An Objectivist Art Movement

[Duane 0]

A woman named Alexandra York sent me a letter some time back asking me to subscribe to her journal Art Ideas. Apparently, she is trying to create a clearing house and meeting place for "A New Renaissance" of artisans, both fine and literary. Trouble is, she's clearly in the Kelley camp.

I'm wondering if any Objectivists (the real ones, of course, not those other people ) have started such a thing.

I am a fiction writer, and my short stories are coming along quite nicely. Unfortunately, the world of literary journals still resembles a battlefield covered with rotting corpses, and since my stories project a happier, can-do, life-is-good premise, I have to work a little harder to find a venue.

It would be nice to have a fine, professional forum for introducing new work to Objectivists.

[PhilO 0]

A woman named Alexandra York sent me a letter some time back asking me to subscribe to her journal Art Ideas. Apparently, she is trying to create a clearing house and meeting place for "A New Renaissance" of artisans, both fine and literary. Trouble is, she's clearly in the Kelley camp.

I'm wondering if any Objectivists (the real ones, of course, not those other people  <_ have started such a thing.>

I am a fiction writer, and my short stories are coming along quite nicely. Unfortunately, the world of literary journals still resembles a battlefield covered with rotting corpses, and since my stories project a happier, can-do, life-is-good premise, I have to work a little harder to find a venue.

It would be nice to have a fine, professional forum for introducing new work to Objectivists.

In my assessment, after long observation including multiple failed efforts by various individuals, it's a mistake, for the most part, to try to market anything to only Objectivists.

There's multiple reasons for this. One is business related: There are very few Objectivists in the world today. This is an unfortunate fact.

Another reason is that, if what you're doing has enough value to sell, it's very likely that your market *is* much greater than simply Objectivists. If every copy of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged ever sold produced an Objectivist, the world would be utterly transformed. Of course, the ratio is actually tiny - probably less than 0.1% (1 in 1000) of the people who read the novels become interested enough to seriously study the ideas. But that does not mean that the remaining 99.9+% did not get a value from their reading, and it also does not mean that it was wrong to profit from those sales - on the contrary, it's a great thing. Keep in mind that Ayn Rand explicitly wrote on multiple levels (being a genius, she could do that.) Any honest, average person can enjoy her novels even if they aren't motivated to explore further.

Even a place such as Quent Cordair's gallery, with some of the best art available in the world today, must, I am fairly sure, have customers beyond the explicitly Objectivist market. The reason, again, is that you don't have to be an Objectivist to appreciate beautiful art.

Personally I think that a really good (or great) artist or writer inherently has a market that goes far beyond Objectivists, at least if their subject material isn't inherently so narrowly focused that only Objectivists would find it of interest (e.g. Ayn Rand's marginalia.)

[Duane 0]

There's multiple reasons for this. One is business related: There are very few Objectivists in the world today. This is an unfortunate fact.

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Ugh. Are we really that small, even with the contributions to ARI climbing so steadily, more and more teaching positions opening up, books selling, OCON growing, etc.?

Let's see: if there are 10,000 reasonably competent Objectivists in the world, and we can reach 1000 of them, and we can convince 100 of them to pay a dollar for a short story...OK, I suppose in terms of business potential, you must be right.

Even so, if you measure us in terms of quality over quantity, we're huge!

More seriously, I envision something more like the Quent Cordair web site but for literature, and it could grow organically. It would sell to anyone. The biggest problem, I think, would be finding quality writing to keep it going. I certainly don't have time to solicit, select, and edit content by myself, but I might enjoy being a part of such a thing.

Something like this has been tried once before -- the Atlantean Press Review comes to mind -- but I definitely can't see printing costs being covered by such a venture. It would have to start out on the web.

Do you think it's still too early?

[Burgess Laughlin 0]

I am not an artist, but I am interested in the social side of this problem.

In the title and introductory post, I see three ideas that may need to be more clearly distinguished: movement, coalition, and marketplace.

In my terms, a movement is group of individuals working toward the achievement of some common value. Often, but not necessarily, that common value may be a change in the surrounding society and culture. The "group" is a mental one. The individuals involved may not even know each other.

If some of the individuals in this group began working together in regular, structured ways with a specified purpose, then those individuals have formed an organization. An organization is ad hoc if its members work together for a short-term goal and then disband. If the creators of the organization design it so that the organization will continue even if the original members die or leave, then the organization is an institution.

Coalitions -- such as a coalition of leftists and rights opposed to a state sales tax -- are ad hoc organizations, usually.

A marketplace is a physical or perhaps organizational place where buyers and sellers meet (usually paying a commission to the house, I suppose) to facilitate their trading. For example, a warehouse owner might provide space on the weekend for a flea-market of buyers and sellers.

