It appears as if I failed to state my point understandably enough. Very well, I shall try again.
Given a piece of work that may or may not be art, I postulate that it may be one of four things:[ul][li]Garbage. Of no value to anyone.[]Having some innate value, be it societal (money), useful, or sentimental.[]Be a medium for abstract communication.Be a medium for emotional communication.[/ul][/li]I would argue that modern art has lumped the latter three (or in the case of Dada, everything) into the label of Art. I think you’d be hardpressed to disagree with this.
My point is that Art really lies only in the fourth category. The distinction between 3 & 4 can be tricky, but it deals with exactly what this thread is about: default communication requires similar knowledge bases to work effectively. If I’m speaking english and you’re speaking swahili, I can’t ask you for an orange. I can, however, pantomime one, or paint a picture for one, assuming you knew what an orange was. If you didn’t, I’d just have to make do. Damn near all contemporary art fits here. Abstract art sure as hell does. This is the kind of art that has to be appreciated.
Contrast this with emotional communication, which operates at a lower level, common to all humanity. You don’t have to understand latin to feel a gregorian chant. You don’t have to understand architecture to be awed by St. Peter’s Basilica. You don’t have to be an orchestra snob for adiago for strings to move you. You don’t have to be cool to be swept away by a techno beat in a club. You don’t require any language at all to be scared shitless by a severed head flung over a castle wall.
I’ve been wanting to say something about this subject for some time. There have been a few threads on modern art and I’ve almost pitted some of the participants.
I just wish, that if someone wants to discuss a work of art, (like say the busted chair) that they have actually viewed the work in a museum or gallery. Just seeing a picture of it on a website is not good enough for you to talk about it.
Just as a person who reviews a movie with out seeing the movie or tries to pann a novel that he or she has never read would be considered (pauses to choose a word) a fraud. Just viewing a photo of the busted chair is not enough.
I’m lucky enough to live in NYC and there are quite a few galleries and showings that I occasionally attend. It is amazing the difference of seeing the work presented to you in the format it was intended can make.
As far as artist that invent their own language and then cry that their audience diminishes I would like to say this.
Now I could site examples of many actors who get famous for say, doing comedy and then try to move to drama. Some succeed and some don’t but their success is not always based on their ability to do drama but rather the audience’s reaction to idea of say ‘Robin Williams does drama??!?!!’ However let’s look at the big picture.
Who are we, the audience, to dictate to the artist what they should and should not explore? Who do we think we are to say, ‘Paint a picture of atractive people and trees and forget making that yucky crossection of a human’. The artist does what the artist does and yes, if they had an audience and the audience loves his early funny stuff but not the dramas I’m sure the artist would be dissapointed. I’m not saying that if you liked the first work an artist did you must like everything else he comes up with but just because you liked the first work don’t demand that rest of the stuff be just like it.
These days, the overarching paradigm is the exceptional wacko who thinks the world should bow to his vision of it. If one dares to create something that ordinary people can understand, one is castigated by the art establishment as being “accessible”–yes “accessible” is an insult these days. It means that the art has been dumbed down, that it doesn’t live up to the “proper” purpose of art.
Artistic has been replaced by aut-istic in the rarified and incestuous aesthetic of academic (self-styled “fine”) art.
No; we’re arguing in defense of “elitism.” Note the quotes, by which I meant to suggest that I was defending the concept that is often mislabeled as elitism.
“Superior” is an entirely subjective label. Which again makes my point.
