Art and Popularity

Cafe Society
1

This is gonna ramble all over the place. Be forwarned. And while it’s clearly a GD topic, I’m not sure of my position.

There is a certain set amongst my aquaintences who feel that if something’s popular, it can’t be art. “Art doesn’t appeal to the lowest common denominator” they say, and there’s something to that or Independance Day would be one of the most artistic films ever. And it ain’t.

But conversely, if it ain’t popular, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s art. The worst book I was ever forced to read (though not the worst book I ever read) was Tess of the Duh-Uber-viles*. A dreadful book in every sense of the word, it’s a Harliquin romance without the interesting characters or the sex. I hated every single word. Hell, I hated every single punctuation mark. But, I was told, it was art. Why? To a lesser degree, the same’s true (to me) of The Scarlet Letter; which, along with Tess, is form the basis of my idea of Bad alleged classics. Scarlet was better than Tess only because of the Peyton Place aspects with Rev. Dinsdale.

But despite my disgust with both of these books, they’re considered “art”. Why? They ain’t popular, Tess is terribly written with clunky, bad prose, vapid characters who’d couldn’t be less interesting if they were written by Erich Segal. So what makes 'em art?

I love Escher. I was told by an (idiotic) art-teacher in college that Escher wasn’t “art”, since he was a mere graphic-‘artist’ (you could hear the quotes they way she said the word). Why? The paintings she liked looked like Jackson Pollak had eaten various flavors of Jell-o and vomited on canvases. Then smeared the results. The class loved Escher (I broght a book of his stuff in to prove…some point…at this late date I don’t remember what that point was.) The class loved his stuff. She held this as proof that it wasn’t art.

Does the ability to reach “the masses” have any relation to art? The traditional answer seems to be “No. Art is pure and objective, regardless of the whims of the masses”, but let’s question that answer. Art, regardless of any other definition, has to include communication. If your art can’t convey anything (an idea, an emotion, a mood) to anyone else, I suggest that it ain’t art. Like I said, I see the fallacy of the idea that Popular=Art. But I feel that there’s some correlation.

Anyone have any ideas/thoughts?

Fenris

*This was hysterical in 9th grade

2

What pops into my head is, “Isn’t the Mona Lisa ‘art’? And doesn’t it appeal to the masses?” Or shall we just blame that one on overexposure thanks to the media?

How about Pachelbel’s “Canon”? People who don’t know Pachelbel from Paderewski can hum the “Canon” if you get them started. “Oh, yeah, that…”

And I seem to recall that there’s a certain revisionist “art” movement around somewhere that proclaimed that Elvis-on-Velvet paintings were “art”.

J.S. Bach was always “art”, but sometimes he was popular and sometimes he wasn’t. Would it have been fair to say, during the heydey of Switched-On Bach when you couldn’t turn on your radio without hearing BachPop, that Bach couldn’t be “art” anymore because the hoi polloi liked him?

So I guess that it all depends on who’s doing the defining, whether something’s “art” or not. If it pleases one to say, “It can’t be art because the hoi polloi like it”, well, it’s a free country.

3

Art is incredibly subjective, which means (of course) that what is and isn’t art is different for everyone. Therefore (follow me here if you would), one’s perception of art is changeable, as one changes. Therefore, one’s perception of art is subject to education. As one becomes educated about various aspects of art, one’s ideas of art change. Necessarily.

For example: Someone whose never seen a movie. Show them Antonioni’s Blowup. Blank stares, maybe violence. Now, spend a couple years showing them hundreds and hundreds of movies, give them a firm sense of the history of film, and a facility with the medium’s idiom, and then show them Blowup again. Suddenly, it’s art. Same movie, different person.

This is what leads to accusations of art snobbery: someone who has undergone–maybe not formally; maybe their parents were classical music fans, whatever–more art education will have a different view of what art is than someone who has not. They may be tempted, when confronted with someone who doesn’t see art in what they see as art, to say something like “That’s because you don’t know enough about art.” Voila, snobbery.

So, everyone, with their own individual art “background,” will have their own subjective reaction to any particular piece of art. Art that deals with less complicated issues, that makes use of a less esoteric idiom, will necessarily “speak to” a wider audience. Art that is complex and esoteric may, understandably, leave a larger number of people feeling excluded from its message; snubbed. Some people who have invested a lot of time and effort into a sophisticated art education may feel unchallenged by less complex art, and if they feel defensive or insulted by that, then they become art snobs.

None of this will ever change.

4

Fenris:

I liked Scarlett Letter, but I’m with you on Tess.

As for art?

I go with Tom Wolfe’s perspective.

It’s a great article. You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.jeanstephengalleries.com/hart-wolfe.html
And if you get curious about Fred Hart, look here:

http://www.jeanstephengalleries.com/hartprice.html

I will have one of his pieces soon.

“I see objects of great beauty, and I must have them.”

5

Fenris:

I liked Scarlett Letter, but I’m with you on Tess.

As for art?

I go with Tom Wolfe’s perspective.

