Have you ever seen the other works of Serrano involving bodily fluid? Walk up to a wall and you see a white plane and a red plane. That could mean anything. However, it is actually a picture of milk and blood. Now how do you feel, looking intently at milk and blood? Why? Why do these fluids make you feel any different than the way you already do about white and red?
Tada, art.
The problem with this is you could substitute anything at all for “milk” and “blood” and get the same reaction. Most people don’t instantly recognize something they’re looking at.
In fact, the whole point of abstract art is to be non-representational, which implies configuring materials in a way that frustrates an immediate interpretation. I have no problem with that per se, but if that’s the sum total of the work, I think it’s hard to interpret that artistically for the reasons raised in the OP.
I don’t think you could. I take ZebraShaSha’s point to be that there is something specifically disconcerting about mixing blood and milk, that is not found in mixing, say, oil and vinegar, or gin and tonic water. So you couldn’t subsitute anything at all: you need two liquids that have specific cultural connotations that work against each other when combined.
I’m not that familiar with the work described, but I didn’t get the sense that the two fluids were mixed, merely juxtaposed or possibly just placed close together in separate “planes”. If someone has a link to the work, the thread would likely appreciate it.
I meant “mixed” in the sense that they were both used in the same work of art, not that they were combined into one solution.
Here’s Milk, Blood.. He does Cibachromes – I’ve seen other work in that medium, it’s extremely luminous.
And here’s Piss Christ. I thought it was supposed to be yellow/gold, and in a cup. It doesn’t look like urine, does it? It looks like he’s drowning in the blood of all humanity. Or something.
Much more impressive than I expected.
Yeah, Piss Christ is quite aesthetically pleasing.
Also, dude needs to see a urologist like, now.
How’s this:
If it is even slightly capable of communicating something in accord with the intent of the artist, then it’s art. If the only way we can all ever know what we’re supposed to be thinking/feeling about it is by reading the guide book or the little plaque on the wall, it’s pointless bullshit.
:snort:
I wonder if he tried other fluids first? Like, “Grapefruit Juice Christ”? “Kool-Aid Christ”? “Perrier Christ”? Just doesn’t have the same oomph.
Why?
Why make that demand of art?
I’ve got no beef against that as a personal preference, but why limit what others can appreciate?
I don’t like this definition because it has the two words that, I think, have no place in the discussion of art: “intent” and “supposed.”
The trouble with this analogy is that there is an objective way to distinguish good football from bad football.
If the quarterback throws an interception, no one can reasonably argue that this was good football.
If you are an art critic, you just say that he was making an ironic observation of the futility of rigid gender roles in a post-modern society, and you’re golden.
Regards,
Shodan
I completely disagree, and I guess this is where the problem comes. I would say “Intent of the artist” or some unifying characteristic beyond the mere existence of the piece is absolutely necessary. It should be possible to plausibly identify more than just the physical characteristics of an artwork.
If it is possible for different people to hold completely contradictory notions about a work of art and to declare both equally valid, then there is no way to evaluate an artist; it is all subjective. But art isn’t subjective; there are at least two people involved in any work of art, and one is producing something for the other. I’m not saying the interpretation should be simple, or not require any prior knowledge, but it should exist in a justifiable way. A work of art can highlight or address an ambiguity or contradiction, but it should not itself be merely ambiguous or contradictory.
Fans of the art world, I think, don’t want to say one opinion is more valid than another in order to avoid arguments; art is supposed to be aesthetic, and argument seldom is. They also know how wrong critics in the past have been in evaluating misunderstood artists later recognized as geniuses. The “misunderstood genius” is such a part of the zeitgeist of the art world that it might perhaps cloud one’s ability to offer evaluation of an artist, and in a certain sense, bias a critic to reward inscrutability.
Let me close by saying that “evaluate” is not necessarily a value judgement; I’m not talking about rating artworks "good’ or “bad”. I’m just saying it should be possible to dicern something from the artist beyond “he/she made this”, and that this something should be defensible to the point that a reasonable observer would agree. From there, the “success” or “failure” of the artist in achieving his/her goal–the value judgement–can be discerned, and here’s where subjective notions can legitimately bear on judgement.