We are the audience. We have right of approval. We have right of disapproval. We are not slaves. We are not serfs. We are not the property nor the underlings of an artist. We have the exact same right to approve or disapprove as an artist has to create. This right is predicated upon he exact same premise–that we are all ultimately equally worthwhile and equally human. That is our right to exercise freely and it is our duty to exercise it honestly. We have the right to pay and the right to withold payment. We have the right to ensure that nobody else extorts payment from us. We are the audience. If an artist creates only to please himself, that is his right. It is not his right to demand that anyone else “appreciate” the work. It is not his right to demand that anyone else be forced by the government to give him money for such work. He is free to work purely for his own pleasure and to his own norms, but by so doing, he then has no right to make demands upon others to support such work, no right to demand they like it, no right to demand they “appreciate” it, no right to even demand they be compelled to see it, and no right to demand payment for it from those who would not voluntarily pay. Should a patron or patrons see fit to voluntarily support such work, that is their right–so long as the support is voluntary.
Freedom is for all or for none. Freedom of expression includes freedom to not support a specific expression. It also includes freedom to not like a specific expression.
We are free to demand whatever we want. The artist is free to ignore it. Far worse than stupid demands from plebians is the attitude that such plebians have no right to speak.
I.I., you’re making the common mistake of confusing the debate about “art versus non-art” with “good art versus bad art.”
You have seen a great deal more modern art than old art; we all have. The rare great works of modern art–and surely you won’t argue there are none–will rise to the top and stand the test of time, to be the future’s old art. This is the second time I’ve made this point, which I think is extremely relevant to your claim that all modern art is bad art. Sorry; you say it’s NOT art, when what you mean I assume is that it’s bad art, which of course is an entirely subjective judgment.
You continue to argue for a universal language of art. There will never be such a thing. You suggest that the only works that can be called art are those that affect every single human individual in exactly the same way. I’ve already used the word “ludicrous,” so I won’t label your suggestion again. I hope, though, that it’s clearly impossible to imagine or create a work of art that speaks to everyone in the same way.
You’re unwilling to acknowledge any art that has not been reduced to the lowest possible common denominator. Now THAT’S ludicrous.
Again to make a point about subjectivity, there are many people who would disagree with almost every point you make. You may not know any such people, put your experience is no more universal than anyone else’s.
It seems to me that your main objection is to government funding of the arts, which is a different debate. Other than that, your list of perceived “demands” is bizarre. Where has anyone suggested that such demands are an artist’s right? Well, as free speech, such demands are of course an artist’s right, but there’s no societal obligation to fill any such demands.
If you want to debate the public funding of art, which seems to be the prop that’s holding up your strawmen, please start another thread.
I don’t believe I ever used the word all except in reference to abstract art, and I stand firmly by my statement that there is precious little emotional communication in that particular field. Contemporary art has its gems, though they may not be regarded as art in and of themselves. I never said otherwise.
You seem to be making a mistake that’s even more common: that all art is art simply because someone calls it that. That art can exist for its own sake. And even if it’s bad art, it cannot be judged harshly, because after all, it’s art. Any deficiencies in appreciation must lie between the exhibit and the floor.
I could not disagree more. I view art as a form of communication, using sculpture, paintings, or architecture to communicate what mere words cannot - emotional content, raw and simple. Everything else is just a message.
So universal concepts are impossible? The image of a mother holding a child, that does not translate to korean?
Your statement that artists don’t have the right to demand certain things from their audience is no different from Zebra’s, that the audience has no right make demands of the artist. You can’t have it both ways. If Z’s statement isn’t valid, then yours isn’t either.
In any case, the word “demand” really has no place in this debate. An artist offers his work to the audience, the audience offers their attention. Both acts are entirely voluntary, and neither artist nor audience has the right to compel the other.
What bit of art in your house were you ever forced to buy?
I never said that the audience should not disaprove of an artists ‘new stuff’. But you seem to think that it is ‘ok’ to go to a concert and yell at the band to only play stuff on their first album because that’s the one you liked. You have the right to speak but try to make sure you’re not making an ass out yourself.
