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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2007 : 10:34:24 [Permalink]
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Gorgo, maybe you can appreciate my response to you if I put it this way. There is a difference between art and entertainment, and that difference is that the first deals with reality, and the second provides an escape from reality. Of course many works of art straddle the line between these two categories, and end up doing a little of both, but that is the basic difference. It is easy to be entertained. You don't really have to be in the mood to be entertained. But to experience art often needs a certain mindset. A lot of people want to think this is because art is weird or unaccessible and elitist, but that's bullshit in most cases. Most independent films are perfectly able to be grasped by an average public. But people don't want to think and feel about our imperfect reality. They'd rather laugh, or have their heartstrings pulled at, or be thrilled, titillated, or get an adrenalin rush, and perhaps figure out the puzzle in a murder mystery. There's nothing wrong with any of that, unless we think it is anything other than escapism.
Last night Will and I showed my parents a couple episodes of "Lucky Louie", an old-style sitcom which ran 13 episodes on HBO. While it was funny, it was also depressing. The couple were in a shaky marriage, had money problems, and fairly common personal psychological issues. The tensions were genuinely uncomfortable. My dad commented that it was "a little too real." This is art. It creatively deals with reality, which as we all know is often pretty difficult and flawed.
This makes me think of you because in many threads you have spoke about how people don't want to deal with reality. They escape through not just religion, but other means. So I was rather shocked when you made the comment about the Raphael not matching your couch. Does this make a little more sense? |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 12/26/2007 : 11:44:39 [Permalink]
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Does this make a little more sense?
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No. Sorry.
I just watched "An Unreasonable Man," the documentary about Nader. I was entertained by it. It was a movie about real life. Not even fiction. Is that art? Is it only art if I don't want to watch it?
Or, is it only art if it's real life as depicted in a fictional movie? Is "La Vie En Rose" art?
Unless you're talking about the art in the sense of the art of Kayaking or something, as in a particular skill, my sense was that you were talking about something that had aesthetic value. Something that was entertaining or pleasing to someone. No? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2007 : 11:51:37 [Permalink]
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So I was rather shocked when you made the comment about the Raphael not matching your couch. Does this make a little more sense?
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It was a joke, but people do buy 'art' because it fits in their decorating scheme. That's not why I wouldn't buy these pieces you showed. Religion isn't the reason I would not buy some of the pieces you showed here. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2007 : 12:57:04 [Permalink]
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Gorgo wrote: | I just watched "An Unreasonable Man," the documentary about Nader. I was entertained by it. It was a movie about real life. Not even fiction. Is that art? Is it only art if I don't want to watch it? |
H-how did you get that from what I wrote? How could you possibly have interpreted what I wrote as defining entertainment as that which is enjoyable and art as that which is unpleasant?
Maybe I was right the first time when I said there was really no point in debating this with you. Even if I had the time and eloquence to fully get my views across to you, I doubt you'd get what I'm trying to say. We seem to think so differently that this is just not a topic where there will going to be effective communication, at least not short of me dropping everything for a couple days and putting all my mental energies into it, and that's just not worth it.
| It was a joke, but people do buy 'art' because it fits in their decorating scheme. That's not why I wouldn't buy these pieces you showed. Religion isn't the reason I would not buy some of the pieces you showed here. |
Who was talking about buying art?
The article in the OP talks about the cultural and intellectual value of music and art and such, which, as it is part of Western Christian history, includes Christian elements. You are the one who has brought in the concepts of entertainment and home decorating, which, while they have similarities to art, are another animal altogether. When you call something a “waste” that doesn't sound like an expression of personal preference or taste. When you talk about what “could have been created”, that sounds like you are making a judgement on these artifacts' cultural value and merit to the collective of society, not just yourself. But when I've defended them on those terms, you switch and start making ridiculous statements about the ultimate subjectivity of art (no shit, Sherlock – nobody here has claimed that any art is “great” by universal and objective standards, only by collective human standards.) and then you claim you were only expressing personal preference.
You lament what could have been. But it wasn't, and more importantly, couldn't have been. Reality is what it is, and no amount of whining about human imperfections is going to change our past as a species. No should it. By our own collective standards, we are the most amazing animal known to exist. We're sentient. We can do science. We can think and communicate to each other highly abstract ideas. And we are incredibly creative, and can create objects, music, stories, poems, etc. to try to express the sum of our human experiences from our emotional and subjective perspectives, to compliment the plain facts of objective reality that science gives us.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2007 : 13:17:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Gorgo wrote: | I just watched "An Unreasonable Man," the documentary about Nader. I was entertained by it. It was a movie about real life. Not even fiction. Is that art? Is it only art if I don't want to watch it? |
H-how did you get that from what I wrote? How could you possibly have interpreted what I wrote as defining entertainment as that which is enjoyable and art as that which is unpleasant?