I think ‘intent’ is what separates art from the view outside my window, or a pretty sunset.
If you remove things like intent and process from art, then you loose anything that distinguishes it from experience. Which may be a legitimate perspective, but then one might ask why anything deserves to be in a museum at all, when an observer’s subjective pleasure is the only thing of value in a work.
It’s interesting CJJ* because even before looking at your profile I would’ve bet you were an engineer. Some kind of mathematician. Someone who’s accustomed to finding answers.
That’s fine. It’s great, in fact; I rely on you and your ilk to function every day.
But art is outside of that.
If you want to learn more about art, you might expand your consciousness.
OTOH, though, if you’re happy with your right/wrong approach, that’s certainly up to you. Perhaps it’s your best option. There’s probably an aesthetic to engineering, all on its own, something about form following function – but an engineer needs to KNOW, not be endlessly fascinated by possibilities.
I never could get the hang of symbolic logic, myself. Whoosh, right past me.
Absolutely not. The importance of art is not what the artist is trying to say, but what the audience hears.
I’m cutting you off there, because you’re absolutely and completely wrong. Art is entirely subjective. There are no right or wrong answers in art.
Why shouldn’t it? Or, more to the point, if you look at a work of art and think it is, itself, ambiguous and contradictory, and I think it has a deep and apparent meaning, how do you prove which of us is right?
Art fans want to avoid arguments? You don’t know many art fans, do you? The wonder about the subjectivity of art is that it means the argument never stop: if there is no correct answer, there is no end to the discussion.
Incidentally, no opinion on a work of art is more valid than any other opinion on a work of art. There is, however, an important distinction between “valid” and “valuable.”
That is an important element indeed, but not quite in the way you take it. After his first few novels, which were mostly travelouge-style adventures, Herman Melville’s reputation as an author mostly vanished. He kept writing these arcane, impenetrable fishing stories that no one, in his day and age, much cared for. Fifty years after he died, when postmodernism was the big deal, someone rediscovered his novels and realized that he’d been writing postmodernism in a premodern world, and now he’s one of the giants of English letters. Does that mean that his contemporary critics were wrong? No, it doesn’t. When they read Moby Dick, it didn’t say a damn thing to them, and that’s every bit as accurate an interpretation as the latter day scholars who canonized him. Art, both its creation and its interpretation, is a personal matter. Opinions about art are not right or wrong, because they describe an interior reaction to work, not an objective truth about it.
Define “reasonable.” If I see meaning in a work, and you disagree with my interpretation, which of us is unreasonable? If I can get more people to agree with me than you can, does that mean I win? If, like Melville, fifty years more people agree with you than do with me, does that mean you win? Is art just a popularity contest? More people today see value in the works of Britney Spears than they do in the works of JS Bach. Does that make Britney Spears objectively better than JS Bach? And most importantly, how do you evaluate the success of a work of art if the artists doesn’t tell you what his intent was?
I agree with this, but if the audience is hearing different things, that is a problem IMO.
I I were, say, to look at a painting like one of Monet’s Waterlillies and claim it is “promoting a fascist interpretation of the state”, would that assessment, in you opinion, be valid?
When many people look at a work of contemporary art and claim it is meaningless–or that it is not art–many in the art world will dismiss their opinion using an adjective like “uninformed”; in short they are making a value judgement about an aesthetic opinion. even saying “Art is entirely subjective” is a value judgement, one IMO that renders art meaningless.
By arguing based on an inquiry into the commonalities of the interpretation.
If your idea of “proof” is something akin to a mathematical or scientific standard of truth, then it obviously can’t be done. But this is an argument from extremes; there is a middle ground between “absolutely, canonically true” and “complete ambiguity”.
There is also no point to the discussion (not really fair, since I have stated several times in this thread that my point is not a specific standard of “correctness”, but that standards of interpretation seem to be verboten). An opinion has to be based on something more than an interior feeling.
If you really believe that, then any utterance concerning a work of art is valid. This is clearly not the case; there is a “something” to a work of art beyond the mere physical details. As Eonwe pointed out, without this “something”, art is indistinguishable from experience.
