this is more imperialist in nature, and the North Atlantic art world had merely been exported across the globe to these different locations, and the magazine was covering this expansion. It was difficult not to notice that the expansion of the art world very neatly tracks the process of globalisation and the way it creates an interdependence of cultural and economic activity across countries and markets, and the expansion of Western art criticism into Eastern nations. For example, ArtReview, a London-based publication, founded a sister publication ArtReview Asia in 2013, and Artforum now publishes a Chinese-language version both online and in print. What is noticeably absent is any substantial presence of exhibitions reviewed in these magazines in the Global South, particularly in the African context. It is also possible to see how little the magazine, or the extent of the art world the magazine did cover, thematically engaged in the politics of the time, particularly in the post-1968 period. Looking at the magazine, it is as though none of the political upheaval of the period was taking place at all. Philip Leider, Artforum’s first editor, was convinced that art, and therefore its criticism, should be self-referential. He championed formalism and the writing of Michael Fried over the more explicitly thematised political artwork and criticism of the period, and this led to a schism that saw the inception of October as a journal of art and politics.

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In contrast, the summer 2015 issue of Artforum was devoted entirely to art with a focus on identity politics. The cover of the issue was undertaken by Barbara Kruger and features in large black font a highly academic text regarding identity (or post-identity) in a globalised and pluralised world. Terms like ‘post-race’ and ‘post-gender’ are circled with extension notes about them written in small red font at the edges of the cover. And while ‘engaging in politics’ can take many forms (it can be argued that even to disengage makes a political statement), we particularly noticed the difference in comparing post-1968 issues with more recent issues in which an attention to identity politics is overt, confrontational and aesthetically aligned with activism and the language of academia. Perhaps most generously, we can surmise that the ways in which the magazine chose to address politics thematically looks very different in different periods, and under different editors. Such questions made it clear to us that a two-pronged approach was best: first, interventions in and as publications, borrowing the design logics of well-known publications to make a decisive point about an aspect of their composition and development; second, in-depth workshops, to encourage different and deeper critical engagement with arts publications. Developing the publishing interventions—a labour-intensive process—made it clear to us that the methods we employed in creating the projects should be also shared, so each workshop begins with an overview of how we work. Our process, the (often unseen) hours of collecting and collating data and information, taught us to rethink how we approach archival information, and sharing these insights is a part of how we approach discussing publications in our workshops. For each workshop we bring 5–7 publications, some leading publications like Artforum, or Frieze, along with (as much as possible) publications that are more specific to the local context in which we are running the workshop. In small groups and with a publication in hand, each group then goes through a series of questions we have developed and, using different coloured Post-It notes, makes observations related to each question. The aim of this workshop is to encourage students to engage more deeply with the conditions in which writing on contemporary art and artists is produced, and to note the variations from publication to publication. As much as possible we ask that participants answer the questions using only evidence from the publication itself: what can this magazine tell you?

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Our questions are as follows: Who are the Contributors? • Who is writing? Are they well-known? • In what fields do they operate? • What is their composition in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, location in the world? How do you find this information? Can you find out about this information without making assumptions? What is the magazine’s structure? • How is the magazine designed? What is its orientation or dimensions? And as a reader, how does that impact your reading experience? • How is the content organised e.g. where are the reviews located in the magazine? • Is the magazine well-organised? Easy to navigate? • What is the ratio of content e.g. adverts/features/reviews/other content? What is the magazine’s funding structure? • Based on the contents of the magazine and what you can find out online, what can you find out about what sources of funding it relies on? • What can be determined from the masthead? • Are there limits determined by different funding structures e.g. institutional vs advertising? • What are they? Do they inform content? Subjects/artists covered • Does the publication have a specific focus? • Does this issue have a specific focus? What does the editorial say about this focus? • Does the magazine do what the editorial says it does? • What regions/cities does the magazine cover? Is it ‘global’? Is it ‘local’? • Does its reach affect the subject matter? • Is the subject matter relevant to you? Why? Why not?

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Each workshop has been run in a different community of artists, designers and practitioners and it has been interesting to note how the specific concerns of those communities have been articulated and discussed. For example in St Louis, Missouri, participants discussed the reality of living in a city that was outside of the ‘major’ art centres in the United States, and the advantages and disadvantages of that reality. They discussed the few mentions their city had received in Artforum magazine, and the nature of those mentions. For instance, for a show at a major local museum, instead of sending a local art critic to review the show, Artforum sent a critic from New York who was wholly disconnected from the local community and thus unable to access its specific concerns and the kind of work that was being produced in it. The participants were naturally troubled by this, and felt that the way their city and community were being represented was consistent with the way ‘flyover’ cities are often discussed in major cities in the United States, as being irrelevant, underdeveloped, and behind the ‘trends’, instead of being seen for what it was—a unique place with its own concerns and ecosystem, distinct from any other city in the country. Graduate students in the Communications Design programme at Falmouth University in the UK were keenly interested in the design of the actual magazines, and the question of who the magazines were actually produced for. One student remarked how her wealthy landlord received one of the international magazines but never read it and always gave it to her to read instead. This student would look through the magazine and feel utterly disconnected from the content she was taking in— both being in Falmouth and therefore ‘outside’ any art centre, but also with regard to the level of privilege and capital that are inherently part of the art world and evidenced in the magazine through its advertisements and features on exhibitions ‘all’ over the world. We cite this example to bring attention to the questions of access and privilege inherent in the art world: to ask whether knowledge in this field is distributed along these uneven vectors, and to ask again, what is a magazine really communicating in what it chooses to feature, and who is that target audience? At a workshop at the Rhode Island School of Design, one student present did not know where to find the masthead, or even what it was. This indicates two things—one, a lack of knowledge about the magazines that the student spent time with, and two, how infrequently the student picked up an actual paper publication instead of merely reading

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individual articles or features online where mastheads or the information they contain is dispersed or difficult to find. As more and more publications shift to exclusively online distribution, it will be interesting to see how the questions we ask in our workshop can be answered with both more ease, and more difficulty. One can imagine a quick search would yield an image and multiple versions of biographies of a single contributor, even a personal website, but that grasping the scope of a single publication might be more difficult to attain in an environment where content shifts hourly, where advertisements are tailored to previous searches, and there are many different, non-linear pathways through the content featured on the site that are, in turn, linked to related content featured on other sites of other publications. This is not to disparage an online reading experience, or to privilege one reading experience over another, but merely to note that the information Contributors Inc. seeks in an effort better to understand how references are established and promoted proves more complicated in the era of online publication. By tying together our research with open dialogue in workshops, we are keen to demonstrate that editorial decisions visible at the level of a single issue of a magazine have vast implications accumulated over time in a magazine’s archive. A single writer’s preference for an artist can bring that artist more acclaim if that author is given more magazine space over time, and myths about artists or whole schools of art can become engrained. Ultimately, we see the workshops as forming a bridge between the research we conduct and the projects we make—a crucial way to elicit engagement with the information that comprises these magazines and therefore the archives to which students have access in libraries and online. Our projects are deliberately open to interpretation, and avoid pointed critique. We do this to respect the complexity of the social and institutional conditions of the history of writing about art via its rich publication history, while also opening multiple critiques and debates about issues such as its commercial and economic pressures, the way authority is developed and who gets to wield it, and about decision-making and the reach and implications of editorial decisions. Our hope is that participating in one of our workshops, or engaging with one of our interventions or publications, creates curiosity about the construction of knowledge in the field of contemporary art and its implications for the constitution of an archive—a deeper engagement with writing about art and artists.