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Please note the question marks. These are questions to enable discussion. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2007 : 13:20:29 [Permalink]
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| Who was talking about buying art? |
I was. Note the mention of a joke. I was making a joke. Which is not the same thing as a riddle. Which your essays her often seem to be (also a joke). An art form, perhaps, yet entertaining, nonetheless. Riddles generally don't match my couch, either. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 12/26/2007 13:21:56 |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2007 : 16:39:10 [Permalink]
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Mister Atomic.....
| I can't believe anyone could be so arrogant to claim that being turned off to art for any reason is ignorant. That is very offensive and I think you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I can't believe you actually are trying to tell me I have to like something and that if I don't, I'm ignorant. I mean, hell here I was thinking art was subjective. Now I have to like everything or else I'm an ignorant? WTF? Who said I couldn't sense anything at all? How do you know? Aren't I allowed preferences? Is that OK with you sir? |
Whoa, boy! Pull up a little. I am neither arrogant nor ignorant - merely accurate! You are ignorant of the meaning of the word ignorant! | 1 a: destitute of knowledge or education; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified! Emphasis mine |
I used the word "ignorant" twice: If you are ignorant of art, or music, or poetry, or dance, or any of the myriad forms of artistic expression, and you want to remain that way, fine!
And those that are not educated, are ignorant. |
The first is a provisional statement of attitude. 'It's OK with me' is not offensive!
The second is a fact, not an insult!
Why is it offensive to be told that you lack knowledge or comprehension of a subject of which you do lack knowledge? My statement was not perjorative, merely factual.
I stated that it was wrong to be "turned off" by a subject of which you have little or no knowledge, and one which you were criticizing the total because of disliking one of it's elements. Once you gain such knowledge, it would no longer be wrong to be "turned off"; at the time of that happy eventuality, you could legitimately have any opinion you wanted to about the sum product as long as you spoke to each of it's components separately.
The statement "I hate the Madonna of the Meadow" is prejudicial, if it stops there, but is better if you can explain why; as in, "I hate the religious connotations of the Madonna of the Meadow but I can't speak to the merits of the painting because I am ignorant of such things." Or "I hate Raphael" is much better expressed if you add that you dislike the subject matter of much of his work. Better yet, if you can comment, positively or negatively, on the portraiture that he did, also comment on the artistic merit of his painting.
And for comment that truly informs others, rather than simply expressing your singular opinions, a full statement of what you like and/or dislike about both the artist's abilities and techniques as well as any subject matter he (R, in this instance) has chosen, would be valuable commentary to those wishing to learn something, or to contrast your views with theirs and discuss them with you.
Marf can do that much better than I, as she is highly trained in the field and also professionally practices it. I have some familiarity with the subject having visited many of the world's art museums (during a summer I spent in France, I spent every day of one week in the Louvre), and owning a large collection of art books and a modest group of wall hangings.
I can't believe that you can't read well enough to understand that I did not criticize your disliking certain art or music or whatever, nor did I state that you were in any way generally ignorant for holding such opinions. I stated that you were wrong, and that it was ignorant to dislike an art piece en toto because of it's subject matter alone. I don't want to appear redundant but I said exactly:| If you are ignorant of art, or music, or poetry, or dance, or any of the myriad forms of artistic expression, and you want to remain that way, fine. But it is wrong to be "turned off" simply because the subject of a song, or painting, or poem is one that you happen to disagree with. |
It is wrong to be ignorant of the significance of an art form; and, not understanding it, to condemn or criticize it for an extraneous reason (in this case, religious content).
Once you know something of a subject, any opinion you want to render is fully acceptable as long as it is not contrary to fact, and you can substantiate your opinion with something more than just "I don't like it". I was mistakenly excoriated here once simply for asking for folks opinions on UFO's without giving evidence that I had any business using the acronym UFO! Pretty tough stomping grounds for someone that just wants to express opinions without giving their reasons for having those opinions! I don't give a flea fart for folk's opinions one way or the other that are merely stated as 'this is the way I feel, period!'
It would be perfectly acceptable to criticize or praise the piece of art on it's own merits, and to argue with Marf all day long about the art. Equally, to criticize the subject matter (Christianity) and quarrel with BS (Bullscott) for the rest of the night about the legitimacy of the religion. But to conflate the two into a condemnation of the of the art piece as a gestalt because of it's elements of religiosity, is not Critical Thinking; which is what we're all supposed to be so much about in these parts - and what your very own SFN is presumably based on.
| That is very offensive and I think you don't have a clue what you're talking about. |
I not only have a clue, I completely know what I am talking about, and so does Marf; but it is obvious that you do not, yet.| I can't believe you actually are trying to tell me I have to like something and that if I don't, I'm ignorant. |
The reason you can't believe it is that it never happened!| I mean, hell here I was thinking art was subjective. Now I have to like everything or else I'm an ignorant? |
Art is objective in presentation, subjective in interpretation. Both must be addressed. You can like or dislike anything you choose. You are ignorant when you condemn or criticize without knowledge of what you are criticizing. Criticize or commend with knowledge (education, references, sources - you know, let's hear your authorities, let's see your links, show me something other than just your opinion! Something that sounds like a skeptics forum!) and your opinion has substantive value.
| Who said I couldn't sense anything at all? How do you know? Aren't I allowed preferences? Is that OK with you sir? |
Atomic, sir, sense any damn thing you want! I have no idea who said what you quote. Not I, certainly! I neither know nor care what you sense or prefer, Mister Atomic. It is OK with me if you want to grow gossamer wings and jump straight up God's anal sphincter and take a flying fornication at the moon! But thank you, Sir, for the honorific. It shows that you respect me and my opinions, and in that, you are wise, not ignorant! | And I'm the type that often selects songs for their lyrics. I'm not as big on the music as some people are. Switching out the lyrics is not on the table except for perhaps Beck since he selects words for the sounds they make and not their meanings. Is it OK in your eyes to pay little attention to music and more to the lyrics. In my eyes my tastes make perfect sense |
Appreciation of a song's lyrics to the exclusion of the music is extemely common, as is the converse. Of course it is "OK"!