It’s fine to look at a some art and say, ‘I don’t like this one.’ and walk on. It’s fine to say ‘It doesn’t speak to me’ and walk on. It’s fine to say ‘I find the desautrated color scheme to be too dirivetive of the neo-dadaist and the large scale of the work diminishes the emotional impact’ and move on. But to say something like
Originally posted by Inquisitive Idiot
(bolding mine again)
is wrong. We the audience have no right to dictate how the artist works or what subjects to do other than to shrug our shoulders and go to the next bit of art.
So when Dogface said
[QUOTE]
Zebra rather explitly stated it:
“but just because you liked the first work don’t demand that rest of the stuff be just like it.”
[QUOTE]
Would you say that people who get all pissed off, I’m not talking disappointed, I’m not talking about not liking but PISSED OFF, that say The Beatles white album does not have happy pop tunes like Please Please did are reasonable? I wouldn’t. To expect every Beatles album to be just like the first one is immature and I personally don’t want to have conservations with people who think that way.
I’m sorry, but these kinds of statements have no place in a debate about art. I don’t know how it works, but I have many times undergone raw emotional experiences when looking at abstract art. Unless you acknowledge the subjectivity of such judgments, I’m personally not gonna waste any more time engaging with you.
Bad art can be judged just as harshly as you like. I never said otherwise. Nonetheless, even “bad” is an entirely subjective judgment.
Any image at all holds different meanings for different people. Your example would mean entirely different things to A), a devout Catholic for whom such an image would invoke Mary and Jesus, and B), a crack whore who lives on the street because her mother abused her horribly. There is no universal.
You’d find many perople who’d call the first piece bad and the second piece good; you’d find many others who’d feel the opposite or some variation thereof.
You do not have the right to declare that one IS art and the other IS NOT art; no one does. Again, First Amendment issues aside. The point is that your declaration does not make it so.
You’re arguing that YOUR interpretation of any given piece of art should be declared the universal interpretation. That’s just bizarre.
You missed the point of this example. Lissener was lamenting the fact that contemporary art can be obscure, but he was placing the blame firmly on the shoulders of the observers for failing to “appreciate” the artists’s message. I countered with an example of an artist who has a message that could be easily communicated, but chooses instead to communicate it in an obscure and abstract way. Said artist then has no right to look down his nose at the rest of the world for failing to comprehend his masterpiece.
That’s entirely the opposite of my point. If you refuse to acknowledge the social and emotional common ground upon which all of civilzation is built and without wich interaction between disparate cultures would be impossible, I may as well not bother continuing to beat my head against a wall.
Again, you interpret it as a message rather than a base emotion. Outliers aside, there is an emotional common ground between individuals regardless of their backgrounds/knowledge. I’m not sure how else to explain it to someone who doesn’t listen.
Funny thing about free speech is, I do have the right to say that, just has you have the right to say otherwise, or the right to smear crap on a depiction fo the statue of liberty, and I have the right to ignore you.
I’m not arguing that my definition should be taken as canon. If I wanted to do that, I’d be doing it in an art museum’s boardroom. All I’m communicating is my opinion. I’m calling it like I see it. You are free to argue, accept, or ignore anything I say. But try to keep my words in mind the next time you hear a self-proclaimed Artist stand up and give a rousing expressional poetry piece about the hidden dangers of high fructose corn syrup. And be praised for it.
II, I placed no blame. I simply argued for a different paradigm: that education is attainable by anyoe, while aristocracy is not. And an artist has the right to speak to any particular segment of the audience that he wants to; other segments have no right to condemn an artist for not speaking directly to them.
And “X is NOT ART” does not acknowledge the subjective nature of art; “X doesn’t communicate anything TO ME” does acknowledge it. Ditto, for you to declare that “X is obscure and abstract.”
Your participation in this thread has consisted almost entirely with absolute statements. This doesn’t work very well in discussions about art. There are very, very few absolute statements that have any place at all in such a discussion. “Red and blue paint make purple” is one valid absolute; “Art that doesn’t communicate anything to me is NOT ART” is not.
And to accuse me of not listening simply because you haven’t made a convincing case for your position is childish.