And later critics had an ability to point to the work, find characteristics in in that support their reaction, and convince others of it; it is entirely the opposite of “subjective”.
It’s also clear plenty of contemporary critics recognized the qualities of Melville’s Moby Dick, despite the fact that it did not sell well. Note I said “qualities”, not “quality”; some critics did like the book, many did not, but most spotted things like the “disconnectedness” of the narrative, higher metaphysical themes, the “graphic representations of human nature”–in short, all the qualities that postmodernists found worthy of canonization. The record shows that contemporary critics–far from disagreeing about these qualities–found them and either accepted or rejected them based on cultural and personal standards.
I am not arguing here that art is timeless; true or not, that’s a different discussion. What I am arguing is that there are qualities to a work beyond the physical details which reasonable people can agree on, and that a skilled artist can present these in irrefutable (though perhaps not obvious) ways, ones which make certain interpretations more valid than others. The evaluation of those judgements–I think this is where the “good/bad” “right/wrong” discussion comes in–are necessarily informed by culture and personal opinion, and that can certainly change over time (i.e. include subjectivity).
Though I recognize these as rhetorical questions, I suppose if any interpretation is valid I’ll take them as genuine inquires, and answer them as if they didn’t contain a hint of snide condescension 
I don’t believe its a matter of “winning” and “losing”, but a matter of what exists. I am honestly not saying that contemporary art is bad, nor would I think recruiting an army of parrots to say the same would make it bad. However I am saying that some unifying principle–“intent of the artist” is what I have in mind, though I concede come other apparent principle could apply, and that the artist may not be fully aware of the scope of such intent–is a necessary component in a work of art, and that a skillful artist will make choices in favor of displaying that component rather than obscuring it.
Art, therefore, is decidedly not a popularity contest, and in fact if only subjective criteria are allowed in evaluating a work of art, that would make it more likely to be a popularity contest as people vote on their own likes/dislikes. It’s tempting to short-circuit that outcome by simply declaring “any opinion is valid”, but that begs the question “Then why is this art? What makes it different from anything else?”
When you say “More people today see value in the works of Britney Spears than they do in the works of JS Bach,” I reply that Spears’ work is simply more well-known today than Bach’s, and not necessarily a reflection of value. Spears has artistic goals, and we can determine what those are based on a knowledge of the contemporary music scene and by simply analyzing the work itself; it is impossible to interpret her songs, for example, as “a strong call for young girls to be sexless and virginal.” If one wishes to make a value judgement of Spears vs. Bach, I would certainly say that a fair judgement can only be made after some background knowledge–a lot for the historical figure of Bach, not as much for the contemporary Spears --is acquired. It certainly shouldn’t be judged solely on current popularity.
Finally, I evaluate the success of a work of art based on what the artist has put in it, from which I can discern intent or some other unifying principle. Claiming that perceived intent is merely a subjective notion makes art meaningless; I can develop a similar reaction then from any random experience. Now, people can disagree about an interpretation, but discussion and argument–in which critics give justifications for their interpretation–should ultimately lead to consensus at least as to what the artist was attempting to do; only then could comparison with personal or cultural values allow one to pass (to some extent a subjective) judgement as to whether it’s “good” or “bad”. If not–if the work truly is too ambiguous to discern a purpose–the artist has failed at his/her primary task, and nothing more can be done with it.
I think that’s what some of them ARE trying to accomplish. They’re trying to turn everyone into artists, capable of experiencing art in daily living. With apologies to capybara, here’s my summary of art history:
At one point, “beauty” was, literally, a beautiful idea, all those Greek gods and goddesses, and later the idealized Christ. “It” was very easy to digest, a beautiful subject beautifully done.
Then “it” was beautiful people of noble birth, actual human beings, but elevated ones. Still very literal.
Then Manet (et al) introduced beauty in the Common Man. People were pissed off by this - how dare these artists suggest that commoners represent “it”.
Next Cezanne broke up the planes and then Picasso mixed up the features - still beautiful, though not in the literal sense. All the meanings got shifty - is that a bicycle seat, or a bull’s head? Yet “it” still happened, even without recognizable forms.
And artists got more and more into ordinary objects, finding “it” in a roomful of mica. Some of the work isn’t even “art” in the sense of being something crafted.
