You are going under the assumption that people like me do not like art, or specifically do not like art that is currently being created. But that is simply a conceit on your part. I do enjoy art and I know that the sorts of things we are talking about are not typical of contemporary art. However that does not mean that everything anyone wants to call art qualifies, anymore than anything anyone claims to be science is science.
Be very careful where you tread here. Science has a very strict methodology. Art does not. In this particular way, they’re almost opposites. (but on the whole, they’re actually complements.)
Ok, Champ. I’ll bow out now, but please go on ahead and define art so that we all can nail down what we’re talking about. Should be pretty easy to clear up.
OMG (and I’m an atheist).
Let be.
That’s pretty much my point. When you are deeply ignorant about something, of course it doesn’t seem very valuable or meaningful to you.
But pure, scientific research, especially of the kind that’s being done at CERN, isn’t about “meaning” or individual value.
A hundred years ago, when some German guy spent his entire life to that point deriving the theory of relativity, I think many had the same reaction as you. So what? What does it matter now that we know the speed of light is a universal constant, or that E=MC^2?
That is until we dropped the bomb on Japan ending WWII. Or even today, when you use your GPS to get you around, or even charge the thing, perhaps from a plant using nuclear power.
So, in one hand we have art. In the other hand we have science…
When pure art is applied it’s called design. When pure science is applied it’s called technology. Anything that will move this world progressively forward most likely employs both.
As, yes, my hard-on is cosmically important, while your hard-on is trivial and frivolous.
The only thing that has human meaning is, definitively, things that have human meaning. Science itself may be timeless and objective, but objectively, it doesn’t really matter to the cold unloving universe if humanity comes to understand it or not. It only matters to humans if we understand it, and for the most part we care about things that have captured our imagination through some sort of narrative (like space exploration as the new manifest destiny) or through practical application. Nuclear bombs became important because we found a way to use them to massively impact humanity. If we instead only used them to stir up water in remote ocean trenches, they’d be a side note in scientific history.
There are plenty of scientific paths that contain just as much objective truth as particle physics, but are deeply underfunded and attract very little talent because it’s stuff we just don’t care about that much. To give an example, I’m sure there are a few truths that could be pulled out of the muck of eugenics, but it’s not really a popular field right now since nobody can think of any ethical way to apply this stuff, and the whole narrative around it is so ugly nobody wants to touch it.
How does this relate to art?
The major idea here is that just because something may call for a great deal of background knowledge, command of a specialized vocabulary, and an understanding of some pretty esoteric ideas doesn’t automatically mean it is pointless or meaningless. I will never understand the LHC, but I probably will, in perhaps extremely indirect ways, benefit from it. Likewise, you may never participate in high-level art critique, but these ideas may still end up having value to you. We wouldn’t have Seinfield without post-modernism. We live, breathe, create, digest and form the same forces that influence conceptual art and conversations around conceptual art, even if we don’t understand that particular language of conceptual art.
This happens everyday in high school art classes. I know because I did it. Twice, actually. I did it in a college art class as well.
In the high school class, I threw a bunch of shapes and bright colors onto a page. There was no rhyme or reason why the square went here and the triangle went there but the teacher loved it. She said it really showcased my Native American ancestry (I’m Italian with off the boat grandparents, I have no NA ancestry). I took the A and continued to shit out meaningless shapes for good grades the rest of the semester.
I did this again in a college course by creating the random shapes first and then pulling the “artist’s insight” out of my ass afterwords. Yup, that brickwall shape in the corner represents my stubbornness and that single dot in the other corner amongst the field of white represents my loneliness. Once again, I cruised to an A.
But if you want an art world, there’s always My Kid Could Paint That
But who is saying that it does? What seems to be different about “art” than any other discipline is that some bristle at any attempt to define what it is or to limit its scope in any manner. When it gets to the point that anything and everything is art then it simply loses any descriptive value. I think scientists would pretty much agree that 12 pages random text stapled together are not the same as a peer-reviewed scientific paper, yet some people seem determined to maintain that several minutes of silence is music.
That’s because while scientidt are happy to tell you when something isn’t science, art critic will never say that something isn’t art.
Yep. That’s because the people I pit are very, very worthy of ridicule.
And are you making a great living at it? Selling your works for millions? If not, then you’re just another idiot.
Demonstrably not. But apparently you are.
That’s for sure.
