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  • mesko
    Senior Member
    • Nov 2009
    • 208

    Two questions regarding art

    A couple of days ago I engaged in conversation with a friend, on the topic of art, and he brought up the perhaps very pretentious issue of what defines art.

    To boil it down: According to him, the (what should I call it?) central theme or issue of the piece of art - whether it is painting, music, literature, or whatever - has to be expressed through some aesthetic means, lest it is merely art theory.

    For example, Franz Kafka expressed his dissatisfaction with, among other things, the beaurocratic juridical system in his novel Der Process. Here, the novel, the story, is the aesthetical "wrap" for the theme or issue. Thus, it is art.

    In our discussion my friend used the case of Swedish artist Anna Odell, who faked a psychosis and suicide attempt, as something that he did not regard as art. She documented the scene and following events on video and made them the central piece in an exhibition about the treatment of mental disorder. Therefore, had Kafka written a letter to some concerned official expressing the same issue as in his book, filmed it, and showed it in an exhibition, or something similar, it would not be art, since it has no aesthetic "wrap". The same thing goes for John Cage's piece 4′33″.


    On another note, he also thinks that art should evoke emotion - a rather direct emotion. For example, this Mondrian painting is a bad example of art (if art at all) since it requires the beholder to be oriented in, for example, the field of colour theory to be able to understand the painting (what relation the red field has to the blue one in both colour and position) and thus enjoy it.



    I guess that I can use the classic da Vinci painting La Gioconda (the Mona Lisa) as an example of the opposite. Her mysterious smile has intrigued millions of people ever since it was created.


    I find this very hard to express, but I hope you do get the point. I am not trying to start a "What is art?" discussion, but get a discussion going around these two topics. Please note that these are not my opinions, but his, and so I cannot answer for him. I know there probably are flaws in the examples used, but please let us keep this discussion on a more general level rather than discussion whether or not for example 4′33″ is art or not.
  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    #2
    ask pnod. he's an artist.

    I have to say though, I think literature is really far from visual arts - personally, I would be very uncomfortable lumping them together.

    I am not sure I get the first part - I suppose your friend says that if a work of art does not have a certain complexity and virtuosity, it's not a work of art? If so, this and his second point go against one of the central tenets of high modernist art, which is to be cerebral and difficult to understand, rather than emotional and readily discernible.
    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine

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    • philip nod
      Senior Member
      • Aug 2007
      • 5903

      #3
      watch bravos work of art. send Jerry saltz a letter. he will know the answer to this aesthetic burrito "wrap" conundrum.
      One wonders where it will end, when everything has become gay.

      Comment

      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        #4
        paging Johnny...
        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

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        • lowrey
          ventiundici
          • Dec 2006
          • 8383

          #5
          aesthetic burrito wrap conundrum

          "AVANT GUARDE HIGHEST FASHION. NOW NOW this is it people, these are the brands no one fucking knows and people are like WTF. they do everything by hand in their freaking secret basement and shit."

          STYLEZEITGEIST MAGAZINE | BLOG

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          • casem
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2006
            • 2590

            #6
            Your friend is making some very dubious claims. Wouldn't the conditions of question #1 rule out most conceptual art and readymades? I also don't agree that art has to elicit an emotional response. Of course, it's nice when it does, but sometimes an intellectual response can be just as fulfilling.
            music

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            • mesko
              Senior Member
              • Nov 2009
              • 208

              #7
              Originally posted by casem83 View Post
              Your friend is making some very dubious claims. Wouldn't the conditions of question #1 rule out most conceptual art and readymades?
              I guess so, yes, but then I guess he does not consider that art, but art theory, as he put it. I did question him myself, though, but I still find it interesting to hear other peoples' views.


              Originally posted by casem83 View Post
              I also don't agree that art has to elicit an emotional response. Of course, it's nice when it does, but sometimes an intellectual response can be just as fulfilling.
              It is more like should elicit an emotional response, to be really good, but yes, I agree with you.
              Last edited by mesko; 08-12-2010, 11:16 AM.

