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cattyfan
Guest
this discussion has only confused me further...
I've been told that it's wrong to classify art as good or bad as it's subject to interpretation and sometimes its purpose is to comment on society (or a part of society) or to disturb or provoke. It's not up to us to judge...
On the flip side, the article which disturbed these same posters, provoking them to spew forth their angry opinions was commenting on the author's views of art currently being revered by a faction of society. These posters have decided the article is bad and judged the author to be a "blowhard."
Apparently the type of commentary contained in the article is only acceptable if it's in keeping with the high and mighty perspective of the anti-establishment artistes, for example instead of expressing an opinion in a well thought-out article, one should instead pee in a jar or fling poop. Perhaps if the author had instead vomited in a gallery her point would be more appreciated.
I've been told that it's wrong to classify art as good or bad as it's subject to interpretation and sometimes its purpose is to comment on society (or a part of society) or to disturb or provoke. It's not up to us to judge...
On the flip side, the article which disturbed these same posters, provoking them to spew forth their angry opinions was commenting on the author's views of art currently being revered by a faction of society. These posters have decided the article is bad and judged the author to be a "blowhard."
Apparently the type of commentary contained in the article is only acceptable if it's in keeping with the high and mighty perspective of the anti-establishment artistes, for example instead of expressing an opinion in a well thought-out article, one should instead pee in a jar or fling poop. Perhaps if the author had instead vomited in a gallery her point would be more appreciated.
Poly
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Originally posted by granite1010
Because I don't approach people here in a black or white scenario. I mean, I even agree with YOU some of the time, Poly.
But that doesn't mean it's a one-way-or-another type thing. Sometimes PureX has a point, sometimes not.
Wow, PureX jr...er...I mean, granite, I realized you had your problems but I didn't think one of them was stooping to the level of PureX (which is about as low as one can get).
Let me get this straight, you are all in support of PureX, defending the guy, even though he cannot say that it was definitey wrong for the Jews to be murdered (this supposedly being a subject that hits home for you...yeah right!) while all up in Turbo's business, making him out to be the bad guy for just bringing it up.
Now that's sad.
If you really have a personal interest in it then it should obvious which one you should be defending.
PureX
Well-known member
I don't think anyone is telling you that you aren't supposed to judge. I think they may be pointing out that in the case of art, the subject of the art is often going to be the judgment itself. And if one is not aware of this, they will seriously misunderstand the artworks they're attempting to judge.
Well, spewing opinions about something that one has not even bothered to attempt to understand or appreciate could be considered trying to blow smoke up a place that's best left unmentioned. And so thus would qualify the perpitraiter as a "blowhard", yes.
But it wasn't a well thought-out article at all. That's the point.
My problem with the initial article is that it was written about art, but by someone who doesn't know anything about art and didn't bother to find out. And besides being written from ignorance, it was attempting to imply that dilitantes who know nothing about art are somehow more clever and wise than all those people who have studied art but who have DARED to hold a different opinion about it than the author.
The article ticked me off on two counts. One is that the author is writing from ignorance, and the other is that she's presenting this ignorance as some sort of special wisdom, and then using it to denigrate artists.
The "right" side of the media these days seems to have a real love for this perverse idea that their willful ignorance somehow makes them wise and because this particular example was addressing a subject that I really do know something about, I decided to address it.
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cattyfan
Guest
the author says she did try to understand unusual pieces of art. she uses an example from her college days which she contemplated quite a bit and was still unable to see a point.
The article doesn't give you any idea about the author's education except she attended a liberal arts college and worked in the theatre...one of the arts, last time I checked...which would lead me to believe she probably has some level of experience in considering things from unusual perspectives and even being creative.
The article doesn't say one way or the other what the author's political leanings are. She mentions a conservative, Rush Limbaugh, only in reference to him having discussed Christo...she doesn't even say what Rush said or if she's a fan of his.