So, I would say that there already is an Objectivist artists' movement -- that is, a group of artists, whose philosophy is Objectivism, who are passionately pursuing their love, creation of art.

I don't see a need for a coalition of Objectivist artists for any ad hoc purpose. I don't think any coalition could convince non-Objectivists to want objective art. Plenty of non-Objectivists already do, as the sales of representational paintings and sculpture show. One sculptor I know has been self-supporting for 15 or more years, although that includes offering classes as well as sales of originals and limited-edition reproductions.

I doubt that there is any need for a marketplace beyond what already exists. The challenge is not in developing a new marketplace as a whole, but in finding the right buyers in the overall marketplace now existing. That takes time and persistence for those who produce work wanted only by a few.

Besides all that, none of us should forget that the founder of Objectivism cultivated a mass market in which her works eventually flourished.

[SCS 0]

A woman named Alexandra York sent me a letter some time back asking me to subscribe to her journal Art Ideas. Apparently, she is trying to create a clearing house and meeting place for "A New Renaissance" of artisans, both fine and literary. Trouble is, she's clearly in the Kelley camp.

I'm wondering if any Objectivists (the real ones, of course, not those other people  <_<) have started such a thing.

Don't be so quick to dismiss Alexandra York or Art Ideas. About six years ago, I ordered a lot of back issues of that journal. There is nothing explicitly or implicitly in those pages that should cause any concern. I do not know her personally, and I have noticed that she grants interviews to TOC. However, I have found a lot of value in those issues that I have. Andy Bernstein has a short story in one of issues dedicated to short stories. And I have been introduced to a dozen representational artists that were previously unknown to me, including Michael Wilkinson (who is among my top favorite sculptors). I was also introduced to a number of top-notch movies that were recommended on the pages of Art Ideas. When it comes to art, Miss York seems to know her field very well.

I am a fiction writer, and my short stories are coming along quite nicely. Unfortunately, the world of literary journals still resembles a battlefield covered with rotting corpses, and since my stories project a happier, can-do, life-is-good premise, I have to work a little harder to find a venue.

It would be nice to have a fine, professional forum for introducing new work to Objectivists.

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I, too, have been toying with the idea of starting a website devoted to aesthetics (not just literature) to include articles on art and aesthetics and showcasing works of art.

[Duane 0]

A movement is group of individuals working toward the achievement of some common value. [...]

Coalitions -- such as a coalition of leftists and rights opposed to a state sales tax -- are ad hoc organizations, usually. [...]

A marketplace is a physical or perhaps organizational place where buyers and sellers meet (usually paying a commission to the house, I suppose) to facilitate their trading.  [...]

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Thank you, Burgess. That helps me to zero in on what I'm interested in.

Alexandra York's concept for "Art Ideas" was a good one, but I think it is too soon. She envisioned a literary journal devoted solely to discussing new Romanticism, not necessarily publishing it. The literary world is full of such things, and writers everywhere subscribe to them. They are marketplaces of ideas by, for, and about writers and artists. They are like trade journals, only they cater to specific movements in the art world.

So I guess the word coalition doesn't fit, other than to imply a bunch of artists getting together. The trouble with that idea, I see now, is that artists are generally solitary creatures. It would take someone like Alexandra York, more of an art champion than an artist, to make it happen.

By my message, I hoped to find out whether (A) any Objectivists had already started a literary journal or had thought of doing so, and ( whether such a journal might publish short stories.

[Duane 0]

Don't be so quick to dismiss Alexandra York or Art Ideas...

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I, too, ordered one issue. It is beautiful, and the content is of the highest quality that I have seen in any literary journal. I have considered buying all of the back issues myself.

Perhaps you could help me to answer a question of sanction.

It seems to me that a writer who is choosy about the politics of his publisher is never going to be published. Furthermore, if someone like Miss York produces a journal that would be valuable to me, then I want to have it.

You wrote: "There is nothing explicitly or implicitly in those pages that should cause any concern." Does this mean that as long as “Art Ideas” is not out to attack my values directly, for example, by ripping on ARI, then I am not doing myself harm by purchasing it or even by being published in it? Does this also apply to buying or being published in, say, The New York Times or the Berkeley Fiction Review?

A recent book by Miss York titled From the Fountainhead to the Future was co-edited with Chris Sciabarra. That I am not one of Mr. Sciabarra's most adoring fans is perhaps not relevant in this situation.

I, too, have been toying with the idea of starting a website devoted to aesthetics...

Don't let me stop you.

[Duane 0]

My answer to my own question about sanction is: A writer cannot control what a publisher will choose to print now or tomorrow, but he must be published to make a living, therefore he may associate with almost any publisher.