I HATE "rap" "music" with highly offensive lyrics - but much of the rhythm, meter, and syncopation, I find likeable. I have a vocal filter on my sound system, and I frequently listen to rap and hip-hop (and other music) just for the beat in rap, and the melody in some songs that have schmaltzy lyrics but pretty tunes. I have many classical jazz records that are similar in musical context - good tune, bad lyric. Poetry, rhymes, or doggerel are all expression forms that require somewhat different aesthetic talents, both in creation and appreciation.
That talent is inherent in most people, if in differing degrees, with the stipulation that it is generally far easier to appreciate than it is to create! But if there is desire to do so, appreciation of any art form, or any example of any art form can be cultivated. This is called education and experiential exposure. It is not for everyone, and that is perfectly OK, and is, in fact, pretty much the norm in the population at large.
What is not OK, not logical, and not supported by evidence is to criticize art without knowledge of it. "I simply don't like that", cannot be criticized. It is an opinion, period. It should be ignored. "I don't like THAT because it has a religious theme" is not OK unless you have a substantive reason for disliking both the art and it's subject. And you can have both, one or the other, or none. But opinions of distinction must have argumentative or objective substantiation, or they are not worth listening to.
Next time you're about to have a nuclear meltdown, Atomic, damp down your graphite rods enough to understand what the person you are addressing is saying! If that is arrogant, so be it!
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| Edited by - bngbuck on 12/26/2007 17:06:28 |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2007 : 05:51:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Matt wrote: | False claims? Art is subjective. Much of art criticism seems excessively superlative, obscure and simply unrelated to anything outside of the ivory tower. Much modern and postmodern art fails to communicate its message clearly with those outside of an inner clique of art critics. |
Yeah, and does it claim to be otherwise? |
No, I suppose it doesn't claim otherwise. So we agree on that, you only seem to take issue with the assumption that art should communicate beyond the insular art culture that envelopes it.
| You are the one who used the Emperor's New Clothes comparison. In that story there is a claim of objective fact that is false. How is this the case with the art world? |
In the story there is a blatantly false, self-agrandizing belief stemming from an unchecked argument from authority and conformity bias. It appears to me that a similar, though less blatant, bias is in play in much art critisism. I think you are avoiding that point. Is hubris impossible if you don't make a verifiable claim? I already stipulated that art is subjective so why beat that dead horse?
| Actually this isn't where I think it falls down. Although the craftmanship is not always evident they are usually quite skillfully done. |
Where do you think it falls down? |
As I said, I think it often fails to comminicate effectively or to be relevant.
| No, not score, but record. If it isn't recorded, if it isn't discussed, written about, influencing what comes next and thereby shaping the future, then it isn't going to go down in history. This is not to say that art which goes down in history is better in an objective sense, but certainly it is more collectively valued by human societies, and there are reasons for this which are for the most part observation of objective information. |
It does have to be recorded in some fashion, but if the only thing preventing it from having cultural influence is its obscurity then it could easily be rediscovered at a later date and become very influential even if it has skipped many generations. As I'm sure you know it is actually quite common for "great art" to be overlooked in its day.
| Much great art is not recognized as such in its time and faddish art tends to be largely forgotten over time even if it is hailed as great art in its day. |
Of course! This is why the stuff which does stand the test of time is regarded as "great art". It is also why people tend to think that the art the past was better and that the stuff today is decadent and of a lesser quality – because the worst stuff hasn't yet been forgotten and the best stuff elevated by the history books. |
Sure that's a good point. Perhaps future generations will harken back to the great artistic works of the postmodern era.
| Although I should point out that modernism and postmodernism are now passed, and while they are both still fairly recent, the amount that they have been written about and the global influence on contemporary artists is such that I think it would shocking if those movements in art were forgotten a couple hundreds years from now. |
Well not entirely forgotten I'm sure. But in two hundred years I doubt that a historian looking back would consider modern/postmodern art to be a defining feature of the modern/postmodern era.
| Artists don't create in a cultural vaccuum but I think there is a certain amount of self-obsessing evident in much modern and post-modern art. The culture that has been built up around art often seems disconnected from the culture of the larger society. |
This is where I heartily disagree. People in larger society do not want to look in a mirror. They want escapism and entertainment, which we have plenty of to distract from fine art. The self-obsessing in the art world reflects our selfish culture. |
I suppose that's one way to look at it. But to me there is a disconnect here. I don't see the art as depicting self obsession (though I suppose in a way it does) but the art culture as being self obsessed. I just don't think the self obsession is an intentional comment on society.