You're making assumptions based on what you think makes up a liberal or a conservative, and you're making those assumptions because she defines art differently from you and fails to appreciate the special talent of peeing in jars.
Umm... maybe I missed whatever post(s) you're referring to.
Aren't you a libertarian, granite1010? Don't you think the government ought to refrain from using tax money to fund art? Am I a barbarian for wanting to prevent my money from being taken from me against my will and given to some artists I don't even like?
PureX
Well-known member
"Is it art? It depends on the funding." Even a dilitante would know that this isn't true. So we have to assume that the glaring dishonesty in the title is not an accident of ignorance, but is intentional. But why would someone who knows this isn't true deliberately write it?
She goes on to explain that she doesn't understand Christo's installation in New York, yet she seems to have focussed her attention only on the physical objects, themselves, and completely ignored any possible explanation of the artist or of the considerable New York art press. She mentions that Christo has been doing these large sculptural events for many years, and around the world, yet she never bothered to look them up to see what they might tell her about the event in New York.
Even a cursory glimps into a book on contemporary art that includes Christo would have quickly explained to her that Christo's art is event related and that the particular nature and character of each event is based on the specific places and people that he has to deal with in order to make the event happen. With every project that I know of, Christo seeks out groups of people who are in contention with each other, and in which that contention is played out in some specific geographical place. He attempts to interject art into this contentious relationship by proposing some sort of art-related event that incorperates the specific geographical place where this contention is being focussed. I mentioned in an earlier post his wrapping the Reichstag building in Germany as an example. And his "Running Fence" project in California.
I'm sure there is plenty of discussion going on in the New York art press these days about Christo's installation and what it's about, what it means, who was involved in it and including Christo's own explanations. Yet for some reason, Berta didn't look into any of these, didn't reference any of these, and didn't bother to ask the artist or even to look up his response to any other writers and reporters who had asked him the same questions. Now, why didn't she do any of this, do you think?
She goes on to tell some story about when she was in theater school and how the art department there didn't appreciate her and her friends wrapping some sculpture. What did this have to do with anything? I don't know. I do know that like anything else, some art schools suck and some are excellent, and most are somewhere in between. Yet she is somehow presuming here, I guess, that the reaction of these few obscure college professors to her prank should reflect on the whole category of art. I'm an artist, and I'll say that I liked the image her college story produced in my mind. I enthusiastically aprove of the action of her and her friends in "decorating" that sculpture and I would still aprove even if I were the sculptor who had built it. But that's a different subject.
She goes on to write:
"In the last fifteen years the world has seen some unique examples of artistic expression and many times it’s our pocketbook that has backed the artist’s conceptualization."
"The 1990 traveling retrospective of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, entitled “The Perfect Moment,” stunned the world. The mix of graphic images was a blend of beauty and pornography, and Mapplethorpe’s work fueled a debate on what exactly qualifies as art. He happily waltzed along the sharp precipice of good taste, frequently plummeting over the edge into an area many viewed as obscenity. Standards of decency are defined by the community to which the standards will be applied, and a majority of Americans were offended. Yet the famed photographer was supported through endowments from government programs and anyone questioning the significance of the compositions was shouted down as an uneducated, unqualified rube."
Her objections, here, seem to be twofold. One is that she doesn't like her tax money going to support art that she doesn't like. And the other is that she doesn't like it that people who know about art dismiss the opinions of people who don't.
I've already addressed both of these in other posts, but to quickly recap: the government decides what it will spend our taxes on, and how much. They spend very, VERY little on art. I think this complaint is completely disengenuous because the amount of YOUR tax money spent on art is less than a penny, and almost all of that went to support art that you would love. And also because the government spends huge amounts of money on all sorts of things that are far more objectionable than any artwork will ever be. It's a matter of degree. To object to a teeny, tiny fraction of one penny that you paid in taxes being spent to support an artist who happened to produce an artwork that you didn't like is just plain silly. Of all the things the government does without our permission, this is absurdly insignificant.
