Art Historian David Raskin's Soft Socratism

By Tienfong Ho

In a recent article, "Illusionism in Krauss and Judd," that will be published in his new book, Judd's Soft Truth, School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor David Raskin states that art is "inadequate [when put] to the task of reconciling mental reality with the material world." In a school for artists, Raskin's assertion of a discrepancy between "mental reality" and "material world" charges his classroom with an energy and importance surpassing the art historical content he teaches.

Despite teaching art history at SAIC only since the fall of 2000, Raskin has established a reputation among art history and art practice students alike. In an interview with F News he said, "Especially as the students go from undergrad to grads, they often have a more theoretical or intellectual engagement with their practice [than in their previous work]. So what it gives me is a really committed and vital arts community, where everyone is deeply engaged with the same set of material."

Despite specializing in historical scholarship, Raskin is not detached from art practice. Most semesters, he maintains a load of graduate projects. He advises a mix of painters, ceramic artists, fiber and material studies students, and even the occasional performance artist. To Raskin, being directly involved with art practicioners is inseparable from art history. It is art's past surfacing in the present, as Raskin noted:

"With the students, I'm engaging the concerns that matter to them right now in 2003, instead of my scholarship which is focused on the 1960s. It lets me understand the differences between that kind of historical scholarship and what it means to engage contemporary art now, through the concerns and passions of grad students who are actually making art and trying to make art that has meaning at this moment."

Raskin added, "What I find is that so many of the student artists are really interested in the questions of the '60s and they find the complexity of the era is one they are still facing. They feel they are working out of the ramifications of the fracturing of the Abstract Expressionists' hegemony, into the Pop and Minimalism and Conceptual Art, and then into various kinds of institutional and critique practices. Many of them find the authority for what they're doing in this legacy of the '60s. [It serves as] sort of an anchor for their practice. They look at it as practitioners."

It may be that Raskin's own experience as an art student has colored his approach to art history. He said, "For a long time I felt that everything I knew about art I learned from my painting practice because the formal engagement at a really hands-on level (making marks, looking, thinking, and responding) was a kind of intellectual training, which I've only recently bolstered with the really academic framework that you get from a PhD."

Moreover, the manner by which artists "test" their artwork by looking and seeing what makes it effective, is, as Raskin believes, akin to his engagement with art from a scholarly angle. "I look and see what it does; only then do I begin to move out into the interviews, the critical framework, the historical context. First and foremost is look and see, look and feel, look and analyze." The dual approach of feeling and analysis mirrors the question about '60s art: Should art appeal to the mind, or should it appeal to the heart? Raskin's response is, "You can engage it emotionally but analyze it intellectually and those are different practices and one doesn't preclude the other. In fact we all do both."

Raskin's course Minimalism and Related Movements brings major issues concerning art and the viewer to the fore. Of particular significance is the experience of viewing a work of art that appears remarkably similar to the work of another artist. This may lead viewers to conclude that these works must be alike in ways beyond their appearance. The often-simple geometries of Minimalist works make them subject to such interpretation, to be used as fuel to burn down the possibility of originality. Raskin argues for the experience of art as an experience of the artist's autonomy:

"Part of that reason you get that emotive charge [from art] is that you feel something correct in the use of materials, and the form, all those formal elements feel combined correctly, feel combined purposively, and that purposiveness is what's coming through. I believe [that] when you are looking at art and you are having that 'charge,' that ineffable response; what you are doing is you're getting a taste of the artist. You can simply look at a Barnett Newman and Morris Louis and see the differences in how they were made. ... Whether or not these differences ... add up to much (they may not), to people who actually care about this whole tradition and story or art, this sort of modernism and its aftermath-tradition of art, the small formal differences are deeply meaningful."

As a teacher, Raskin requires students to lead the class and pose questions in addition to summarizing the structure of an argument in each reading assignment. He chooses the demanding class format of being forced to respond, without rehearsal, to his students' concerns. One might say he places himself at the mercy of his own classroom. Raskin's "specific objectives" for course content force students to think about the larger and whole ideas, by examining complicated material from many points of view. Yet, Raskin's personal integrity always places his beliefs out in the open, so that they take precedence in any given theme.

Thus his course structure cannot be mistaken for minimalist L-beams, waiting for meaning to be imposed on them, sources for external opinion only. Through gently guided discussion, a "soft Socratism," Raskin encourages original thought without confrontation. Rather than listing the points of a concept, Raskin instead chooses to trust in his student's autonomy and their existence as individuals. He is opening the door for genius.

Image: "Angst-filled mark" (1989), David Raskin's work done as an undergrad. He is no longer a working artist.

"I believe [that] when you are looking at art and you are having that 'charge,' that ineffable response; what you are doing is you're getting a taste of the artist." --David Raskin