| The new Museum of Modern Art in NYC is like a monument for nihilism, where even works which deal with real human issues are drowned out by weirder, more sensationalist works, many of which deal with nothing more than a reductionist approach to aesthetic forms. There is no more romanticism, no more idealism, and humanist art (which is present in every area) is marginalized. Only a pseudo-scientific attempt to analyze pure visual experiences, which reduces works about humanity to nothing but interesting lines, shapes, colors, and textures. In my opinion, this perfectly parallels real society in America. Ignoring the real human issues because we're obsessed with entertainment and consumerism, redecorating kitchens, the latest self help book, and where to spend the summer vacation this year. The disconnect between the elites of the art world and lower classes also makes for interesting observations about the unacknowledged issue of classism in the same way the art of the Renaissance reflected the power base of that era (the church.). The art of today disgusts me, but it disgusts me in the same way that society today disgusts me. I often hate it, but I think it is culturally very significant and really great in this sense. |
I somewhat agree, although as a whole I don't think it parallels real society in any deliberate way. To me it is more as if the culture of high art is adrift latching onto and promoting various forms and styles as high art but unable to create much that is genuinly compelling; splintered apart but trying to maintain an illusion of overall coherence. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2007 : 16:49:47 [Permalink]
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Matt wrote: | you only seem to take issue with the assumption that art should communicate beyond the insular art culture that envelopes it. |
Except in a more intellectual sense, art can't be communicated beyond the culture that envelopes it. Art is something which is experienced. If someone is outside of the cultural context of the work, the experience will have a meaning or evoke a response, but only in the same sense that people give meaning or respond to any random experience, such as a sunset. But art is created by people from a particular cultural context, so how can it be - for lack of a better work: properly – grasped by people outside of that context? It can't except in a distanced way of an outsider contemplating either unknown or foreign concepts.
You seem to want the art fucks (as I often like to call them, even though I'm sort of one of them) to make and critique and promote art with a broader appeal, but I see that as a terrible and absurd thing. The world of fine art is intellectually exclusive, and for good reason: that is the dialogue that fine art is currently dealing with. Why dilute such a rich and long-lived tradition that creatively mirrors a whole cross section of Western, and increasingly global culture? How can you expect artists, critics, and curators, who have fallen in love with art because of certain aspects of its history, to suddenly stop that dialogue and, what, pander to the people? What kind of shallow condescension would that be? Art fucks do what art fucks do because they love this field, this genre, this visual and conceptual conversation, and they want to be immersed in it and become a part of wherever it is going. Do they have some sort of populist responsibility? Of course not.
More importantly, every section of the larger culture already has its great art. For example, while most graffiti is juvenile garbage, among the masses of frustrated teens are a handful of masters.
| In the story there is a blatantly false, self-agrandizing belief stemming from an unchecked argument from authority and conformity bias. It appears to me that a similar, though less blatant, bias is in play in much art criticism. I think you are avoiding that point. Is hubris impossible if you don't make a verifiable claim? |
Are you claiming that the problem with the art world is that they don't actually have a genuine love for the art and its historical connections, concepts, and form, but rather are only playing a shallow game in pretensions so they can feel smart and important?
| As I said, I think it often fails to comminicate effectively or to be relevant. |
Communicate effectively to who? It communicates perfectly well to the people who are interested. Does something with greater popularity have more value? And relevant to what? It is all relevant to something in life or else it would have no appeal to anyone.
You seem to be confusing art with social work or journalism. Social work and journalism are fields which serve people. The efficiency and craft itself is important, but only so much as it serve the cause, which is helping people with their basic needs or disseminating significant information about current events. Art often does address social issues, but it doesn't need to. It is valued for its own sake. The goal of a work of art isn't to make something else happen after it is experienced; the experience the audience has with the art is the goal.
| Sure that's a good point. Perhaps future generations will harken back to the great artistic works of the postmodern era. |
modernist era began several generations ago and pretty much ended before I was born. Postmodern art refers to a multitude of movements and practices over nearly a century, not any specific movement. It is more like a description of several different reactions to the dead end that Western fine art hit when the logical of extremes of modernism finally ran their course. The irony of what you are saying is that one strand of postmodernism is the attempt to make art more relevant to social issues.
| Well not entirely forgotten I'm sure. But in two hundred years I doubt that a historian looking back would consider modern/postmodern art to be a defining feature of the modern/postmodern era. |
Not sure why you'd come to that conclusion, especially considering how much has already been written by historians about modern art and its relationship to social changes in Western culture, but you're entitled to your opinion. I totally disagree, but unfortunately it's unlikely either of us will be around in two hundred years to say "Told you so." to the other.
| I suppose that's one way to look at it. But to me there is a disconnect here. I don't see the art as depicting self obsession (though I suppose in a way it does) but the art culture as being self obsessed. I just don't think the self obsession is an intentional comment on society. |
I agree, that is not an intentional comment on our society. The creators and promoters of art don't often analyze their own work's place in the larger culture, and when they do, they are often wrong, which makes sense since they are inside it and too close to see any larger picture. Most artists sound like idiots when we talk about our work. That's usually why I avoid it, or just make something different up each time someone asks. I used to try to understand why I do what I do, but then I found that I was only limiting my work with contrivances. People with creative callings call it a muse for a reason. It does feel like some outside force being channeled through you, making you create. Thankfully I'm too much of a rationalist and know too much on the odd and interesting quirks of the human brain to believe that literally, but it does feel that way.