And to the second point; no one likes to admit that they're ignorant. But the truth is, most of us are ignorant about most things. I know almost nothing about medicine, for example. Now, I can try and bullsh__ my way through a discussion about medicine, or I can just admit that I don't know anything about medicine and trust in the ideas and opinions of those who do, when the discussion turns to medicine. The same goes for art. People who don't know anything about art can puff themselves all up and try to bullsh__ their way through a discussion about art, or they can just admit that they don't know anything about it and trust in the ideas and opinions of those who do, when a discussion about art come up.
My point is, what makes Berta (or anyone else) think that she should be in charge of whether or not artists get government support, or if they do, who should get support, when she doesn't know anything about art to begin with, and isn't interested enough to studying up on it?
Maplethorpe was an exceptional artist. This is a universal opinion among the people who study and who do art. Yet for some reason, every ignoramus who sees an exposed genital in one Maplethorpe photo and doesn't like it thinks he's somehow qualified to decide for the entire country that all government support for the arts should be eliminated and Maplethorpe's photos should be burned. I'm sorry, but I don't think ignoramuses have a right to dictate their will to the rest of us. I don't care if they're offended or not. If they're offended, they can easily just NOT LOOK AT THE ART. They don't need to force everyone else not to look at it just because they don't like it.
If Berta doesn't like being talked down to by the experts, then she should become an expert, herself, so she can talk back intelligently. Otherwise, she should should quit pretending and assuming that her ignorance should have equal weight. it doesn't have equal weight, and it shouldn't.
The rest of her essay is just a list of what she doesn't understand and doesn't like about a couple of artworks she's seen or heard about. But so what? No one can do anything about what she doesn't understand and doesn't like but her. Any idiot can be an art critic. Fortunately, no one listens to them anyway, except other idiots.
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cattyfan
Guest
You immediately side with the Mapplethorpe fans here, saying that because someone doesn't like Mapplethorpe's work, they must know nothing about art. Yet even the author states the photographer's work is a "mix of beauty and pornography."
Contrary to what you keep saying, not liking the art she cites or not being moved by them doesn't mean someone is ignorant or uneducated...it just means they have an opinion which differs from yours. You can't equate disliking the type of art that is the article's subject with ignorance. The two are not necessarity related. Additionally, you seem to think the educated will embrace all art...that's not the case. I know plenty of highly educated people (educated in the arts) who agree with the author.
And she's right when she states that communities decide what qualifies as offensive and many of the communities to which the display travelled, once they had seen the works, decided many were obscene.
never once does the author make a claim she should decide anything on spending. The opinion piece she wrote only makes people aware of where their money went.
"exposed genitals" in Mapplethorpe's work are not what people find objectionable. Plenty of art includes nudity and much of it is beautiful.
Photographing people dressed for S & M or some of the other more explicit photos Mapplethorpe created don't appeal to me, and many do seem, although more artistic, closer to porn magazines than art.
Distaste for something is not ignorance...it's personal taste...discernment...
I'm sure there are things displayed in museums which mean nothing to you or don't move you.
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PureX
Well-known member
cattyfan,
You make some very good points and it helps to clarify your position for me.
However, the ignorance I refer to isn't just about understanding the mechanics of a specific artwork or body of artwork, but about the artistic endeavor as a whole. You post: "Distaste for something is not ignorance...it's personal taste...discernment..." but what you don't seem to grasp is that "taste" doesn't have anything to do with art.
The function of 'entertainment' is to entertain. Thus, were we to evaluate or attempt to qualify a specific example of 'entertainment' we would do so primarily based on whether or not it succeeds at what it intends to do: to entertain us.
Likewise, let's say we were discussing the category of human thought called 'philosophy'. Were we to evaluate or qualify any given example of philosophical thought we would apply to it all those rules of logic and reason that have become the standard practice for that category of human thought.
It would reasonably be considered silly to apply, say, personal "taste" as the criteria for evaluating or qualifying a given philosophical argument. People do so, of course, but these people are not philosophers or they would quickly recognize how silly it would be to apply this criteria in this case.
