I really wish there was a “snarf” emoticon for this very moment. 
While I don’t believe exactly as Miller does, your suggesting that his point then renders museums and galleries into “meaningless wastes of space, money and effort” doesn’t follow. If the exchange is the point when art happens, museums are the forum for that experience. Yae or nae?
Left Hand of Dorkness, I’d like your reaction, and of course, anyone else’s, to this painting. Is it good art? Heck, is it art? If so, why? I’d also ask anyone who might happen to recognize the artist not to say anything so that everyone can get a chance to respond.
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A beautiful piece, IMO. A lot of modern art really comes off as pretentious to me, even if I know nothing about the artist. (And, most of the time, I do no nothing about the artist of a piece. I simply look at it, and if I think it looks good, well, I can say I like it. I rarely ever think about whether it’s “art” or not.) That said, I sense no pretentions whatsover from this piece.
…they “don’t get it,” because they’re outside the privileged circle of understanding. Hamish
Sometimes art is like a foreign language. It is no less valid because one does not understand it. It has to be learned to be appreciated. To fully appreciate Roman and Greek architecture, you have to understand why the different types of columns were used. To fully appreciate M.C. Escher, you have to see beyond the surface beauty and technical skill and understand the mathematical properties involved.
It is not necessary that everyone understand every piece of art nor that they even like every piece of art. However, somethings do have intrinsic value even if we don’t like them.
These arguments go with any art form. For example, I respect the skill and talent of DooWop singers. I just can’t stand the sound.
All of this being said, I will admit that there is bogus art out there. The ‘artist’ had nothing more to say than ‘I will work for money.’ They have prostituted their time and talents.
Cryhavoc:
>> To fully appreciate M.C. Escher, you have to see beyond the surface beauty and technical skill and understand the mathematical properties involved. <<
I do not enjoy math. If someone attempted to explain to me the mathematical properties behind an Escher piece, it might just turn me off, and leave me with less appreciation for the piece than I had before. Despite being ignorant of the math props, I will look at a piece and if I like it, I like it.
I also think they overcharge for crap. Materials and time, that’s what they should charge, not ‘what the market can bear’.
GuanoLad
Do you turn down raises because they are going to pay you more than ‘materials and time?’ Should we all be paid the same amount because we all have only 24 hours in a day? In capitalism we are all pretty much paid what the market will bear. The president of Disney is paid more than one of the ‘Mickey Mouses’ because his services are perceived to be of more value. Some musicians, athletes or actors make more money than other musicians, athletes or actors because of the level of their skills. Also, because they bring in more money for the teams and/or the media.
Artists have no obligation to turn down a comfortable standard of living. Most never get the chance to accept a comfortable standard of living through their art. They have everyday jobs like the rest of us. Their art is either a way to supplement their income or to fulfill a personal need to express themselves.
Socialism and communism would be the way to keep everyone from being paid more than ‘materials and time.’
Okay, didja miss the part where I said that some art is better than other art? Museums are useful because they are a convenient place to see a high number of works considered to be good in either the popular or the critical consensus.
You should be careful jumping to conclusions like that. You could strain something.
Abstract painting isn’t really my bag. Looks okay to me, though. Nothing thrilling about it. I wouldn’t buy a print. Who’s the artist? Is it that orangutan Baker was talking about?
Yes, and yes. For the former, I got my raise anyway because they insisted, and for the latter that’s clearly not the way this end of the world works. Doesn’t mean I can’t disagree with it, though.
I’m almost certain it’s art, though not necessarily in the way you’re asking. Check the two criteria:
So yes, lacking surprising information, it fits my definition.
Is it good art? That, I’ve got to judge by different standards, which are for me wholly subjective. Earlier I mentioned that I’m not particularly moved by visual art very often. Had you asked me to judge a muffin, a novel, a speech, I’d be much more in my element, and could offer a detailed critique of why I thought something was good or not. This? You’re not going to get a very smart answer from me.
All I can say is that I kinda like it; it reminds me of a pushme pullyou, or perhaps an ostrich running east as a gazelle runs left. If it was done by a monkey, it’s remarkable, inasmuch as it does seem almost representational in a way that I didn’t think nonhumans made art. I get a strong sense of motion from it; I doubt it was accidental, and I think the artist probably had some fun doing it. So I kinda like it, which means that I’d consider it pretty good art.
Of course, I kinda liked the chair, too, and I don’t particularly like the Mona Lisa. So I don’t have any claim to hifalutin visual art standards.
Daniel
**
Come now. I was obviously asking you to consider the piece itself, not the web page. In any case, the web page is not “art” even under your expansive definition. When someone attempts to make as perfect a replica as possible, surely, you do not contend that they are creating art? Reproducing art, perhaps, but not creating it. Otherwise, my scanner qualifies as the world’s greatest artist.
