Against “relevance” in art

January 24, 2021 4:38 PM

"I can’t bear the thought that art is a zero-sum game, that we have to choose which kinds of stories are relevant, which lives have value"
posted by folklore724 (15 comments total)

Just a note that the linked essay is wide ranging and purposefully asking something more than a hot take on its title. It's worth reading even, as the author acknowledges, "that everything I’ve written here has been too simple, that there are all sorts of objections to be made.", but is asking the reader to think about the ideas just the same.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:48 PM on January 24, 2021 [7 favorites]

"against interpretation" is still correct.
posted by hilberseimer at 6:04 PM on January 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed reading this thoughtful and beautifully written article, thanks for posting and making me aware of this author.
posted by effluvia at 7:30 PM on January 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

"The fallacy of a certain idea of universality is to imagine that any human experience is unmarked by the accidents of geography, history, demographics—to believe that an account of a Congregationalist minister in rural Iowa, say, is somehow larger, more relevant to a shared human story, than an account of sex among gay men."

Throwing a little shade at Marilynne Robinson there.

Thanks for the link to the essay. I like Greenwell a lot, and I like thinking about this kind of thing, and I'd have missed it without your link.
posted by Orlop at 7:49 PM on January 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

Mfw. If you don't know what "relevance" means, thou ought not art. (On a commercial basis, at least. Dalliance on thy patio until the end of time, bon hommes... )
posted by metametamind at 8:05 PM on January 24, 2021

"against interpretation" is still correct.

one can also be against method...

Seriously though, this is an amazing piece and worthy of deeper contemplation.

Thanks for posting.
posted by albion moonlight at 9:08 PM on January 24, 2021

gusottertrout: "Just a note that the linked essay is wide ranging and purposefully asking something more than a hot take on its title."

Just to reiterate this, and try to preemptively nullify drive-by opinions, please do read the article.
posted by signal at 4:40 AM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

“irrelevant” has joined “problematic” as a term of absolute dismissal,

Checked out exactly right here. "Problematic" is the opposite of a term of dismissal. It's an acknowledgement that there's a serious flaw in a work that otherwise has great merit. Bigoted garbage isn't called "problematic," it's called "trash."

Are people so infested with brain-worms that they can't make it past the second paragraph of their essay without tilting against the windmill of accountability?
posted by explosion at 4:57 AM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]

Two paragraphs later:

I see the prominence of “relevance” as a term of assessment in our current critical language as part of a huge and necessary correction, an assertion that these and other supposedly marginal experiences are pertinent, as all human experience is pertinent, to the communal endeavor to make sense of ourselves that is the labor of art. What I find moving in the shared etymology of “relevant” and “relieve”—that fossil poem I began with—is the resonance between “to make stand out, to render prominent or distinct,” and “to give ease from pain or discomfort.” The struggle to assert the value of a broader range of voices in our literature has relieved an injury, the injury of invisibility.

The entire gist of the essay is trying to come to terms with or balancing different needs in this regard.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:17 AM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is a fantastic essay, and I don’t just sat that because Giovanni’s Room was really important for me too early on.

Just picked up Cleanness, Greenwell’s newest. Looks promising.
posted by thivaia at 5:20 AM on January 25, 2021

It’s just a euphemism for ‘marketable’.

I enjoyed the essay.
posted by The Toad at 7:12 AM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

@folklore724, I've been preparing some thoughts on time (time defined in terms of specific relationships) and this essay lands like a gift. Thank you.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:37 AM on January 25, 2021

explosion: It's also worth saying that one can appreciate and enjoy works that are "problematic," provided we acknowledge that those works are problematic, understand why they're problematic, and when the creator is living and producing new work, we try to get them to do better.

To use the "problematic" label to just completely dismiss a work of art is short-sighted and foolish. It does not mean you need to like, enjoy, or appreciate the work. If the problematic nature of a work is so strong that it prevents you from enjoying and appreciating something, this is valid, but it does not mean the work itself is invalid.

To put it in a concrete way, I don't have any interest or appreciation for the work of J. K. Rowling. Her genre is something I have no interest in, her work is problematic in its representation of gender and sexuality, and the creator herself is incredibly problematic. I don't fault those who do enjoy her work, especially those who enjoy it and acknowledge both the work and its creators failures.
posted by SansPoint at 8:41 AM on January 25, 2021

When people ask me whether I think we need more queer stories with happy endings, my answer is always yes. We need more queer stories, period. But to believe that art is irrelevant if it fails to reflect the life we want for ourselves and the world we want to live in is to mistake how art works.

It's nice to see a mainstream media source cut to the heart of the fandom drama that's been screaming its way through Tumblr and Twitter for the last few years.

Over and over and over, we keep having to explain: "I am not writing about the world I want to happen. I am writing about the world I want to think about. Not the one that is; not the one that should be; not the one I want. These are ideas; this is art; it does not need to speak to everyone."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:54 PM on January 25, 2021 [7 favorites]

This is one of the most beautiful things I've read on Metafilter - thank you.
posted by doggod at 3:28 PM on January 25, 2021