Likewise, it would be silly to use the formal logic we apply to a philosophical proposition as the criteria for evaluating or qualifying the category of human endeavor we call 'entertainment'. Yet there are some people who are so confused that they do this.
I'm sure you see my point, here. The function of art is not to be "good". The purpose of art is not to be "tasteful". People who understand art know this, and so they know that people who use their own personal taste to evaluate or qualify art are being silly. And they also know that these people don't understand the purpose of art. How can they reasonably evaluate a work of art when they don't even understand why people do it, or why people choose to experience it?
Yet the world abounds with people who think that the function of art is to be what they like, and so they apply this criteria to every artwork they see, and feel completely free to spout off their opinions. They don't realize how silly they're being. And when someone tries to tell them that they're being silly, they become all indignant about it.
Artists have a very difficult time in the world because so few people actually understand what it is that they're trying to do. Yet because everyone thinks that what artists are supposed to be doing is "pleasing them", they feel free to disparage and punish any artist who dares not to please. Yet often to do art means to do what is not pleasing to a lot of people.
This is what Berta doesn't know. Which means she doesn't know even the first thing about art: she doesn't know what it's for.
You make some very good points and it helps to clarify your position for me.
However, the ignorance I refer to isn't just about understanding the mechanics of a specific artwork or body of artwork, but about the artistic endeavor as a whole. You post: "Distaste for something is not ignorance...it's personal taste...discernment..." but what you don't seem to grasp is that "taste" doesn't have anything to do with art.
The function of 'entertainment' is to entertain. Thus, were we to evaluate or attempt to qualify a specific example of 'entertainment' we would do so primarily based on whether or not it succeeds at what it intends to do: to entertain us.
Likewise, let's say we were discussing the category of human thought called 'philosophy'. Were we to evaluate or qualify any given example of philosophical thought we would apply to it all those rules of logic and reason that have become the standard practice for that category of human thought.
It would reasonably be considered silly to apply, say, personal "taste" as the criteria for evaluating or qualifying a given philosophical argument. People do so, of course, but these people are not philosophers or they would quickly recognize how silly it would be to apply this criteria in this case.
Likewise, it would be silly to use the formal logic we apply to a philosophical proposition as the criteria for evaluating or qualifying the category of human endeavor we call 'entertainment'. Yet there are some people who are so confused that they do this.
I'm sure you see my point, here. The function of art is not to be "good". The purpose of art is not to be "tasteful". People who understand art know this, and so they know that people who use their own personal taste to evaluate or qualify art are being silly. And they also know that these people don't understand the purpose of art. How can they reasonably evaluate a work of art when they don't even understand why people do it, or why people choose to experience it?
Yet the world abounds with people who think that the function of art is to be what they like, and so they apply this criteria to every artwork they see, and feel completely free to spout off their opinions. They don't realize how silly they're being. And when someone tries to tell them that they're being silly, they become all indignant about it.
Artists have a very difficult time in the world because so few people actually understand what it is that they're trying to do. Yet because everyone thinks that what artists are supposed to be doing is "pleasing them", they feel free to disparage and punish any artist who dares not to please. Yet often to do art means to do what is not pleasing to a lot of people.
This is what Berta doesn't know. Which means she doesn't know even the first thing about art: she doesn't know what it's for.
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cattyfan
Guest
I understand not all art is there to please...but it does have to appeal on some level to the viewer or person experiencing it...and by appeal, I mean move them in some way, positively or negatively...and it has to have some meaning. If the art fails to do that, then, for that person, the art has failed.
Not every piece of art will have meaning for every person...and when a piece fails at speaking to someone, it's fair to say that, for that person, the art is unsatisfying...in essence, bad.
Not every piece of art will have meaning for every person...and when a piece fails at speaking to someone, it's fair to say that, for that person, the art is unsatisfying...in essence, bad.