Your definition, by the way,
is almost precisely the opposite of Miller’s, even though he likes it. You think that the artist intent controls. He thinks that the artist’s intent is completely irrelevant.
More specifically, your definition is self-referential and therefore, largely useless. Your definition might be useful as part of the definition of an artist but it tells us nothing about what art itself is.
**
Not a bit. For you, all art is completely subjective. Nothing of the artist’s intent survives in the art work. There is, therefore, no point in having artists, since any object can be art. Why commission an expensive installation from a famous artist when any random pile of junk might do as well? The goodness or badness of the work, after all, depends on the subjective tastes of the viewer, not on anything put into the work by the artist.
The trick, in your world view, is to get people to interpret something as “art,” rather than as a pile of rubbish. (Once they do, then, if they like it, it is good “art.” If they don’t, it’s bad “art.”) The best way to do this is to place the pile of rubbish in a museum rather than out by the curb. People expect to see “art” in museums and they see what they expect to see.
By the same token, what is the point of having a critical consensus about art? Since art is an entirely subjective interpretation by the viewer, what meaningful “critical consensus” could possibly exist? You might as well have a “critical consensus” on whether chocolate ice cream is “better” ice cream than vanilla ice cream. If your theory is correct, then all art commentary is essentially an endless MPSIMS thread. Maybe it is . . .
I think Dorkness’s point was, whatever the intent of the person who painted the original, whoever took the time to scan it onto the web obviously intended it to be seen as art. At which point, under Dorkness’s definition of art, it becomes art, regardless of what it might have been before.
Not at all. Quite a bit of the artist’s intent might survive. The artist’s intent might be translated prefectly clearly to anyone who looks at it. The better the artist, the more likely this is to happen. But when you observe a piece of art, the point isn’t to try to guess what the artist was trying to say, it’s to determine what the piece itself actually says.
The “trick” is to put a new idea out there in a new way, and see if and how anyone responds to it. It’s not about fooling people, it’s about seeing what works, and trying to refine that element as purely as possible. This is where minimalism comes in: how much effect can you get with the least amount of artifice. That’s what the chair is all about.
I’m not arguing that all art should be like that. I think art should be defined as broadly as possible to allow as much variety as possible. If everything in a museum was a busted down chair, it’d be a crappy museum. But it’d also be a crappy museum if all it had was paintings of bowls of fruit.
Because it’s interesting to know what other people think. It’s interesting to understand why other people like art you like, or especially art you don’t like, because it gives you a wider view of the world and teaches you different ways of looking at things. It could even teach you to appreciate a work of art you previously didn’t see anything in.
A critical consensus, or just critics in general, aren’t important in the sense of telling us what’s good and what’s bad, but in that listening to other people’s opinions can guide us to art that we might enjoy, and avoid art we probably wouldn’t. I haven’t seen Freddy Got Fingered, but I can safely assume that I won’t like it, because apparently no one else on the entire planet liked it. There’s a chance that this movie will be perfectly suited to my sensibilities and I’m missing out on a film that has the potential to be the best movie I’ve ever seen. But probably not. Instead, I’ll watch Citizen Kane. Everyone says this is a good movie, so there’s a good chance I’ll like it. But if it turns out that I like Freddy Got Fingered and hate Citizen Kane, that’s still not a “wrong” opinion.
It sounds more like you really object to capitalism more than to the subjective nature of the value of art. The way of the world is that items or services are worth what the market will bear. It is not always fair. There are talentless hacks who make a great deal of money in all fields of industry and art. The there are people who have studied and enhanced skills who can’t make a living: for example, the computer techs., architechs, and accountants who have lost their jobs to cheaper sources of labor overseas.
Would you agree that an artist who has studied and enhanced his/her skills over time, might just deserve to be paid a bit more than ‘time and materials’ as they have already put in years to reach the current skill level?
No, I think I was simplifying the issue too much.
I don’t have any problem with artists being paid what they’re worth. I don’t like ‘Art as Investment’. The people who buy art so that they will be able to sell it later for a profit are not people who appreciate art - they’re just in it for the buck.
The subjective nature of how the artist decides what their art is worth is then influenced by this ‘Art as Investment’ precedent, which messes everything up. It just seems wrong to me.
I get what you’re saying, kinda. Not sure how this messes up anything else in the art world, though, unless you’re an art lover on a budget. How does this impact the Joe Average museum goer who never plans to buy an original work of art?
I, also, do not enjoy math. However, a short, simple explanation of the math behind Escher’s work gave it a greater depth for me. It helped me to see that there was more to it than trippy looking prints. Somethings are pleasant to look at because of the nature of the item, others because of the skill and proficiency of the creator. I agree that you do not have to know the background of every work that you see to appreciate them. What I am trying to say is that there are reasons that a VanGogh or Monet is better than an Elvis on velvet or Kinkade, and sometimes knowing the reasons can bring more appreciation.
