Hey, gang. Sorry I haven’t been participating lately, but I’ve been traveling and haven’t had time for the SDMB.
I’ve enjoyed the several pages of discussion since I last posted. This is a subject that will always stir debate.
But I still think there is one conclusion from all this that is inescapable: trying to argue that what someone else thinks is art isn’t art, is very stupid and a complete waste of time. Just say you don’t like it and be done with it.
Alban Berg’s opera Lulu is absolutely fantastic, by the way.
I actually would like to know what you think of my thesis as it applies to some of your posts.
To wit: You made many posts above about how, if art is so technically non-challenging, we don’t make the big money by putting our own shit in some cans.
My thesis is that art is defined by the artistic community, and if you’re outside the community you don’t stand a fart’s chance in a windstorm of doing anything that is art, or at least anything that is art in your lifetime.
Certainly, Polecat appears to believe there is a definition of “art” that includes all worthwhile artists and excludes all worthless ones.
I am asserting that there is no such objective definition, and challenging him to prove it by formulating one that doesn’t exclude a recognized past master.
If you knew anything about art, you would know trying to get the “artistic community” to agree on anything worse than herding cats. The community, such as it is, is highly fragmented.
Why is it so hard to accept that there can be bad art? You’re basically just so butt-hurt about art you don’t like, you want to feel better about yourself by saying it isn’t art. That’s very stupid.
But fine, to you, some art isn’t art, not unlike the way some people used to call other humans not human (except, you know, without the racist intention). Your opinion isn’t worth a heap of desiccated cow manure. Art is art, whether you like it or not.
You do realize that the concept of commenting on the quality art (on anything more than a completely subjective basis) completely throws the whole “anything can be art” statement out the window, right?
Who the fuck are you to say what other people can think and say or not think and say? On art or politics or any other subject. You are a pompous stupid idiot.
You yourself can call everything art, from your children’s’ first scribbles on paper to Treblinka as a large scale installation piece, as long as I don’t have to pay for it. The moment I am expected to contribute through for instance tax, is the moment I demand a say in what constitutes art and what art is worthy of my money. And you don’t get to dictate what I can say about various kinds of piece of shit and what I think of it.
That’s kind of what I think of the fools that think all kinds of worthless bullshit is art. It’s mostly a little incestuous group of circle-jerks that only differ from baseball card and napkin collectors or geeky Star Trek feinsmeckers by the pompous prices they put on their merchandise. Just ignore them. They’re not very interesting and certainly a lot less interesting than what they themselves think.
I never said I was trying to provide a definition, I never offered a definition, and I never said anything about Picasso. I see no point in trying to talk to someone who’s obviously not listening, but I was so exasperated by this post of yours that I had to set the record straight.
Tonight, when you’re stamping out that flaming bag of dog poop that I will leave on your front porch, remember: It’s art!!!
You, by declaring something “NOT art” and saying that people perpetrating that “NOT art” are deliberate fraudsters and fakers and rubes, are implicitly claiming there is an objective definition.
Your puny disclaimer doesn’t change that fact one iota. If people can be fraudsters and rubes, then there must be something that is fake, as opposed to simple ill-conceived or poorly executed.
So by your own standards, you’re admitting to being a deliberate fraud, then?
Actually no he isn’t - he said “remember, it’s art!”. YOU remember - since you think everything is art. He doesn’t, but the sentence wasn’t referring to him.
And don’t forget, when you’re stomping on that flaming bag of poop, you’re destroying art. You vandal.
Nonsense. The stomping is clearly an integral part of the performance. If he didn’t intend for the stomping to occur, he clearly needs to give the audience better instructions.