Art?

[RenzaJones]

IMO

In order for something to be art it has to touch and amaze you.
Touch and amaze is not the same as shock and amaze.
Some art does have to be explained even to those who consider themselves artists or artsy (myself very much included.)
However if said "art" make me naseous or is not is blatantly contraversal I tend to think of it as pop art, and therefore not profound or artistic in the least.

 

[Wills]

Gauche,

I guess it's only similar in the way that wordsmiths respect the craft of their own. If you work in a field you tend to see the connections easier than a lay person.

For my own part, I'm a bit thick when it comes to looking at art, I trained formally as an architect and tend to see things in planes, blocks of colour, rhythms. Tracy Emin's bed requires a lot of work on my part, but after seeing a lot of her other work, particularly 'semi documentary' video work about her early life I can view the bed piece and rationalise it, at least in my terms.

What's the point? The point is as much to do with freedom of expression as anything else. It's the concious act of creation, no matter how banal to the viewer, that adds to the overall knowledge/understanding of our culture and society.

I would personally draw a line at Svenskaflicka's tampon example, unless she was only selling them to men.

Sensationalist art was very much a product of the late 80's, a time of excess in the UK. The concept perpetuated through the 90's partly through Saatchi's need to justify his position as a collector and partly due to the need for commercial galleries to bring back the punters. The recession at the end of the 80's virtually killed all purchases of art. Fortunately the media loved nothing more than to play up 'shock art' as a depravity whilst continuing to publish salacious pictures. I'm not being prudish, I just cannot abide double stanards.

I agree with you about the Myra Hindley piece, a very thought provoking piece from so many aspects, a measure of the media's ability to demonise even after society has judged and condemed. Most of us would have forgotten MH if the media had stopped churning her out on quiet news days. The work was about that as much as anything else.

Each of us takes just what we need from an exhibition, sometimes that may be anger, other times delight. The exhibitions I find most annoying are mixed shows containing just one or two works of each artist. I need to see some continuity of work to appreciate where the artist is going. That way I stand a chance when discussing the work with my wife. Among the artists I know, my view is very much the minority, most artists expect the audience to look beyond the surface.

You wouldn't pick up a book, skim it and two minutes later put it down saying 'well thats a load of rubbish' - would you?

Most visitors to galleries spend much less that two minutes looking at the work they have gone there to view.

One final thing, within artist circles, a distinct drop in visitor numbers at exhibitions has been reported, except for the major touring shows of international collections. Has the public got fed up? Has 'shock art' driven away the audience?

Yours

Wills..

 

[dr_mabeuse]

We do this exercise with all manner of other art forms, books, film and music. Generally the hostility directed at society perceived ‘bad art’ is sensationalised out of all proportion to its status.

Possibly this is because we assume that art is a public funded activity, ‘its our money that is paying for this crap’ whether it be a sculpture in a public square or an exhibition in a municipal gallery.

Exactly what Wills said.

A lot of this art is simply an attempt to be noticed through the blinding storm of media imagery in which we live. In that regard these entires succeeded brilliantly.

---dr.M.

 

[sanchopanza]

The greatest art is beautiful. Beethoven I believe was the greatest composer of all time, that is because his music was beautiful. It doesn't matter what emotions a piece of art evokes, if it is beautiful then it is good art. Then we go down the road of what is beauty and beauty being in the eye of the beholder, but I think a lot of that talk is completely horseshit because to a great extent beauty can be perceived objectively (into pseud mode now), for example what is more beautiful - Barry Manilowe's wailings or Mozart's clarinet concerto? Only an idiot would answer Barry Manilowe. So this new Saatchi bollocks is ugly - it is not good art.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I've learned that the most insulting thing you can say to an artist isn't "Your art is crap!" - sometimes it is MADE from crap, so such an insult will just not bite - but "I think that you should atleast be able to see what the picture is of - like a sunset, or an apple, or something like that"...