It doesn’t, I don’t think. Except laterally. That’s not really my provblem with it. As I said, people can like whatever they want to like, and the diverse kinds of art available is a good thing for that.
To bring it back to the OP, in my mind this ‘Art as Investment’ phenomenon motivates some artists to try and create art that will be “appreciated” by the art snobs so that it will result in more money for their work, money that isn’t really due them for their skills and talents, but just by how they can superficially fulfil the expectations of what the pretentious snobs subliminally dictate.
I’m not really explaining it well, I’m starting to sound as verbose as those I’m decrying, but I hope you can see how I think it’s corrupted some aspects of art, and why it bothers me.
From post #66
Truth Seeker - ‘The end result is that if everything is “art” then nothing is “art.”’
Miller - ‘Yes, that’s exactly right.’
So your position seems to be that nothing is art but art exists. I you would like to spin the above in some other way I’m all ears.
See above. If art doesn’t exist then there are no artists. You have also conceeded that the artist is irrelevant and need have neither skill or talant.
So your position is that the definition you haven’t offered is overly broad.
A quote from another of your posts:
“the artist doesn’t matter. Art doesn’t happen during the process of creation, it happens in the intellectual exchange between the work and the audience. How the artist created the work, and more importantly, what the artist intended the work to say, are entirely unimportant”
I would say that this is a pretty explicit definition of what constitues an artist in your lexican.
Well, no, actually it isn’t. I used precisly the word I intended. Maybe you could look it up.
I thought I was being fairly clear there but let me try it again. “Your points” is, in this case, a collective noun encompasing all of your arguments on this issue. If you are to continue arguing on this issue you should reexamine what you have included in this collection and be certain that each element is consistant will all the others. As an example, you might recosider agreeing that art doesn’t exist but demanding your definition of it be accepted.
Miller,
I posted the above before I read the rest of the thread.
Could you please make a short statement of what exactly your ideas are on this issue? The ideas you share in the last posts you put up have absolutely no relationship to the ideas you have been stating for the rest of the thread. You have come down on so many different sides of this discussion that we would need to move into the realm of extradimentional space to plot the impacts.
That is absolutely not what I said, and is a gross misstatement of the exchange. Let’s look at both quotes, in full:
I was agreeing that the word “art” has no meaning, not that art does not exsist. I say that art has no meaning, because at that time, I had not yet seen a definition of art that didn’t exclude any number of works that I felt were definately art. Left Hand of Dorkness’s post, which appeared immediately prior to mine, contains a definition that is somewhat tighter than mine, but still broad enough to be largely non-functional. The difference between “Everything is art” and “Everything that is called art is art” is not particularly vast, and neither is vert helpful for going into a museum and figuring out what in there counts as art, and what doesn’t. More on this later.
FWIW, I was also agreeing that the local Piggly Wiggly* has as much art as the Louvre. At least in terms of weight, if not necessarily quality. I was in no way saying that art doesn’t exsist.
I could have stated that better, and indeed, I later expressed the same concept in a way more closely mirroring my intent, although without expressly linking the two sentiments. What I was trying to get at when I said the artist is irrelevent was that, as an audience judging a work of art, the intent of the artist or the processes he used to create that work are not relevent to judging the worth of the work itself. I was trying to get away from definitions of art that rely on effort or skill, neither of which are quantifiable or necessarily identifiable.
Yes, that is my position. My definition was so broad that it doesn’t serve as a definition. This was deliberate, because I don’t think defining art is a useful or desirable goal. I liked Left Hand’s definition because it’s easier to defend, but no more useful than mine. I’ll probably use it in any future debates of this nature in which I find myself.
No, actually that would be my definition of an audience.
I stand corrected, although I’m not sure how the word “diffuse” makes sense in that context. Not really a point worth pursuing, though.
I don’t think I’m “demanding” that my position be accepted any more than anyone else in this thread. I’m merely presenting my thoughts on the subject. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me: I assume that anyone who’s still in the debate at this point is just as dedicated to their viewpoint as I am to mine. I certainly don’t expect to “win” this debate. I don’t think that’s even possible in the first place, as that would imply that there is an objectively correct answer to the question. As I’ve maintained throughout this thread, art is entirely subjective.
I’m assuming by “last post” you mean the one where I said:
I was afraid this would cause some confusion. Up until that point, I had been arguing art from the perspective of the audience. In that paragraph, I’m arguing art from the perspective of the artist. I realize that I’m contradicting what I just said about not considering the intent of the artist, but I didn’t really see a way to counter claims that the artist was trying to perpetuate a fraud without examining his possible motivations for creating his art.
*This is also a lie, actually, because I live in California, and there’s no such thing as a “local” Piggly Wiggly out here. But Piggly Wiggly is a much more evocative name than Safeway, so I’m running with it.