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Notes 1. The original iteration of the project featured writing by female contributors in many colours, mimicking the bold title treatments used by the magazine and suggesting to us a plurality that may be achieved by the magazine should they feature greater gender diversity, rather than limiting enquiry to the gender binary. Cabinet magazine asked us to change this to one colour as they felt that their readers would more easily see the trend being shown, so after some deliberation we chose magenta after an article written by Sally O’Reilly (2009) in Cabinet about the colour. This design shift really changed the project for us and we have discussed this process in our workshops, partly to understand the links between visual design and editorial design—in this case how Cabinet’s vision of itself affected their many decisions in bringing this piece to circulation, some deliberate but others perhaps not. 2. We use this term ‘art world’ to refer to the art in the world that is represented by magazines such as Artforum—the biennials, galleries, museums and cultural events they cover. While we desire for and work towards greater inclusion of art from other places and people, and recognise the limited nature view of art in these magazines, we use the term because of its prevalence in discourse on art and art writing. The magazine Art in America even has a section explicitly called ‘Art World’. 3. See, for example, Griselda Pollock’s Differencing the Canon (1999) for a feminist definition of the canon of art history. Pollock’s writing has defined a perspective towards the ‘canon’ as patriarchal. 4. Undergraduate students in CUNY’s Guttman College conducted research in 2016, analysing the demographics of 1300 artists represented by the New York city’s top 45 commercial galleries. They found that 80.5% of artists represented by the galleries are white, rising to 88.1% if the numbers are filtered for US artists. Furthermore, they found that 70% are male and 30% female (Neuendorf 2017). 5. For a full list of the posters created for the project, visit gallerytally.tumblr. com.

Bibliography BFAMFAPhD. 2014. ‘Artists Report Back: A National Study on the Lives of Arts Graduates and Working Artists’. http://bfamfaphd.com/wp-content/ uploads/2016/05/BFAMFAPhD_ArtistsReportBack2014-10.pdf. Accessed 2 January 2019. Buffenstein, Alyssa. 2016. ‘“Gallery Tally” Exhibit in LA Visualizes Challenges for Female Artists’. artnet, 8 March. https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/

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gallery-tally-misogyny-art-world-los-angeles-contemporary-exhibitions-micol-hebron-443024. Accessed 18 October 2019. LeClére, Mary. 2001. ‘Review: Challenging Art: Artforum 1962–1974’. caa. reviews, 12 July. http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/31. Accessed 18 October 2019. Miranda, Carolina A. 2015. ‘18%: Artist Micol Hebron Tallies the Presence of Women on Artforum Covers’. Los Angeles Times, 10 April. https://www. latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-artist-micol-hebrongender-artforum-covers-20150410-column.html. Accessed 18 October 2019. Neuendorf, Henri. 2017. ‘It’s Official, 80% of the Artists in NYC’s Top Galleries Are White’. artnet, 2 June. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/new-yorkgalleries-study-979049. Accessed 18 October 2019. Newman, Amy. 2000. Challenging Art: Artforum 1962–1974. New York: Soho. O’Reilly, Sally. 2009. ‘Magenta’. Cabinet 34 (Summer 2009). http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/34/oreilly.php. Accessed 6 August 2019. Pollock, Griselda. 1999. Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories. London: Routledge. Wetzler, Rachel. 2011. ‘A Populist Attack on the Art World Pulls Punches’. Hyperallergic, 10 March. https://hyperallergic.com/20469/attack-on-the-artworld/. Woolard, Caroline. 2015. ‘What Is a Work of Art in the Age of $120,000 Art Degrees?’ Lecture at University of California, Berkeley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmWt52PQvTM. Accessed 9 January 2019.

PART IV

Art Considered on Its Own Terms

CHAPTER 12

Occlusionary Tactics Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley

Occlusionary Tactics: Let us think of ‘cargo’ and the things we carry with us. As practice-as-researchers we carry training, and skills, and thinks (Fig. 12.1).

J. ‘Bob’ Whalley (*)  University of Roehampton, London, UK © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_12

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Fig. 12.1  1 February 2019, 10:23

A beginning image, because we all need to start somewhere.

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Occlusionary Tactics: And a body. And sometimes a body needs stabilising; it needs advice; it needs recovery. Practice-as-research practice requires an approach that is resilient (Fig. 12.2).

Fig. 12.2  1 February 2019, 10:22

Start with Kant’s notion of the Crooked Timber of Humanity: ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made’ (Kant, in Berlin 2013, viii). Because there is always something disjointed, always a glitch. Use your crooked limb to be off balance, to be constantly falling, and take the long way round.

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Occlusionary Tactics: It is an attention to the artistry and how it is framed, which in turn allows us to go the distance/to stay the course/ hang tough/stick with it/keep on keeping (Fig. 12.3).

Fig. 12.3  1 February 2019, 10:19

Celebrate the Besucherritze. This is the space between mattresses when two single beds are pushed together. It literally means ‘visitors’ trench’. Fall into it.

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Occlusionary Tactics: Practice-as-research is not a straight line. When something is closed off to me, and I can’t think, cannot move forward, cannot jolt myself into action, I trick myself (Fig. 12.4).

Fig. 12.4  1 February 2019, 10:44

What stays with me is the ‘we’ throughout this document. This adoption of ‘we’ is usually a pet hate of mine, being non-specific and having no place in academic writing. However, this is not an academically written document (at least not in tone) and the use of the ‘we’ takes on an exploratory route: circling and reforming, circling and reforming. This circling sometimes takes on ‘she’.

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Occlusionary Tactics: The occlusionary tactic is like performing a Heimlich manoeuvre on yourself. It is an attempt to start again. And fall. And start again (Fig. 12.5).

Fig. 12.5  1 February 2019, 10:46

At first, it is difficult to navigate a narrative that takes you from plateau to plateau: bits are missing (or were never there). Then I realise that the titles of each section are what bind the document together (and I hope that this is enough).

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Occlusionary Tactics: Let us think of ‘cargo’ and the things we carry with us (Fig. 12.6).

Fig. 12.6  1 February 2019, 10:20

The scores find their way through to my brain, and it feels important to have my body (as well as yours) referenced there also, as this is a dance of sorts—I guess like a simultaneous duet and solo, referring to two bodies and one.

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Bibliography Berlin, Isaiah. 2013 [1990]. The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. Edited by Henry Hardy, 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER 13

Abstracts Richard Birchall

Following an invitation to write a new piece for MusicArt, it was a great pleasure to visit the studio of distinguished painter, printmaker and sculptor Christopher Le Brun to find inspiration in his recent abstract paintings, sculptures and woodcuts, many of which were at the time (2015) featured in the exhibition ‘Colour’ at Colnaghi Gallery, London. The solo piano piece composed in response to this experience, Abstracts, is a continuous work in four linked sections that represent different layers of immersion in the art, specifically, by observing the same painting from different distances. The colours that Le Brun uses are both striking and beautifully balanced. The opening bars of the music, envisaged as if observing a painting from some distance away, translates the overall chromatic effect into a broad soundscape. There is an irresistible parallel drawn between colour and harmony, the latter being the primary consideration here, though some thematic elements are also introduced. Moving a little closer (bars 11–41), the viewer can see how the colours merge and interact with each other, and the vibrancy this generates. There is now more clarity of pulse in the music, and the introduction R. Birchall (*)  University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_13

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of some lilting melodic material, as melodies may be found in the ­colour-curves of the artwork. Continuing forward (bars 57–78), it becomes possible to stand so close to the painting that it is almost ‘behind the scenes’. Having lost sight of the broader view of the image, the melodic ideas are now fragmented, and the time signatures more irregular. The music relates to the texture of the actual canvas, the reality of the brushes, the action of the brush strokes and even the smell of the paint. Viewing an artwork from this distance, too close to appreciate it properly, is a means of looking beyond it and back to the creative process, and the music exposes itself in the same way, revealing some of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of its construction, isolated from the cumulative effect that the elements will form together. The result here is an asymmetrical scherzando feel. To give the piece a sense of completeness, the music then steps back (bars 79–end) to take a holistic view of the colourscape once again, but now with a knowledge of its finer detail. It is therefore punctuated with musical material from the preceding sections, slotting those elements into a wider frame of reference. The most direct influence on this piece was a beautiful painting, Cloud (though at the time of composition it was known as Untitled Blue), but I retained the title Abstracts because I felt that the wider experience of visiting the studio, and the variety of artworks that I was able to enjoy at close quarters, made a cumulative impression on me as well as on the music that I subsequently composed. Abstracts was first performed by Annie Yim at Colnaghi Gallery on 21 October 2015. A performance is available at https://soundcloud.com/ musicartlondon/abstracts.

