Art and Failure
THE GENIUS DECISION:
THE EXTRAORDINARY AND THE POSTMODERN CONDITION, by Klaus Ottmann. Putnam,
CT: Spring Publications, 2004, 181 pp., $18.50 paperback.
RANDOM ORDER: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG AND THE NEO-AVANTGARDE, by Branden Joseph.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, 450 pp., $34.95 hardcover.
The most optimistic ethics have all begun by emphasizing
the element
of failure involved in the condition of man; without failure, no ethics.
—Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
Failure is an inescapable part of the human condition. It is also an inescapable
part of extraordinary human achievement. In fact, it is because failure
is woven so deeply into their fabric that makes certain endeavors, like
the arts, philosophy, science, and even sports, so extraordinary, so compelling,
and ultimately so meaningful. There is therefore a close— but often
underexamined— connection between extraordinary achievement and failure
in the history of the arts and culture in the West. Two very different books,
one a work of philosophy and the other a work of art history, converge on
the presence of failure in extraordinary human achievement. New Yorkbased
art critic and independent curator Klaus Ottmann offers a philosophical
study of genius from a postmodern perspective entitled The Genius Decision:
The Extraordinary and the Postmodern Condition. Art historian Branden
Joseph, who is assistant professor at the University of California-Irvine,
offers a revisionist interpretation of Robert Rauschenberg's aesthetic project
in Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde. The
Genius Decision offers an illuminating philosophical framework within
which to read Random Order.
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