Art is inseparable from religious and philosophical ideas in the culture. Art is often viewed as having mystical properties, or at least as being a powerful element for religious rituals or expressions of religious devotion or faith. But with modern art, eventually form itself took precedence over all other elements. Look at what was happening in Western society as a whole: The Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, secular government, religious freedom and diversity – suddenly no dominant worldview enforced by the powers that be. But also, no overarching ethic and set of values to unite society. The rise of the individual over social responsibility. Likewise in art: form with little or no connection to subject. Esoteric, individual expressions, and a total obsession with the new and unique. When I walk into the Museum of Modern Art, I feel I am looking at a concentrated view of modern Western society, and I feel both invigorated and sick. Artists may not always understand what we are making or why, but we can't help but create products of our time and place.
| I somewhat agree, although as a whole I don't think it parallels real society in any deliberate way. To me it is more as if the culture of high art is adrift latching onto and promoting various forms and styles as high art but unable to create much that is genuinly compelling; splintered apart but trying to maintain an illusion of overall coherence. |
Artists aren't philosophers, nor are we political or social leaders or activists. The work we create can only reflect what we experience. How can artists create work which is genuinely compelling and unified when our society is not this way? It would be a fantasy. It would be nothing more than false idealism. Society should have ideals, but artists can't invent them. All we can do is show new perspectives of life as it is, hopefully wake up people enough that new and uniting ideals will be formed by real political and social leaders.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 12/27/2007 16:50:45 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2007 : 19:09:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Artists aren't philosophers, nor are we political or social leaders or activists. The work we create can only reflect what we experience. How can artists create work which is genuinely compelling and unified when our society is not this way? It would be a fantasy. It would be nothing more than false idealism. Society should have ideals, but artists can't invent them. All we can do is show new perspectives of life as it is, hopefully wake up people enough that new and uniting ideals will be formed by real political and social leaders. |
I think you are selling yourself (and other artists) short. At least, most of the artists I hung out with 20 years ago considered themselves to also be activists (for some cause or another - it really seemed as if to be an artist, one had to moonlight as an activist). And the only thing that would tend to dissuade artists from becoming leaders by creating truly compelling political or social art that does unite people for a cause is the lack of a paycheck in it.
Samuel Delaney and Robert Heinlein both created fictions compelling enough that people spontaneously became cult-like about their books. And I'm sure you remember this little ditty. Artists absolutely can invent societal ideals, it's just up to society to decide whether or not to embrace them (as is the case with any other source of ideals), and the world's population is diverse enough that any ideal will be embraced by someone (how many someones will, of course, vary). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2007 : 01:33:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
Except in a more intellectual sense, art can't be communicated beyond the culture that envelopes it. Art is something which is experienced. If someone is outside of the cultural context of the work, the experience will have a meaning or evoke a response, but only in the same sense that people give meaning or respond to any random experience, such as a sunset. But art is created by people from a particular cultural context, so how can it be - for lack of a better work: properly – grasped by people outside of that context? It can't except in a distanced way of an outsider contemplating either unknown or foreign concepts. |
That is true to a point, but only to a point. It seems to me that art is often made intentionally obscure as if being understood or even only appreciated too much by those outside of the art culture might be a negative thing.
| You seem to want the art fucks (as I often like to call them, even though I'm sort of one of them) to make and critique and promote art with a broader appeal, but I see that as a terrible and absurd thing. The world of fine art is intellectually exclusive, and for good reason: that is the dialogue that fine art is currently dealing with. Why dilute such a rich and long-lived tradition that creatively mirrors a whole cross section of Western, and increasingly global culture? How can you expect artists, critics, and curators, who have fallen in love with art because of certain aspects of its history, to suddenly stop that dialogue and, what, pander to the people? What kind of shallow condescension would that be? Art fucks do what art fucks do because they love this field, this genre, this visual and conceptual conversation, and they want to be immersed in it and become a part of wherever it is going. Do they have some sort of populist responsibility? Of course not. |
Showing that one extreme would be bad doesn't make the the opposite extreme good. I don't want to stop any dialogue or water down any art. I would simply like to see it be more accessible and more open to outside criticism.
| More importantly, every section of the larger culture already has its great art. For example, while most graffiti is juvenile garbage, among the masses of frustrated teens are a handful of masters. |
Sure.
| In the story there is a blatantly false, self-agrandizing belief stemming from an unchecked argument from authority and conformity bias. It appears to me that a similar, though less blatant, bias is in play in much art criticism. I think you are avoiding that point. Is hubris impossible if you don't make a verifiable claim? |
Are you claiming that the problem with the art world is that they don't actually have a genuine love for the art and its historical connections, concepts, and form, but rather are only playing a shallow game in pretensions so they can feel smart and important? |
Not at all. Merely that they do not compesate adequately for their own biases and that by becoming insular they cut off potential sources of criticism and create a kind of echo chamber. The bias towards agrandizement for example is more likely to result from a love of art rather than a dislike or disregard for it.
| Communicate effectively to who? It communicates perfectly well to the people who are interested. |
In general I think it could do a better job communicating with those outside the art culture. Hopefully this would not result in watering down of art but merely clearer more accessible art criticism.
| Does something with greater popularity have more value? |
Popularity is not a perfect metric but when considered over a fairly long period of time generally yes.
| And relevant to what? It is all relevant to something in life or else it would have no appeal to anyone. |
Just relevant to a larger proportion of the population. Note that no individual artwork should nessessarily be broadly relevant it's just that art as a whole should be. And it certainly shouldn't avoid being broadly relevant out of a fear of populism.