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              • Fuuma
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2006
                • 4050

                #8
                Not really an answer to the question asked, which is easily answerable anyway (art is what is legitimized as art by the dominants of the cultural field), but more of a remark on my current state of mind.
                I really don’t care about art right now; I prefer to get my representations from language or applied arts like architecture and/or design. It seems to me that an insular world of art “producers/enablers” has ended up basically setting a feedback loop between their world and pop-culture and I simply don’t give a fuck, it doesn’t grab or stimulate me. This is of course an arguable temporary feeling that may come to pass but for now that’s how I view it. I don’t want to bring back the old anti-intellectual line of “anyone can do this!”, sure only a few can “think this” just like only a few people can wiggle their ears; is there really someone who gives a fuck?
                On a more positive note I strongly encourage people to get the Guy Bourdin Polaroids artbook
                Selling CCP, Harnden, Raf, Rick etc.
                http://www.stylezeitgeist.com/forums...me-other-stuff

                Comment

                • Fuuma
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 4050

                  #9
                  Originally posted by casem83 View Post
                  Your friend is making some very dubious claims. Wouldn't the conditions of question #1 rule out most conceptual art and readymades? I also don't agree that art has to elicit an emotional response. Of course, it's nice when it does, but sometimes an intellectual response can be just as fulfilling.
                  I'm assuming by "emotional response" he meant the old concept of "aesthetic emotion" which theoricians once saw as the absolute measure of an artwork's worth. Of course only the chosen few (usually the art theoricians and his circle) has the proper background to recognize and judge the quality of their aesthetic emotions thus ending up being the arbitrators of good taste.
                  Selling CCP, Harnden, Raf, Rick etc.
                  http://www.stylezeitgeist.com/forums...me-other-stuff

                  Comment

                  • Faust
                    kitsch killer
                    • Sep 2006
                    • 37852

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Fuuma View Post
                    Not really an answer to the question asked, which is easily answerable anyway (art is what is legitimized as art by the dominants of the cultural field), but more of a remark on my current state of mind.
                    I really don’t care about art right now; I prefer to get my representations from language or applied arts like architecture and/or design. It seems to me that an insular world of art “producers/enablers” has ended up basically setting a feedback loop between their world and pop-culture and I simply don’t give a fuck, it doesn’t grab or stimulate me. This is of course an arguable temporary feeling that may come to pass but for now that’s how I view it. I don’t want to bring back the old anti-intellectual line of “anyone can do this!”, sure only a few can “think this” just like only a few people can wiggle their ears; is there really someone who gives a fuck?
                    On a more positive note I strongly encourage people to get the Guy Bourdin Polaroids artbook
                    I feel absolutely the same way.
                    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                    StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                    Comment

                    • Lumina
                      Senior Member
                      • Dec 2009
                      • 277

                      #11
                      Questions about what is art are fascinating but bring more and more questions.

                      I hope I'm not out of the topic, but I think that I could divide works of art in two mains categories.

                      The art that provoke in me, in us, a reaction, pleasure, emotion. Something related to aesthetic, something that I find beautiful, moving. An amazement, like in front of a Monet, a Turner or something like that. It can sometimes be related to mastery, like in the beautiful brushe strokes of a Delacroix painting or the vibrant colour association of a Bacon, or craft, like in the perfect details of a Caravage painting (but I'm not saying that technical perfection alone is enough, there has to be a soul). So a pleasure of the eye, a kind of physical pleasure in reaction to the of view beautiful or moving things.

                      On the other hand, there are the works that I do not find beautiful nor technically impressive, or that don't really speak to me in the first place, but that become more and more interesting when reading about the artist, the why of the work, what questions he tries to raise. Works that are interesting for the questions and interrogations they raise in us more than for the physical item itself. More in the concept. These kind of works demands much more thought and researches than the ones above, for which the reaction of pleasure and fascination is immediate, but are very interesting too.
                      Of course, some things called "art" are none, some manage to belong to both categories.
                      I don't think one is better than the other, but contemporary art is certainly mostly in the second category.
                      I really like and need both as they both bring fulfillment in different ways.

                      (Sorry if my english vocabulary is approximative, I'll try to developp more thoughts if i find the time.)

                      Comment

                      • philip nod
                        Senior Member
                        • Aug 2007
                        • 5903

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Faust View Post
                        I feel absolutely the same way.
                        yeah, fuck art
                        One wonders where it will end, when everything has become gay.

                        Comment

                        • endersgame
                          Senior Member
                          • Aug 2009
                          • 1623

                          #13
                          Originally posted by philip nod View Post
                          watch bravos work of art..
                          quite possibly the worst show in the history of television..

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                          • kbi
                            Senior Member
                            • Feb 2009
                            • 645

                            #14
                            I just had an art exam yesterday. the subject of my task was "how green is orange?" I handed in a sculpture of snails made of paper, cheese and yoghurt.. I guess it will have to be considered art or.. at least some kind of an approach.

                            Comment

                            • mesko
                              Senior Member
                              • Nov 2009
                              • 208

                              #15
                              Originally posted by kbi View Post
                              I just had an art exam yesterday. the subject of my task was "how green is orange?" I handed in a sculpture of snails made of paper, cheese and yoghurt.. I guess it will have to be considered art or.. at least some kind of an approach.
                              Pics or it didn't happen!

                              Comment

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