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CHAPTER 14

MusicArt: Creating Dialogues Across the Arts Annie Yim in conversation with Christopher Wiley

Christopher Wiley: Annie, I have greatly enjoyed following MusicArt and watching it grow in ambition and scope over the years. Could you perhaps start by telling us something about MusicArt, how it came into being, and the ideas that underpin the initiative? Annie Yim: The idea of combining music with other art forms is certainly not new. MusicArt was borne out of my belief that all the arts share a common origin, which is the imagination. Historically, other art forms have always provided much inspiration for the creation of musical compositions, such as literature, visual arts and dance. The concept of MusicArt came at a time when I started to work with contemporary composers while finishing my doctoral research on the musical aesthetics of Schumann and Brahms (Yim 2016). From a scholarly perspective, I was initially captivated in my research by the extra-musical elements, particularly artistic ones, that served as a source

A. Yim (*)  MusicArt, London, UK C. Wiley Department of Music and Media, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK © The Author(s) 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8_14

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260  A. YIM of inspiration for composers. For Schumann, literature played a vital role in his musical thinking as he once aspired to be a novelist himself. There are plenty of other historical and contemporary examples of this phenomenon. However, such extra-musical frameworks behind instrumental music are not usually articulated in performance beyond programme notes or spoken introductions. Taking into account my affinity for collaboration in general and my deep interest in other creative arts and artists, I realised that a m ­ ulti-disciplinary context during performance can illuminate some of these hidden aspects of the music through dialogues with other art forms. In this way, compatible aesthetics can work together beneath the surface of such music even when it is not ‘programmatic’ (music that explicitly seeks to depict a scene or represent a story). What I was also curious to see was how both historical and contemporary music could be performed in a setting that would stimulate these dialogues, literally and metaphorically speaking. A key aspect of the MusicArt vision is that a new work should result from each project, which I term ‘conceptual concerts’. In 2015 I had an opportunity to collaborate with the gallerist Katrin Bellinger for an exhibition of works by the painter and sculptor Christopher Le Brun (Le Brun 2015a). His artistic output is deeply influenced by music and poetry, in particular Romantic and modern composers such as Scriabin, Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Poulenc, Walton and Messiaen, and poets including Tennyson, Edward Thomas, Wallace Stevens, David Gascoyne and Geoffrey Hill. The combination of concise, clear tonal structures and extreme chromaticism—an expanded palette of musical colours—appealed to Le Brun’s sensibility (Rose 2017, 15–20). Focusing on parallel historical developments in music and the visual arts, this period was a time of flux when great changes took place in both art forms, most notably the shift in Western music history from tonal to atonal music, and in painting from figurative to abstraction. In many ways, Le Brun’s aesthetic ideas are, as he put it, in ‘echo’ and ‘correspondence’ with the music selected for this occasion. The raison d’etre for the project, nonetheless, was the creation of new work. I therefore asked the composer Richard Birchall to write a new piece for piano, which I premièred within the gallery space surrounded by Le Brun’s artwork (Fig. 14.1). Piano music by relevant historical composers, including Berg, Ravel and Debussy, were performed along with Birchall’s piece. This first collaboration strengthened my conviction about the importance of shared aesthetic and intellectual ideas that put

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Fig. 14.1  Annie Yim, Richard Birchall and Christopher Le Brun (left to right) at the gallery of Katrin Bellinger at Colnaghi, October 2015. Two of Le Brun’s works in the exhibition hang on the wall behind; Cloud is the painting on the right (Photo credit: Franek Strzeszewski, © MusicArt, 2015) us on the same proverbial page. However, it took a few more different projects with different artists for me to refine specifically for MusicArt the idea and meaning of ‘collaboration’—a term broadly used and loosely defined today. CW: Seeking to combine music with other arts is evidently at the heart of your endeavours. Could you tell us a little more about the rationale behind that? AY: The more I understood the extent to which other art forms have been inspired by music, the more I was motivated to seek out these connections and to see music through the lens of other arts and other artists. As Leonard Bernstein aptly put it in his 1973 Norton Lectures, ‘the

262  A. YIM best way to “know” a thing is in the context of another discipline’ (Bernstein 1976, 3). The potential for artistic sensibility to work across disciplines is clear, as many historical examples demonstrate. Thinking in terms of multiple dimensions, I am interested in creating performances of both existing and new works of music with other art forms, so that a multi-faceted picture of compatible aesthetic constructions emerges. CW: So do you consider music to be the superordinate art, at the top of the artistic hierarchy, where MusicArt is concerned? How would you describe the relationship between the different arts with which you have worked? AY: I consider music to be unique among all art forms, and it is the one element that is common to all the multi-disciplinary output of MusicArt. Unlike literature, or the visual arts, what is being communicated in music is by nature non-specific, at least in its literal meaning, thus providing fertile ground for the artistic imagination. The fact that music unfolds in time is analogous to the creative process, which is a common element that preoccupies every artist. In my experience of working with artists in different disciplines, each relationship—between music and painting, music and dance, music and poetry, or music and other visual arts—is anchored by a set of aesthetic connections. To gain further insights into these connections, it is necessary to speak in terms of specific projects, in addition to any particular discipline, because these relationships are dependent upon the idiosyncratic approaches of the individual artists. I would say each MusicArt project stems from a concept not tied to a specific discipline that triggers an imaginative process, or what I call a ‘poetic concept’, unconstrained by technical principles or perceived boundaries of any individual art form. CW: Could you outline for us the specific MusicArt projects that you have undertaken to date, and how they sought to combine different arts in innovative ways? AY: There have been a number of MusicArt projects, which I have created and collaborated with artists and art spaces. These include, in chronological order: ‘A Musical Exploration with Christopher Le Brun’ (2015); ‘The Legends of Robert Schumann’ (2015); ‘John Cage: The Lover and Poet’ (2016); ‘Scenes from Daphnis and Chloe’ (2017); ‘Berlin: Concert and Conversation’ (2017); ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’ (2018); and ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’ (2018/19) (see Appendix for further information). The projects evolved organically. A case in point: the project ‘John Cage: The Lover and Poet’ was undertaken in London, 2016 in conjunction with Ordovas gallery’s exhibition ‘Artists and Lovers’, which

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featured works by a range of artistic couples from the twentieth century, including John Cage and Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns (Ordovas 2016). In this conceptual concert I performed Cage’s 4′33″ during which I silently read a poem specially written for the occasion, A Kind of Silence by Ed Baker. In 2018, I took this poem and Cage’s 4′33″ as the basis of a new project entitled ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’, for piano and recorded voices, in which each piece in the concert either inspired, or was inspired by poetry. Its aim was to explore silence as poetry, and how they both relate to music. This concert also introduced a new poem written by Zaffar Kunial in response to Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina. A pre-recorded reading by Kunial himself was played simultaneously with my performance of Für Alina. The music by Pärt was, in fact, borne out of a long period of silence in his career when he was seeking a new path, which led eventually to his ‘tintinnabuli’ style in which silence is its defining aesthetic (Kõrver n.d.). With permission from the Arvo Pärt Centre, I obtained an image of a manuscript fragment of his score, which was projected during the performance. To take this concept further: the book artist Pauline Rafal, with whom I had previously worked on the project ‘The Legends of Robert Schumann’, designed a booklet inspired by Kunial’s poem, the text of which was printed inside. CW: What would you say is the nature of the dialogue between the arts in your different projects? AY: The idea of dialogue is central to the aesthetic goals of MusicArt. A musical composition is itself full of internal dialogues, resulting from exchanges in different voices, characters, movements and so forth. From my perspective, as a pianist I manage these internal dialogues within a piece of music, but at the same time I also undergo a dialogue with it. By extension, chamber music expands these dialogues to include multiple individual performers. To have an artist from a different discipline adding to the dialogue in a piece of music is therefore akin to playing chamber music (Yim 2018); the challenge lies in finding ways to create a common language with the artist. I experimented with the idea of dialogue even further with my ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’, a concert-installation created in collaboration with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in their London and Salzburg spaces (Castañal et al. 2018, 2019). The reasons it was a complex project are many, one being that it simultaneously involved multiple relationships: poetry, music, visual arts and performance; the roles of performer, poet and composer; the historical and contemporary; performance and theatre; and live and recorded sounds. Building around an exhibition of works by Robert Rauschenberg, I incorporated in this