I once almost got thrown out of a car in the middle of no-where for saying that to a painter.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The greatest art is beautiful. Beethoven I believe was the greatest composer of all time, that is because his music was beautiful. It doesn't matter what emotions a piece of art evokes, if it is beautiful then it is good art.

There's no doubt that Beethoven was great, but I think it's a fallacy to compare one artist to another or to say that one piece of art is greater or superior to another. As I said once before, it's like arguing over which color is the greatest. There's no way to quantify the effect of art, and it's wrong to think that all artists are trying to achieve the same effect.

Most professional artists abandoned the idea of "beauty" as an ideal back at the turn of the century. There are still artists who pursue it, and quiet successfully (Look at Thomas Kincaid and all those sentimental cottages. He's rich as Croesus now), but most artists went off in pursuit of another aesthetic they felt more relevent to the world they found themselves in.

---dr.M.

 

[whispering_surrender]

Just to expand on what Dr. M said, I don't think you can compare two artists as to who is better, even to yourself. Perhaps it's just me, but based on my emotional state when viewing, watching, listening, reading, etc...I'll react differently.

Mozart is my favorite when I'm writing....but just not the kind of thing I can dust to! *grin*

Whisper

 

[Wills]

Dear Svenskaflicka,

You do like to take risks, don't you..

I've learned to keep quite around artists until I've heard what they have to say. Avoided a lot of long walks that way.

Will's

 

[sanchopanza]

I think it's a fallacy to compare one artist to another or to say that one piece of art is greater or superior to another. There's no way to quantify the effect of art, and it's wrong to think that all artists are trying to achieve the same effect.

Most professional artists abandoned the idea of "beauty" as an ideal back at the turn of the century.

Yes that is all well and good but ignores the fact that some art is utter shite - Picasso was shite, Damien Hurst is Shite, Salvador Dali was shite. There is no arguing how fucking shite they were - they simply were, nothing they created had any aesthetic value, why? Because it was shite. No there is no way to quantify the effect of art but you can tell what is good from what is bad - you can look at two women, one is beautiful and the other is not, you can pick out which is the physically beautiful one can you not? Most professional artists are now fucking cynical idiots who fund their "art" projects with government grants.

 

[Wills]

Dear Sancho,

originally posted by sanchopanza
Most professional artists are now fucking cynical idiots who fund their "art" projects with government grants.

Not going to rise to that, need all my time for NaNo. Tell you what, post it as a new thread in December and we'll argue it out.

Will's

 

[RenzaJones]

um I'm a professional artist and I have yet to see any of this alleged grant money.
To quote one of my stories

Karen watched the delight on Kylie's face as she went from canvas to canvas admiring the pictures. She was surprised to see that this woman seemed genuinely interested in art. The pictures were unsigned and unremarkable within the art world, because an unknown artist was always unremarkable to those who cared about the name more than the technique. Karen knew that there were few artists who were recognized for true art and now more than ever, young upstarts with blatant controversy got more publicity than those with real talent. Or worse yet the Nuevo artists who painted a bleeding circle on a red white and blue background and got regaled for the symbolism before some rich fool paid three thousand dollars to hang the picture in their over priced home. It made her want to gag.

*****

 

[sanchopanza]

When I said artist I made the assumption that most people would take that to mean creation of physical art - paintings, sculptures, etc. I was not referring to authors.

 

[RenzaJones]

niether am I. I am a sculpter and a painter. still no gov't grant money

 

[sanchopanza]

Ah okay, you just quoted yourself thats all. "Most professional artists . . ." to quote myself. Well I suppose I should clarify - professional artists are those who are artists for commercial/financial gains.

 

[RenzaJones]

I don't know how to make it any clearer
I am an artist
I sell the work
It puts food on the table.

 

[sanchopanza]

Do you want me to quote myself again? I said "Most". It was an absurd generalisation used to attack talentless "artists" who can only produce something of value by having it paid for by tax payers.

