Gaudere wrote:
As opposed to Silly putti?
Define “art”, then.
::smacking tracer Silly:: 
Each of us spends our life trying to build a model of the universe in our mind, a metaphor system that will allow us to imagine out place in it.
Some of us try to find empirical proofs of our conclusions along the way. These are scientists.
Some of us try to document this process of understanding. These are artists.
Art is an attempt–any attempt–to document one’s understanding of the universe.
Gaudere:
I don’t need to define “tree” to know that a Tiger ain’t one, but since you asked:
:ahem:
Art is capturing the essence of a thing outside of its natural medium in order to reveal its hidden nature.
Lissener:
So my high school chemistry lab notebook is art?
Well! I was wrong, and I appologize for talking out of my ass. Granted, it’s not something I think I want to see, but whatever floats your boat.
*wiping egg off of her face*
(Although…umm…wouldn’t it start to stink after awhile?)
Okay…um…was Piss Christ created just for shock value?
I still like Pre-Raphaelites…
Thank you Guinastasia for bringing up the “Christ in a Jar of Piss” bit of so called “art” that I mentioned in this thread. Since I’m this thread’s papa, let’s definitely have a rumble about this particular piece of “work”. Let’s hear it gang. Without using the very loosest definitions of Art, does this piece qualify? (Using the very loosest definitions of Art, everything is art right down to a steaming heap of sh!t. Known these days as, “Found” art, I believe.)
Personally speaking, “Piss Christ” makes “The Fountain” look like the “Mona Lisa”. But that’s just my $00.02.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I’m an artist. 
My conception of art?: Art is the perception that a thing is intended to be more than its component parts or its bare utilitarian value created by a consciousness for an aesthetic or emotive purpose.
It’s thoroughly dried, and actually varnished, so I doubt it.
Not really, I believe, although many think that associating bodily fluids (well, maybe blood or tears would be considered OK) with any religious icon is inherently blasphemous. Serrano did a whole series of photos of objects immersed in various fluids at that time (several were in urine, not just the crucifix), it’s just “Piss Christ” got all the press. Were it not for the title, it would simply be a rather unearthily luminous photo of a crucifix, but of course without the title you miss whatever point the artist was trying to make. He’s not my particular cup of tea, focussing a wee bit to much on a nearly (and occasionally literally) masturbatory interest in bodily fluids, but he is an excellent photographer from what I’ve seen. Regarding that particular piece, I believe the artist stated he wished to show the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane, a statement of his relationship with Christ by submerging His icon in his own fluids, the simple aesthetic of the color and lighting, and so on. Of course, perhaps he would not say if he meant to shock, but since he does a wide range of subjects of varying degrees of potential “offensiveness” and “Piss Christ” was only one of a series, and he’s done much more and much less shocking things throughout his career (although perhaps less potentially blasphemous), I wouldn’t say “Piss Christ” was done for just shock value. He doesn’t even consider it a major work of his.
It’s actually rather pretty, if you are not offended or are unaware of the urine. Seriously, if you didn’t know about the whole piss thing, isn’t it a gorgeously colored, well-composed piece? http://home.vicnet.net.au/~twt/serrano.html
And I only use the loosest definition of art, although I am somewhat more discerning as to what I consider “good” art, and even more discerning as to what I consider “good art I like”. Of course, there’s also “bad art I like”, too.
Thank you Gaudere for such an excellent commentary. From what I understand, Serrano created these works while receiving a Government grant. I suppose that my only question after that is, “Did he ever get another Government grant?”
At some later point we will probably need to discuss Government funding of the arts and mandatory civil construction spending on artwork.
A. Yes.
B. Read it again: it’s also science.
C. How very snide and smug of you to whittle down what I said to its tiniest possible interpretation in order to fit it into your brain.
Yes; pretty much anything created by a human being qualifies, in some sense, as art. What you’re attempting to do is distinguish “good” art from “bad” art. A valid discussion, but not the same one as distinguishing art from non-art.
Shit in your toilet isn’t art. Put it on a canvas, and it is. Though I think we’ll probably agree that it’s not likely to be good art.
Sorry, Gaudere; I hadn’t yet read your post when I wrote the above, basically covering the same ground. I think it’ll just be safest for me to let you speak for me from here on out; we seem to see pretty much eye to eye on this.
Though this is kind of odd; none of my current understanding of what art was explicity taught to me at SAIC. I arrived at it on my own, gradually, through writing a series of letters to a friend who believed that only beautiful things can be art. I’m still arriving at it.
Heck, no one taught me what art was in art school, either; it’s one of those things you usually just assume you know precisely what it is until you try to articulate it to someone else, like “love” or “beauty” or “moral”. My understanding of art comes primarily from a discussion had over a couple yards of Guinness while trying to convince someone that the essence of art was “lack of utility”. Having to actually articulate what I thought made something “art” was invaluable to my own understanding of it.
Lissener:
“. How very snide and smug of you to whittle down what I said to its tiniest possible interpretation in order to fit it into your brain.”
Ongowwwa! Me no understand. ::scratch, scratch:: What mean you?
Hey, we make do with what brain casings we have.
If you remove the chip from your shoulder and reread what I wrote (if you can find it in that planet sized cerebellum of yours,) then perhaps you might see what I mean.
I see art as far more than a documentation of understanding. I see it as a reinterpretation of what we understand. It’s something new.