264  A. YIM concert-installation music by John Cage, who was a close collaborator of Rauschenberg in the 1950s at Black Mountain College. Taking this historical and pioneering partnership as a reference point, I invited the composer Raymond Yiu and the poet Kayo Chingonyi to co-create a new work with me. Our roles were deliberately loosely defined—we performed additional roles not ordinarily expected of us, in the sense that Chingonyi ended up at the piano, Yiu improvised and I created an audio collage of Cage’s recorded voice. It was very much prompted by Cage and Rauschenberg’s collaboration on the Automobile Tyre Print in 1951 in which Rauschenberg put the paint on the tyre and unrolled the paper on the city street, and Cage drove a car over it. Although Rauschenberg considered it his print, Cage asked, ‘But which one of us drove the car?’ (quoted in Hunter 2006, 62). CW: You have previously hinted at your aspiration that new artwork should ultimately be generated by your multi-disciplinary conceptual projects. Would you say that this aim has ultimately been realised: that new art does indeed result from your work across a range of artistic media—music, dance, poetry, book art and so forth—such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? AY: The combined artwork certainly engenders a new dimension that reaches beyond simply being the sum of its individual elements. When an internal dialogue within an art form, say, music, is characterised or transformed through external sources, it becomes something different. On the other hand, the individual elements need not merely be parts that contribute to a greater whole; ideally, each should stand on its own perfectly well without the others. CW: What aesthetic ideas do you see yourself building upon in your various projects? What influences you in your vision for the artwork, and from where do you take your inspiration—where do ideas for new projects come from? AY: First and foremost, I seek to build on a specific vision for an aesthetics of music and performance. There is a long tradition of cross-disciplinary practices centred on various art forms. Yet I would consider MusicArt to be aesthetically different from the Gesamtkunstwerk of Wagner’s music dramas, or Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, or Dadaist Cabaret Voltaire, or Cage’s ‘happenings’. To be sure, each of these historically prominent multi-disciplinary projects had unique aesthetic goals and served specific purposes. What differentiates MusicArt is its cumulative approach and the evolution of its dialogues, which address the historical as much as the contemporary. At the same time, I aim to explore shared aesthetics between different art forms and to instigate an exchange and expansion during the creative process, and even during performance, in

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terms of both imagination and poetry (in the broad sense of the word). The component of time is inseparable from music, thus setting specific parameters for the constituent art forms. In other words, the whole artwork is dependent on the sum of its parts, though the effects are accumulated, enhanced and expanded; through this process of unfolding, each artistic element becomes transformed. However, multi-sensory or immersive performances that simply juxtapose and overlook the subtle coherences in this process may overwhelm rather than elucidate. In this sense, the broad umbrella term ‘multi-disciplinary’ does not truly convey what I aim to achieve in creating new, combined artwork. As much as I am looking for common ground, it is crucial for me to acknowledge and understand the differences between different artistic media. For instance, a poem is in its purest manifestation when it is spoken rather than sung. As T. S. Eliot put it, ‘Some poetry is meant to be sung; most poetry, in modern times, is meant to be spoken’ (Eliot 1942, 18). I am interested in working with an art form alongside its established rules. It is different thinking about poetry in spoken form rather than lyrics for songs or even libretti for operas that are derived from poetry. One can certainly adapt an art form to draw elements from it to suit functional purposes, but its distinctiveness can be much diminished. A telling remark by Eliot resonates here: ‘It is in the concert room, rather than in the opera house, that the germ of a poem may be quickened’ (Eliot 1942, 28). The challenge for me is to highlight the distinctiveness of the art forms while creating dialogues between them, as well as to maintain internal coherence while establishing new complexities. I learn about the distinctive characteristics of the different arts from my collaborators: they inform me about the historical development of their art form, and how they have arrived at their own individual approach. Each artist I have collaborated with has contributed a strong aesthetic imprint to the resulting project. CW: Other than opening lines of communications with collaborators representing different art forms, how do you go about researching new projects, both artistically and indeed also scholastically? AY: Determining the myriad elements in any given project is a very important step. Some research is more challenging than others, and invariably wide-ranging. I have sought assistance and expertise from publishers, composers, art galleries and concert halls, as well as national organisations for poetry and dance. Many individuals, including those on the advisory board of MusicArt, have also provided general guidance. To give an example, the project ‘Scenes from Daphnis and Chloe’ entailed devising a new contemporary dance choreography as well as a

266  A. YIM piano trio arrangement of selected scenes from Ravel’s original score. It was a major undertaking and the preliminary research itself was an intensive process: reading the original pastoral novel Daphnis and Chloe by Longus, the second-century Greek writer; listening to the orchestral version of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe; exploring the set designs and costumes for the original production by Leon Bakst. I was fascinated by the unhappy collaboration between Ravel and his choreographer, Fokine, as they did not share a common artistic vision, beyond being under the direction of Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. I set about ‘undoing’ the original Ballets Russes version, with choreographer Patricia Okenwa, whose non-literal approach to dance proved central to our revisionist endeavour. In a conversation before the première, Okenwa remarked, ‘It was clear from the start that I was most interested in the overarching themes in the novel of innocence from both the central characters […] rather than the details of the narrative in the novel or the original ballet’ (Okenwa and Yim 2017). We grasped how Ravel interpreted the ‘Greece of his dreams’ differently from Fokine’s more archaic portrayal, and we were convinced that there was a compelling artistic argument for Daphnis and Chloe to be presented from a poetic perspective, as opposed to a narrative one. We decided that the dance would take on a kind of trajectory that paralleled the emotive chronology of the novel—innocence, followed by awakening, touch and passion. They corresponded to the three selected scenes—‘Nocturne’, ‘Pantomime’ and ‘Danse Guèrierre’—arranged for piano trio by David Knotts, which was crucial to our dialogue between music and dance. The trio arrangement was based on the orchestral score rather than the original piano transcription. The role of this piano trio arrangement was vital for the dance in a remodelled cast of two dancers, because ‘Unlike the epic sound of the orchestral version and the solo piano version […] this is much more of a conversation where themes are echoed and complemented, but the individual voices and their expression are very clear’ (Okenwa and Yim 2017). CW: Pre-performance talks, and ‘in dialogue’ conversations between an artist and a specialist interviewer, are prevalent at the current time, as are audience-facing discussions following performances. So I was particularly interested to learn that conversations onstage between artists are such an integral part of your projects. Why would you see it as important to combine artistic outputs, such as tailored performance and multi-disciplinary artistic work, with publicly presented dialogues between the contributing artists to explicate the concepts behind the artwork? To put the point provocatively: can art not speak sufficiently on its own terms?