Exceptions: I don't think a writer should associate with a publisher who produces material that is directly out to destroy him, for example, Osama bin Laden's personal publisher. Also, one should not work with a publisher if profits go directly to support someone who is out to destroy his values, for example, a publication that is a major supporter of David Kelley's oC (a hypothetical case).

However, a writer may publish in a periodical that may also publish a letter by Osama bin Laden at some time in the future, such as The New York Times. The artist's work sanctions literature as such, not the wider paper or its editorial policies. Everyone reading it should understand this. There is no implied endorsement of anything else in the paper.

If I am correct about this, then I really was too quick to dismiss Miss York, as SCS suggested.

[SCS 0]

I, too, ordered one issue. It is beautiful, and the content is of the highest quality that I have seen in any literary journal. I have considered buying all of the back issues myself.

I am glad you find value in it. I agree, some of them are very well done. My personal favorites (out of the 5 or 6 that I own) are the ones that include the fiction - because I love fiction!

Perhaps you could help me to answer a question of sanction.

It seems to me that a writer who is choosy about the politics of his publisher is never going to be published. Furthermore, if someone like Miss York produces a journal that would be valuable to me, then I want to have it.

You wrote: "There is nothing explicitly or implicitly in those pages that should cause any concern." Does this mean that as long as “Art Ideas” is not out to attack my values directly, for example, by ripping on ARI, then I am not doing myself harm by purchasing it or even by being published in it? Does this also apply to buying or being published in, say, The New York Times or the Berkeley Fiction Review?

A recent book by Miss York titled From the Fountainhead to the Future was co-edited with Chris Sciabarra. That I am not one of Mr. Sciabarra's most adoring fans is perhaps not relevant in this situation.

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I have not read either of Miss York's published books, and so I was unaware that Sciabarra co-edited the non-fiction one. That is not very encouraging. It's certainly not an issue of sanction to read books (or journals) that are published or authored by those you disagree with.

Re: publishing and the issue of sanction, I don't think I've given this enough thought myself to give you a very good answer. However, I agree with you that it is fine to publish something in the Times, but not some publication run my TOC. Unfortunately I can't state this in terms of a principle, but perhaps there are other FORUM members that have given the issue more thought?

[Stephen Speicher 0]

Re: publishing and the issue of sanction, I don't think I've given this enough thought myself to give you a very good answer. However, I agree with you that it is fine to publish something in the Times, but not some publication run my TOC. Unfortunately I can't state this in terms of a principle ...

I think the principle is a moral one; not to support, aid, or seek benefit from evil -- not to seek or give value to the irrational and the immoral. As wrong as they so often are, the purpose of the Times is the dissemination of news. The TOC is not simply mistaken; it is explicitly evil. The Times often promotes ideas that are antagonistic to Objectivism, but the TOC seeks to destroy Objectivism from within. With the Times you can judge if your effort is worth the benefit you derive, but with the TOC there is no basis for benefit to be an issue. You do not seek or grant value to the fundamentally irrational and immoral.

[Guest Michelle F. Cohen]

It's certainly not an issue of sanction to read books (or journals) that are published or authored by those you disagree with.

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I agree. Reading Ms. York's Crosspoints was an exhilirating experience and a catalyst in my decision to disassociate myself from TOC. My review of this novel is posted on the book poll section of this forum.

[Guest Michelle F. Cohen]

A recent book by Miss York titled From the Fountainhead to the Future was co-edited with Chris Sciabarra. That I am not one of Mr. Sciabarra's most adoring fans is perhaps not relevant in this situation.

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I have this book, which was published in 2000. My copy does not indicate that Mr. Sciabarra co-edited the book. Do you have a new edition?

[Duane 0]

I have this book, which was published in 2000. My copy does not indicate that Mr. Sciabarra co-edited the book. Do you have a new edition?

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Correction: Mr. Sciabarra is not an editor of her book.

Thank you for the information. I do not own the book. Rather, I received a newsletter from York's Art foundation in the summer of 2002 in which she states that Chris Sciabarra is a co-editor of a certain journal, and he will review her book and publish his review in that journal.

It seems I misread this the first time, in part because she devotes quite a lot of space in her newsletter to plugging Mr. Sciabarra, inluding his book/article Marx, Hayek, and Utopia among others. Even so, I should have read it more carefully.

This correction alters none of my conclusions in this thread.

[Guest Michelle F. Cohen]

Thanks for the clarification, Duane.

[Bold Standard 0]

I'm not sure if this is supposed to mean that it is a mistake to only market something to Objectivists, or if it means that it is a mistake to attempt marketing something specifically to Objectivists at all, even if it is only part of a broader marketing strategy.

If it's the first, I definitely agree. Even if one's primary market were Objectivists, it wouldn't make any sense to exclude other potential markets, especially if you're marketing art-- it is the "universal language", after all.