Note: In the future please include lots of smilies in the posts you intend me to read. This will help with my comprehension. Thanks.
Gaudere:
I’ll try again, with an example:
Let’s say an artist wants to portray the love felt by a woman for her child. Now he could draw a hallmark card type picture of that woman looking down upon her child. It might be technically a very good picture. That Hallmark card qualifies as art. He’s succesfully conveyed what he wanted to through the medium of painting. In this case he’s done this in a very representational manner, and in my opinion it’s probably not particularly good art.
A finer artist might seek to convey this essence of the love of mother for child perhaps through a landscape. The way the sun shines onto the land or the mountains overlook the water can be evocative of this.
If an artist were able to convey this successfully than perhaps there the hidden nature of such a relationship, that it is ubiquitous, is revealed!
“Jesus Piss” may indeed be pretty, but, but the elements of the composition are secondary in my eye. It’s just a nice piece of lighting and color, somewhat marred by the subject matter. I see no hidden meaning and can only presume that the artist is attempting to club me over the head with the concept of the dichotomy of religious experience.
Good art doesn’t mug you, or try to choke you on irony. It leads you subtly.
Now of course I could be mistaken and missing the point of that particular piece, but I don’t think so.
It also seems silly to me to try to make art about art. It’s usually on a par with poetry about poetry, or writing about writing. Can you say “boring” and “esoteric?”
I think you are confusing “art” with “good art”, if you are intending to say that “Piss Christ” is not genuinely art (or possibly, confusing “art” with “art I like”). “Piss Christ” is aesthetically and compositionally far more sophisticated than most “hallmark card” mother and child sketches. Its meaning is not immediately evident and requires more understanding than the mother-and-child, if you wish to see it. For that matter, what is it about simple aesthetic appeal makes a piece of art “lesser” than one that tries to “say something”? A landscape doesn’t have to “symbolize man’s eternal struggle against the elements” or somesuch; sometimes it can just be an accurate presentation of how the artist perceived the land. Certainly, there are many well-known still-lifes that do no more than show the artist’s attempt to show how he sees the world, and I do not count them as any less of “art” than art with a “message”. Simple aesthetic appeal doesn’t make it bad art, or “less” art, particularly if it has some of the complexity and depth of better works of art.
Well, if it was hidden, how would you see it? You certainly got “the dichotomy of the religous experience” out of it, which wasn’t even necessarily the artist’s intent, so I can’t see how he’s “clubbing you over the head” with it if he didn’t intend it in the first place! Everyone sees something different in art; you apparently see nothing, or an overbearing message, in “Piss Christ”. I am aware of the artist’s other work and background, so speaks differently to me; and even if it didn’t, it really is a very well done photo and the title’s hints of the media could certainly inspire a person to thoughts of Christ’s humanity, our relationship with Christ, the modern-day lack of respect for religious icons, etc. I’m no photographer, but that sort of color and subtle compositional use of texture and shade is something I’d find commendable in my own works.
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit.
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb.
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where moss has grown—
(excerpt from “Ars Poetica”)
…C’mon now, there is good art about art, and good poetry about poetry. Of course, there’s a lot of crap, but there’s a lot of crap everywhere. Artists do tend to occasionally express how they feel about art, but that’s only natural; it’s like a person who makes trains talking about trains. This is what we do, it’s only natural to want to express ourselves about it. Art generally comes from personal experiences, and one of those experiences is making art. ::shrug::
…and maybe I am artistically deficient, but I don’t know that I have ever looked–or ever will look!–at a landscape painting and said to myself, “gee, that sunlight shining on the land really portrays a mother’s love for her child.”
From my experiences in “debating” with you, Scylla, I’ve come to expect that you will not very likely be debating in good faith: that you will latch onto an issue (whose principles are not necessarily very important to you) merely because you happen to be in an argumentative mood, and you will go down sputtering with the ship rather than allow yourself to participate in an honest exchange. I’ve learned in my short time in this forum that this in no way makes you unique, but there it is.
That is the bias with which I read your post, so the chip is not a general one.
This somewhat limiting definition is certainly not excluded from the paradigm I proposed, so I’m not sure I see your argument.(In addition, FWIW, I have in the past described art as a documentation of the process of attempting to gain understanding, which I think comes closer to what I mean than what I wrote above.)
Of course a statement this sweepingly reductive isn’t very useful. In rejecting, unseen or unexperienced, any work of art that you deem unsubtle as ipso facto “bad art,” you’re only limiting your own experience; you’re not saying anything about art.
D@mn Gaudere, sho’ glad you’re moderatin’ this thread! I’d hate to have to argue the fine points of Mapplethorpe’s platinum gels with you.
I too would rather have Art that makes me think as opposed to Norman Rockwell (even though I’ve come to recognize Rockwell’s iconography much more lately). Your quote from the Ars Poetica was stunning in its proof of the unique self referential aspect of art. The redemptive aspect of all Art is in its continual rebirth of meaning.
Despite any minor differences we might have about content and evocative aspect, I would really enjoy strolling through the new Getty museum in Los Angeles with you. I know that I could count upon you to have something valid to say about any piece we might see.
Hey lissener, this goes for you too. You so schmart! What fun to have such vital discussions about everything from urinals to poetry (and I mean this).
Launch at your discretion…