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AY: I have used this format a number of times: with the artist Christopher Le Brun, the composer Richard Birchall, the book artist Pauline Rafal, and with the choreographer Patricia Okenwa. I think the artist’s words and works are distinct from one another. It is a fascinating exercise for the audience to try and connect the two. The lack of such explanation can equally be interesting. Artists’ quotes seem directly to convey individuality and authenticity, which most people value highly. The words may not necessarily provide accurate insights into the works but this is for the audience to decide, which to me is why it is interesting in the first place. A conversation can give the audience an opportunity to find out more behind the scenes. CW: To what extent do you plan with the other artists what you have to say in advance, and to what extent do you simply allow discussion to flow, and see where it takes you? Does one of you assume the role of interviewer and the other interviewee, or do you take it in turns, bouncing ideas between one another? Do you take questions from the audience as well? AY: We prepare what we will each say to a certain extent, as the conversation is often interspersed throughout the conceptual concert in question. I have tried out different ways to have these conversations permeate the programme, and I learned that it is best to go with the flow of discussion. Especially when I am also performing the music, it is almost too much for me to be leading the conversation as well. I have therefore usually relied on my conversation partner to guide the discussion, as was the case in my dialogues with Christopher Le Brun and Pauline Rafal. The most natural way for these conversations to develop is for us to take turns and prompt each other, which is very similar to how we had discussed the projects behind the scenes. Certainly, the result is less formal than if there were a moderator to interview each artist, or if one artist were interviewing the other. I think that a mutual exchange, that is, a genuine dialogue between artists, is preferable in a conceptual concert setting. The audience form a vital part of the concert, so yes, their participation in any conversation should be encouraged as well. CW: To what extent would you say that your outputs—not only the publicly presented dialogues between artists, but also the performances themselves—constitute an act of ‘writing’ on contemporary art and artists? AY: Historically there are many examples that can be traced back in a kind of cross-disciplinary ancestry. For instance, Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata (1803) for violin and piano inspired Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata (1889), which then served as a point of inspiration

268  A. YIM for Leoš Janáček’s First String Quartet, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ (1923). MusicArt’s treatment of Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina (1976) yields a more contemporary example. As noted, for ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’, Zaffar Kunial wrote a new poem, ‘Sunlight’, inspired by Für Alina, which I performed in a special format alongside Kunial’s recorded reading of the poem. This poem was in turn also inspired by South Korean poet Ko Un’s work of the same title. I imagine each new response as building an additional, mirror-like facet to the original inspiration, such that the original shines in a multi-faceted way. It is simultaneously a homage, an acknowledge­ ment and a dialogue. These outputs certainly add to the reception history of the artist and his or her work. One could recast the composer, performer, novelist, poet or painter as ‘writers’ who create and present unique interpretations or perspectives on the work of another artist. The ultimate effect, however, would still be different from an essay or review by an author who (literally) contributes to the written reception history of an artwork or artist. The former seeks to create a bigger puzzle, or to ‘thicken the plot’ as John Cage once put it (Cage 1961, 68), while the latter seeks to explain the puzzle. CW: What methods did you explore in ‘writing’ about the artists with whom you have collaborated, and how does this relate to the final outputs? AY: Conversations are crucial starting points to unearth musical connections with various collaborators, followed by a considerable amount of reading and research. We tend to have many exchanges concerning books to read and music to listen to. I did start to notice other patterns in my approach to creating collaborative new works with other artists, but they are by no means fixed methods. The only consistent method has been trial and error due to the uncertainties and unpredictability inherent in creative projects—there is no guarantee of a smooth process or a satisfactory result. It is therefore crucial that I work with artists with whom I feel compatible on some instinctive, fundamental level. The final outcome is determined on a spectrum of flexibility, from fixed to free-form. ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’, for instance, was created with a significant degree of freedom because there was no fixed requirement. With ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’, on the other hand, there was the need for a fixed element in Robert Rauschenberg because it was created for a gallery exhibition, although it was otherwise completely flexible. CW: I am intrigued by how you assemble concert programmes on the basis of other arts and artists. How would you locate the work of your collaborators within the context of wider artistic traditions—thinking

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here about painting and poetry as well as music—and how does this inform your acts of selection of the repertoire for your programmes? AY: MusicArt does evoke a sense of assemblage, especially in more recent concerts. I give much consideration to artistic traditions, as that is often the first step in finding additional coherent elements. Only by knowing the history and traditions can I determine what lies beyond. This is a main theme in ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’: going beyond the boundaries of artistic roles and bringing together unexpected elements that traverse multiple dimensions. In this case, as previously mentioned, the primary subject was Robert Rauschenberg. It was advantageous that I was already familiar with the close, cross-disciplinary collaborations between him and John Cage, and many other artists at Black Mountain College during the 1950s. I sought to determine how I could create something new, while incorporating Cage as well as Rauschenberg. I envisioned the whole structure, down to the detail of using two giant mirrors in Act III, and two collaborators in Act II. It was conceptualised as an intermingling of recorded voice, live voice, improvisation, sound effects, visual props, performative elements and, of course, piano. It was not a coincidence that both Kayo Chingonyi and Raymond Yiu shared with me this way of thinking in our approach to the new collaborative piece in Act II, entitled ‘Mirrors’. It was very much uncharted territory for each of us. Weaving in these old and new strands without explicitly explaining them was both an experiment and a challenge. The result seemed to me to stand outside of time: by combining the historical and contemporary in an unexpected way, something more heightened is achieved, more relevant and present in the moment. We were not just thinking about a historical work or worrying whether the new work would still be relevant in a hundred years’ time. It was completely about the here and now. Perhaps a surprising aspect was the incorporation of two giant mirrors—facing the audience—which were covered in white fabric from the beginning and only unveiled during Act III as part of Cage’s 4′33″. Chingonyi, Yiu and I performed the three movements of 4′33″ by alternately taking our place at the piano. That was a conclusive statement of my deep engagement with both Cage and Rauschenberg, with Chingonyi and Yiu, and with the gallery space itself. CW: What is the role of the artistic contributors in relation to the concerts you develop? Do you expressly seek out collaborators for whom music is clearly an important influence, even if an implicit one, on their art? How would you relate music to the other artistic disciplines with which you have worked?

270  A. YIM AY: Music is the central theme, so yes, my collaborators are either musical, or they are open to musical ideas and collaborations with music—which alone casts a wide net. I set out to explore how music is pervasive, fluid and all-encompassing among the arts, which echoes what Ravel had stated: ‘For me, there are not several arts, but only one. Music, painting [dance] and literature differ only in their means of expression. There are not therefore different kinds of artists, but simply different kinds of specialists’ (quoted in Mawer 2012, 78, n.2). The way I relate to other artistic disciplines is similar to how I relate to music, which is sensual, abstract and often emotive. I find ‘poetic concepts’ do speak across art forms. Perhaps the ‘one art’ of which Ravel speaks is poetry. Having said that, these poetic concepts need to be transformed into highly individualistic elements, formed by the recognisable shared aesthetics of the collaborating artists. I try to think three-dimensionally: between the poetic concept, the music and the extra-musical potential through another art form. Ultimately it is a question of establishing the balance between them. CW: I am interested that in addition to making contributions to art through concert programmes, collaborating with artists such as painters, poets and dancers, and presenting onstage dialogues between artists, you have also commissioned new repertoire based on existing art. Could you tell us more about the artistic basis for Richard Birchall’s Abstracts and the rationale behind the commission? AY: Contemporary music, both composition and performance, is the underlying driving force behind the MusicArt conceptual concerts. Sometimes my cross-disciplinary research also leads to a kind of ‘intervention’—to borrow a term from conceptual and performance art— with existing works. In ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’, I included a piano piece by Cheryl Frances-Hoad (2002), which was inspired by a poem by Else Lasker-Schüler (1910). I asked the composer to make a recording of herself reading the original poem, which I integrated with my performance of the piece. Naturally, composers are my closest allies where new works are concerned. Having said that, the relationship between contemporary composer and performer represents a spectrum on the collaboration scale that perhaps needs constantly redefining. Traditional expectations of such relationships, in the sense that the performer carries out the intentions of the composer, are for my conceptual concerts quite outdated. For example, Richard Birchall’s Abstracts (see Chapter 13) was an integral part of my first MusicArt project, in which we created a musical context for Christopher Le Brun’s artwork and a dialogue between myself and Le Brun.

