When is art, not art?

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Oh even going to a top school isn't a ticket to acceptance.

In Los Angeles there is an amazing amount of disdain between the two top art schools Art Center College of Design ("commercial sellouts!") and the Otis Art Institute ("Picasso wannabees!").

Art is incredibly elitist at many levels, but those who just do unmade beds really find it difficult to keep coming up with "clever" ideas and keep their patrons fooled. While who you know does have an impact on getting into galleries, that's not the only venue for getting your art out there, and if its really good and you look for the right opportunities, someone with some actual taste is going to like it eventually.

It is all about marketing though!

And ultimately that means that for unexplainable, effemeral reasons, your art has to trigger the "I like that one" in a significant number of people in order to 1) be successful and 2) be considered "real art."

The bottom line for me is that when anyone says "that's not art," whether I agree with them about that particular work or not, I instantly react with the opinion that that person really doesn't understand art.

Art has to make that connection with some number of people, but I'll tell you, I know people who like those black-lighted velvet Elvis's and card-playing dogs. Are those not art? If it touches *somebody* isn't it art?

No art touches everyone, it's just more or fewer.

Maybe someone likes those unmade beds. Let them "waste" their money on it if they so choose. Let St. Peter refuse them entry into Heaven for their folly if it's truly egregious to like such stuff!

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep,
Buffy

I never knew we had anything in common until I read your last post (replied to).

Maybe I am a snob when it comes to art - the stuff mentioned doesn't touch me and in the case of Stockhausen (my last post) or a frame round a blank wall, or a plinth for an invisible statue - how can 'nothing' move you? If it's the title of the work, that's literature not art. Only a fool, who's fooling himself, can fool another fool. Define (limit) things how you want and I'll define them how I want

By the way 'Ephemeral' doesn't have two 'F's' unless you're swearing about it!

[pamela]

hello Paige,
Contemplating the framed blank wall, allows you to see beyond the nothingness into yourself. Your dreams, ideas, and thoughts, become the somethingness; the art of your mind. To truly appreciate and enjoy art, the bias and opinions in your mind must be let go, in order to "see" what is before you. I have seen much, that has raised and eyebrow or two, but not everything moves me. When I was in my early twenties, I purchased a painting from a local artist.I was in school, working, and barely able to make ends meet, but I had to have this painting. I would stare at it for hours while contemplating my life. Visitors to my apartment were unaffected by it and thought me rather foolish for wasting the money. This piece reflected my soul and apparently no one elses. The painting is long since gone now due to moving damage, but it still remains in my mind. I was viewing one of our members albums of pictures taken from the Hubble and found a picture that resembled this painting.Decades later, I am still moved beyond words although now,have a little better understanding of why.

[Thunderbird]

To me art is something I do to express a feeling that needs to be captured. This is the intent, but you're not thinking rationally at first you are caught by it. The fun part is the merging of a medium with the subject and the rules. If you can lose yourself in this creative process while maintaining the rational rules of composition its a very satisfying experience . Its also very important to me that the finished subject can be shared as art. I love it when someone say’s “ You Made That !”

[Turtle]

The Fox and the Grapes
Æsop


One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard
till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which
had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench
my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and
a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a
One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again
and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to
give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: "I
am sure they are sour."


It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

...or a frame round a blank wall, or a plinth for an invisible statue - how can 'nothing' move you?

Oh gosh, take a look!

Seriously, the absence of something is indeed a statement, and in these cases the statement is contextual. My Dr. Pepper cans was a statement, it even had some craft (they were neatly stacked with logo's aligned much better than the typical post-race NASCAR driver interview)! But the very fact that it was both an accurate example of such "pointless" and "frivolous" art work both made the statement that it's worthless while being what it was saying was worthless, to the point that those who valued such stuff would praise it!

You got it if you knew the title, so:

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

If it's the title of the work, that's literature not art.

Literature is art! Why draw artificial distinctions between "kinds" of art? Is music not art because it's really poetry? Is HipHop not music because the words are not sung?

Why do any of these distinctions matter?

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

Only a fool, who's fooling himself, can fool another fool.

You can say that again!

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

By the way 'Ephemeral' doesn't have two 'F's' unless you're swearing about it!

Oh that's simply my latest work of art, entitled "Buffy's Brain-Finger Communication Breakdown At 1AM"....