 

[archon32]

..voices of the blind:

...just how many of you have actually bothered to sit yourself down: separate yourself from opinions obviously formed by regurgitating the popular opinions of s0-called 'experts': and placed yourself within a mindset to study and to understand and then to use that knowledge to create an artistic expression that represents your own unique voice versus feeding at the same troughs of slanted and mis-informed and mal-formed thoughts about 'what art should be...'

...to consider dali and picasso shite artists as one of the s0-called brilliant posters have done here represents a full-on functional ignorance that informs me quite clearly that sitting about on the sidelines and slinging about thoughts and opinions on 'what art should be..' reflects an un-willingness and a deep fear by many s0-called 'creative people' who really are people stuck in a pig-sty of wanting to be liked by their 'fellow peers' who are doing the same circle jerk activity as the next 'creative person' does:

art should not belong to any category because such 'categories' offers nothing other than the usual breeding grounds for the highly contagious ignorance that becomes rapidly pass around from one smaller mind to the next shrinking mind:

dali and picasso were artists whose works will continue to influence minds willing to explore the ceaseless realms of these and other creators' works in a manner that will push the boundaries while the 'creative people' sit around pontificating their ignorance to attempt to cover up the rather simple fact that these 'creative people' have stopped by creative far longer than they are willing to see and wakeup to....

instead these 'creative people' gather about with narrow constraints upon their ever shrinking minds and become not even shadows upon a landscape that they shall never truly grasp and know let alone enter to explore....

try then to stop putting constraints around art and realise quite simply that creating means to bend and push and challenge boundaries and constraints that smothers and that destroys the mind's true will to not become a useless instrument of dummy-downed integrity ---

..and for the fool who says dali and picasso are shite: when was the last time of anytime i sat down with any art book and saw writings on your works:

or when was the last time that your name came up in conversation with my art friends:

or when was the last time i saw the influence of your art work in film: or heard the influence of your art in music - or read the influence of your art in literature....

instead of sitting on the sidelines playing the usual and boring role of whiners and complainers -- at least sit down for the next four to six years of your life and dedicate yourself to learning the components of art and then spend those four to six years creating at least one piece of personal challenging art work that would challenge yourself and consume your hours instead of sitting there like the proverbial book on the shelf rusting and gathering the stench of mildew from lack of use and from a lack of a challenge.....

 

[whispering_surrender]

Just out of curiousity, who was that well written rant aimed at?

Whisper

 

[gauchecritic]

Strong words Archon.

Don't begrudge you your own opinion but it could just be that the person you refer to is in fact David Bailey or Tracy Emin.

Asking him (or her) to sit down and try to produce art is a defunct question being as how he has done exactly that by posting stories to Lit.

Here's a thought: Maybe he (or she) was being tongue in cheek, or possibly not expressing his thoughts in an understandable manner.

What about the poster who compared the wailings of 'pop' to classical music? Where is their tongue-lashing?

And finally... Why does this person have to have a degree in Art History or be a published critic to be able to express a preference?

Just thinking you reacted a bit quickly and a little more strongly than would be advisable. But what do I know?

Gauche

 

[oggbashan]

Back to Beginnings

The art that started this thread may have achieved its purpose just by making us discuss "What is Art?".

It certainly got publicity for the event.

Og

 

[Xelebes]

I'm not up for much visual art or sculpting art. I rather lean towards music. I'm a big fan of the experimental and the abstract pieces. Why? Because I can observe and pick out certain little details or effect chains or structures in the piece that I can try and apply to my own music. A lot of the stuff that came out of abstract disco would lead to the present psytrance/goa craze amongst the raver kids (e is out, pot is maybe in). (goa = world techno or hippie techno).

I listen to the subtleties and such.

However, the ones who do it the worst is the makers of Art Metal. Some can be really cool, but some go for monotonous distortion that doesn't have much structure other than than banging on the guitar (I'm gonna be really sinicle here).

For some approachable new avant-garde techno, try Aphex Twin. If you can get the hang of it, experience the more edgier ones like Venetian Snares and kid606.