Post Class: Lyotard

After leaving class on Tuesday I've come to better understand the theories of Jean-Francois Lyotard. He states that belief in the stability of the referent leads "to the fantasies of realism." I've now been able to understand that this theory refers to, in film and photography, the general public believes in some sort of stability in the reference, that it must refer to something in reality. Lyotard says that it's a fantasy. He also argues that one of the key issues is that media does not stabilize the referent. One of Lyotard's theories that we discussed in class still has me pondering: "Artists who question the rules 'are destined to have little credibility'"; "they have no guarantee of an audience." This quote refers to the bureaucratic rule set that has come with art in a capitalist society: art as a commodity. I understand that art is only established "art" if it is deemed profitable, which forces me to agree with that fact that not all "artists who question the rules are destined to have little credibility," but at the same time this statement is not true if you were to look at the careers of Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock. Both artists broke the norm of what was considered to be art. Even though one only achieved recognition after his death, both artists were considered to be revolutionaries in the art world. I can not agree with Lyotard's theory that "they have no guarantee of an audience." No artist is guaranteed an audience, and at the same time every artist is bound to have a least one fan. This quote has bothered me for a while because I just can't reach an agreement on how I feel about it, but I see both sides of the argument presented and I think that understanding is best.