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.When we do makejudgments, though, the trick would be to remember that theyare contingent, hailing from one smal point in time and insociety.It’s only a rough draft of art history: it always couldbe otherwise, and usual y wil be.The thril is that as a roughdraft, it is always up for revision, so we are constantly at riskof our minds being changed—the promise that lured us al toart in the first place.How will art itself deal with having journeyed beyond theend of taste, with—as “America’s Most Wanted” painter AlexMelamid said—artists’ status as “the minority that knows” hav-ing given way to a period when they are as shaky and unsure ofhow to use their taste as anyone else living in a complex com-munity? If taste is largely a tangle of social relationships, canart find means of untangling them? It’s hard to guess.It surelywon’t be with art that sits in judgment of its audience.Perhapsit would be an art of translation.Some artists are taking the_________• 158 •LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVEsocial itself as their medium, as Komar and Melamid did intheir poll-based paintings, and others have done with “rela-tional aesthetics” that make art out of a party or a game, andstil others by trading cal -and-response creativity on networkssuch as YouTube.They come from many levels of shame andshamelessness, but they have in common that they al hazardto col aborate with strangers.Some of this stuff is tough evento recognize as art, but after a period when art often seemedto be its own main subject, it’s refreshing to have art in whichits newness consists in letting in the world, even too much ofit.Maybe there will be more variety shows.* * *Meanwhile, Céline has been changing too.She seems to havecome into her own as an adult, to have made a much-belateddiscovery that she has a self, ever since her husband’s battlewith cancer and the birth of their son René Charles (who,according to press reports, is totally into hard rock music).Her four-year run of A New Day in Las Vegas, meanwhile,has worn down the skeptics and helped make Vegas anestablished music center.The windup at the end of 2007 willno doubt be triumphant.But the evolution is also in her music.Céline’s albumssince Let’s Talk About Love have gained some restraint, thesinging and arrangements become more up-to-date and“tasteful.” Her latest French release, D’Elles, goes very high-culture, even intellectual—it’s a concept album in which allthe lyrics were provided by female journalists and novelistsfrom Quebec and France.(One review was titled, “I AmWoman, Hear Me Think.”) At the 2007 Oscars, she was_________• 159 •CARL WILSONasked to sing a new piece by the renowned (and cosmo-politanly hip) Italian film composer Ennio Morricone, whowas receiving a lifetime-achievement award.And her nextalbum might go even further.Titled, warningly to fans,Taking Chances, it is rumored at the time of this writing toinclude songs by the rock band Evanescence, ex-Eurythmicsmusician Dave Stewart, the R&B artists Ne-Yo and R.Kelly(who’s built up cachet with the loony audacity of his musi-cal soap opera, “Trapped in the Closet”), producer The-Dream (who made Rihanna’s massive hit “Umbrella”) and,most unlikely of all, that chart-topping studio avant-gardist,Timbaland.It is almost as if Céline has figured out how tobe cool, American-style.Meanwhile in the summer of 2007 in Toronto andMontreal, two separate fringe-theater plays featuring Célineimpersonators popped up, one a satire based on her life cal edCéline Speaks and the other a drag-queen murder mystery cal edSaving Céline.And Elle magazine cal ed me for comment foran article that questioned if Céline is as uncool as everybodythinks.Maybe Simon Frith was wrong: maybe Céline is a can-didate for critical redemption.Camp treatments and revision-ist articles are surely portents.In both Bourdieuvian and show-business terms, this wasall predictable: having been at the summit of the entertain-ment field for so long, Céline was bound to begin findingways of converting her quickly devaluing 90s cultural capitalinto a more liquid currency, and teaming with cool producershas become a standard move for performers in mid-career orlater who need a shot of credibility.Don’t be surprised if in adecade she is working with Rick Rubin, who did the trick forJohnny Cash and Neil Diamond, or Jack White, who gave a_________• 160 •LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVEboost to Loretta Lynn.Perhaps those lost Phil Spector tapeswil leak out of the vaults.All of which, I confess, makes me slightly sad.It lookslike a narrowing of options: if even Céline has finally gottensucked into the widening gyre of competitive distinction thatis cool, how much hope is there that any of us can resist itsslick blandishments?I’m reassured, however, by the biggest Céline-relatednews of the year, which was that in an ostensibly AmericanIdol–style contest on the Internet, her song “You and I” wasselected as Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaignsong for the 2008 presidential primaries.As the Platonicform of the Idol talent-contest winner, of course, Céline hadbeen a shoo-in.And to court such potential voters as olderwomen of all income brackets, suburban families, new immi-grants and more, she was probably a savvy choice: indeed,for once, Hillary Clinton seemed to have managed a solidlypopulist move, to help palliate her aura of graspingness andself-regard.And what happened? Of course, the announcement wasmet with moans, groans and rampant smart-aleckery frommusic blogs, late-night talk shows and Sunday newspapercolumns.So far, it seems, Céline Dion remains securely uncool.Andthat gives me the heart to go on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]