| You seem to be confusing art with social work or journalism. Social work and journalism are fields which serve people. The efficiency and craft itself is important, but only so much as it serve the cause, which is helping people with their basic needs or disseminating significant information about current events. Art often does address social issues, but it doesn't need to. It is valued for its own sake. The goal of a work of art isn't to make something else happen after it is experienced; the experience the audience has with the art is the goal. |
I'm not sure what gives you the impression that I'm mixing up art with social work and journalism but I agree art doesn't need to justify itself in those terms. I think art is justified primarily by provoking an aesthetic or emotional experience.
| modernist era began several generations ago and pretty much ended before I was born. Postmodern art refers to a multitude of movements and practices over nearly a century, not any specific movement. It is more like a description of several different reactions to the dead end that Western fine art hit when the logical of extremes of modernism finally ran their course. |
The thing is that postmodern art seems to refer to something different depending on who is talking or the time of day. I think you are right that postmodernism is not a coherent movement but it does, to my mind at least, attempt to present a unified facade.
| The irony of what you are saying is that one strand of postmodernism is the attempt to make art more relevant to social issues. |
Hmmm... how is that ironic? Isn't that an indication that what I'm saying has some merit since even within postmodernism there is an attempt to address concerns similar to the ones I have voiced.
| Not sure why you'd come to that conclusion, especially considering how much has already been written by historians about modern art and its relationship to social changes in Western culture, but you're entitled to your opinion. I totally disagree, but unfortunately it's unlikely either of us will be around in two hundred years to say "Told you so." to the other. |
I think that with the benefit of hindsight other trends will be considered to have overshadowed much of the influence of "high art". The growing importance of science and technology has not been accompanied by an equal growth (in the sense of mindshare or influence not in the sense of diversity or volume) in the arts and I think some of the traditional roles of fine arts have been diluted by popular entertainment and other media that are not strictly considered art.
| I agree, that is not an intentional comment on our society. The creators and promoters of art don't often analyze their own work's place in the larger culture, and when they do, they are often wrong, which makes sense since they are inside it and too close to see any larger picture. Most artists sound like idiots when we talk about our work. That's usually why I avoid it, or just make something different up each time someone asks. I used to try to understand why I do what I do, but then I found that I was only limiting my work with contrivances. People with creative callings call it a muse for a reason. It does feel like some outside force being channeled through you, making you create. Thankfully I'm too much of a rationalist and know too much on the odd and interesting quirks of the human brain to believe that literally, but it does feel that way. |
Well maybe that's partly what I'm reacting to then. The idea of the creative muse is interesting to me in the same sense that I find free will interesting. Though both are illusions they remain valid as a means of describing the subjective experience.
| Art is inseparable from religious and philosophical ideas in the culture. Art is often viewed as having mystical properties, or at least as being a powerful element for religious rituals or expressions of religious devotion or faith. But with modern art, eventually form itself took precedence over all other elements. Look at what was happening in Western society as a whole: The Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, secular government, religious freedom and diversity – suddenly no dominant worldview enforced by the powers that be. But also, no overarching ethic and set of values to unite society. The rise of the individual over social responsibility. Likewise in art: form with little or no connection to subject. Esoteric, individual expressions, and a total obsession with the new and unique. When I walk into the Museum of Modern Art, I feel I am looking at a concentrated view of modern Western society, and I feel both invigorated and sick. Artists may not always understand what we are making or why, but we can't help but create products of our time and place. |
Interesting, perhaps it would be fair to say that it's all connected by its lack of connection or unified by its lack of unity. So the aesthetic that tends to develop is one of general aimlessness or vertigo. I wonder though if the art world sort of got stuck there in some ways. I think the outside world has started to move away from that aesthetic and is learning to cope with not having a dogmatic worldview handed down to them.
| Artists aren't philosophers, nor are we political or social leaders or activists. The work we create can only reflect what we experience. How can artists create work which is genuinely compelling and unified when our society is not this way? It would be a fantasy. It would be nothing more than false idealism. |
I'm having difficulty parsing out how this is relevant in the context of what I wrote. We seem to be conflating individual works with the culture of art as a whole. |
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recurve boy
Skeptic Friend
Australia
53 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2007 : 04:15:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Well, I have a problem with it because it's very, very sad that once a religious theme is present,
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Well, I try not to dismiss it completely, but on the other hand, are you saying that it doesn't matter what great speakers say, so long as they speak loudly enough and their sentence structure and grammar obeys all the rules?
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Depends, did they come up with any interesting or creative constructs in their speech?
So the subject matter may be silly, but learning why they chose their subject, studying what techniques they came up with etc is just as much a part of the art.
When I see a multi-million dollar church, I do wish that money had been used for something that was constructive. That doesn't mean that the church wasn't built well. I don't pretend that it's not there. I don't wish someone would burn it. I don't "dismiss" it. I see it. Is it great art? Who cares? It's a waste of money and time.
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I'll agree that more contemporary churches are a waste of time and money. But, I'm still alive and we know so much more about everything than the people during say, the 1600s. So I find it offensive that people would belittle all our knowledge in favour of black magic. But back in the 1600s, they probably didn't know any better. So, I will give them some slack! |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2007 : 05:28:54 [Permalink]
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they probably didn't know any better. So, I will give them some slack!