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After learning about the strong musical influences behind Le Brun’s work from BBC Radio 3’s show ‘Private Passions’ (Le Brun 2015b), I felt compelled to embark on my first cross-disciplinary investigation for MusicArt. I visited Le Brun’s studio with Richard Birchall and learned in greater depth about Le Brun’s artistic practice from the gallery manager, and later from the artist himself. Among Le Brun’s exhibition artworks, it was the painting, Cloud, which became the focus of the new work. The music, in response, traces the experience of looking at Cloud from different distances, thus combining the visual and aural into a shared phenomenon (see Birchall’s introduction to the previous chapter for further information). We discussed various well-known analogies between painting and music, including colour and harmony. But it was not our main interest to engage with such theoretical details, fascinating though they may be. What we produced was a response that alludes to different senses, perspectives and feelings evoked by Le Brun’s painting. It was a great collaboration with Birchall, enhanced by the fact that I know him and his music well—we have been working together in our professional chamber ensemble, the Minerva Piano Trio. I knew that Romantic and early twentieth-century music was just as important an influence on Birchall’s compositional language as it is for Le Brun’s paintings. In this instance, the historical music provided a sense of continuum for both contemporary music and art, while the gallery space and artwork gave a cross-disciplinary perspective on works by such composers as Debussy, Ravel and Berg. CW: Where do you stand on the question of the possibilities for art to be ‘translated’—for want of a better word—from one medium to another, and hence related in this manner? For instance, would you say that the basing of Abstracts on Cloud constitutes an act not just of writing about art, but also of writing about an artist through music? AY: The most vital aspect in my multi-disciplinary work is to capture the ‘poetic concepts’ that I mentioned previously, be it a piece of music, a painting or a novel. An act of translation would seem to me to imply something derivative and technical, more akin to an arrangement or transcription of an existing work. A poetic concept, on the other hand, represents a leap in the imagination and does not require translation; it offers ideas or inspiration, which gives a new breadth of creative freedom in any medium. Schumann put it as follows: ‘The aesthetic principle is the same in every art; only the material differs […] The cultivated musician may study a Madonna by Raphael, the painter a symphony by Mozart, with equal advantage. Yet more… the painter turns a poem into a painting, the musician sets a picture to music’ (quoted in Yim 2016, 17). It would be limiting to think mainly in illustrative terms

272  A. YIM between the arts, which is what is implied by translation. To me, the question of equivalence is certainly an important factor, as is the process of transformation. CW: Thinking of your work as creator and the artistic driving force of MusicArt, would you consider all art (whether painting, composition, dance or music performance) to be auto/biographical, and therefore an act of ‘writing’ about artists almost by definition? AY: I am intrigued by the biographical aspect of art. After all, the life of an artist often provides an accessible entry point for someone who wishes to gain a better understanding of the artist’s work. However, it may not be particularly instructive to draw links, as a rule, between art and life for every artist in every form, or at least for every work. Perhaps biographical writing is a wholly different art form, like history, where details have to fit into the flow of the ‘story’. Art and life can be complementary in telling this story. But I would not automatically assume that the life of an artist is reflected in his or her output, which in any case can only be assessed in hindsight. CW: Finally, could you tell us something about your plans and aspirations for future MusicArt projects? AY: I had limited my earlier projects to two art forms in order to master clarity in cross-disciplinary aesthetic dialogues. It is not dissimilar to a piano student first approaching J. S. Bach’s two-part inventions before proceeding to a four-part fugue. The temptation to add extra art forms into the picture was constant but, I felt, should only come at a more mature stage. Gradually the counterpoint between music, poetry and the visual arts emerged in ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’: I realised this in the poem Versöhnung (Reconciliation) by Else ­Lasker-Schüler, which inspired both a woodcut print by Franz Marc (1912) and a piano piece by Cheryl Frances-Hoad (2002). The relationship between this triad of art forms is encapsulated succinctly as follows: ‘But just as music and poetry are twins, poetry and painting are sister arts. What time is to the musician, space is to the painter, and the poet is a master of rhythm and melody as well as pictorial evocation.’ (Leimberg 1998, 64). This triad was not only realised in ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’ through contemporary poetry and music as well as historical music and visual arts, but was also surpassed by elements of three-dimensional installations and performance art. Any new endeavours will necessarily evolve from this. The idea of crossing cultural traditions and artistic boundaries has also resonated with me and taken root. Although cultural diversity has not been a conscious criterion in my choice of collaborators, the artists I have worked with come from diverse cultural backgrounds. I

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believe this layer of diversity lies at the core of the inherent complexities of MusicArt’s aesthetic in terms of the coming together of different influences. A hybrid new work created through such dialogues thus becomes essentially a new expressive vehicle: the result at once unexpected, cohesive and extending beyond simply pushing boundaries.

Appendix: MusicArt Conceptual Concerts Solo piano by Annie Yim (unless indicated differently) ‘A Musical Exploration with Christopher Le Brun’ Dates: 21–22 October 2015 Venue: Katrin Bellinger at Colnaghi, London (art gallery) Composer: Richard Birchall, Abstracts (new work commissioned by MusicArt) Artist: Christopher Le Brun Repertoire: Edvard Grieg, ‘Nocturne’ (Lyric Pieces, Op.62, No. 4); Maurice Ravel, ‘Ondine’ (Gaspard de la Nuit); Alban Berg, Sonata, Op. 1; Richard Birchall, Abstracts (world première); Claude Debussy, Estampes ‘The Legends of Robert Schumann’ Date: 6 November 2015 Venue: Burgh House and Hampstead Museum, London Book artist: Pauline Rafal, Kinderszenen (new work commissioned by MusicArt) Repertoire: Robert Schumann, Kinderszenen, Op. 15; Charlotte Bray, Chapter One; Charlotte Bray, Chapter Two—Mercury Ruling and Herbie’s Funfare (world prèmiere); Schumann, Fantasie in C, Op. 17 ‘John Cage: The Lover and Poet’ Dates: 24–25 November 2016 Venue: Ordovas, London (art gallery) Poet: Ed Baker, A Kind of Silence (new work commissioned by MusicArt) Repertoire: John Cage, In a Landscape; John Cage, 4′33″; John Cage, Dream ‘Scenes from Daphnis and Chloe’ Date: 9 March 2017 Venue: St John’s Smith Square, London Choreographer: Patricia Okenwa, Scenes from Daphnis and Chloe (new work commissioned by MusicArt)

