Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

When it becomes a status symbol.

Modern art isn't art - it's about what people are willing to 'pay' for it, to show how rich they are. It's not about the skill/ creativity of the artist but the wealth of the person buying it.
…
Is there anybody out there that would like to defend this 'Emperor's New Clothes' con, supposedly called 'art'?

Sure, I'll have a go at it.

I’ll beginning with the parable of the “Emperor’s New Cloths”.

The object in question here is nothing, so fairly clearly can’t be defined as art per se. However, the act of convincing an emperor and all his subjects that nothing is actually something to the extent described in the story, is, I think, art, and the fictional protagonists (the two “tailors”) artists. There is actually a recognized term for this kind of artist: con artist.

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

… Tracey Emin's unmade bed …

My first exposure to it, as I’m not into the English art scene, was just now, via its wikipedia article. (actually titled “My Bed”)

I like it, having on more than one occasion though my messy bed was rather a work of art, and recognizing that it tells a story to which lots of viewers can relate. It’s clearly in the genre of found art, which some are reluctant to “officially” accept as “art”. As I’m more-or-less in agreement with Goethe on the definition of art (that which “entertains, edifies, and exalts the human spirit”), I think found art is art. In its extreme, its art because it provokes an outraged “this is not art” from its viewer. This doesn’t preclude me disparaging the person who purchased the installation for £150,000, even if he subsequently resells it realizing a greater financial profit than I’ve ever dreamed of.

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

… Damien Hirst's sheep in a tank of formaldehyde …

Again, seeing it for the first time just now via this image (actually titled “Away from the Flock”).

I’m not crazy about Hirst’s studio’s (Hurst actually has never done much if any of the actual work on pieces ascribed to him, believing that the person who sets in motion the creation of piece, not the person who fabricates it, is the artist) work, However, I saw a similar work (perhaps one of Hirst’s, perhaps not – I can’t recall it’s placarding or find reference to it), a single preserved cow cut into about a dozen many lateral slices, sandwiched in glass, and spaced so you could walk between them, that moved me profoundly. I’d term this kind of art “nontraditional taxidermy”, but can’t deny its success as art in the senses Goethe described.

It also, I think, influenced a scene I liked very much in the IMO underrated 2000 movie “The Cell”.

It’s interesting, I think, that both of the pieces Paige mentions have provoked acts of vandalism that were themselves at least minorley artistic: a couple of performance artists having a pillow fight in Emin’s installation, titled “Two Naked Men Jump Into Tracey's Bed”; and someone pouring ink into the tank of “Away from the Flock”, retitling it “Black Sheep” (and getting in pretty serious legal trouble). Such wit, the British!

I discovered in my recent skim of the subject that as of 1999, there’s an art movement, Stuckism (AKA remodernism) manifesting something close to Paige’s sentiments. For example, from their manifesto(s):

"Artists who don't paint aren't artists."

This reminds me of a less famous statement by a teacher of mine during my couple of semesters as a Fine Arts undergraduate:

"Someone who paints as badly as you shouldn’t be an art major!"

In my defense (and tooting my own horn) I could sculpt wax (for metal casting) better than anyone in the department, and as well as all but a handful of professionals I’ve known. I did take his and others' advice, though and change my major.

A final recommendation, this one apropos Jackson Pollock, an early modern artist who people commonly accused of not being a “real artist”: before coming to this conclusion, try actually making your own Pollock – it’s less easy than many think.