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Fine, and I'm glad that people have museums where you can go see what witch doctors dress in, and how doctors used to leech their patients. They are curiosities, and they are part of our past. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2007 : 19:49:45 [Permalink]
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Dave wrote: | I think you are selling yourself (and other artists) short. At least, most of the artists I hung out with 20 years ago considered themselves to also be activists (for some cause or another - it really seemed as if to be an artist, one had to moonlight as an activist). |
Maybe, but to me the key word there is "also". Art making and activism are two related but still different things, with two different goals, even if they overlap in a single project. When the art totally submits to a specific message, it becomes propaganda or advertising. I think about it this way – if something can be communicated more directly, then art is not the proper means for communicating it. I'm not saying artists can't also be activists or that an artist's political and philosophical views don't influence their art.
Consider this statement from British author and socialist Herbert Read: | Revolutionary art should be revolutionary. That surely is a simple statement from which we can begin the discussion. We can at once dismiss the feeble interpretation of such a statement as an injunction to paint pictures of red flags, hammers and sickles, factories and machines, or revolutionary subjects in general. But such a feeble interpretation does actually persist among communists, and is responsible for the partisan adulation of a competent but essentially second-rate artist like Diego Rivera.” |
When I was a kid, I loved the paintings of Diego Rivera, and still do. But never because of their social messages. Like most people, I loved his potent use of color and composition, and his distinctive style. Did his political murals inspire a social movement in Mexico? No. Quite the opposite – a social movement that he was involved in (and which failed) inspired his subject matter. Today, he and the other Mexican muralists' works are preserved and valued by history and Mexican culture buffs, but they aren't inspiring anybody in Mexico to start another revolution. Those murals didn't change the world, they were part of social change that was already happening. They are important to history in that they help mark that time and place, but they don't seem to (yet?) be very important to art history.
The musical qualities of the song "We Are the World" were not responsible for the huge rallying around the issue of starvation in Africa. Rather, it was the popularity of the celebrities performing and widespread promotion of it. If a band of unknown street performers had written and played the same song in the NYC subways, and were heard by thousands, it would have had absolutely zero effect on famine relief. The song itself is somewhat moving in its simple and clear message, but I can imagine many songs in its place having the same impact.
Not sure why you brought up Delaney and Heinlein – it seems to me that the cult-like following over their books does indeed have to do with the art of the books, not any social activism. Maybe I'm missing your point.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2007 : 20:01:51 [Permalink]
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Matt wrote: | That is true to a point, but only to a point. It seems to me that art is often made intentionally obscure as if being understood or even only appreciated too much by those outside of the art culture might be a negative thing. |
Like what? All of the art that I can think of which is very obscure is so by necessity to what the artist is expressing. Making it more accessible would be changing the meaning. Abstract artists today know that they will forever be made fun of and misunderstood by most people. But they care too much about what they are doing to stop.
| Showing that one extreme would be bad doesn't make the the opposite extreme good. I don't want to stop any dialogue or water down any art. I would simply like to see it be more accessible and more open to outside criticism. |
I really don't understand what you are saying. Could you refer to some specific works? If I think of something like dada (such as Duchamp's famous urinal) I don't see how it could possibly be made more accessible without changing the meaning. And as for open to outside criticism, the stuffy art world has been criticized by lowbrow artists such as illustrators and cartoonists, comedians, talk show hosts, and more for decades. And the art world doesn't take offense to this jabs. Hell, a few years ago ArtNews (the foremost magazine of the American world of fine art) did a story on a retrospective of cartoons by Robert Crumb and even included one of his strips which made fun of fine art snobs. I don't get what you are asking for.
| Not at all. Merely that they do not compesate adequately for their own biases and that by becoming insular they cut off potential sources of criticism and create a kind of echo chamber. The bias towards agrandizement for example is more likely to result from a love of art rather than a dislike or disregard for it. |
I still don't see where the problem is when there aren't false claims involved. If the people who love and study art the most don't emphasize its importance, no one will.
And I still don't see how other sources of criticism are cut off. Although they are often stemming from ignorance. For example, so many people in NYC went ape shit about the show "Sensation" which included works by Chris Ofili who used elephant dung in paintings of the Madonna. But the critics mostly hadn't even gone to see the show, much less read even a short review of these works to find out that Ofili was of Nigerian decent, and in Nigeria elephant dung is used in artwork in a reverent manner. People were also upset because Ofili used pornographic imagery for the cherubs in some of the paintings. But if anyone bothered to read the New York Times review or any other article about these paintings, they'd find out that Ofili was trying more blatently express the sexual charge he felt as a child looking at old master paintings of the Madonna. Mary almost always looks directly and intensely at the viewer, and in fact, many of the old masters used models for Mary that they had had affairs with. Also, so much religious importance is put on Mary's virginity, and Ofili was raised Catholic. Ofili had this profound experience with art as a child, and as an adult artist wanted to share it. The art world was happy to welcome this unique and exciting interpretation of a very old theme in Western art, but the outside critics were essentially covering their eyes and ears and chanting, "That has poop and porn so it is bad bad bad!"