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Composer-arranger: David Knotts, arrangement of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe (New work co-commissioned by St John’s Smith Square and Minerva Piano Trio) Dancers: Estela Merlos, Thomasin Gülgeç Performers: Minerva Piano Trio (Annie Yim, piano; Michal Cwizewicz, violin; Richard Birchall, cello) Repertoire (for the concert programme ‘Dance and Poetic Fantasy’): W. A. Mozart, Piano Trio in B flat, K. 502; Maurice Ravel arr. Knotts/Okenwa, Scenes from Daphnis and Chloe (world première); Cheryl Frances-Hoad, My Fleeting Angel; Maurice Ravel, Piano Trio ‘Berlin: Concert and Conversation’ Date: 29 April 2017 Venue: Arndt Art Agency, Berlin (art gallery) Artist: Christopher Le Brun Repertoire: Alexander Scriabin, Prelude in B major, Op. 11, No. 11; Alexander Scriabin, Poème, Op. 32, No. 1; Sergei Rachmaninov, Moment Musical in E minor, Op. 16, No. 4; Arnold Schoenberg, Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19; Richard Birchall, Abstracts; Claude Debussy, ‘Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum’ (from Children’s Corner Suite) ‘The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’ Date: 16 March 2018 Venue: Performance Space, City, University of London Poets: Zaffar Kunial, Sunlight (new work commissioned by MusicArt); Charles Baudelaire; Aloysius Betrand; John Cage; Ed Baker; Else ­Lasker-Schüler; Alan Ginsberg Recorded voices: Zaffar Kunial; Ed Baker; Cheryl Frances-Hoad Repertoire: Claude Debussy, ‘Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir’ (Préludes, Book 1, No. 4); Maurice Ravel, ‘Scarbo’ (Gaspard de la Nuit); John Cage, Dream; John Cage, 4′33″; Arvo Pärt, Für Alina; Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Star Falling; Philip Glass, Wichita Vortex Sutra ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’ Dates: 13 December 2018 (London), 16 April 2019 (Salzburg) Venues: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London and Salzburg (art galleries) Concept, audio collage and performer: Annie Yim Poet and performer: Kayo Chingonyi Composer and performer: Raymond Yiu Sound designer: Benjamin Grant

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Repertoire: John Cage, The Seasons; John Cage, Winter Music; John Cage, 4′33″; Annie Yim, Kayo Chingonyi, Raymond Yiu, Mirrors (new work commissioned by MusicArt in collaboration with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac; world première) ‘Annie Yim—The Poet Speaks: From Debussy to Pärt’, in dialogue with poet Zaffar Kunial and composers Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Raymond Yiu In association with The Poetry Society Date: 3 October 2019 Venue: Music Hall, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London Poets: Charles Baudelaire; Aloysius Betrand; John Cage; Zaffar Kunial; Else Lasker-Schüler; Kayo Chingonyi; Alan Ginsberg Recorded voices: Zaffar Kunial; Ed Baker; Cheryl Frances-Hoad Repertoire: Claude Debussy, ‘Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir’ (Préludes, Book 1, No. 4); Maurice Ravel, ‘Ondine’ (Gaspard de la Nuit); John Cage, Dream; Arvo Pärt, Für Alina; Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Star Falling; Raymond Yiu, Kayo Chingonyi, Annie Yim, ‘Mirrors’ (extracts from ‘Conceptual Concert in Three Acts’); Philip Glass, Wichita Vortex Sutra.

Bibliography Bernstein, Leonard. 1976. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cage, John. 1961. Silence. London: Boyars. Castañal, José, et al., eds. 2018. ‘Robert Rauschenberg: Spreads 1975–83’. Exhibition Catalogue, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London. Paris: Ropac. Castañal, José, et al., eds. 2019. ‘Robert Rauschenberg: Borealis 1988–92’. Exhibition Catalogue, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg. Paris: Ropac. Eliot, T. S. 1942. The Music of Poetry. Glasgow: Glasgow University. Hunter, Sam. 2006. Robert Rauschenberg: Works, Writings and Interviews. Barcelona: Polígrfa. Kõrver, Kristina. n.d. Short Description for Für Alina (1976). Arvo Pärt Centre. https://www.arvopart.ee/en/arvo-part/work/477/. Accessed 2 August 2019. Le Brun, Christopher. 2015a. ‘Colour: Rugs, Prints, Painting, Sculpture’. Exhibition Catalogue, Katrin Bellinger at Colnaghi. Belgium: Keure. Le Brun, Christopher. 2015b. ‘Private Passions’. BBC Radio 3, 7 June. https:// www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02t49k1/p02t49k8. Leimberg, Inge. 1998. ‘The Place Revisited in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets’. Connotations 8, no. 1 (1998–1999): 63–92. https://www.connotations.de/ article/inge-leimberg-the-place-revisited-in-t-s-eliots-four-quartets/.

276  A. YIM Mawer, Deborah. 2012. ‘Music-Dance (and Design) Relations in Ballet Productions of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé’. Les Cahiers de la Société québécoise de recherche en musique 13, no. 1–2 (September): 77–85. https://doi. org/10.7202/1012353ar. The Minerva Piano Trio. 2019. http://www.minervapianotrio.com/. MusicArt. 2019. http://musicart.london/. Ordovas, Pilar, ed. 2016. ‘Artists and Lovers’. Exhibition Catalogue, Ordovas. Uckfield: Pureprint. Okenwa, Patricia, and Annie Yim. 2017. ‘Young Artists’ Series: A New Commission’. St John’s Smith Square, London. February. https://www. sjss.org.uk/news/young-artists’-series-new-commission. Accessed 2 August 2019. Rose, Barbara. 2017. ‘Christopher Le Brun: Composer’. Exhibition Catalogue, The Gallery at Windsor: 15–20. Florida: Windsor. Yim, Annie. 2016. A Comparative and Contextual Study of Schumann’s Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 63 and Brahms’s Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 (1854 version): From Musical Aesthetics to Modern Performances. DMA diss., City, University of London and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Yim, Annie. 2018. ‘Understanding Music Through the Lens of Other Art Forms’. Gramophone, 11 December. https://www.gramophone.co.uk/blog/ gramophone-guest-blog/understanding-music-through-the-lens-of-other-artforms. Accessed 2 August 2019.

Index

A Abramović, Marina, 19, 20, 35 Academia, 66, 83, 84, 232 Adorno, Theodor W., 21, 51, 114, 134, 141, 195, 201, 213, 216, 219 Adut, Ari, 32, 34 American Ballet Theatre (ABT), 181, 183–185 Andriessen, Louis, 207, 208, 210– 212, 214–216, 219 Apollonian Clockwork, The, 11, 205–207, 209–211, 213, 214, 217, 218 La Commedia, 208, 213 Artforum, 12, 224–232, 234, 236 ‘Artfrom’, 12, 224, 225, 228–230 Art magazines, 12, 223, 226 ‘Arton’, 12, 224, 230 Arts Council, 166 Atwood, Margaret, 6, 25, 27, 33 Authorship, 40, 51, 52, 57, 59 Autofiction, 47, 58, 59

B Baker, Ed, 263, 273–275 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 94, 134 Barker, Howard Arguments for a Theatre, 156, 162, 168 Castle, The, 152, 154, 156–158, 160–162 Europeans, The, 152, 156, 157, 160 Style and its Origins, A, 166, 168 That Good Between Us, 152, 154 Victory, 152, 156–158, 160–162 Bayley, Amanda and Clarke, Michael, 9, 100, 126, 127, 137–141 Evolution & Collaboration, 125 Bellinger, Katrin, 260, 261, 273 Berliner, Paul F., 105, 106, 113 Bernstein, Leonard, 216, 217, 220, 261 Bildungsroman, 53, 54 Birchall, Richard, 13, 260, 261, 267, 271, 274

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Wiley and I. Pace (eds.), Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39233-8

277

278  Index Abstracts, 12, 13, 249, 270, 273, 274 Blatchford, Christie, 29, 31 Bond, Edward, 152 Bingo, 159 Rational Theatre, 159 Booth, Wayne C., 40, 41 Born, Georgina, 92, 101, 102, 110, 112, 114, 138, 139 Boulez, Pierre, 92, 210 Boyden, Joseph, 7, 23, 27–29, 32, 34, 35 Three Day Road, 27 Brahms, Johannes, 133, 259 Brecht, Bertolt, 160, 161 Epic Theatre, 160 Brenton, Howard, 152, 153, 158 Bussell, Darcey, 177, 178, 185 Byatt, A.S., 49, 50, 57, 59 C Cabinet, 12, 224, 236 Cage, John, 262, 264, 268, 269, 275 4′33″, 263, 269, 273–275 CanLit, 20, 23, 30 Canon, 11, 12, 92, 108, 112, 130, 183, 206, 224, 225, 236 Career construction theory (CCT), 7, 40–42, 51, 52, 54, 56, 60, 61 Career trajectories, 7, 43, 45–47, 49, 50, 60 Celebrity studies, 7, 21–23, 29 Chingonyi, Kayo, 13, 264, 269, 274, 275 Clifford, James, 94, 97, 123, 128, 134, 138 Cochran, Larry, 41, 42 Composition, 6, 8, 12, 13, 65–71, 73, 75, 77–84, 86, 87, 92, 101, 102, 105, 126, 137, 207, 209, 232, 233, 250, 259, 263, 270, 272