It’s a great article. You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.jeanstephengalleries.com/hart-wolfe.html
And if you get curious about Fred Hart, look here:

http://www.jeanstephengalleries.com/hartprice.html

I will have one of his pieces soon.

“I see objects of great beauty, and I must have them.”

6

I just reread The Scarlet Letter for maybe the fifth time, and it’s still with me: I find myself referring to it, mentally, over and over again through the day; parallels and reverberations crop up in daily life dozens of times every day. I’m kind of percolating, sleeping on, some subconscious associations that I still don’t understand between Hester, her daughter Pearl, Joan of Arc, and Snow White (of Grimm, not Disney). Echoes and depths.

7

James Lileks has a good screed about “high” art.

Every time I get irritated by art that’s obtuse, that’s opaque, that’s controversial for the sake of controversy, that seems like nothing more than the artist pranking the public, I recall something an artist said to me one time that puts it all in perspective:

The problem with work that’s popular is often that it’s popular just because it’s easy: Harlequin romances, Britney Spears. That doesn’t mean that great art can’t be popular: Michelangelo, Truman Capote.

The problem with art in the twentieth century is that it developed a very insular context, a culture made up of artists, dealers, collectors, ideologues, and political activists that were self-supporting. Before that, artists were dependent on patrons thoroughly enmeshed in the rest of the world, and their work had to be relevant to those people. After that, they worked for each other’s appreciation–other artists, the radical activists and theorists who wrote their manifestos, the now-independent art world establishment.

Within that context, art is “art”–it refers to a body of theory and practice that justifies it and judges it. It’s the disconnect from everyday life that makes it obscure to the rest of us, and to some degree, worthless to the world at large. It means that to appreciate art, you have to learn a language, and a community to some extent.

8

I love Wolfe’s book. I think art “jumped the shark” with Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain”; i.e., the urinal he took and called art.

9

The “It it’s popular, it ain’t art” attitude originates, in my opinion, with people who want to be “outsiders”. And nothing’s more “outside” than art… where else can a guy jizzing into seven vials and hanging them on a tree gain acceptance? So, once they isolate themselves in this “outside” world, they violently reject any perceived attempt to bring them “inside”… so they reject things that are popular, so as to keep them distanced from the group.

That’s why you’ll get people praising a movie as an artistic masterpiece, a brilliant piece of cinematography, a wonderful film that brought tears to their eyes… until that movie hits #1 at the box office. At that point, the movie makes a bizarre continuum shift from “artistic masterpiece” to “absolute drek”, from “brilliant” to “trite”, from “bringing tears to my eyes” to “rising bile in my throat”. It has nothing to do with the piece of art itself, or even the critic’s worldview… they just don’t want to be “part of the crowd”, and so they say something contrary to what the majority says, just for the sake of being contrary.

10

Art’s a fighting word. You don’t utter it in unsure territory unless you are looking to start something.

11

There’s no territory more unsure than Great Debates. Fenris must be a troublemaker. :smiley:

I’m wondering how long it’ll be before someone mentions “Art is one of those things that you just know it when you see it.”

12

**This is what leads to accusations of art snobbery: someone who has undergone–maybe not formally; maybe their parents were classical music fans, whatever–more art education will have a different view of what art is than someone who has not. They may be tempted, when confronted with someone who doesn’t see art in what they see as art, to say something like “That’s because you don’t know enough about art.” Voila, snobbery. **

I am a huge art snob. My husband, DMC, tells me so on a daily basis. I have extensive education in the visual arts. Now, this does not mean I do not enjoy great graphic design, Escher, or cheesy mystery stories. What it means is that I believe there is something that is art, and it is not purely subjective. (Oh, god, please don’t let any of my postmodern profs be reading this).

First and foremost I want to second the OP that art has to be a form of communication. But (I am going to be vague here, as I haven’t quite been able to put this in words yet) art is something that doesn’t say everything. In fact, it is what it doesn’t say that is the most important. the what cannot be said so to speak. I think what you are all referring to, by someone telling you that “it is not art” is that it is all there. There is nothing left for the viewer to realize internally. Art is what happens between the space and the viewer, and yes it is subjective in that way. But art is also a visual language and one learns it, and uses it and one would any other language.

Ok, I am rambling… This was my first foray into the GD. Hope it reads ok.

13

SPOOFE said:

There’s a strawman hiding in there I think. Sure, there have always been précieuses ridicules who might fit your description, but you know what? I’ve yet to meet one.

I am an art snob. I just started a masters in media art, read: obscure and complicated art that leaves most people going :confused:

Why do I find Marcel Duchamps’s work interesting while Fred Hart’s sculptures leave me cold? [sub](sorry Scylla…)[/sub] For the same reason I like French chanson and run away when I hear country music: culture.

High Art, or whatever you might call it is a culture, and as such possesses its own sets of values that are used to judge its products. Snobbery comes from trying to apply those values to something that lies outside of that culture. And vice-versa.