So what’s the next logical step? Get rid of the art entirely. Yet the “it” is still there.
Because the funny thing is, “it” was just happening in our heads all along.
I don’t see why it’s a problem. If I see a particular painting, and am deeply moved by it, why does it matter in the least if anyone else was moved by it, or if the artist intended me to be moved in the way that I was? Am I supposed to discard my emotional reaction to a particular work, simply because it is out of step with the mainstream? I looked at the painting, and I felt what I felt, and that’s entirely valid regardless of any exterior considerations.
Yes, absolutely. I wouldn’t agree with you, but if that’s what you see in that painting, then that’s what you see in that painting.
Where did I say one could not make value judgements about art, or about other people’s opinions about art?
Doesn’t that lead us right back to the idea that art is a popularity contest? Let’s say, for example, that a writer publishes a story that is critically well received. But I happen to disagree with the critical consensus: I think the story is stupid and poorly conceived, and does not contain the deep message commonly attributed to it. Am I, objectively, incorrect, beceause the commonality of interpretation disagrees with me? What if the author weighs in on the debate, and says that he dislikes the story he wrote, that it was just done for a quick paycheck, and that the meaning many found in his story was never intended to be there? Is he also incorrect, because he disagrees with the common interpretation, or does the common interpretation become discredited because the artist didn’t intend it to be there? Does that invalidate the emotional and intellectual reaction felt by the people who enjoyed the story?
That’s because you misunderstand the purpose of artistic discussion. It is not to determine what the artist intended. If that were the entire purpose, we wouldn’t need art at all, we’d just need mission statements from the artist. But art isn’t a window, it’s a mirror. When you ask someone, “What does this painting mean to you?” the answer does not shed light on to the nature of the artist, it sheds light on to the nature of the interpreter. The joking interpretation you offered Waterlillies hypothetical is a wonderful answer. I would love to meet someone who genuinely held it, and listen to their explanation for that interpretation, because the mind that would start at that painting, and arrive at that interpretation, would be incredibly fascinating. It would not tell me more about Waterlillies, but I don’t need anyone to tell me more about Waterlillies: I can just look at the painting myself, and determine what I need to know about it from that alone.
Yes, that’s exactly true.
Granted, but the question becomes, “What is this ‘something?’” Consider a sunset. Now take a picture of that sunset. Is it art now? Why? It’s the exact same image, the same sequence of photons hitting the retina, producing exactly the same image in my mind. But now it has meaning. Why is that? Is the artist a necessary intercessor in assigning that meaning? Can I not look at the sunset myself, and find my own meaning there? Can I not, therefore, look at the picture of the sunset, and find my own meaning, independent of any intent of the artist?
Well, there was certainly no condescension intended, but if that’s what you see there, who am I to tell you you’re wrong? 
I don’t disagree with you here, but the point is, there’s no objective standard by which one can say wether or not the artists has been succesful at that or not, unless you reduce art to a popularity contest.
Which is what they do anyway, no matter how much they might insist that they are judging from objective criteria. All artistic criticism is ultimatly a statement of likes and dislikes, no matter how much verbosity it is crouched in. By recognizing the ultimate subjectivity of art, you (hopefully) avoid argument via consensus, in which a dissenting voice is dismissed as ignorant or uninformed simply because it departs from the mob view.
Perhaps, but it’s a simple question to answer. It is art because I say that it is art.
Well, that’s a bit tautological, isn’t it? Why is Britney Spears more well-known than JS Bach? Because she’s more valued, of course.
There is no such thing as an impossible interpretation, particularly in our irony-soaked culture.
Funny, I’d say that all you need to do to form a value judgement of the two artists would be to listen to their music.
Yes, you can. So what?
It should “ultimatly” lead to a consensus? What’s the timeframe in which this consensus must be reached? A year? Ten years? A hundred? At what point do we decide that an artist has failed, versus there simply having been insufficient time for a consensus to develop?
You can’t say if a work is good or not until the critical consensus has been formed?! How does that even work? How does one discuss a new work of art, and thus help move towards this all-important critical consensus, if they can’t even say if the work in question is good or not?