But if it's the second, I don't agree. The appreciation Art is so selectively specific to individual value judgements that it's hard to find art that one loves-- no matter what one's premises are (with the one exception of the dilettante who is motivated to like a piece for specifically fashionable reasons.)

On that note, I think almost any art journal, website, or magazine that is intelligently united to a single purpose, whether adherence to a specific philosophy, or similarity to some one particular artist or group of artists that are similar, has the potential to attract a following (market) of people who will come to depend on it for leads to new artists that they would never otherwise have access to.

I know that one of the first things I did when I discovered Objectivism was to seek out other art that would give me a similar aesthetic satisfaction to what I was getting from Ayn Rand. And to this day, it is so rare that I am satisfied with anything I can find..

In my assessment, after long observation including multiple failed efforts by various individuals, it's a mistake, for the most part, to try to market anything to only Objectivists.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

SCS, if your choice in architecture as evidenced in your avatar is an indication of your broader tastes, I'd love to see any such website you come up with!

I, too, have been toying with the idea of starting a website devoted to aesthetics (not just literature) to include articles on art and aesthetics and showcasing works of art.

One of my favorite dramas contained in Letters of Ayn Rand is correspondence collected over the years with her publishers over disagreements in their political views. It seems to me that, far from being worried about being published by, and therefore sanctioning a publisher who also published the views of those she disagreed with, AR's first concern was often whether she would be published at all-- even at the height of her fame!-- because of her controversial views. There is at least one work that she had planned-- a comparison and analyses of the similarities between the rhetoric of the Kennedy's and that of the Nazi's, which was never published for political reasons, even though it was explicit in her contract with the publisher that her political views would not be an issue in whether her books were chosen for publication or not, and even though the publisher was initially excited about and supportive of the project.

I wonder if things would be any different if she were alive and publishing things today?

As to the specific question of sanction, I agree with Stephen-- there is a definite difference between a publisher who's primary purpose is to promote certain views, such as TOC, vs. a publisher who's purpose is just to publish works that they think are good and will sell, like AR's publishers, or to "disinterestedly" disseminate information (I mean, what that intention actually amounts to) like the Times.

My answer to my own question about sanction is: A writer cannot control what a publisher will choose to print now or tomorrow, but he must be published to make a living, therefore he may associate with almost any publisher.

[Duane 0]

The answers on sanction were helpful. If I decide to post more questions, I'll do so in a new thread under Philosophy:Ethics.

Back on an Objectivist art movement, it seems probable at this point that a journal devoted to Romanticism and published by and for Objectivists is not in the offing. Until then, any artist who wishes to explore the field of aesthetics has several options: OCON, The Ayn Rand Bookstore, this forum, plus a variety of non-Objectivist sources. Authors who want to make money will obviously have to continue selling their work through mainstream presses.

That seems to settle the matter for me. The only thing left to do now is to create more good works of art!

So, all you fellow Romantics, keep writing, painting, and waxing poetic! Don't stop until you can't keep working, and then keep working! Go on creating, because your mind would die if you didn't. And remember: the best of us are not out to damn the present, but to light the way forward, not to show life as it is, but as it can be and should be.

Hasten the day when we will have buried those blind beatniks who rule academia under a mountain of stories, pictures, poems, sculptures, fanzines, and new literary journals. The stodgy old fools won't even see us coming. As Galadriel, alleged queen of the Elves, once said, "Even the smallest person can change the world." Just wait until they see what we big people can do.

[Duane 0]

Bold Standard,

My post sounds a bit dismissive of yours only because you and I posted at exactly the same moment. I hadn't read yours yet.

I agree with you completely: Objectivists should continue to market in mass media if they wish to get paid; at the same time, Objectivism is still ground zero for the very best kind of artistic exposure, both for the artist seeking a quality audience and an audience seeking objective art.

On a positive note, an artist who manages to sell his work to a broader audience might discover that the world has more good in it than he first thought. Didn't Ayn Rand have this experience after sales for The Fountainhead picked up? Or was it Atlas Shrugged?

[Bold Standard 0]

Oh, that's okay, I noticed the time of your post.

I think three things would be interesting: 1) Collections of art done by Objectivists 2) Interviews with and articles about those artists. 2) Interesting or otherwise important artwork not necessarily by Objectivists reviewed by Objectivists.

It seems to me that those three topics would be enough for a good magazine or website-- and it could also include descriptions and analyses of great artwork from the past, which a few Oist sources already provide, but I can never get too much of that!

I wonder how successful Ms. York's publication has been. I could envision enough market for several such publications, if they were good. But I don't have any real evidence to support that.

Bold Standard,

My post sounds a bit dismissive of yours only because you and I posted at exactly the same moment. I hadn't read yours yet.

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