It's always the same, I'm having a nervous breakdown, Drive me insane,
Buffy

[paigetheoracle]

As people still don't get what I'm on about - here's something else thrown into the spectrum to clarify things. Watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' on UK TV, I was struck by the beauty of the performance by Rachel and Vincent. It was so powerful that it nearly brought tears to my eyes and held my attention captive. Then on came John Sargeant, who plodded around the stage but was voted in by the public over the judges, which meant a decent couple had to leave the competition in order for him to stay in. His personality won over the public not his performance as a dancer. In other words, the art of his dancing was attrocious but his charisma got him votes (The Cuddly Bear factor).

If I wanted somebody to paint my house, I would want a professional that might be laconic but got on with the job, not a talkative conman that couldn't even paint his fingernails: If you're paying for a craftsman, you want somebody that is going to do a good enough job that the house doesn't fall down around you of burst into flames from faulty electrical work or flood because of poor plumbing, wouldn't you? Or maybe not? Perhaps you'd like a pretentious idiot that robs you blind and you have to take to court because he doesn't have the faintest idea what he is doing (George Bush) or is just out to rob you blind?

Put this practically it's a question of quality (depth of thought over shallowness): The more you put in, the more you get out. These pieces of art stink from this perspective because they are no more than the wanderings of a child compared to the adults of the past and occasionally creative individuals of the present. This supposed art is not about art but pretense (As they say in The Church of the Subgenius "Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes - pull the wool over your own eyes"). This is lazy effort, unworthy of regard in my opinion.

[Thunderbird]

What about this... It is art, but would you hang it in you're house. Would you spend money for it.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

As people still don't get what I'm on about -
...
This is lazy effort, unworthy of regard in my opinion.

And yet, here you are like some kind of thinkpol, regarding it again, and again, and again. We get it, so get over it.

[Turtle]

black bats at midnight with no regard

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

What about this... It is art, but would you hang it in you're house. Would you spend money for it.

Yep. Thomas Kinkade is right up there with the black-light velvet Elvis's and the poker playing dogs...but I'd still call it art!

Originally Posted by paige

Then on came John Sargeant, who plodded around the stage but was voted in by the public over the judges... His personality won over the public not his performance as a dancer. In other words, the art of his dancing was attrocious but his charisma got him votes...

There's definitely no accounting for taste. This sort of thing is what gets Art Critics going in their mindless rants about what "real art" is.

I'm not disagreeing with you here: what I'm saying is that the reaction is too often overreaction that is just as bad as the original artistic offense!

Bottom line is there is no accounting for taste, but it doesn't excuse unjustified snobbery (and no, I'm not calling you a snob!)...

Originally Posted by paige

Put this practically it's a question of quality (depth of thought over shallowness)... These pieces of art stink from this perspective because they are no more than the wanderings of a child compared to the adults of the past and occasionally creative individuals of the present. This supposed art is not about art but pretense. This is lazy effort, unworthy of regard in my opinion.

I agree with this: it's better art if the artist actually has some skill and has thought it out well.

Sometimes "skill" and "thought" are not always obvious. Performing arts--especially those that are improvisational--can be mysterious as to why they're so successful or unsuccessful. Some artists that do seemingly simple installations do painstaking preparation: Christo's Running Fence and Umbrellas (the latter of which I actually went to see and have a really cute t-shirt from the Okie Girl Grill in Lebec, CA with the Umbrellas in both California and Japan on the front and back) are preceded by thousands of sketches, diagrams, maps, etc. which actually generate the funds to put up the installations. That's a lot of work and thought.

I've heard people complain that Andy Goldsworthy's stuff is just slight rearrangements of nature, but if you actually *like* it it's amazing!

The bottom line for me is that I too, detest pretension, especially pretension without either skill or forethought. People who fall for pretentiousness get what they deserve (they pull the wool over their own eyes, yes!), but I argue that no charlatan that purveys such stuff ever lasts long without some amount of real talent. Whether they appreciate and fulfill the potential of their skills says a lot about their character too, but I don't count that as an artistic element!

People who keep from getting voted off the island because the masses like to watch train wrecks is another phenomenon--Sanjaya! Gag me with a spoon!--but those are *always* flashes in the pan. Spectacle has it's role in society, but that's not art, its *sport* (even though I do think--just to be incredibly flighty and inconsistent--that some sport raises itself to the level of art!)...

In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed, to make some good, but others to exceed; and you are her labour'd scholar,
Buffy