a question of remembrance

The passing of Karlheinz Stockhausen on 5 December 2007 brings up many questions about what of and how we remember someone marked as one of the great musical geniuses of the twentieth century.  It also brings up the question of how aesthetics interacts with politics within the realm of a non-representational art form. 

Alex Ross offers an extensive citing of various obituaries here, including one by Ivan Hewitt in the Guardian.  It's the opening of Mr. Hewitt's piece, in which he references a quote from Blake that Stockhausen admired--"He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in Eternity's sunrise"--that inevitably recalls to my mind another quote, one from Stockhausen himself after the terrorist attacks on September 11 when he allegedly referred to the attacks as "the greatest works of art in the whole of the cosmos."

Lest I commit libel, it is important to clarify that these words have been misquoted and mistranslated throughout the international media.  Stockhausen himself responded to the controversy that erupted over the statement as follows, referring to his seven-part opera cycle Licht, which has never been performed in its entirety:

At the press conference in Hamburg, I was asked if Michael, Eve and Lucifer were historical figures of the past and I answered that they exist now, for example Lucifer in New York. In my work, I have defined Lucifer as the cosmic spirit of rebellion, of anarchy. He uses his high degree of intelligence to destroy creation. He does not know love. After further questions about the events in America, I said that such a plan appeared to be Lucifer's greatest work of art. Of course I used the designation "work of art" to mean the work of destruction personified in Lucifer. In the context of my other comments this was unequivocal.

Stockhausen was not the only artist to consider the terrorist attacks via a dramatic lens--Damien Hirst, for example, also had his moment.  And it is Richard Serra's response in the New York Times to Stockhausen's comment that remains the most eloquent and concise indictment of the power of the composer's words: "Mr. Stockhausen made us see the extreme of a not uncommon attitude, the aestheticization of reality; in this instance, the aestheticization of terror."

Perhaps it is at the best disrespectful and at the worst sensationalistic that I revisit this moment from Stockhausen's long career.  And, for sure, the history of Western art is suffuse with reimaginings of horrific events--some are exploitative, and some offer the type of traumatic expression and mourning that Adorno referred to in 1966: "A perennial suffering has just as much right to find expression as a victim of torture has to scream."  But amid the eulogizing that will certainly follow Stockhausen's death, this moment needs to stand out and be remembered as much as the canon of work he contributed.

Stockhausen concluded the alleged post-September 11 statement by saying of the terrorists: "These are people who are so intent on that one and only performance, and then five thousand people are sent into oblivion in one moment. I could not do that."  In his last sentence, at least in this rendition, it may not be condemnation the composer offers but a sigh of resignation over his own limits as a composer.  Stockhausen will certainly live on in Eternity's sunrise, but a significant part of his memory remains in dimly lit shadows.

Comments

[sharkskin girl]

snarky,

thank you for your comment -- and apologies for my delay in responding. 'tis the season.

regarding your thoughts re performance, i think that performance studies theorist john bell's response might offer something similar to your thoughts:

Regarding Stockhausen’s use of the word “art,” John Bell writes, in “Performance Studies in the Age of Terror,”
[I]t is specifically the word ‘art’ that made [Stockhausen’s] comments so obscene, so clueless. […] This is because by 2001 modernist and postmodernist notions of what art is, what artists do, and what functions art serves in Western culture were overwhelmingly dominated by the image of the artist as an isolated romantic genius who creates objects, sounds, or events that by definition can only connect to our lives as high-end cultural products. Would it have been considered any les obscene for Stockhausen to call the destruction of the World Trade Center ‘performance’?” (2003:6).

and while i agree with your flip of just who became, after 9/11 the terrorists (and while, also, i maintain my own conspiracy theories), i do think it's important to be able to evaluate just what one is referring to when one applies terms like 'performance' or 'art' to events such as 9/11; that is, it remains of enormous significance to consider what else, then, might be considered 'performance'--just 9/11?, any terrorist attack?, war in general?, the nazi holocaust?, the atomic bomb?

it isn't so much stockhausen's use of the term (though i do still find the entire quote dangerously careless), but rather the fact that i'm not sure of his ethics in using it--something that remains important for us all to keep in mind in re the power of language.

again, thanks so much for your thoughts--
sharkskin

[Snarky]

"Mr. Stockhausen made us see the extreme of a not uncommon attitude, the aestheticization of reality; in this instance, the aestheticization of terror."

Richard Serra can say what he will about the aestheticization of terror. What I personally got out of Stockhausen's remarks was the shattering and yet at once enabling insight that 9-11 was a *performance.* I think a "performance" is subtly different than a "work of art." Perhaps my change of terminology is my own effort to get past the aestheticization bullshit, which I perceive as a way of dismissing or even ridiculing Stockhausen's terrifying subtext. "Oh, he's one of those kooky artists who aestheticize terror. Take him to the local S/M club and let him get it out of his system."

To borrow Richard Bauman's definition, a performance is the act of expression framed as display. What became increasingly and also painfully clear to me about 9-11 as the years went on was that the "act of expression" which we initially thought was foreign-born was in fact manufactured at home: by the very people who are supposed to protect us. It was one of the greatest performances in the cosmos because it worked: it gave the terrorists the excuse they needed to go to war with Iraq.