Two of Ofili's offending images (the first one has the dung – three paddies, not exactly smeared in any kind of visually offensive or defacing manner):
It isn't that the art world wouldn't welcome intelligible outside criticism. It does, as ArtNews welcomed R. Crumb's satirical observations. But most of it is ignorance and unintelligible.
| In general I think it could do a better job communicating with those outside the art culture. |
Art culture includes everyone who is interested in art. Those who are outside of it don't care. Why make some extra effort to communicate to them?
| Just relevant to a larger proportion of the population. Note that no individual artwork should nessessarily be broadly relevant it's just that art as a whole should be. And it certainly shouldn't avoid being broadly relevant out of a fear of populism. |
Who said fear of populism? I said it shouldn't feel obligated to pander to the majority. Art as a whole is broadly relevant. Like I said, every social grouping has its own art, even the urban poor with graffiti. Recently a small group of poor African American women in a southern town have become famous for their handmade quilts, a form of folk art. Why should fine art have broad appeal? Like I said, that would be ridiculous in the first place. The only people who have the money and time to be fine artists or become curators and critics are people who come from the educated middle class. How are people like that going to make art for broader society?
| I think art is justified primarily by provoking an aesthetic or emotional experience. |
I agree.
| The thing is that postmodern art seems to refer to something different depending on who is talking or the time of day. |
That's pretty much the main point of postmodernism – a hyperawareness that everything is dependant on context. If you complain about people using the term in different ways in different contexts, you have missed the point.
| I think you are right that postmodernism is not a coherent movement but it does, to my mind at least, attempt to present a unified facade. |
Can you be more specific, give examples? I went to art school and don't see who could be trying to present this unified facade.
| Hmmm... how is that ironic? Isn't that an indication that what I'm saying has some merit since even within postmodernism there is an attempt to address concerns similar to the ones I have voiced. |
It is ironic because you cited postmodernism as one of the things that you think is falling short.
| I think that with the benefit of hindsight other trends will be considered to have overshadowed much of the influence of "high art". The growing importance of science and technology has not been accompanied by an equal growth (in the sense of mindshare or influence not in the sense of diversity or volume) in the arts and I think some of the traditional roles of fine arts have been diluted by popular entertainment and other media that are not strictly considered art. |
Fine art hasn't been what it once was ever since the democratic revolution took hold in Western culture. However, it doesn't seek to cultivate or influence anything other than its own lineage, which would truly be a sad thing to see disappear altogether. It would be even more sad to see the academic art world disappear since that is the institution which seeks out and recognizes high quality art among that which is not fine art (such as graffiti and innovative quilters.) I don't think self-consciously high art ever had its roles filled by popular entertainment. Popular entertainment is not a new thing. Shakespeare's plays were popular entertainment in their day. Japanese woodblock prints starts as theater posters. There isn't this hard and fast line between high and low art once we step back and view it from an academic perspective – which is what postmodernism realized. I don't get your beef with postmodernism; you seem to agree with it quite well.
| Interesting, perhaps it would be fair to say that it's all connected by its lack of connection or unified by its lack of unity. |
This reminds me of another Herbert Read quote. This one is from his book "The Meaning of Art" first published in 1931: | Art is communication, and though it works by and with the sensibility, there is simply no reason why it should not communicate a sense of values. The answer to the question whether great art can exist independently of religion will therefore depend on our scale of values. The court of judgment is sooner or later the community. It would in some way appeal to a community-feeling. Hitherto the highest form of community-feeling has been religious: it is for those who deny the necessary connection between religion and art to discover some equivalent form of community-feeling which will, in the long run, ensure an historic continuity for the art that is not religious. |
| So the aesthetic that tends to develop is one of general aimlessness or vertigo. |
Yes, but the same could be said for the "community" of Western culture as a whole. Like I said before, we have no unifying values as we did in the ages where one religion was imposed. The art of today is only inadequate because of the nature of the society which produces it. | I wonder though if the art world sort of got stuck there in some ways. I think the outside world has started to move away from that aesthetic and is learning to cope with not having a dogmatic worldview handed down to them. |
You keep saying things about the art world that as far as I could tell while earning my masters, were thrown out before WWI. The art world has been coping with that for a long time now. Again, look at what Read was writing nearly 80 years ago: | During the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, humanism loses its idealistic element. Civilization grows more and more materialistic, and the artist finally ends, in the eighteenth century by becoming either the servant of this materialistic society or simply his own masters. In the former case he is in no better position than the primitive artist; he has merely exchanged one kind of fear for another. The second case brings us to th real issue: can the artist, on the basis of his own sensibility, and without the aid of mass-emotions and traditional ideals – can such an artist, 'good, great and joyous, beautiful and free', create works of art which will hold their own with the greatest creations of religious art? |
The servants of the materialistic society are the entertainers, decorators, designers, and other commercial artists, and the ones who maintain their individuality are largely unknown, and many who are known are called out of touch snobs, financial failures, weirdos, irrelevant, eccentrics, selfish, misanthropic. Most quit within 10 years and a handful manage to have some success in various artistic circles, be they high or lowbrow, but hardly any ever manage to communicate something meaningful, fresh, and complex to a large segment of the public. For now, the answer is to Read's question is probably no, though I have hope for the future. The fact that most Americans use a religious label, but most art (including all forms, not just fine art) is not at all religious, shows that the worldview people profess and the one they actually live by are not at all in sync. Many people in Europe are waking up and getting them in sync, but until most do, art will continue to be either commercial garbage or weird and out of touch with most of society. I'm just happy there still is fine art, and I hope this is just a transitional period, not a slow death.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 12/28/2007 20:06:23 |
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The myth of the secularist humbug