PureX
Well-known member
Art can't mean anything to anyone who doesn't care about art. In fact, nothing can mean anything to a person who doesn't care about it. "X" isn't going to mean anything to people who don't care about "X"s. So you're setting up an impossible goal for art, or for anything else for that matter, by saying that it must mean something to people. No art experience is going to mean a darn thing to someone who doesn't care about art. And there's nothing any artist can do about that.
You say that art should have an effect of some kind, good or bad. Yes, I agree that art should be effective, or why expend the time and energy in doing it, or in experiencing it? But all sorts of things effect us. Yet these things are not art. Various kinds of entertainment effect me all the time, yet I know it's not art. Food and the weather effect me every day, but I know they're not art.
The effect that art creates, or hopes to create, is of a specific kind. That's how we know it's art, and not something else. If we're going to judge art at all, we need to know what kind of effect it's hoping to create, and then decide if it's succeeding. The problem is that the effect that art is trying to create is very open-ended, because it's specifically related to newness, or novelty. Art seeks a new way of experiencing and understanding the world around us, and of experiencing and understanding ourselves, and then to share that new experience with others.
I had a professor who once said that he though art was a round trip ticket through another human beings experience of existence. I think he was pretty close to right. As an artist, the whole point of doing art is to do something that will knock me out of myself; that will allow me to see and experience and understand my own existence and relationship with reality in a way that I had not, before. And then I document this "adventure" I have with my own experience of reality as it happens, for other people, through some objective medium. The medium can be all sorts of things: music, theater, sculpture, poetry, literature, paintings, anything and everything. But the medium doesn't define the art, and neither does how fascile or incompetant I might be at manipulating the medium. What defines the art, and qualifies it (I often don't see the use of qualifying art at all) is how effectively it does what it was intended to do: to be that round trip ticket into a new experience of our own existence and relationship with reality.
When I look at someone else's art, does it allow me to experience the world through their mind's eye? Can I feel what they were feeling through this artistic document that they've left here for me? Does this art experience take me out of myself, and show me reality through someone else's eyes, mind, and heart? If so, it's effective art.
It's not about being "good", or "tasteful", or even "meaningful". For the artist it's about going exploring and then sharing what you find with others. For the audience it's about being taken exploring, and being able to experience some of what the explorer experienced. Art is a very amazing and special endeavor. It's the only way we humans have of visiting inside each others skins, so to speak, and of getting outside of our own. It's also an incredibly difficult endeavor. And sadly it becomes more difficult every day in this country, because so few people know what art is, yet so many feel free to criticize and dismiss it.
I was referring to the contempt many conservatives have for the arts, and their bristling opposition to them. No matter what, defending arts has always been more a leftist cause.
Generally, yes, I'm a libertarian. Take issues such as abortion and I'm more conservative than the traditional, self-identified libertarian.
On the issue of government endowments...I'm uncomfortable with tax dollars being used to fund some projects, yes. Unfortunately, Turbo, your beef isn't with "art," it's with the tax system we have in this country. Much bigger issue, and a much different issue.
You weren't referring to anyone participating in this thread?
Then why are you being so contrary? PureX says the government is right to forcibly take my money to fund artists I don't even like, and I say the government has no business doing that. Why are you taking his side? Is it because he's PureX and I'm Turbo? Are you just toeing the anti-Christian line or what?
Why is that "unfortunate?"
I don't see how I'm taking a side at all. I agree and disagree with just about everyone at TOL; I don't, as I already told Poly, rubberstamp ANYONE here. Everybody's a mixed bag.
As far as anyone participating in the thread, I suppose not, though I do think a lot of people here seem to have some misguided ideas as to what art should and shouldn't do. Provoke? Incite? Disturb? Excite? All the above, in my opinion.
It's "unfortunate" because I think your axe to grind--namely, an unjust tax system--belongs elsewhere. I guess it's peripherally associated with the subject of art and whatnot, so maybe not.