On of my favourite stories goes as follows. Karlheinz Stockhausen, a pioneer of electronic music, was once given some tracks of cutting-edge techno music to review. Of Richard D. James’ music, he lamented the repetitiveness and “post-African” rhythms. James’ answer: “Do you reckon he can dance?” See: http://www.pip.dknet.dk/~pip971/stockhau.html

In the same article, Stockhausen says of another:

Any honest post-modern art snob should agree that popularity in itself is not a problem, it’s seeking popularity for popularity’s sake that is. Success in any of its forms can be a terrible drug. By following the crowd, it’s very easy to lose touch with what you were trying to say in the first place, and there’s the real danger: an artist without anything to say is a poor artist indeed.

14

Moderator’s Note: Actually, I think I’m going to move this to Cafe Society, which is, after all, our forum about Art. Hey, it should raise the tone over there…Euty, Ike, a Cafe Society thread that’s not about Star Trek, “reality TV”, or Britney Spears!

15

I like this:

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by CMC *
. . . art is something that doesn’t say everything. In fact, it is what it doesn’t say that is the most important. the what cannot be said[li]* so to speak. I think what you are all referring to, by someone telling you that “it is not art” is that it is all there. There is nothing left for the viewer to realize internally. Art is what happens between the space and the viewer, and yes it is subjective in that way. . . .**[/li][/QUOTE]
–but I’d like to suggest that you’re defining the distinction between “good art” and “bad art,” not between “art” and “not art.”

*That is so Russell Hoban!

But I don’t like this:

(Talk about sujectivity!)

Surely you understand, jovan, that country music has sprung from as much “culture” as French chanson (kind of a redundant phrase, BTW)? That you haven’t yet found your way into CW doesn’t make that not so, it just reminds us again of the subjectivity involved.

Let’s take CW, then, as a case in point. For a very long time, I had the same prejudice against CW. Then one day I found out it was because I’d theretofore only been exposed to bad CW. Turns out there’s an awful lot of bad CW out there. In the early 80s I worked in a record store with a guy who was well educated in the culture of CW. He made me listen to a lot of stuff I’d never heard before. Some of it was old, some of it was new, but none of it was that post-Kenny Rogers crap you hear on mainstream CW radion nowadays. Fortunately, I was an art student at the time* and pretty open to new ideas. So now, good CW is one of the many genres of music that I love. I also like Baroque, and hip hop, and musique concrete (I had a fish named Karlheinz once), and hardcore punk, and opera–but not bad opera. And for every new genre of music I’ve embraced, I’ve had to undergo something of an education.

*Disclosure: I too am an art snob. Art Institute of Chicago, photo and performance.

16

You are correct. Thank you.

17

Art and popularity are independent variables. Some great art (say, Shakespeare) is quite popular. Some great art (say, William Carlos Williams’s “This is just to say”) is not popular at all. And some popular items (say, pet rocks) are not art at all.

Art involves works that continue to provide enjoyment and meaning to people over time. Critics can only guess, and are often wrong (most critics in the 19th century thought Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth was America’s greatest novelist, for instance). Further, critical standards change over time. But critics haven’t exactly been shown to be better judges of what would stand the test of time than the general public.

18

That’s exactly what I meant. Chanson and CM are products of two different cultures; I grew up in one and thus I have a hard time liking music produced by the other. That doesn’t mean that I cannot and should not make an effort to understand CM and appreciate its worth. Hell, as an artist, I consider I have an obligation to do so. At the end of the day, I still might not rush out to buy CD’s, but hopefully I’ll have gained some understanding and respect. The same can be said for popular vs high art.

19

Well, then shake my hand, because I was one for about four years. :smiley:

'Course, that mighta just been one of those “pretentious teenager phases”, where some snot-nosed high school punk thinks he knows anything, but really doesn’t know shit about shit.

20

I’m no art student, but maybe that can be useful – here’s what I think:

Art is not necessarily defined by popularity (or lack thereof) because there are so many different contributing factors, both subjective and objective. Interestingly enough, you can make the popularity argument either way (as already noted by other members).

But I think there are two absolutes which should be considered when deciding is something art or not:

  1. Did the artist have a decent idea when he made the piece of art? This automatically disqualifies the “It means something different to everyone” kind of art. As far as I’m concerned, if it isn’t made with some kind of intent, it isn’t art. Even if it is made by an “artist”.

  2. Does the artist demonstrate skill? This can be as simple as a well made sculture, but it also includes the ability of the artist to communicate his intention. A piece of work that lacks either of these things is not art.

This is how I judge art. To me it means that art should at least be understandable by the public even though they may not like it. Art should never be so elitist as to exclude most people. Hence it could be popular or it might not be, but it should at least be understandable by the masses.

Is Escher art? Yes, as far as I’m concerned. He had interesting ideas, and he completed his ideas with obvious skill.

I also think Stephen King is (usually) art. “Jurassic Park” (the first movie, certainly not any of the others). Tolkein.

But I don’t think “Mulholland Drive” is art. Or “Eyes Wide Shut”. Or the book “Pilgrim”.

I guess that’s all

–Chorus