Conceptual concerts, 13, 260, 262, 263, 267, 270 Contributors Inc., 11, 223, 224, 235 Copeland, Misty, 10, 174, 175, 180–187 Ballerina’s Tale, A, 183 Life in Motion, 174 Under Armour, 182, 183 Cottrell, Stephen, 99–101, 107, 112, 128–134, 138–141 Professional Music-Making in London, 9, 127 Cross, Jonathan, 126, 207, 208, 218, 219 D Dalton, Jennifer, 227, 228 DMus, 65, 67, 87 Doctorate. See PhD Duneier, Mitchell, 98, 99, 113, 132, 136, 138 Dyer, Richard, 22 E Eclecticism, 215–217, 220 Edgar, David, 152, 153 Eliot, T.S., 265 émerveillé, 178–180 Ethnography, 8, 9, 93–95, 97–99, 101, 107, 108, 113, 124, 139–141 Ethnomusicology, 8, 94, 100, 106, 107, 132, 135 F Facebook, 24–26, 33 Falmouth University, 234 Fictocriticism, 58 Finnegan, Ruth, 110–112

Index

Finnissy, Michael, 9, 123, 125–127 Second String Quartet, 126 Frances-Hoad, Cheryl, 270, 272, 274, 275 Frétard, Dominique, 174, 177, 185 G Galloway, Steven, 6, 23–25, 27–29, 31, 32, 35 Geertz, Clifford, 93, 94, 100, 106, 113 Guillem, Sylvie Invitation, 174, 176, 178, 181 Portrait, 179, 185 Sacred Monsters, 178, 179 Sur le Fil, 179 H Hagiography, 112, 124, 140 Hammersley, Martyn, 94, 95, 102, 106, 108, 113, 124, 127, 138, 140 Hare, David, 152, 153 Hebron, Micol, 226–228 Hegel, G.W.F., 192 Hill, Lawrence, 25 Houth, Eduardo, 9, 165–166, 168 Huizinga, Johan, 209, 219 I Ingold, Tim, 93, 97, 128, 138 Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), 92, 101, 102, 110, 114 Ireland, Kenny, 162 Irony, 213 J Jensen, Meg, 53, 54 Johnson, Graham, 93, 103–106

  279

K Kaiser, Billie, 9, 165–168 Kant, Immanuel, 191, 196–200, 202, 243 Critique of Pure Reason, 198 Khan, Akram, 178, 179 Kingsbury, Henry, 92, 108–113, 128, 138, 139 Kogan, Judith, 109, 110, 114 Kunial, Zaffar, 13, 263, 268, 274, 275 Kuspit, Donald, 228, 229 L Lamb, Charles, 152, 153, 157, 160, 161, 169 Lasker-Schüler, Else, 270, 272, 274, 275 Late-career works, 40, 50, 57, 60, 61 Lateness, 50–52 Le Brun, Christopher, 13, 249, 260, 262, 267 Cloud, 13, 261, 271 Leider, Philip, 226, 231 Leipzig, Thomas, 9, 165–168 Lubet, Steven, 98, 99, 102, 113, 124, 127, 139 Lull, James and Hinerman, Stephen, 30, 31, 34 M Macaulay, Alistair, 184, 185 Max’s Kansas City, 194, 195 Memory, 11, 42, 58, 59, 211–213, 218, 219 Minerva Piano Trio, 271, 274 Moisala, Pirkko, 9, 112, 134, 135, 137–140 Moten, Fred, 194, 195, 200 Muecke, D.C., 213, 218 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 19, 193, 195, 203

280  Index MusicArt, 13, 249, 259–265, 268, 270–275 N National Theatre, 155 Nelson, Robin, 4, 6, 68, 73, 78, 79, 82 Nettl, Bruno, 92, 97, 101, 108–113, 138, 139 Newman, Amy, 225, 226, 228 New York, 182, 184, 225, 231, 234 New York Conceptual Art, 191, 192 Niedzviecki, Hal, 7, 28, 32, 35 Nureyev, Rudolf, 176, 180, 185 O Okenwa, Patricia, 13, 266, 267, 273, 274 P Pärt, Arvo, 262, 263, 268, 270, 272, 274, 275 Participant observation, 93, 94, 97, 128, 140, 141 Perry, Beate, 104–106, 113 PhD, 6, 73, 107 portfolio, 8, 65, 66, 79, 82 supervisor, 8, 68, 84, 86 written element, 8, 66, 67, 70, 71, 73, 79, 82–84 Piper, Adrian, 191, 195, 201–203 Context #7, 10, 192, 193, 195 Mythic Being, The, 10, 11, 192, 193, 195–201 Untitled Performance for Max’s Kansas City, 10, 11, 192–194 Practice-as-Research (PaR), 12, 241, 243, 245 Practice-Research (P-R), 65, 66, 68, 70, 73, 79, 83, 86, 87 Prince, 182

R Rafal, Pauline, 13, 263, 267, 273 Rauschenberg, Robert, 263, 264, 268, 269 Ravel, Maurice, 260, 270, 271, 273–275 Daphnis and Chloe, 266, 274 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), 6, 69–71, 87 Research Excellence Framework (REF), 6, 8, 69, 70, 79, 83 Rojek, Chris, 182, 186 Rowling, J.K., 48, 49 Royal Ballet, 176–179, 185 Royal Court, 156, 169 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), 155, 156 S Saariaho, Kaija, 9, 123, 134–137, 139 Sadler’s Wells, 178 Said, Edward, 40, 41, 50–54 Savickas, Mark, 41, 42, 51 Scandal, 5–7, 20, 21, 23, 29–35 Schönberger, Elmer, 207, 208, 211, 212, 214–219 Apollonian Clockwork, The, 11, 205–207, 209–211, 213, 217, 218, 220 Schumann, Robert, 104, 133, 259, 260, 262, 263, 271, 273 Shakespeare, William, 58, 159 Shelemay, Kay Kaufman, 111, 112, 131 Small, Christopher, 69, 92, 108, 110, 112, 113, 128, 130, 138, 139 Social media, 3, 7, 20, 23, 27, 67, 182 Spalding, Alistair, 178–180 Squires, Gilda, 182, 186 State of the Nation, 153

Index

St Louis, 234 Stravinsky, Igor, 11, 205–208, 210–216, 219, 220, 260 Les Noces, 210, 215, 218 L’Histoire du soldat, 215, 219 Rite of Spring, The, 206, 210, 217 T Tapie, Gilles, 174, 176, 185 Taruskin, Richard, 69, 111, 205, 206, 208, 219 Theatre of Catastrophe, 9, 152–154, 156, 163, 168 Twitter, 7, 25, 27, 29 U UBC Accountable, 6, 7, 23–27, 31 UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE), 68, 69

  281

University of British Columbia (UBC), 6, 23–28, 31, 32 W Western art music, 8, 9, 91–93, 99, 100, 102, 106, 107, 109–112, 123, 129, 141 Wolcott, Harry F., 96, 97, 106, 132, 138, 141 Worthen, John, 174, 175, 180 Wrestling School, The, 9, 151, 152, 156, 162–169 Writers’ Union of Canada, 28, 30, 35 Y Yim, Annie, 13, 250, 259, 261, 263, 266, 271, 274, 275 Yiu, Raymond, 13, 264, 269, 275