Bing bing! We have a winner! Maybe you’re not quite stupid. But how does one become an artist, exactly: one respected enough that a piece like you describe could actually make its way into museum?
might want to see a doctor. that nasty case of USI* you have seems to be at an advanced stage.
*Unwarranted Self-Importance
NO, it wasn’t a stunt. It’s a piece that emerged from deeply held philosophical and religious (specifically, Zen Buddhist) convictions.
Trying to limit music is as deeply stupid as trying to limit any other art.
Cage had no such intention.
Sure it does, but that doesn’t make it not music.
Pointing and laughing at pompous fucking idiots pontificating in very stupid ways about something they blatantly do not understand makes me self-important?
Nah, I’m just the guy pointing and laughing.
Oh, and the one making a living as an artist (well, musician.)
You utter moron. Just because something inevitably happens in some cases, does not mean it must happen in all cases to define the thing.
Blowjobs?
“Art” is just another word to me. Like “music”. Birdsong isn’t music, at least in the same way that Vivaldi’s “Winter” is. But I can still listen to it and enjoy it as if it were music.
Likewise, “art” is the same way to me. I see all kinds of things in my daily life that elicit thoughts and emotions, and most of them are not intended to do so. Like, I’m sure the city is not trying to send out any particular message with the overgrown, weed-infested yard of the public health building I pass by everyday. But it nonetheless evokes a thought from me: We can have our pretty brick buildings, complete with sterile offices and clean-shaven people, but we’re still living in a wild world and it will continue to be so long after we are gone. Those weeds…they aren’t art in the same way that a work of Picasso or a Michelangelo is art. But for me, the weeds make me think and feel much more than a Picasso or a Michelango does. So distinguishing what is and isn’t art is kind of pointless to me.
If someone is able to get another person to agree that something they have created is “art” , then that’s all it takes for something to be “art”, IMHO. But I’m willing to push out the walls of the definition to include phenomena that do not intentionally communicate but nonetheless do. Like an elephant’s paintings. I’m fine with doing this because the term “art” is not value-laden to me. If someone says it’s art, that doesn’t mean I have to understand or appreciate whatever the artist says they are communicating. I’m perfectly free to say “BULLSHIT!” and walk away. If some random piece of art is ruined, I don’t have to pretend to care or feign grief. Just like if someone is singing the national anthem Rosanne Barr-style, I don’t have to pretend to care or feel awful when people boo in response. Not all messages are equally valuable or meaningful.
The cool thing about culture is that we (sometimes) have a tendency to hold on to the things that matter while letting the faddish, gimmicky things disappear. So to the people whose panties are up in a wad because some guy is making money hand over fist “making shit up”, who cares? If it’s really shit, it won’t last and he hasn’t fooled anyone who didn’t want to be fooled anyway. And to the people who are saying that we aren’t able to distinguish who is “some guy” and who’s sincere, so we should withhold comment, I say why? If someone is communicating something and it doesn’t make sense or ring “true”, then the audience–which includes everyone–is well within it’s right to refuse to listen. Communication that doesn’t make “common” sense does appeal to some people. So as long as those people exist, such creations will have a receptive audience. It just isn’t going to be everyone. Demanding that all art be treated the same because it’s all “art” is removing the power of the audience from the interaction.
People are getting way too hung up on definitions on both sides. IMHO.
I can see how that was a bit confusing. When I say that the artist’s intent is irrelevant, I’m not arguing that you must disregard their interpretation, I’m just saying that the artist’s interpretation is not binding, or necessarily any more important than anyone else’s interpretation. The example in the second part of my post that you quoted, you could just as easily replace the artist with a second viewer, and the point of the analogy is unchanged.
Do you have any numbers at all to support your contention that modern art is a niche interest? Because modern art museums are pretty common, and tend to be very well attended. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, the New York Museum of Modern art pulls two million visitors a year. San Francisco, a million and a half. And saying that there’s “no interest” in supporting modern art is pretty bizarre. Art funding is a controversial issue specifically because there’s a lot of support for it on both sides. Hell, why do you think this stuff shows up in general interest publications in the first place? Because there’s general interest in it. It’s not like magazines and newspapers have got so much spare money lying around these days that they can afford to waste pages on subjects nobody is interested in.
There’s nothing wrong with calling it trite crap. I’ve pointed out that a couple of the pieces I’ve been defending as art aren’t very good. The problem is when you go from, “I don’t like that,” to, “No one can possibly like that, and if you say you do, you’re lying or deluded.”